The Little Things in Life

Most of our furniture was given to us from friends and family. It has been a great way to save money, have a few projects to do, and tell a few stories.

Saving money is a big deal for us right now, as I figured it would be back when I was a bachelor. I intentionally collected pieces of furniture when I was single so that we wouldn't have an empty house when starting a family. Thinking ahead in life is a big plus.

It also gave me a few projects to do in my free time. Several years back a good friend gave me a beautiful round solid oak table. Sure, on the outside it looked nasty. It was likely used as a craft table with glue, gunk, and glitter all over the thing. But it was so much fun working hard to scrape it, sand it, and smooth on a beautiful wood finish. It gave it a little more history.

Additionally, I am a bit like Phoebe in The One with the Apothecary Table. I enjoy furniture that has a history to it. I like telling our guests the story of where the object has been in the past. It's just more interesting than saying, "It's from Ikea." Still, I must admit that we have plenty of things in our home from Ikea.

Recently we got a bar stool from Grandpa Riedl. What's great about it is that it doesn't actually look like it's from the stone age. It matches the other furniture in the dining room and it is perfect for spending more time with my wife.

I have been wanting to spend more quality time with Jen. I get home from work and she is often hard at work in the kitchen, cookin' up another masterpiece. I would love to sit and talk with her about her day, but there was no convenient place to sit at her level since it is a relatively small kitchen.

Thankfully, Grandpa's bar stool was the perfect addition to the room. I can now sit across the sink from my wife and chat with her when I get home from work. The little things in life (like this bar stool) really allow me to appreciate the big things in life (like conversing with my lovely wife).

Image from here

Kid Quote: Fortune Teller

One of the cutest little girls from the group of kindergartners in our program gets extremely excited about the strangest things. Yesterday, as my co-worker and I were cleaning up and getting ready to go home, we heard her squealing and couldn't help but smile.

"Guess what!? Guess what!?" she exclaimed. "My mom is going to dress up as an alien for work tomorrow!"

A bit puzzled, we responded, "Oh, really?"

The funny thing is that her mom wasn't actually going to dress up as an alien. She was just using an origami fortune teller on her. Our kids love those things and are so creative with their fortune ideas!

Image from here

Patience in Marriage

When Jen told me that she would write on Riedlblog, I was certainly very excited. I was also very conscious of my expectations of her. I expected her to love blogging. I knew that the exact moment that she posted her first blog post that she'd immediately be hooked and would blog every day non-stop. Even more than me.

I was just a little off. As you can see, she hasn't posted anything yet.

But I'm not upset. I had a feeling this might happen. This situation has happened before here. It's a typical situation: I have unrealistic expectations, she lives life, and I react either positively or negatively. When I react negatively in these types of situations, I nag her, push her, get frustrated with her, and sometimes get into fights with her. All sin. All selfish.

Thankfully, I have used my past mistakes to realize that I need to be patient with Jen about her blogging. I think about life from her perspective. I know that writing is not very interesting to her, since she's still finishing up school, and there are lots of other exciting things for her to do with her time.

So I must be patient. I must let her make the choice to do it. After all, I can't make her do anything. So often people think that they can make their spouses do what they want. But is that really being a humble servant? I think not.