I've Got a Bad Case of Lovin' for You

Post Lunch Conversation
Monica: You really need to give me more positive reinforcement for all the times I get water instead of Dr. Pepper, like I did today.
Ben: I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I assume you are getting water because you want to.
Monica: Well, all I get is negative reinforcement when I get Dr. Pepper, even when I've gotten water the last ten times before getting Dr. Pepper.
Ben:  That's not true.  Negative reinforcement is really positive reinforcement for you when it comes to Dr. Pepper ("and most others things," I thought, but did not say).
Monica: You're right about that.
Ben: What's with you and all this talk about "process"?

I think this stuff would make a good comic strip. Also, I beam with pride when my wife speaks about process, except when she uses it against me. That's it! Our comic strip will be called "Processed Benica," which kind of sounds like a type of deli meat one should avoid putting on sandwiches.

Birthday Present

Monica:  I thought of something perfect for your birthday, and I need to know how much I can spend, because I know if I spend too much, you won't enjoy it.
Ben:  Okay, $50.
Monica:  It is an experience, something we can always remember.
Ben:  Sounds like something you really want to do.  You just want me to keep going up until it meets how much you want to spend.
Monica:  <silence>
Ben:  $150.
Monica:  Deal.
Ben:  I knew I should have started lower.  Just take back that coffee table you bought and that should help.
Monica:  No, that is an investment in our house.

If you carpooled with us every morning, you, too, could be privy to such stimulating conversation everyday. It would be worth the gas money we'd make you pay.

"There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income." Edmund Wilson

My typing fingers are back by popular demand (i.e. one of my avid readers requested I put the "Friday" back in my Friday blog). Last weekend we drove up to Nashville for a super fun Halloween party. I know everyone has been dying to know what our most original costume idea was (drum role please)... we dressed up as none other than our friend's dogs, Little Mister and Little Sister!

We were a big hit, even though we only took home 2nd prize in the overall costume contest due to a pretty awesome Beetlejuice and Lydia couple. Where's Waldo?

My Office Quote of the Week
This week I asked "Hey good looking guy" how he was doing to which he responded, "My head is above ground, so pretty good." If that isn't a positive attitude, then I don't know what is.

The return of the cocoon. When Ben and I were dating, he and his roommate Austin had a funny habit of sleeping in their sleeping bags on the floor of the living room of their apartment instead of their beds. I saw this as a little odd and simply passed it off as one of those "guy things" I didn't quite understand.

Little did I know that the "cocoon" would become a constant companion to Ben in the winter months throughout our marriage. I've tried everything from complaining about the smell of this hideous green bag to referring to Ben as Linus with his security blanket, but nothing has worked.

What were you for Halloween this year or what has been your favorite Halloween costume of all time? Anyone else out there have a spouse who brought an unwanted item into their marriage that they can't seem to get rid of? Did you ever find Waldo? Enjoy your extra hour of sleep and have a beautiful fall weekend everyone!

"Halloween should be a day where we honor monsters and not be mad at each other."

Did you miss me? I have pretty much been MIA since our Portland adventure, besides that last pondering life/Debbie Downer blog post I snuck in. I guess you could say that we've had the post-vacation blues. You plan and look forward to something for months, then you come back to everyday life. After you've made sure your house hasn't been broken into (is that just us?), pet your beloved dog and watch all the TV shows you DVR'd, you begin to wonder what you have to look forward to. In our case, it's Halloween!

The costume debate of 2010 was a doozy! Since we said our "I do's," there have been several disputes about Halloween costumes including what we should be, whether it should be homemade or prefab, and whether or not we should dress up in the first place. We are both against prefab costumes and the arguing usually commences when I pressure Ben to come up with the perfect costume idea - after all, he's the witty, humorous one.

I spent hours researching the internet for ideas and spouting off ones I liked just to have a grunt here and there from Ben which translates into "no" in man language. In the end, we went with one of Ben's original ideas and we will definitely be in the running for the Most Original Costume award at the party. Tune in next week for pics!

Cali is going raw. Has anyone seen the documentary Raw for 30 Days? We watched it several months ago and really liked the concept. We had a fleeting pipe dream of trying to go raw ourselves, but then we went out for juicy hamburgers and forgot about it. We took the philosophy of all good parents and decided to do something good for our dog that we aren't willing to do for ourselves.

The past 6 months Cali has been suffering from severe allergies and last week we started her on a completely raw diet. It will take awhile to see if this will be the miracle cure, but she LOVES it! It is a little inconvenient having to de-salmonella her dish, the counter tops and our hands at every feeding, but if this works it will totally be worth it!

What do you do to jump start your zeal for life post-vacation? What original Halloween costume ideas have you come up with? Has anyone out there tried a raw diet for themselves or their pets? I leave you with a sneak peak of our family fall photo shoot done by one of our favorite Oklahoma photographers, Mandy Stansberry.

"Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Thomas Edison

We are all waiting to be inspired. We were talking to our chiropractor yesterday and he was telling us about a wellness seminar similar to one we had been to previously. Ben jokingly told him that the last one we went to didn't make us change, so why would we go to another one.

I started thinking about how many things we've done and invested in lately to inspire us to change. It all started with one crazy book and an impromptu road trip to Taco Bueno. Ben bought me a nice camera, I trained as a home stager, we were trained in Japanese Reiki, I invested in marketing for my business, Ben is investing in office space to start a private practice, we have read countless books and watched countless movies about this subject, and finally we flew across the country to Portland to go to the Storyline Conference.

In a sense we've come full circle. It has been almost exactly a year since we started making investment after investment to be inspired. Are we living a better story? Are the characters in our story any different than they were a year ago? Have we created inciting incidents? 

If a good story must include conflict, then we are some of the greatest storytellers of all time! We decided not to be on a mission team to Ireland that we were committed to and had trained with for over a year, while on a walk Ben decided that if this was what marriage is then he didn't want it, Ben's truck died and we became a 1-car family, my grandpa passed away, I went from working 40 hrs/wk to 10 hrs/wk nearly cutting our income in half, Ben made a professional decision that would potentially keep us in Memphis for 3 more yrs. Some of these were choices and some of these were just life ...all of them have been incredibly difficult.

What have you invested in the last year to inspire you? If you were reading a book about your life, would your character be exciting? If there's anyone in our family that's living a great story, it's Cali:)