Day 3

Nichole thinks everyone should have an escape when they are trying to move… and not just to their new home.  She can’t begin to describe the joy and peace of leaving the chaos of Little Elm and coming to Denton to be in this home of peacefulness in a canopy of trees.  The girls love it.  Nichole loves it.  Shahram loves it.  Trees do something miraculous to the chakras.  Out every window there is a covering of green leaves and branches, sometimes the sun is shooting through.  Sometimes it’s overcast, but it’s always beautiful and refreshing to our spirits.  It reenergizes us to continue packing and thinking positively, upon return to the house in LE.  From living down there for four years, away from most of our friends, we can see we have become quite reclusive.  We’ve been here off and on for 3 days and we’ve not attempted to see anyone, though we did think about it today.  We think we are mellowing and adjusting.  Persia is having the most difficulty and she’s back to screaming a lot and hitting Margaux.  She needs a visit to Rodney, who just happens to be in Hawaii until the 20th.  But we’ll get through it.

The painters started today.  We have to meet another realtor at 5:30 this evening back over there.  We think Margaux and Persia will stay in Denton.  We’re wondering if we’ll have time to go get them some Chinese or Thai food.

So, after meeting with the painters this morning, we did indeed return to Denton–Shahram had breakfasted with Checkers before he went back to Little Elm this morning.  Checkers was glad to see us, and he and Persia are starting to become friends again.  She still wants Daddy and/or Mama close by when interacting with him, but she’s not crying and clinging like she had been.  We had late coffee and late brunch and then Shahram went to work, and Nichole and the girls headed out back.  What a lovely back yard.  Nichole emptied the water from the luggage carrier where it was thought that mosquitoes may be breeding.  Then Margaux tried the zipline several times and Persia got on the air-pogo stick/swing and we bounced her for quite a long time. 

After a bit, Margaux wanted to go play basketball so we all headed out front.  Persia had a little spill and after comforting her, all three ladies sat on the porch swing and rocked and rocked enjoyed the good smell of approaching rain, the new sounds of birds and big vehicles at work, and a slight breeze.  Nichole started to crochet at some point after getting Persia an apple.  Margaux started reading a book and Persia just sat quietly, enjoying her fruit and all the sensations. 

After about an hour, Persia sat on Nichole’s lap and fell asleep.  She was carried up to bed where she continues to nap, now 90 minutes later.  It’s 3:55pm.  We love it here.  We hope our next home has this many trees, this many birds and is this peaceful.  We think some of the less peacefulness is the amount of stuff we hold onto.  We want to get rid of so much JUNK!  But when you’re standing there with stuff that’s been yours forever, you have a kind of emotional attachment that’s hard to set aside.  I think we did best when Tiffany was there telling Margaux to pick just 20.  And that’s a lot of stuffed animals anyway. Twenty!  Gosh we used to buy that girl everything.  So glad those days are over, never to be experienced again.

Ahhh, peace.  Ahhh peace.

Day 2

Our first overnight was a bit less than restful.  Persia had difficulty several times wanting both of her parents to be near.  This may turn out to be a good thing.  We slept in the same bed and were fine. 

We returned to Little Elm to do some more packing and cleaning and to decide on a painter.  We went with CertaPro due to their price, time frame, and general professionality.  The homeschoolers who underbid them by almost $1100 got mad and snippy when we asked what kind of paint they plan to use, if they have insurance, are bonded, and for references.  Shahram said to them that it was fine that they didn’t have insurance, weren’t bonded, but could they send references.  The man, Keith Greenwood, said he would send them first thing in the morning.  Nichole didn’t believe he would and she was right (we are writing a back-dated entry).  He didn’t send a thing. 

So, we called Taylor Porter with CertaPro and we settled on a deal, with him taking off $200. 

A little while after that, Pam texted me asking if we had power.  She thought we were in Denton.  Actually, Shahram and the girls had just returned from Denton where they had retrieved the estimate/contract, fed the cat, and grabbed our spare house key.  The power had gone out shortly after they left Denton.  Persia was miserable, and we thought the power might not come back on, so we put her to bed in Little Elm and decided to spend the night and keep cleaning past midnight.    I really need to be rich, because I’m a terrible housekeeper.  A 3100 square foot house should not be owned by people who do not like to clean or by people who will not spend the money on professional cleaners–at least a few times a year.  Gosh.

