Of lists and marriage

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Some time after posting about the Marital Rating Scale from the 1930s yesterday, I remembered making my own list when I was dating (not in the 1930s! More like the 1970s). It was kind of a popular thing to do when I was in college, to make a list of what you would look for in the guy you wanted to marry.

I don’t really remember what was on mine except for the first two items. I think I may still have it in a trunk out in the shed where other things from that era are: I am hoping we can clean the shed out one of these days and get to that trunk, and I hope everything survived and isn’t mildewed or eaten by bugs!

But, being a Christian, the first necessity on my list was to marry a Christian. Secondly, he needed to be a Christian not just “in name only,” but a genuine, growing, active Christian who lived out his faith.

I think probably the rest of the items had to do with general character qualities: kindness, even-temperedness, etc. I think such a list was a good thing in that it got girls’ minds off of just hair and eye color and height and all the physical attributes and on to character and personality, the more important things. It would be interesting to compare my original list to one I made for my sons about what Christian women want in a man.

The only problem with making a list, though, is that we might not be aware of what we need. For instance, somehow I didn’t realize at the time that I was a pretty tense person. I don’t think I realized it until after we were married a while and I saw that Jim was fairly laid back. If we’d both been as intensely tense as I was, we’d have driven each other crazy. But where I can get tied up in knots about something, he can deal with it clearly and calmly, and that’s such a blessing. Of course, it can be a source of conflict — if I am all stirred up about something and he’s not, it can seem like he’s not taking it seriously or he just doesn’t understand. But by this point in our married lives –we’ll celebrate our 30th anniversary in December — I know we just approach things differently. And I think we’ve balanced each other out some: I think I’m more relaxed now, at least in some areas. But I never would have thought to put something like that on a list.

I wrote the rest of our love story out here a few years ago.

On the other hand, we have to be careful not to be overly picky and fault-finding. I believe in settings standards high, and as someone once said, it it wise to keep eyes wide open before marriage and half-shut afterward. But, as I said yesterday, no one is going to be perfect.

I had written most of this post last night, then this morning at the end of ivman‘s post on Mergers and Marriages was a link to “What she wants in a man.” I should post it separately as it is long and this post is already long (and believe it or not, I am trying to write shorter posts ), and with two posts on marriage this week I don’t want to add a third and have it look like “marriage week” here. But this just fits too well. 🙂 Enjoy!

What She Wants in a Man, Original List:

1. Handsome
2. Charming
3. Financially successful
4. A caring listener
5. Witty
6. In good shape
7. Dresses with style
8. Appreciates finer things
9. Full of thoughtful surprises
10. Imaginative and romantic

What She Wants in a Man, Revised List (age 32)

1. Nice looking
2. Opens car doors, holds chairs
3. Has enough money for a nice dinner
4. Listens more than talks
5. Laughs at my jokes
6. Carries bags of groceries with ease
7. Owns at least one tie
8. Appreciates a good home-cooked meal
9. Remembers birthdays and anniversaries
10. Romantic at least once a week

What She Wants in a Man, Revised List (age 42)

1. Not too ugly
2. Doesn’t drive off until I’m in the car
3. Works steady – splurges on dinner out occasionally
4. Nods head when I’m talking
5. Usually remembers punch lines of jokes
6. Is in good enough shape to rearrange the furniture
7. Wears a shirt that covers his stomach
8. Knows not to buy foods I don’t like
9. Remembers to put the toilet seat down
10. Shaves most weekends

What She Wants in a Man, Revised List (age 52)

1. Keeps hair in nose and ears trimmed
2. Doesn’t belch or scratch in public
3. Doesn’t borrow money too often
4. Doesn’t nod off to sleep when I’m venting
5. Doesn’t retell the same joke too many times
6. Is in good enough shape to get off couch on weekends
7. Usually wears matching socks and fresh underwear
8. Appreciates a good TV dinner
9. Remembers your name on occasion
10. Shaves some weekends

What She Wants in a Man, Revised List (age 62)

1. Doesn’t scare small children
2. Remembers where bathroom is
3. Doesn’t require much money for upkeep
4. Snores only lightly when asleep
5. Remembers why he’s laughing
6. Is in good enough shape to stand up by himself
7. Usually wears some clothes
8. Likes soft foods
9. Remembers where he left his teeth
10. Remembers that it’s the weekend

What She Wants in a Man, Revised List (age 72)

1. Breathing
2. Doesn’t miss the toilet

More quizzes

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I don’t know why, but I enjoy these silly little things.

