Don’t return evil

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Confession time – Rafa and I had a sight disagreement on Friday afternoon. Slight.

I think that it is perfectly reasonable for a person to leave work at 5 p.m. on a Friday, especially when your loved one is waiting for you to go home and get to a meeting at church.

Rafael did not completely agree with this viewpoint, especially given that the meeting was with five other people who were also at work late for a project he is leading with very tight deadlines.

We both knew we were right and that meant that both of us were unhappy. We would have been wise to pay attention to Romans 12:17.

Do not return evil for evil, but repay evil with a blessing.

Or your marriage will suck.

Okay, that last part isn’t in there, but you get the idea.

I would call making me wait while he’s in a meeting running late evil, but maybe unkind. And that’s exactly how I was back to him. We are over it now and I’m glad – I’ll do well to remember this verse in the future.

Lord, what have I done…?

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I find myself asking this question a lot when trying to escape from my wife’s beautiful magnetic eyes. I often stare at Sarah and she catches me she asks “what?” and I often reply, “nothing, I love you”. But in reality I try to escape how amazing my wife is to ask  “Lord what have I done to deserve Sarah?” God has gifted me a wife who:

  • Loves and Trusts God
  • Loves me despite my flaws
  • Loves our Family
  • Takes care of my sick mom’s dietary needs
  • Makes me lunch every day to take to work
  • Goes above and beyond to feed our family
  • Gets up first in the morning so I get a bit more sleep
  • Wakes me up with a kiss every morning
  • Is compassionate and cares for others
  • Forgives my mistakes
  • Clips coupons
  • Creates financial budgets
  • Watches “dumb” movies with me
  • Works on my English
  • Is learning Spanish
  • Likes Pupusas
  • Accepts my obsession with tinfoil and napkins
  • Does my laundry
  • Sings really great
  • Picks me up from work when I have to stay late
  • Manages our family calendar
  • Makes me a dessert every other week
  • Can change the furnace air filter
  • Fills my life with joy
  • Laughs with me
  • Cries me
  • Holds me
  • Teaches me new words
  • Corrects me when I use goat as a verb
  • Bares with my cats
  • Keeps our house organized
  • Believes in me
  • Encourages me when I am down
  • Appreciates me
  • Does crazy things with me
  • Does the chemistry part that deals with number in our fish tank
  • Is best friend

The list can go on and on and on. Sarah is always doing something for me to ask “Lord what have I done to deserve my wife?” My drive is to be as good of a husband as Sarah is a good of a wife. I am so thankful for having a wife who is constantly being so amazing.

Stretching our resources

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I love coupons! I am such a nerd. I had the best trip to Target yesterday. I got $170 worth of merchandise for $91 plus I got $10 in gift cards for use on a future visit!

I used to think it wasn’t worth my time to use coupons. I would only use one if I happened to see one I might use and it happened to get cut out and it happened to be with me when I happened to stop by the store.

Coupons also seemed to do the opposite of saving me money. I would use a coupon for something that I didn’t need, or just wanted to try, in addition to all the things I was going to buy anyway.

Those days are behind me. I am making my husband proud my stretching our resources farther than ever before with coupons, planning and smart shopping.

I start by following an RSS feed of two great money saving sites – www.totallytarget.com and www.pocketyourdollars.com. Then, I visit www.target.com and print out coupons. I pair those coupons with manufacturer coupons I get from the Sunday Star Tribune.

I keep all these money-savers in a cheap coupon sorter. Then, we I do my weekly meal planning on Sundays, I used the local ad to figure out how I can match up the best deals with the coupons I have. I love that I can use both a manufacturer and a Target coupon, even on a sale item.

So am I a nerd? Probably. But I am a nerd with $80 worth of free stuff for my house. Works for me!

Makes it better

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A late-season cold is kicking my butt. I made it to work yesterday, but I was not feeling well.

Then, my very handsome man delivered this to my desk:

Delicious citrus tea to warm my heart. It didn’t make me well, but it makes it better.

Into our woods

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It’s nearly 60 degrees warmer than it was the last time I wrote. Praise God 🙂 Rafael and I went for a hike in Lebanon Hills, the forest preserve behind our house.