Shortly after Shahram and I went to bed–sleeping in the same bed as Persia–Nichole asked Shahram if he had left the porch light on in Denton.  He thought he had so he drove to Denton to spend the night there.  Nichole stayed in Little Elm with the girls.

50 Days

We have the very fortunate and rare opportunity to spend 50 days in a town where we think we’d like to live before moving there. We are house-sitting for dear friends while they are away on their Summer vacation. We are taking this opportunity when we won’t be in our home to list it unoccupied. We know it’s been a long time since we’ve updated this blog and these 50 days won’t be much about dating our dating, but we think it’s a significant event–this whole thing, and we want to document it.

Today, we met with some painters at our home in Little Elm, got some numbers back from our third realtor, Marvin Jolly, and packed frantically (though it was 6pm when we started) for spending the first night in Denton. We arrived around 8:30. Nichole entered the house and immediately fed Checkers, the sweet cat. It took quite some time to unload the cars due to Persia’s sudden fear of being around the kitty. A month ago, she loved Checkers, even wanted to lay on him. She was so sweet. But during Grandy and Pop’s visit a few weeks ago, the neighborhood stray jumped up on her and she has been frightened of cats ever since. So, this may take a few days of getting used to Checkers before the affection returns.

Finally, the car was unloaded and Shahram wheeled the stroller to the house, thinking he’d keep it in the house like we do in Little Elm. While he finished transporting the previous things from the car, Nichole sat on the porch swing with Persia. Persia enjoyed this greatly. Nichole examined the developed spider webs and the two significant-looking wasp or hornet nests on the porch’s ceiling, remembering how some sort of bees chased her and Persia the previous Summer and how Tiffany rescued them with her quick thinking. Persia also did a lot of looking up. When the strolled came close to the house, Persia wanted a stroll. So Shahram took her for a walk up the block in the dark and they both enjoyed it. The mosquitos must have been taking a break–we were all fine.

Margaux put almost everything away that accumulated inside the door. Tiffany and her family got the house really spic and span before leaving town. Such a nice change from our nearly disastrous home, in the process of packing up, cleaning and staging. The house here in Denton, on this very shady street with so many beautiful old trees is peaceful, to say the least. The energy of the house is just lovely. Even so, Persia is having a hard time. It’s 11:58pm and she’s been up and down three times so far. We just gave her some Cheerios and she was talking to the cat from a distance, laughing as he cleaned his paws. Maybe this won’t take so long afterall.

Tomorrow, we wish we could go to hear the music on the square, but we still have quite a bit to do at the house, so we will return to Little Elm after breakfast and work there all day. We think there will probably only be one or two more days of cleaning, packing, etc. before we’re ready to be out of the house. THe estimate we received from Certapro was about $2400 and change. The estimate from Marianne and Keith Greenwood was $1375, and then they would also replace faucets for $100 labor. The Greenwoods would be able to start on Monday and it would take them about a week to finish. Certapro could do it at the end of the week and it would take them one day. We’re pretty sure that the Greenwoods don’t have insurance, probably aren’t bonded, but they’ve been doing this for years. They’re also homeschoolers of 6 children, with two left at home. They have a nice energy. We also liked Taylor with Certapro and he has a five star rating through Service Magic. It’s not a completely easy choice, but we think we are going to go with the Greenwoods. It will save us $1000, and help support a homeschooling family–and we really like that.

Persia seems to be winding down now with Shahram on the daybed. Wow, that AC is loud when it comes on. That’s going to take some getting used to. We brought out fans and hopefully we’ll have them directly correctly by tomorrow night. Right now, everyone’s really tired and wants to get some sleep.

Good night world.

Shahram, Nichole, Margaux,and Persia
Day 1

Snags!

Many apologies to you who have been following our slow progression here into the world of blogging and our new business.  We lost half of our network for more than a month and have just gotten it back this morning.  However, Nichole is scheduled for a cholesystectomy tomorrow morning at 9:00.  We will attempt to upload the missing blogs, but can’t promise we will get around to it.  Even though the surgery is minor, and outpatient, it feels like we should be sitting and playing with our daughters than working on our blog.  So, again, if you don’t see us for a few weeks, apologies in advance.  Sometimes the real acts of living must take precedence over blogging.  )  Luckily, I’ve been able to pass on some advice gems through Twitter.  If you are not following us on Twitter, you can… we are Important_Dates there.  Please give us a shout.

