The Love Dare- the beginning

It's been a while since I actually got on here to write something, but, with good reason... I got married! Hence the reason for this new post. I will get back to the wedding blog here real soon because my wedding turned out as close to perfect as you can get. Great people, great weather, great EVERYTHING! So I will be sharing with you a few things that I did (DIY), things that went smoothly and things that I wish were slightly different. However, this blog is about the actual first month of marriage (tomorrow will actually be our first monthaversary so I'm a day early).

The Love Dare and a glass of wine to get the creative juices flowing. 

Stephanie Webb gave me this book called The Love Dare for my first bridal shower ad I actually just looked at it yesterday (sorry, Steph) and got real excited about it! So much so that I texted Dave and said we had to start this 40 day journey right away!! This book holds the couple to a 40 day relationship challenge. Since I told myself a few months back that I wanted to start a blog to keep track of my life and failed miserable at it this will be a dual challenge for myself. I will not only be going through this journey with Dave but I'm going to write about ever dare on this blog. I know I will miss a few days but I'm going to keep notes for myself to update when I get around a computer. If any friend reads this and notices that I missed a day, please, harass me!!!

So, here we are, DAY ONE:

The books start out easy... so we thought.

"The next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say nothing negative to your spouse at all."

Ha! Now don't think that Dave and I just say negative crap to each other all the time because that's just not true. We tease each other! (That's just how our relationship stays fun and youthful, by teasing.) We went out shopping and to run a few errands while being aware of today's dare. We're supposed to think before we speak but since we're both smartasses that was difficult to overcome. We both caught ourselves saying negative things towards the other but don't worry because the other person was quick to call the other one out on their negative remark. I would score us n a scale of one to ten, ten being amazing, an eight. Our "negative" things we say to one another are innocent enough but we struggled with thinking about our words before saying them. That's something we NEED to work on but otherwise, we did pretty kick-ass!

A great quote from this book "Patience is where love meets wisdom."

I love that quote because patience takes practice as well as being aware and in control of your thoughts and words.


Another thought on this topic...

I was speaking with a friend from work about relationships and marriage and we got on this topic of being upset with the spouse and instead of starting an argument just taking a few breathes and letting it go. I actually got to practice this on the honeymoon a few times and I feel that it was beneficial. I like communicating but I also like enjoying my time with Dave and if it was something that just bugged me for the moment I got more joy out of time together if I just took a few moments to be angry to myself and let it go. My friend said even after so many years of marriage she struggles at doing that. She asked how I did it and I guess I just felt that making that one thing into a big deal wasn't going to make the situation any better rather make us both uncomfortable and closed off. I married a wonderful, caring, and amazing  guy but even he can push my buttons (and I KNOW I push his) so my moments of being truly angry at him are few and far between.

I'm looking forward to the next forty days and to share it.

Davey, I love you!