The woods were filled with the sounds of nature coming back to life. We saw cardinals and bluejays.

The we saw a deer and a red-tailed hawk.

We even saw a bald eagle, circling high above the trees.

We hiked for about three miles before it was time to go home.

But we had to stop first and make our mark on the frozen lake behind our house. Happy day to my forever valentine!

Blurred by frost

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We cuddled together in the very last row of the bus and cuddled up. The people rushing around on the frigid Minneapolis streets became blurred by  frost creeping across the window. I kept my mittens on, even though the driver had the heat on high speed. I bury my head into Rafa’s shoulder and pull my scarf up over my face to block the cold air.

-18F is painful. Rafa grabs my hand as we run off the bus. We look both ways and dart across even though the light is red. Rafa still takes the time to hold the door for me when we reach the nearest skyway entrance. We walk together for a little while, but soon have to part ways. He leans in to kiss me.

It’s not so cold anymore.

What eats you?

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When I saw the title, “A Workout Ate My Marriage,” I had to click on it. (Good copywriting sucks me in every time.)

I quickly devoured the WSJ article about several couples who have conflict due to intense exercise regimes. A mid-life crisis Triathlete said himself that it was “selfish” to be away from his wife and three young children every morning and half of the waking hours in every weekend.

While I am not worried about anyone accusing me of being over-committed to exercise (ha), it made me think about other hobbies and activities that seem harmless, but can pull couples apart.

Spending time on my iPhone? Totally innocuous activity on it’s own. Being glued to it when my husband is trying to get my attention? It’s eating my marriage.

Church activities? Wonderful way to invest my time. Becoming so emotionally spent that I don’t have anything left for my man? It’s eating my marriage.

Working hard at my job? A commendable thing. Being so tied up in my work that I’m more concerned about my identity in that than my identity as a wife? You guess it – eating my marriage.

Blogging, cleaning, reading, scrapbooking, meeting with friends, organizing, bargain hunting…all things that are fine activities on their own, but when their importance in my life eclipses the time I have to serve my husband, they threaten to eat my marriage.

When we were combining our households when we first got married, Rafael took a long, hard look at his 75-gallon reef tank. He asked, “Should we sell it?” He explained that taking care of the saltwater fish takes time and effort. He didn’t want his hobby to interfere with time for our marriage.

I really appreciated his thoughtfulness…but I said no – don’t sell it! Teach me! Instead of being a marriage-eater that keeps Rafa busy, the tank is now a shared hobby that we both enjoy.

Exercise is great, but keep on the look out for things waiting to eat your marriage and cut them out or find a way to bring your partner in. Has anything threatened to eat your marriage?

January Anniversary – #2

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Today is our one year wedding anniversary!!! Rafael Soriano married Sarah Jo Soriano last year on January 31, 2010.

I can’t believe we’ve been married for one whole year. The whole thing has gone by so fast. We have had quite an eventful year. Rafael graduated from school and we bought a house. We managed our full house, I found out I was going to be an auntie again, he became a citizen… Blessing after blessing.

We celebrated with an anniversary weekend. We slept in on Saturday, then made our way to Pardon My French for some delish lunch. I had a lovely salad and croissant (because we were at a French restaurant, of course).

I’m not sure what Rafael had, but it was full of butter, pastry, chicken and mushrooms. And other stuff too, I’m sure.

We moved on to the mall, where Rafael and I picked out my anniversary present. It was time for a new coat! I was so excited to get one in such a pretty color.

We had ANOTHER tasty meal at P.F. Chang’s. Then we headed over to the movie theater where I got to experience another first with Rafael…His first 3-D movie! We put on the glasses for Tron. I don’t think the movie is going to win any awards or anything, but it was pretty fun to watch.

I gave Rafa his present tonight. It’s a journal…but I already filled up all the pages. with a note for everyday in the upcoming year. Here’s what the first page says –

“Dearest Rafael, I heard you are supposed to give “paper” for the first anniversary (weird) so here it is. This is a book of 365 reasons why I love you. These thoughts are to express my thankfulness for you, to provide encouragement to you, and to let you know how very much I love you!”