Breakfast Dates

Well, perhaps Breakfast Meetings is a more appropriate phrase.

Maybe this isn’t a practical idea for you and your spouse, but maybe it is.  Maybe it would be worth it to you.  It has become invaluable to us.  We get up together, make breakfast–usually just toast (for me) and a protein shake (for Shahram) and coffee.  We sit down at the kitchen table, across from each other.  This, now, is more developed than when I wrote about it last time.  Now, we talk about our business ideas, plans, what we’ve done for the business since the previous day and we actually accomplish a lot.  It’s a great start to the day for us and on those days we miss it because the baby wakes early or I sleep late from being up till the middle of the night watching LOST, we really do feel it.  For us, this business isn’t just about having a business, it’s something new we’re doing together.  If you don’t have a business with your spouse, and I’m betting most of you don’t, you have a world of other things to talk about, plan about, dream about together.  Even going over the day’s necessities would be a great activity to make sure you’re both aware of the other’s schedule and the children’s.

Another reason breakfast meetings are nice is that they occur before all the mind-clutter enters your day.  I’ve found that it’s much more cumbersome having conversations about the future at the end of the day than the beginning.  By the day’s end, I’m tired, Shahram’s tired and the kids are past their peak energy,  and often more needy, especially the baby.  And yes, the kids are awake then.  The breakfast meeting accomplishes connection, excitement, and nourishment.  It’s a great time to find out what your spouse needs from you to be supportive of him or her that day.  This is something new I’m thinking about.  I’ve seen it several times lately… How can *I* support *you* today?  I like it.  I feel good knowing I can help and exactly what’s needed of me.  I’ll write more on that in another blog.

For now, give it a try.  Arrange a breakfast date with your spouse.  Try it out for a few days.  How does it feel?  Do you feel closer at the end of the day?  I do.  In fact, the breakfast meeting makes me feel more loving all day. Since we’ve been having them, I’m more inclined to cook lunch for the family and to take lunch to Shahram.  And it truly is with a loving heart.  So, give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Getting to Know You

Isn’t it amazing how long you can know a person and not really know their favorite things?  I’ve always made it a point to know my friends’ favorite things and I hope my friends know mine.  However, between my mate and I, it seems we’re just getting to know each other.  Hey, better late than never. 

More than knowing ones favorite things, being a best friend and lover you should know your mate’s dislikes and avoid them when possible.  If you know she loves silver, don’t buy her a gold watch.  If you don’t know what your wife likes or doesn’t like, ask her.  Make a long list of everything you really should know about her and present it to her.  Tell her it would be an honor for you to have all that information because you want to know her deeply and better than anyone else.  Make your wife her own personal slam book.

Remember slam books?  A notebook filled with pages and pages and pages of questions, usually requiring only one word answers.  Make a notebook and label it, “All About My Wonderful Wife/Husband.”  You could even make the book together.  Make a page asking about favorite foods, favorite dishes, favorite fruits, favorite ice cream, brand of chocolate, coffee drink, soda… everything you can think of.  Ask for her sizes.  Yeah, you can’t buy her clothing if you don’t know her size.  And if you’re going to be intimate, you should be able to know those things, too.  And all through this “slam” book, find out everything you can about her/him.  Ask her what she’d rather have–a candle-lit dinner, or a picnic.  Ask about her fantasy vacation.  Ask her everything… and remember the dislikes.  You’ll want to avoid them. 

When s/he gives you the book back or you complete the book together, read the answers and really remember them.  Make them be a part of her/him in your thoughts.  This is a really good thing to do.  I’m going to do it for Valentine’s Day, when, actually we do not have a date scheduled. 

Do you think you’ll do it?  (You can do the same thing for your kids.)

Terms of Endearment

There’s something about someone telling you they love you, right?  Especially when it’s someone you love very much.  When your children say, “I love you, Daddy.”  When you’re parents say, “I love you, Sweetheart.”  Maybe I’m funny, but I want to hear my name when Shahram tells me he loves me.  He just started doing it after 9 years of us being together.  It gives me thrill every time.  He calls me honey through the day, but when he tells me he loves me and uses my name, I feel it.  It’s not just something to say when he’s getting off the phone with me, like it used to be.  I know he’s feeling it, and he’s giving it to me when he says, “I love you, Nichole.” 

