Teamwork Trials With Your Wife

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Article by Jack Diven

As some of you can imagine, marriage takes a TON of teamwork! I have been on somewhere around 50 different sports teams since I was two years old and let me tell you... I am so so so so glad that I was!

 Still, with all that experience, on all those different teams, I can't say that any of them quite prepared me for my newest endeavor on this Newlywed escapade.

So you really want to know this risky undertaking that my wife and I have embarked on? You really wanna know?

I don't think your ready...

NO REALLY...

well here it comes... (whispers)


we decided too... put up...



HOME APPLIANCES !!!

Whew... there I said it. 

What!? That doesn't sound so bad to you eh? Well well well my friend, let me try to articulate this incredible feat in a way that does not end up in my undoing.

Putting up... home appliances, with your spouse can be one of the most dangerous things you can do, but, if you think you can survive, it just happens to be something that really builds the teamwork aspect of your marriage. It is where patience, persistence, near death experience and teamwork all collide. And at the end, you may have a working light fixture! 

Thinking about taking this kind of adventure on with your wife? Well then, I admire your ambitious spirit. Let me just give you a brief description of my experience before you go all in.

Imagine, two dogs training for some kind of olymipic triathlon in a small 10 x 10 office space, while two highly opinionated people are hosted up a few feet off the ground by only fairly stable seating objects, while trying to hang up an object dangling from a few ill placed wires using poorly illustrated instructions, all while some deranged tiger looking creature that used to be your lovely wife is breathing heavily down your neck surely considering you for her next meal.

A little much... well... I'd like to see you try it!

After all that, the you see the light at the end of tunnel (the light fixture is actually on) all you have to do is put the final screws in, but somehow, confusion sets in, and all the sudden you cannot quite remember what way to twist the screws.

Then, your mutant tiger thing says, "lefty loosie, righty tighty"! 

HOW DARE SHE! After all, I am 22 years old, I'm a man, and I have sure put up my fair share of home appliances long before your beautiful tiger women self came around! Am I right!?

All Hell breaks loose, the foretold apocalyptic war begins, and I would rather all that truly happen than to have to say these next few words that taste like poison even now as I type them.

Sweetheart, you are right. (ya hear that one guys?)

Ladies, a picture of our 'pride' after this bitter revelation. For your pleasure... if our pride was a picture.

Ouch... talk about a blow to masculine self-esteem. 

Soooo... believe it or not setting up home appliances with your wife is great practice for great teamwork. I will say that I had to exhaust incredible amounts of a patience and diligence to work together with her in this area.

I have found in my experience, that us men don't even like to ask women for help in areas such as these. Although I can understand it because... well... I'm a man, but now it amazes me because I have found that my wife is a huge help with this stuff. I also get things done way faster!

Not to mention that it's something you can do together which is always good!

So men, lay down the pride, ask for some help... it's not that bad! (only a little bit) 
After all, looking like Jim Carry for a spell can be quite humorous!

Blessings,

-JD

Gem of the day 
Check out this blog from Corie Clark! We found it very insightful, especially for our family! ;)
http://corieclark.com

Chicken & Dumplings

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Article by Jack Diven

IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE!!! (yeah I'm freaking pumped)

I am writing to you from somewhat of a weird spot. For one, it's like midnight Christmas Eve, which means I am writing late at night, which means I am not writing to you in the wee hours of the morning. 

Which if you have been reading any of the previous blogs or you know anything about me, it is completely out of character for me to be up this late doing anything! But if you do have the pleasure of catching me up this late, I may look something of the sort:

See what claymation does to me!?!? 

But.......

since it's technically now the wee hours of Christmas Eve morning, I am now morphing back to my early bird self faster than your average mighty morphing power ranger (a big part of our manhood to us 90's boys...I am partial to the white ranger). 

So don't fret... my fingers have just about returned to normal size enough to bless you with a little Holiday abominabal  wisdom.