You Are a Calculator

No matter what someone tells you, you’re likely to focus on facts and data.

You’re a highly analytic person. You are only concerned with what you can know for sure.

You look at situations objectively, and you have no problem approaching problems from multiple angles.

You would make a good analyst or investment banker. You are confident enough to make tough calls and hard decisions.

What Office Supply Are You?

You Were an Achieving Kid

When you were a kid, people often remarked on how mature you seemed. You acted quite adult.

You excelled at school, and you actually enjoyed it to a large extent. No one had to ask you to do your homework.As a kid, you were probably a bit picky. You liked structure, schedules, and organization.

You had trouble being friends with regular kids. You probably were only friends with other serious children.

What Kind of Kid Were You?

Pretty accurate except my friends were all “regular kids.” I think I was, too — just more bookish. But I loved to play as well.

You Are a Playwright

You are a highly literate wordsmith. You love both reading and writing.

You are also a natural storyteller. You can turn a mediocre anecdote into a riveting tale.You find people and all aspects of life fascinating. No topic is off limits for you.

In modern times, you would make a good filmmaker or novelist.

What’s Your Medieval Profession?

That’s encouraging! I like to write and have often thought about “doing something with it” beyond blogging. I don’t know about turning the mediocre into a riveting tale, though — I’d like to be able to do that, but I have to fight against the tendency to tell every little detail that makes people’s eyes glaze over before getting to the point.

So much for the deep thoughts…

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Barbara Harper

They’re going to have to simmer on the back burner a little while longer…Meanwhile here are a couple of things you might enjoy.

Seen at wanderingheart designs:

Your rainbow is shaded white.

What is says about you: You are a contemplative person. You appreciate quiet moments. People depend on you to make them feel secure.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

The graph above is supposed to have several rows of colored stripes, but they keep disappearing. I am more contemplative and love quiet moments.

funny

Famous Firsts

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I was working on another serious post this morning…but it was just not coming together. I’m going to let it incubate and give my addled brain a rest from thinking and from a busy week and do this fun-looking meme I saw at Melli‘s, who saw it at Thom‘s.

First Job: Besides baby-sitting for my Mom’s friends, I worked for a whole week at a fast food place. I don’t know if that counts since it was so short.

First Real Job: University Library.

First Favorite Politician: Ronald Reagan.

First Car: I’ve never had a car of my own. The first car I drove was my parent’s — I don’t even remember what it was. I’m not a car aficionado. It was small and tan.

First Record/CD: A set of Disney songs.

First Sport Played: Whatever we did in P.E. I’ve never played on an organized sports team.

First Concert: The Lutheran church I attended at the time took us to see Jesus Christ Superstar. Reading the words later — it doesn’t quite compute that a church youth group would go there…

First Foreign Country Visited: None!

First Favorite TV Show: Captain Kangaroo

First Favorite Actor: Bobby Sherman of Here Come the Brides. I wonder why we don’t see that one in reruns these days?

First Favorite Actress: The girl who played the daughter, Audra, on The Big Valley.

First Girlfriend/Boyfriend: My cousin Tommy when I was 2, so my parents tell me.

First Encounter with a Famous Person: My Girl Scout troop went to see Ladybird Johnson when she came to declare Padre Island in Texas a national site. I was near enough to shake her hand but too shy to.

First Brush With Death: None that I know of for sure, but I’ve had some pretty close encounters in the car.

First House/Condo Owned: A fixer-upper that was way over our heads, though we didn’t know it at the time.

First Film Seen: Oh, boy, I don’t remember. One of the first I remember is The Love Bug.

First Favorite Recording Artist: The Monkees.

First Favorite Radio Station: I don’t remember from growing up. From college, early married days, WMUU.

