To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Secrets of Saying "I Do"

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a number of papers. Here's this week's, on the latest marriage research: I find it hilarious when magazines feature Julia Roberts on “What I’ve Learned About Love”, or Angelina Jolie with her tips on making love last. Stars who have been married multiple times and cheated on their spouses, or stole other people’s spouses, hardly seem like experts on how to experience a lifetime of love. Instead of...

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Getting Rid of the Things That Plague You

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:49:00 +0000

What holds you back? Do you have things that bug you, but you can't seem to get rid of them? Do you find yourself constantly worrying about the same thing, or feeling guilty about the same thing, but it never seems to get dealt with? You're not alone. Pharaoh suffered from stuff, too, and he wasn't the most effective at dealing with these pesky things in his life. In this week's short, insightful and funny podcast, you'll see what we can...

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Wifey Wednesday: Work to Your Strengths

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:03:00 +0000

It's Wifey Wednesday, when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and you comment, or, better still, write a post on your own blog and link back here! First, I was blown away by the comments from yesterday's post. I was talking about whether early marriages are good, and asked people how old they were when they were married. I don't know if it's selection bias as to who commented or not, but it seems like 95% of you were under 25. Perhaps...

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When Should People Marry?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:27:00 +0000

I wrote my column yesterday on marriage research that we're not commonly aware of. You'll be able to read it on Friday, but I thought I'd talk about some of it today. (You can look at my Delicious bookmarks on marriage research here). One of the interesting tidbits I ran across lately is a researcher in Texas called Norval Glenn has found that the ideal age of first marriage is in the early twenties. You're less likely to get divorced if you...

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How to Start the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:41:00 +0000

Last week I started my week thinking about busy-ness. I was too busy. But I concluded that the "busy" feeling was largely one of my own making. It wasn't only that I had too much on my plate--though I did have a lot--it was also that I was letting the computer steal a bunch of my time. So what's the alternative? Right now, I'm sitting at my kitchen table with five days in front of me. And the question is, how am I going to make those five days...

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Tyranny of the Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:20:00 +0000

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a variety of newspapers across Canada, and this week's builds on a blog post I had earlier this week complaining about my busy-ness. See if you can relate: I’ve been a little panicky lately with all the stuff on my plate, and as Christmas approaches it’s only going to get worse. As I’ve been weighing the option of having a full-fledged panic attack to extricate myself from some commitments, I started...

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Do You Struggle with Believing God Loves You?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:15:00 +0000

Jesus loves you. We hear it in Sunday School. We sing it. But do we believe it? We may, but when bad things happen, we soon find out whether that belief is just a few inches deep or whether it reaches down to our hearts. Today's podcast gets to the heart of the matter. On this blog, I've shared some of my personal history with my son who passed away. I speak about this quite often, and this podcast is a clip of a talk I gave where I discuss...

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Wifey Wednesday: Learning How Not to Sweat the Small Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

It's Wifey Wednesday, the time when we talk marriage, and you all write your own blog posts and then link them back here! I so love reading what you all write. Today I'm going to turn Wifey Wednesday over to my wonderful friend Terry, whom I wish I knew in real life. She has written a beautiful post on why we let the little things in life get to us. She was recounting a time a few weeks ago when she was driving to church and her husband was...

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall and Me

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:55:00 +0000

With the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday, it got my mind thinking back twenty years ago. I was actually in Berlin in August of 1989. We went through Checkpoint Charlie and took some great pictures in East Germany. My main impressions: nobody smiled. Nobody talked outdoors. The cars were tiny. The buildings were ugly. And there was nothing to buy. Someone was shot trying to flee into West Germany that month. They would be...

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Little House on the Freeway

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:11:00 +0000

I read Little House on the Freeway while I was away at the marriage conference this weekend. In it, author Tim Kimmell lists the seven reasons that we may feel too harried, ranging from "can't stand silence" to a "screen addiction" to an addiction to helping others. As I read the seven reasons (I can't remember all of them now) I felt immeasurably better because I realized that I really only suffered from 1 or 2, and not all 7. So that's got...

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Marriage Conference Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:57:00 +0000

My husband and I are teaching at a marriage conference this weekend in Barrie, Ontario. We love these weekends. It's one of the few times we get away together as a couple, even if we do have to "work", but we also get to think about and talk about our relationship all weekend, which makes us feel closer. There are usually about 100 couples at such conferences, and they range from those who are blissfully happy to those who just need a tune-up...

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Owning Our Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:51:00 +0000

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a variety of newspapers. Here's this week's. Read the update below the column; I regret some of it now. But it's a little late to have second thoughts! Sorry, too, that I'm late posting this. I had to leave home early this morning to drive to Barrie, Ontario, where my husband and I are speaking at a marriage conference this weekend. We're now happily at home in our room, and I thought I'd take a...

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How to Make Money as a SAHM

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:15:00 +0000

A while back we had a long conversation on this blog about the cost of working. If you've got little kids, we asked, and you have to pay for childcare, then does working outside the home even contribute to your income in a substantial way? For instance, one of the things that stay at home moms can do is to figure out how to live on less. We do have more time to do things like cook from scratch, make our own gifts, spend more time shopping for...