I have found that most everyone that I know has always thought of finding... ya know... "The One" to spend the rest of their lives with. 

Let me shine a light on something that you may not have thought about when it comes to finding your treasure. 

There will be a time when you will NOT get to spend Christmas with the family that you grew up with.

That's right friends, this is my first Christmas away from the home that I grew up in and have had Christmas in for the last 22 years of my life. And let me just tell you, it has not been easy, to say the least, to have 22 years of tradition, familiarity, and comfort flipped upside down. If I am being honest, at times, I have even found it hard to be in the Christmas spirit in what would seem to be an alternate universe.

That means no annual Diven fish fry, no sitting by the fire, no watching Christmas vacation 

17 jillion times, and possibly worst of all, no traditional Christmas Eve chicken and dumpling dinner at Nana's house. 

Every year after the Northcliffe Christmas candlelight service, we go over to my Nana's house to eat her world famous chicken and dumplings. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but if you tried those things, you would understand! Now that stuff really brings you to an alternate universe! 

Not only that, but other circumstances that I do not care to elaborate on, have not allowed my Nana to be with her family this Christmas season. This honestly kills me because I know how much she loves being with family on Christmas. Nana, I love you and miss you terribly. Get well, come back to Florida, and win some more golf tournaments would ya!?!?

Kayla and I had actually made arrangements to go and meet up with my Nana in Atlanta on Christmas but I was informed today that my grandfather is sick with the flu so they won't be able to meet (Don't Adam and Eve suck!)

As devastating as this was I was dealing with it ok, that is until this emotional roller coaster took one of those 200 foot 90 degree drops. You know the ones where you are totally just free falling into what you are sure is an unavoidable death.

Ok... so that could be a touch dramatic (hey, I'm a writer ;) After all, this story has a happy ending. Turns out that my wonderful wife and my squawking bird for a mother-in-law (she's sweet, again see the previous blog post) had been cooking me chicken and dumplings all morning to bring some of my Christmas tradition to Prattville, Alabama and make me feel right at home! I cried.

In came the tears, the water works, the balling, the weeping... whatever you wanna call it. This whole thing was a perfect recipe for me to just lose it over the newfound knowledge that I would be consuming small bread pieces and poultry this Christmas season. I would never admit that these dumplings were as good as my Nana's, but they were pretty darn good. Don't worry Nana, yours will be my favorite till the day I die!

All in all, I have had a lovely Christmas holiday. It has been quite different, but quite good. What I have learned, and I think you should know is that traditions that you have had your whole life will change when you get married. But what is most important is that you are with "the one" you love on Christmas and every other day for that matter. It is now time to create new traditions, and I know just the one to make them with.

Merry Christmas and to all a good night. God bless us, every one.

- JD

PS. If you like our posts, please comment and share! We would love to hear about your family/newlywed traditions.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm...Gross

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Article by Kayla Diven


Unlike my husband, I am writing this midday because like his last blog post so *wonderfully* stated, I am NOT a morning person.  If you haven't read that post yet, you're going to want to before you continue: http://thenewlywednews.blogspot.com/2014/12/kissing-snow-white.html

Disclaimer #1: My husband knew exactly what he was getting when he married me....I LOVE sleep. I love napping, snoozing, dozing, hibernating, slumbering..whatever you want to call it, sleep may just be one of my favorite things ever. I never get bored because if I feel boredom coming on, I'll just sleep. He totally knew this before he married me!

I think my love of sleep started from my hatred of waking up. Let me just count the ways for you that my loving mother tried to use to wake me up:

1. Removing my covers so that I would freeze to death and therefore decide to wake up. Being cold just made me go back to sleep to escape the misery.

2. Opening my blinds and singing "Let the sunshine in...".  The sound of my mother singing this to me up in the morning was the equivalent to a bird squawking in the distance--one that you cant quite reach to cut off it’s air supply and put it out of it’s misery...

Just imagine the squeaking happening here!!