It’s been really fun to make this gift and even more fun to give it to him. Concentrating on the things you love about your man and the reasons why you are thankful for him make it really hard to be quarrelsome or quick to anger with him! This gift was for Rafael, but God used it to soften my heart in the process of making it.

As we are getting ready to wrap up our first anniversary, we have one more thing to do. It’s time to eat cake! Neither of us remembers eating any on our wedding day, so this is also a first taste test. We didn’t feed it to each other at the wedding either…think we should smash some on each other’s face?

Happy first anniversary, my love. I am so blessed and I thank God every day for bringing us together one year ago today. I got to say “I Do” to a man who is even more wonderful than my dreams. Our wedding was such a beautiful day. It was perfect because it was ours – exactly what we wanted. Thank you for making my dreams come true. Being your wife is even better than I imagined.

January Anniversary – #1

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Today is a big anniversary for me. Today, I mark five years of working for Target. It’s pretty crazy to think that five years ago, I walked into a distribution center (DC) in the middle of Illinois, just hoping for something a little more stable than newspaper work. Little did I know what it would turn out to be…

I didn’t really know what to expect when I walked into the distribution center for the first time. It was 1.5 million square feet of quiet. The building was brand new and there were no boxes, no cartons, no pallets. There were no reach truckis or chairots zipping around, no conveyor belt whirring and buzzing. There were times when I would explore the building and I was the only thing alive out on the floor.

Then the people came and everything changed. GLs and leaders filled the offices. My friends and I went to the patio everyday for lunch. I met my best friend as she was unloading boxes in the packing area. I summoned all my skills to create specialities in my media specialist office.  (My dreams were so small.) I thought all my dreams were coming true.

Of course, things didn’t stay that way for long. Everything changed. My job and my marital status changed. I asked God what to do next. He answered…using Target (again).

The perfect job opened up for me in Minneapolis and it was mine before I even knew it. Suddenly, I had a new job and enough money to move. I had a new life of corporate politics, cubicles and opportunities. (Not only that, but I happened to meet a pretty awesome man with a strikingly similar story :)) I started becoming the person God wanted me to be.

But I was so lonely. I knew the Lord was with me. I prayed for that to be enough, but it just didn’t feel like it was. I was heartbroken. But over time, I knew. God would speak to me. He would teach me and show me that he was enough. He is more than enough. He gave me the peace I had been searching for for the past 28 years.

It is honestly hard to believe that I’ve only been working for Target for only five years. They have been the most difficult, exciting, heart-wrenching and amazing years of my life. God used Target to bring experiences into my life to bring me to Him. To bring me back to Him. Thank you, Lord, for Target.  

This is the first of two special anniversaries I get to celebrate in January! The second anniversary is even more exciting than this one! More to come tomorrow…

(The opinions expressed in this blog are mine only and do not represent those of my employer.)

Laundry prayer time

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I found myself with a rare quiet morning today. Rafael had a commitment with the Hispanic Business Council today, so after breakfast, he donned his Bullseye t-shirt and headed out.

What’s a girl to do? Easy – laundry. Piles and piles of laundry.

I don’t hate laundry (but I certainly wouldn’t say I love it either). I have to admit, it was pretty peaceful folding boxers and hanging shirts in the quiet house. As I worked, I thought. I and then I realized I could be doing something even more useful.

I could pray for my husband as I worked. I know, I know…this certainly isn’t some kind of new idea. Many of my spiritual mentors have told me about their special prayer times – driving in the car, washing dishes or even while bathing in the tub. But that wasn’t me. I guess my time is laundry time.

As I folded Rafa’s socks, I prayed for his safety. As I folded his undershirts, I prayed for his health. As I hung his shirts, I prayed for his job and his workplace. As I folded towels, I thanked the Lord that I get to serve Rafa. As I cleaned our sheets, I thanked God for giving me the gift of my husband. I never thought that laundry time could also be an edifying time.

Anyone else have a special prayer time in a weird place/situation/activity?