I think he started doing this when, indeed, he was on the phone and told me he loved me.  I said, “I love you, too, Shahram.”  I felt it and there was a softness there.  He felt it and said, “I love you, Nichole.”  It was very good.  I could hardly wait until he got home.  Now he adds a very nice look when he says it, and I’m feeling it.

I’m not so much into terms of endearment.  They seem meaningless or for children, or for people who forget your name.  I do enjoy some, like jaan, beautiful, darling, and pretty much anything Shahram says in Farsi, but when he tells me he loves me, I really want to hear my name.  How about you?

Advice that Doesn’t Work

If you’re anything like me, you subscribe to a lot of daily emails about marriage, about prosperity, self-improvement diatribe.  Some of the advice works, but some just doesn’t.  When I read something I know right away if it will work.  I know if it will last more than a day and if it’s going to feel like a chore.  Notice this chore thing I keep bringing up?  We have too many chores in our lives–our marriage and its health shouldn’t be one, but it must be a commitment.  It must be full of love.  These little “promises” to spend 15 minutes a day together gazing into each other’s eyes, or talking deeply about our relationship.  Doing mini intimacy practice for 2 minutes and rating each other’s success in listening skills.  Those things just don’t work.  It won’t last, at least not for more than a day or two and then something will interrupt it–most likely, the kids.

What does work?  Dating!  Make those dates.  Don’t just say you’ll do it.  Get the calendar out and schedule them.  You need not write more than Date Night on the dates you want to have your outing with your life partner, but get it down.  Once it’s on the calendar, it’s going to happen.  You need it to happen. 

Kids are hard on a marriage and they’re even harder on a second or third marriage.  You pledged to love, honor and cherish your husband, wife, or life partner forever… it’s hard, really hard to do that without spending any time together other than passing each other on the way to your kids’ events or on the stairs moving laundry and heading to mow the grass. 

Take this advice!  It works.  Schedule your dates and you won’t regret it. 

Now… when is your next date?  Ours is Friday, January 29th, and we have the 29th of every month scheduled for the whole year because that’s the day we got married.  After that?  February 11th, just because it fits in nicely with our schedule.  You can, of course, cancel your date or reschedule/post pone your date, but that takes communication.  If you’re going to do it, go for the reschedule in lieu of the cancellation.  You’ll be so happy you did. 

Within the first 4 months, I know you’ll know your wife or husband better and feel closer than you have in a very long time.

Getting Over the Awkward

Seeing as how our last date was awkward, we’re looking forward to this next one being less so.  We’ve done a few things to start feeling more comfortable around each other.  The past three years have been difficult–not completely, but we’ve bounced back from a lot.  Though, up to now, only a few people knew that Shahram and I went through a separation during my pregnancy, we both feel like this was actually a successful one.  Most separations, it seems, end in divorce, but ours did not.  Shahram returned home after being out of the house for three months and was here for the last 4 months of the pregnancy.  We understand the value of what we have gone through.  It wasn’t immediately fabulous once we got back together either, but that is an entry for another time. 

When you live with someone who you don’t sleep with, which is the case in our family due to sleep problems, and there’s a new baby in the house, a preteen in the house and you home school, well… the marriage suffers, the relationship suffers unless you make it a point to avoid that very thing.  I feel the main thing that lead us to the separation was our focus on our child.  I think a mother feels obligated, and rightly so, to let the new husband know that the child will always come first.  I actually think this is a huge, indeed colossal, mistake. 

When I was a child, my Aunt Gail told me that love is a choice, and happy parents make happy children–not the other way around.  I didn’t listen.  I think, also, that Shahram never felt like he could ask to come first because of holding the bond between my first-born child and me up as sacred.  I know that I withheld love from him because I thought there was only a limited supply, but giving more love to him only makes more love for the kids.  But where was I going with this?  Yes, to feeling like work.

