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Monday, January 19, 2015

Target and Cupcake ATM

If this blog is going to be about us, it's going to be impossible to not mention Target. Or “Tar-jay” for you high class shoppers. Angela and I will take every opportunity to go to Target. Our most recent trip was for a pizza pan. Our conversation went something like this.

Me: we need a pizza pan.
Angela: hmmm, yes yes we do...
Angela and I in unison: Target?

We know Target is not the best place to buy a pizza pan it might not even be second best... Ok.. after our trip we still do not own a pizza pan.. But it was nice to have an excuse to go. Is it crazy to say you feel more comfortable at a retail store than almost anywhere else?  Maybe its the wide aisles, reasonable prices, bright lights, or the fact Target has a little of everything but its our go to place for retail therapy... Oh did I mention cute baby clothes!?!?



Target has even become a family affair, the sweater I'm wearing today my sister in law helped me pick out. I used to text people at 3 in the morning "Going to Denny's" and who ever showed up made the night all the more fun. Now it's "Going to Target; clothes aisle first." Two min latter: "I am not digging their short shorts." 10 min after that: "I think it might smell weird by the bathing suits... " If you would like in on this text list let us know, we love people that love Target.

Enough about target though I wanted to tell everyone in internet land about our experience with the 24 hour Cupcake ATM. We have been wanting to go for awhile and this weekend we made a special trip to Beverly Hills to try this thing out. The ATM is outside of a store called Sprinkles. This store sells adorable ice cream and cupcakes.

Any adventure that includes eating a cupcake is a successful one in my book. But it was so much fun to watch the camera inside this machine grab the cupcakes. And the best part was they had a gluten free cupcake for Angela!  It even had a cute "G" made out of hardened sugar on top.


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Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Zelda and the Adventures of Marriage

Marriage is such an unusual and exciting thing. Every day is an exploration of unknown territory. I love video games. But not in the way you might expect. I almost never sit down and play a video game by myself. I collect them and get my biggest joy from others playing them. I can watch my wife play Zelda for hours and enjoy every second of it. We even make an event when we play by making blue jello and adding cool whip to the top. I own every Zelda game that has ever existed and we are going through them all one by one together.



We do everything together. When my wife and I were at Fry's one day we saw one of those discounted movie displays with hundreds of random DVDs in it. Our O.C.D's kicked in and in about an hour we had the whole display organized, every duplicate movie with its fellow. We just randomly started working together until it was done then stood back and admired our work from afar. We witnessed a customer picking up movies to look at them and putting them back right where they found them as to keep them organized.

Something I don't lead many conversations with is that I own over 40 video game systems and over 1000 games. This is because most people that own so much of something are obsessed with it. They gain weird nerd pride and video games can run their lives. Truth is I hardly ever play video games and I get bored very quickly when someone starts talking about them. This is because most of the time I am more into the history and evolution of technology than the actual video games themselves. I also collect LP's and Laser Disks.



When I was dating Angela and she found out I had so many video game systems she had fear that I was a hoarder. But then she saw that every system has its own Rubbermaid tub organized with all the cords rapped up nicely and that I take care to make sure everything stays as mint and organized as possible. She was even more happy with me. Every once in a while Angela and I will play a game for a few hours or a weekend and then not play a video game for a couple months. We both enjoy video games as one of the many wonderful things to do together in this grand adventure of life. Angela even sent me an Ebay link today she found to help with the collection.

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Friday, January 9, 2015

Relationship troubles

Should I be afraid of losing my wife? I spoke to someone the other day that informed me that marriage is great for the first year. He is about to start his 4th marriage and is excited for his upcoming first year. It is a sad and scary statistic that marriage ends in divorce 50% of the time. I love being married to my wife; it brings me the greatest joy I can even imagine. So how can I know that my marriage won't be one of the many casualties of the war of love?
There is something positive about a 50% statistic though; a lot of examples of what not to do. The good news is after looking at failed relationships I am even more confident that Angela and I are perfect for one another. How can I be so sure? One word, preparation. We don't take each other for granted and we work on our relationship every day. Also a spontaneous 5-10 minute back/foot rub makes everyone happy.

It makes me happy to make my wife happy so I am always trying to find ways to make her smile. Some people rock their loved ones to sleep I rock my wife awake. I like to play Dragon Force or Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train. This puts us both in a good mood to start the day.
Whether it's a romantic getaway or simply kissing her on the forehead, I try to tell her I love her in every way I can. Life is so short and there really is no time to waste. We use our love as a motivation to stay healthy hoping for many more years together. Something I see in relationships that fail is a lack of shared hobbies, but we have all the same hobbies! With my interest in fashion and makeup I am even able to compliment her sincerely on specific things with her appearance like that her shoes match her outfit today. :)
Thanks to mindfulness, preparation, and let's face it -- pixie magic. We seem to have the perfect relationship. I've always been told growing up that things look better from the outside. But I can tell you this, Angela impresses me every day with how she makes the impossible possible and exceeds any expectations I might have had. We have made it well over the one year mark so take that, guy that was telling me good things wouldn't last! And there are many more years to prove that guy wrong ahead of us  :P

Monday, January 5, 2015

Self Worth.

Things only have as much worth as you give them. We have all heard the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure." But how far does that go? A popular phrase growing up my older brother used on me was "Don't break that, it's worth more than you are!" I didn't like that he was dehumanizing me to the point of being less than the object he was protecting, but it did help me gain some perspective. I didn't have much use to anyone at that age... In fact, I was pretty well dependent on everyone so I had to question do I have worth simply because I am human?



Have you ever loved a stuffed animal so much it felt like a member of your family? I have. It seems silly now, but hugging my little stuffed reindeer growing up gave me comfort and companionship. When no one was there for me and I was crying, my little stuffed friend was unconditionally there. This small amount of stitched together fabric meant the world to me. But just like the movie Toy Story when Sarah McLachlan sings "When She Loved me", that stuffed animal has not had a hug for a long time. I still can't watch that seen without getting teary eyed.



In a very real way that stuffed reindeer was a good role model for how I can be for my wife. That reindeer never got mad at me and never judged me. Just as my brother dehumanized me I humanized an inanimate object and was able to learn virtues by its omission. And just as I found worth in my stuffed animal I find worth in myself. If everyone in the world decided I was trash I would still allot myself the same worth. I love being useful and I love helping others because I find worth in it. I came to the conclusion how you perceive yourself becomes your reality.

Giving things and people meaning can be foolish because we live in a world where they can hurt us by leaving or betraying us. It's dangerous because sometimes people define their worth by opposing ideas and people fight for what they believe in. And sometimes people even try to gain worth at the expense of others. Angela and I can't imagine thinking we are better than anyone else. We are perplexed when we see people all the time that talk down to their servers at restaurants.



Something magical happened when I added my self-worth to my wife's. My wife and I love to be silly. We got each other electric scooters for Christmas. You may have seen us, we wear helmets and scoot around town shouting "SCOOT SCOOT!" like that's the sound scooters make. People look at us and smile because we look so ridiculous and we smile right back. Angela and I are genuinely happy because we find the highest worth in simply being together.