3. Opening my door, turning on the light and blasting the tv or radio. This only caused my brain to become numb to all noise in the morning, therefore allowing me to sleep through alarms  *thanks mom this really helped me wake up for my college classes...NOT*

4. This is my personal favorite....dumping cups of cold water on my face while still in bed.....ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?

At this point can you seriously blame me for hating mornings?? Anyone who demands me to wake up just reverts me back to my teenage misery. I mean come on...the longer I could sleep, the longer I could avoid all the annoyances of the day...mostly my mom's chipper whistling in the morning while she declares “It’s a new day, you should feel blest."  -insert country accent here.

Don't get me wrong...I'm thankful for each day I'm given and I definitely need God's new mercies every morning, but I'll take them after 9am thank you!

Now, fast-forward a few years, and I'm married to my loving husband who just happens to think that my unmorningness (yes, I made up this word) is some kind of flaw. Well excuse me Mr. but I just so happen to think that your brain waking you up at 6am on the dot every morning without an alarm clock is about the weirdest thing I've ever encountered. But as you read in our last post, he has so sneakily come up with sweet tactics for waking me up. And since he has put more effort into waking me up than my loving mother ever did, I've had to come up with my own tactics for staying in bed as long as possible...even if only for a few more seconds!

So for all of you lovely unmorning people, here's some tips of my own for staying in bed as long as possible.

Conversation 1:
Husband: "Sweetie, would you like to take a shower?"
Wife: *pretend you're still asleep and didn't hear*
Husband: *sweetly shaking you repeating the same question*
Wife: *you can no longer pretend you're asleep* "Ok sweetie but go get the water warm and then I'll come in there." You've bought yourself at least 2 more minutes...maybe more if your hot water sucks! ;)

Conversation 2:
Husband: "Quit hitting snooze, you NEED to get up"
Wife: *reset alarm for 30 minutes later* "Oh sweetie, I'm going into work later today...i forgot" *go back to sleep* *then when alarm goes off 30 minutes later* "I decided I should go in at 8am after all." Insert 30 extra minutes of sleep..woohoooo

Conversation 3:
Husband: "I made you some coffee sweetie, here you go."
Wife: "aww thank you sweetie! I don't want to spill it. Can you take it back in the kitchen, and I'll come get it in a minute."
Husband: *goes back into kitchen and temporarily leaves you alone*
Wife: *at least 1 more minute of sleep...ah*

Conversation 4:
Husband: "Sweetie, please wake up. I just miss you and want to spend time with you."
Wife: *can't deny this precious request* "Aww sweetie that's sweet. Can we please snuggle?" *snuggle up and go back to sleep. Depending on how much you're hubby likes to snuggle, you just got 3-15 more minutes of sleep.*

If you are more night owl than morning person like me, then you've probably heard this phrase thrown at you a billion times: "The early bird gets the worm." Well you morning mutants, you can have all the freaking worms you want...

"mmm...juicy" he says :)

XOXO Yours truly,
the night owl 




PS. If you like our posts, please comment and share! We would love to hear your thoughts/tactics for waking up or staying asleep!


Gem of the day:       In all seriousness we encourage our readers to get a healthy 7-8 hours of sleep           
                                 each night...here's some great reasons why:

                                 http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221,00.html

Kissing Snow White

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Article by Jack Diven

So I have realized that I like to write in the wee hours of the morning when my wonderful wife has not yet awoken from what seems to be her eternal and legendary slumber... 

Sometimes I would be sure that I am married to Snow White! And then, just as prince charming goes in for the kiss that will bring his one and only true love back into consciousness...

I am quickly reminded that my wife is alive and well, she is only hibernating and not to be disturbed unless I want to drop down a few notches in the food chain!

When you get married, you may find that one of you is a morning person to the extreme, and the other is... well... NOT!........ to the EXTREME!

This makes for some interesting morning situations to say the least. I think sometimes God sits on His throne and just absolutely laughs hysterically at the situations He puts us in.