So as our date was awkward, and slightly disappointing, we decided to add kissing into our lives again.  We just didn’t make time for it before.  We both feel more comfortable around each other now.  We both feel more like friends and lovers and not just roommates trying to get our kids through the day.  Since our date we’ve also talked at length, and many times, about what we’ll do for our next date.  Dinner and a movie isn’t the best thing to do with your free time together, though it can certainly be fun.  We’ve come up with a few ideas that we’re excited about and really looking forward to and they are spawning more ideas.  We talk about this stuff frequently now and it’s fun. 

We’ve talked about renting a hotel room with a DVD player and watching LOST while having room service or a picnic on the bed, and lying together–with an alarm clock, of course so we can get home by 11.  Another thing we’re planning is having our arms and hands done in henna, a design that is complete when our hands or arms are touching.  We’re also going to learn new things together, maybe take a dance class.  We’re becoming the best friends we’ve always wanted to be. 

I don’t think awkward is going to play a part in our next date. It’s on Friday, and I can hardly wait.

Maintenance

Life is really about maintenance, isn’t it?  If you’re not growing you’re shrinking or maintaining.  Maintenance is not a fun word, sounds much like a chore, work, and unpleasant.  Home maintenance, car maintenance, health maintenance, relationship maintenance.  What is not maintained is lost, maybe not altogether, but at least some.  Take a day off from picking up after your toddler and see what your house looks like.

Since having Persia, my second child, 11 years after my first, so much of my life has suffered from non-maintenance.  From yard work and housework to fitness, friendships, and marriage.  All the time and attention given to maintaining these things and relationships poured into the new baby.  Though my friends are still my friends, they, of course, have not remained stationary for the last 20 months waiting for me to get comfortable being a mother of two.  They’ve gone on living and doing, developing, and maintaining, along with their children.  Sadly, perhaps the saddest situation of all in this, at least to my heart, is that when the friends went on, so did their children–and without mine.  Living 30 miles from our main group of friends is a hardship, especially for an eleven year old, now twelve and a half.  We tried to do as much as we could to help her maintain her relationships, but it wasn’t enough and they’ve all suffered.

Yesterday was a big deal in the maintenance development arenas for our family.  We ventured out together to a home school ice-skating day at the mall.  There were a lot of friends there, friends we’ve not seen, some of them, in 2 years.  Margaux felt very outside of the groups that seemed to form during that period, and we had a long talk about maintaining friendships.  She came out of it with a positive outlook and a plan for rekindling the relationships that have been so important to her for so long.  (Since writing this last week, she has had a sleepover, a study day with her closest friend, and has developed an email pen pal whom she plans on meeting next week…I know her mom.  So, Margaux’s fixed up. )

During ice-skating, Shahram and I took Persia down to a play area for toddlers.  We thought she’d hesitate and feel shy, but she was interacting with many of the children there and having a great time.  So now we know she is ready to start getting out regularly with other kids.

After ice-skating, we brought the girls home and got them ready for our evening absence.  We were going on our first date, a very important date, in years.  Persia didn’t want to nap and I worried that this would pose a difficult evening for Margaux, but if it was difficult, she must have handled it with ease.  She did change her first poopy diaper and was very proud for having done so, even if it did take her twenty wipes to complete the job.  Persia fell asleep on Margaux probably an hour before we got home and she earned $25 for her services. 

Our date.

Our date was slightly awkward.  We often returned to the topic of the kids.  I think this was the case especially because it was the second time Margaux watched Persia alone, and the first time we were out for pleasure and knew we’d be out for many hours.  We worried about both girls, but managed not to call them.  See, here I am still talking about the girls during the “date” portion of this blog entry.  I’ll try again.

We went out to The Cheesecake Factory, just because we wanted to do something quick and we like their Portobello burger, which we split.  Then we went to buy our tickets for It’s Complicated with Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, and Steve Martin.  Before the theater was open for seating, we sat in the walkway talking.  It was awkward again because most of our talking is about maintenance, or the girls, which is also part of maintenance.  How do we talk about each other and what do we talk about to get close again, to build our relationship? 

I think that a marriage needs constant growth and the maintenance  handled differently.  I don’t have a plan for that, but I think we really need to focus on growth for our relationship–because maintenance feels like a chore, like turning a big crank that’s heavy and rusted and takes a too much effort. 

Marriage, in general… do people really approach it with the knowledge of everything it entails?   I don’t think so, but that’s another blog.