First Book I Remember Reading: A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

First Meme You Answered on Your Blog: The first weekly meme: this “Works for Me Wednesday” tip. First random, general meme I saw on someone else’s site and “borrowed”: 4 things meme.

If you borrow this, let me know and I’ll come read yours!

Catching up with awards and tags

Posted on May 2, 2009 by Barbara Harper

A very long time ago, Alice gave me this Sisterhood award. Alice, forgive me for taking so long to acknowledge it!

She also gave me this Everyday Supplements Award even longer ago. 😳 This one has rules:

Pass this award on to the blogs that are in your daily “must read” list.
Name the blog/owners and tell us why the blog(s) is/are like your “everyday supplements”.
The blogs that are awarded are automatically tagged to do the meme. So this keeps the circle going and hopefully, we will be able to introduce one another with some life-enriching reads.
Optional: You can also include public blogs that are updated weekly/monthly but one(s) that you religiously follow during every update.

Alice said of me: Barbara is a godly woman and a blogger friend whom I respect. She is also an avid reader and is into crafts. Married to her husband for 26 years, she is an inspiration to me and I know that marriage does work when you partner with the right person. Being a “middle-aged” stay-at-home mom (as she calls herself), she keeps busy with various interesting projects. Her blog is indeed an everyday supplement to me.

Thanks so much, Alice! That’s very sweet.

I’m just going to refer you to my Blogroll for this one instead of copying the great majority of that here. There are many listed there, but the great majority don’t post everyday (if they did, I’d never be able to keep up with this many!!), and some are even inactive, but I keep them listed both for their content and so I’ll know when they start posting again. But each one has something worthwhile about it. I don’t keep up with my Blogroll quite as well as I do Google Reader, but I did just add and delete a few and repaired some links.

If you are a regular reader and commenter here, chances are I read you, too, so feel free to take the Everyday Supplement Award and name your Everyday Supplements as well.

Alice also tagged me with this Kreativ Blogger award which also comes with some rules:

This award deals with the values we deem important in others. Here are the six values that are important to me, six things I don’t support, and my nomination of six bloggers:

Six values that are important to me:

1. Honesty
2. Compassion
3. Generosity
4. Love
5. Faith
6. Grace

Six things I don’t support:

1. Arrogance
2. Cruelty
3. Injustice
4. Selfishness
5. Deceit
6. Stubbornness

My nomination of six bloggers:

1. Thom
2, Quilly
3. Smiling Sally
4. Melli
5. Cyndi
6. Janet

Thom gave me the 2009 Friendly Blogger Award. Thanks Thom!

Thom also gave me the Honest Scrapper award. It includes rules to tell ten random things about yourself.

I’ve done a 7 and an 8 random thing before…I’m not going to try to dig them up to make sure I don’t repeat myself (if I can’t remember what I said maybe you don’t either. 🙂 )

1. I am a sinner saved by grace.

2. I am the oldest of 6 children and a pretty classic firstborn child personality.

3. I once dated a mannequin. Well, not a real one. He was a real guy, but he worked as a fake mannequin. There was an article in the newspaper with a picture of people trying to get him to laugh while he was working.

4. I like pink, slate blue, and sage green.

5. I don’t like red, orange, most yellows, or peach, even though I have peach-colored roses. The label said pink when we bought them! Exceptions: I like these colors on fall leaves or in sunsets.

6. I don’t like weedy-looking salads. Somehow the more gourmet the salad, the more it looks like someone picked weeds for it out of their yard.

7. I like heart-shaped things.

8. Tap, tap, tap, tap…three more, eh? I have more books than bookshelves. Some shelves hold a double row.

9. I like a variety of music: sacred, classical, Irish and Scottish folk songs, many Broadway-type show tunes.

10.If something is out of place on the grocery store shelves, I don’t take it, even if it is the last one. If it is out of place someone has moved it or taken it and put it back, and I know 99.999% of the time that’s all it is — but for a while there “tampered” items in the stores were making big news, and now I just have this mental thing about the possibility. Weird, huh?