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Wifey Wednesday: Where Do You Go?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:12:00 +0000

It's Wednesday, which means it's time to talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you all comment, or, if you have a blog, you write your own Wifey Wednesday post and come back here and enter the link in the Linky thing below. So today I want to talk problems. Where do you go when you have problems? Last Friday I was talking to a good friend of mine whose marriage has broken up. Her husband was involved in a lot of bad things, and finally...

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Stay at Home Moms are Busy, Too

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:45:00 +0000

I'm a homeschooler, so I guess I can't be classified as a typical "stay at home" mom. But there are some similarities. And this week I am very burnt out. Extremely burnt out. I'm tired. And so I would like to give an ear shattering rant, if I may. Please understand this is mostly tongue and cheek, but I have to get it out of my system. We stay at home because we love our kids. We have a vision for our family that includes us being there to...

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Random Thoughts This Monday

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:36:00 +0000

It is 7:30 here on a Monday. It's light out and the sun is finally shining, after a week of hiding. I wish it made me feel more energized. Instead I feel like I am stuck inside a gigantic to-do list. I don't have any big-tent thoughts today that are worth writing a big blog post on, so I thought I'd just tell you a few of the things that are on my mind right now. First, Hallowe'en was weird this year. We had more kids than last year (we live...

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The Secret of Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:03:00 +0000

Are you happy? Do you feel successful? Do you feel like a strong woman? Those questions tend to make me feel defensive. Of course I'm happy! I'm doing what I'm called to do, aren't I? And what does it matter if I'm successful, if I'm living my calling? And besides that, happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be, as I've written here on previous occasions. The secret to happiness is to not look for it. When we look for it, we're always going to...

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Leaving Behind the Fountain of Youth

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a variety of newspapers in southeastern Ontario. Here's this week's: This Saturday night, families will be stuffing warm sweaters underneath Cinderella costumes and Superman capes as they go door to door taking candy from strangers. Personally, I’m not a big Hallowe’en fan. I love the mini chocolate bars, but I’ve never liked walking around in the cold, especially since it seems to rain on Hallowe’en...

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Do you have Sacred Friendships?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:30:00 +0000

We're going to do something a little differently today. We're going to talk friendship. I've always been one of those women who has only ever had a very few close friends at a time. I have lots of people I like to hang out with, but if I need someone to bounce ideas off of, it's really only a very few. My husband plays the role of friend for most of my needs. But I still think there's something really important about female friendships, and so...

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Wifey Wednesday: When He Doesn't Turn Your Crank

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Good morning, everyone! Welcome to Wifey Wednesday, where we talk marriage here, and then you go and write on your own blog your marriage thoughts and link back here. I had an interesting weekend last weekend speaking. I did four plenary sessions, but then a breakout workshop on "Honey, I Don't Have a Headache Tonight"--or how to increase your libido. Before I could do the workshop, though, a number of women came up to me saying they have the...

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Nurturing Your Child's Friendships

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:05:00 +0000

We've been talking over the last few days about how to make sure that children adopt the family's values, and spend enough family time with their parents. But we all know that parents are not the only important influence in a child's life (if we were, parenting would be a lot easier). Friends play a huge role, too, especially as kids get older. So I believe a big job of parenting is helping kids find and keep good friends. In effect, we should...

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Are Extracurricular Activities Helpful?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:15:00 +0000

This is a continuation to my Saturday post, which was a continuation to my Thursday post! So you may want to scroll down and read those first. But here's the basic problem I'm looking at: do we as parents sign our children up for too many activities, and does that have a toll on our family time? I believe it does, and I laid it out on Saturday that the average family with school aged kids has, at maximum, 19 hours a week of potential quality...

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Time, Opportunity Cost, and Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:15:00 +0000

A fundamental premise of Economics is that everything has an opportunity cost. If I buy a chocolate bar, I'm not buying a pop with that money. So the opportunity cost of the chocolate bar is whatever I could have bought--a can of pop, 20 jujubes, two stamps, whatever. But while we're used to opportunity cost when it comes to money, we don't tend to think of it when it comes to time. And yet the time crunch can be just as acute as the budget...

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Are You Worried?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a variety of newspapers. Here's today's: Are you worried? You should be. According to the latest research, you should be worried about approximately 692,398 things, including worrying about columnists spouting false statistics. First there’s H1N1, though I much prefer calling it swine flu. Swine flu makes me think of germs and sneezing. H1N1 makes me think of a science fiction mutant virus. Much...

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Why Do Some People Deliberately Have No Life?

noreply@blogger.com (Sheila) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:46:00 +0000

(UPDATE below) My 12-year-old daughter has recently started intense lessons in a certain sport (which shall remain nameless because there are local people reading this blog). She's never taken lessons before, but she's entered at quite a high level because she's been practising on her own for quite a while and is actually quite good. But she decided it was finally time for lessons, so we signed her up for one night a week. It was then that I...

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