Anyway, for those of us that are the extreme morning people, in my 3 and a half months of marriage experience, I have so very graciously put together a few tips to creatively get your spouse out of bed in the morning.

I would not be so bold to claim that they work, but hey... I'm calling it... a process. 

The first tip would be to make the coffee exactly the way your spouse likes it and bring it to them before they get out of bed. You know... maybe the smell and the caffeine will somehow make them more vulnerable to your coercing in the mornings. 

Although, to this point, this coffee tactic (and yes I say tactic because this has become a tactical art form for me) has seemed to taste more like poison to her at this point in the morning! That or cherry NyQuil!

The next creative tip would be to sweetly... sorta... pet your spouse's arm 

(remember they are hibernating!) and speak kind words to them while still ultimately steering the conversation toward them awakening for the morning. I have found that THIS WORKS!!! 

That is until you come into the climax of your buttering up and you reveal that you have deep, sinister motives to wake them up behind all of your sweet talk tactics! How dare you!!!

                She says, "I sorry, I Sweeepy"! (Note to self, maybe Chick-fil-a will work)

"I have the sweetest, most wonderful husband ever... after 8 AM" Kayla Diven

Tip # 3, and this is coming from my wife, (although I still have serious doubts that this will work) You can take the coffee making up a notch and make your spouse breakfast in bed. 

a declaimer so that I am not liable for any law suits...

JUST MAKE SURE THEY DON'T EAT YOU ALONG WITH IT!!!

On a more serious note, as dangerous as it may be, make sure that you are sensitive with the needs of your spouse! There may be some kind of reason that doesn't allow them to wake up quite as easily as you do. Although I cannot imagine what that might be! ;)

Blessings,

JD

P.S. I accidentally pushed the space bar between "newly" and "wed" on multiple occasions on my last blog... accident, total accident!

Gem of the day:            Take a look Tim Tebow's newest endeavor!

                                      http://conservativetribune.com/tim-tebow-annoucement/

From The Newly Weds!

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Article by Jack Diven


Soooooo... It's four in the morning............... (yeah)

You ever wake up at night, lie awake, and the only thought you can seem to dream up is the thought 

  of your Sweet Italian Cream coffee? 

Well... 
then you would be just like me! 

Then, and almost perfectly on cue, after you drink your sweet Italian cream coffee, and ONLY after 

you drink your sweet Italian cream coffee, you are inspired, no... even better, destined, to conquer the 

world! 

And so you turn on Rocky 2, listen to the eye of the tiger, and you start your very first blog!!! 

Then once again, you would be just like me! Of course if it were really to that extent then our friendship would probably be erring on the side of just plain creepy, but never-the-less, you would at least have a rousing personality! 

All jokes aside, my wonderful wife and I have been thinking about starting this blog for a while now. When thinking about something of value and of hilarity that we could share with people we thought, 

"What better than to share our weird quirky newly wed experiences with all of our friends."

And oh my friends, even in these first few months, there are some STORIES to say the least! Muwhahahahaha!!!!!

This is the gal of my dreams! 

As you can see, beautiful beyond all measure. Just look at those popping green eyes! (gentlemen, this is what we married men like to call "dinner points" formally known as brownie points)

Dinner Points definition: "The art of sucking up to your wife in such a way that she will make dinner for you and/or the kind of dinner that you want. Known as brownie points to single lads. A guy will often suck up to a girl for brownies... especially when your in college... in a dorm."

So grab a cup of coffee and whatever creamer you prefer, buckle up, and come along on this thrilling, crazy, exciting, hard, and wonderful newly wed journey with us. Feel free to comment and join in on anything ya like! We would love to hear from you!

Blessings,

JD



Gem of the day:      I recommend Jon Acuff's book "Start". Great inspirational book to escape average 
                                and do work that matters!

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Punch-Escape-Average-Matters/dp/1937077594/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418815789&sr=8-1&keywords=start+jon+acuff