Whew! If you’re still reading this far, pat yourself on the back for being such a good blog friend!

Melli’s ABC Photo Challenge: Y and Z

Posted on April 15, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s time for the last edition of Melli’s ABC photo challenge! Most of you know the drill by now, but in case there is anyone new, Melli challenged us to find letters of the alphabet in the things around us. We’re not to make the letter out of anything or take a picture of the letter itself in a sign: we’re supposed to find it “as is” in nature or in an object where you wouldn’t normally look for a letter. We’ve been taking two at a time, and this week we’ve been looking for Y and Z.

I had planned to have this up last night because some of the ABC participants come by pretty early. But I forgot to take a picture of my Z — even though I pass by it every day and have been planning to use it for weeks! So I had to wait til this morning, but here I finally am.

I see a lot of Ys here:

I think I counted over 11 — not including the reflection on the car windshield.

And here’s my Z:

I’ll be curious to see what others found, especially for the Z. If you like you can see what they came up with at f Melli’s .

Thanks, f Melli and everyone! This has been fun!

Pop quiz!

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Barbara Harper

You Are Stylish

You look good, but you aren’t trendy or over the top about it.There’s a good chance you know what works for you. You have an established look.

You know how to dress well, but you may have trouble breaking out of your comfort zone.

Try a new color or new accessory. Staying stylish is about trying new things and taking risks.

Are You Stylish?

Hmm. I would never have thought of myself as stylish, at least not by Stacy and Clinton’s standards, but I don’t think I am totally out of touch, either.

You Were the Brainy Kid

In high school, you were acing AP classes or hanging out in the computer lab.

You may have been a bit of a geek back then, but now you’re a total success!

Who Were You In High School?

Pretty much. Geek, that is.

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you lovable – even if you don’t love them!

You are usually feeling: Logical – you rarely let your emotions rule you

You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil

How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

I’m not sure why the little borders around each quiz aren’t showing up like they were before I hit “publish” and why some things are centered and some off to the side when it is all centered when I edit it…but, oh well!

Melli’s ABC Photo Challenge: W and X

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s time for the next-to-the-last edition of Melli‘s ABC photo challenge! Most of you know the drill by now, but in case there is anyone new, Melli challenged us to find letters of the alphabet in the things around us. We’re not to make the letter out of anything or take a picture of the letter itself in a sign: we’re supposed to find it “as is” in nature or in an object where you wouldn’t normally look for a letter. We’ve been taking two at a time, and this week we’ve been looking for W and X.

For weeks the only W I could find was in the structure over a street. You can see Vs and Xs there as well, but I am using it for W.

But then on the way to dinner at the mall tonight, Jeremy pointed out a W tree:

And at the mall I noticed the “bark” on this fake palm tree looked like Ws. It’s not the clearest picture — it was taken with Jer’s cell phone.

I found Xs in a multitude of places. The first ones were these little camp tables:

The fencing that this morning glory was climbing last summer:

Another fence in someone’s neighborhood:

In the road:

On the door and window of this little house:

This one I happened to remember from my archives when I saw a real red barn today. Years ago I was on a committee to redecorate the toddler nursery at church, and we chose a barnyard theme. This is the door, with Jeremy demonstrating how it works. He’s about 5 there. He’s in most of the pictures I took of the project with his arms spread in a “Ta-da!” pose. It was cute.

And here is the wall:

I didn’t paint the mural — my good friend Valorie who is VERY talented did. But I did help stencil the little animal border on the other walls. That was a fun project.

Melli’s ABC Challenge: U and V

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Barbara Harper

It’s time again for Melli’s ABC photo challenge. We’re supposed to look for letters in common everyday things or in nature without actually manipulating anything to make the letter and without photographing the letter itself in a word or sign. We’re doing two letters a week, and this week it is U and V.

I think U has been the hardest letter for me so far. At first the only thing I could find that remotely looked like a U was this sideways one on my husband’s bicycle:

And I saw a lot or arches all over town, which I considered as an upside-down U, but I wanted to find a “real” right-side up one. Finally yesterday I noticed this planter at my mother-in-law’s place was in a U shape.