The Things We Do For Love

For Chris's 27th birthday this week, I decided to go all out. It is, after all his first birthday that we've been married. Six weeks and going strong, Kardashian has nothing on us.

Chris is a huge Arizona Cardinals fan. I mean ginormous. He and his dad have had season tickets to Cardinals games for 20+ years, even way back when in the days of playing at the ASU Stadium. Talk about die-hard fans that had heart attacks when they made it to the Super Bowl. My first NFL game ever was when Chris took me to the NFC West Championships, and what a game it was.

To commemorate this other love of his, I have been plotting and scheming to do something big. So we have this loft, it is a nice loft. It has our pool table, & arcade game, and is therefore officiall the "Game Room / Man Den / Cardy Cave." With our red & black pool table, I knew there was only one thing left to do: A huge Cardinals logo.

(Taken from my phone, I need a better pic!)



Voila! An approximately 3 or 4 foot representation of the team my hubby loves so much right there in our loft. Chris' sistere was nice enough to help with the stenciling & painting as I was crunched for time before Chris came home from a weekend in PA.

(Also in picture) I got him one more thing...a flat screen for his sports room. He was like a little kid in a toy store when he finally noticed the TV.

Hopefully I scored some "cool wife" points :)

The Pursuit of Perfection

(Im not perfect, & I like it)

This week I have been contemplating perfection, and what that looks like in our lives. In my life, it shows itself in my anxiety & stress.

For four years of high school I worried about boys, my performance on my Track & Field team, what colleges I would apply to & get accepted to, friends, and my future marriage. I was so worried I wouldn't get these things right.

For four years of college I worrid about boys (until I found mine), roommates, schoolwork & graduating, picking a career, being a Young Life leader & if I was doing a good job or not, friends & relationships, and time management. I wanted these areas of my life to reflect perfect decisions & actions.

Post-college, pre-marriage I worried about my wedding being perfect. I wanted everyone to have a great time, the photos to be perfect, my dress to be perfect, and for my husband to enjoy everything.

Now as I feel my life morphing into more of a well-oiled machine rather than a ping pong ball bouncing around, I still contemplate the pressure to be perfect. I am not, so lets just start off by saying that.

We are so highly affected by social media, relationships, work relationships, our significant other, family and even strangers, it is hard to sort through the messages that people are sending us. Everyone is telling us something by their actions or lack thereof, & it often translates into: You're not perfect, you're not good enough.

My issue is taking all of those influences, and giving them the same amount of voice into my life, & it shouldn't be that way. The people that should have the most important voice into my life should be God, my husband, my family, my friends. In that order. Work comes next, but only between 8 and 5 pm Monday through Friday. I should not be stressing about what someone said about my spreadsheet at 6:30 on a Tuesday as Im cooking dinner.

If a stranger is beautiful, I read the message: You're not pretty enough. If a co-worker stays til 5:30 & I stay til 5, I read the message: You don't work hard enough. If I lose touch with a friend, I read the mesage: You weren't important enough.

Why does my mind read things this way? The healthiest epiphony I've ever had is realizing these negative messages & how they affect me. I do not need to be perfect. I don't even consciously try to be perfect, somehow something twisted in my subconscious mind that gave me the need to accomplish, to create, to work, to do until I cannot anymore, and it is still not good enough.

This is my goal: to just be. To do everything I currently do but to not create images of everyone else's opinions about me. I am realizing if a friend is a true friend, they wont give up on you, ever. If my imperfections can't be accepted, then it is not a person I need. Someone who gossip's about you is not a good friend either.

I will create my businesses. I will be a great wife. I will be a great friend. I will accept the things I cannot change. I will never give up. I will never ever let the pursuit of perfection negatively affect me again.

I am good enough.

Those Darn Napkins

Every year since 2006, my parents host Thanksgiving. It has always been one of my favorite holidays, & when my Grandma passed away it was difficult to see how this day could ever be the same. She made the best everything, even though it was simple, it was great.

So now the job is up to my mom & I to set the table and make this day special for our entire family. My mom does an amazing job, her table is always the most beautiful and creative that I have ever seen.

For one reason or the other my mom loves to set out silk asian print napkins. I have no idea why. And every year I give her a hard time about it. Why would you have an asian place setting for an American holiday? Beats me. But just one more thing that makes my family unique I guess.

So this year I sent her a bunch of ideas to squash the asian table setting (pun intended...ha!) from Martha Stewart's endless list of ideas. Including these:

Corn husk tea lights

Acorn napkin ties


 The one she picked was pears that we will have on each table setting with everyone's name tags on them. So cute!

Maybe the napkins will go eventually. I hope they do. But for now I will do my best each year to introduce a "traditional" element, so that those darn napkins just wont match everything else.

Here goes nothing.

One Month

(A little sneak peak at our wedding fun)

Ok...we get our wedding pictures at the end of this week, which will then solicite a recap of our wedding events. In the meantime, I am bursting at the seams with joyful thoughts about the past month.

One month! It has already been this long since I said "I do" to my now husband, Chris. So many things have happened during this seemingly short period of time. As soon as we came back from our 9-day Honeymoon in Jamaica, it was back to reality. Work & a house full of boxes hit us full force and we knew it was once again time to work work in order to function fully again.

I have been capturing little snapshots of mine & Chris' time together as we put together our home. There have been quarrels and laughter and all around joy. I smile as I think about last night, when I had spend a lot of time reorganizing our pantry. I was so excited for Chris to see my work, but when as he stood in front of the double doors looking concerned at our shelves, I was sad.

"What....what are you worried about Chris? Do you not like it??" I was immediately offended. His frown remained as he said, "No it's great, Im just trying to figure out how to give you more space." I wasn't mad anymore, I melted and was reminded of the caring, wonderful man I married.

I have litte moments like this where I just watch him, because he fascinates me. When he hangs things, it has to be perfect. There are tape measures, levels, drills, studs & little hooky thingys involved. No wonder why he wants to help me hang things, when I just "eye" it and practically add more holes to the wall when the drill slips off the screw head and slams straight into our newly painted drywall.

One thing we both have learned, is how particular & organized we each are...to a fault. I am more "go with the flow" organized, and he is "indecisive man." So I make decisions right away and he wants to know every thought process on how I got to that conclusion. Its cute. Now that I know that this is how he is wired, I slow myself down & just explain everything so he feels comfortable. Basically, our house & our lives will have every rhyme & reason to them, & that's just the way we'll have to have it.

Marriage is fun. Marriage has been the best adventure I've ever been on thus far. I always have someone to keep my feet warm, to yell at the TV with, to tell me when the sweater I'm wearing is a little old, and to kiss my cheek when Im making dinner. When so much stress, prayer and thought have been put into finding the perfect guy, I'm so happy he's finally here.

Olsen Adventures: Briana and Chris