Other rules on dating

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. We were talking about dates and dating and I was reminded of some things I had come up with back in the day before we were married. Of course we all know the basics, date someone that you have things in common, someone you like, shares the same religion, yada, yada, yada. These are some fun extras. Some of these rules came from my own experiences and others came from friend's experiences. If anyone has other rules they would like to add, feel free to write them in the comments section.

1) Don't date a guy who does not have a car if you do have a car. (This used to be: don't date a guy who doesn't have a car, but I have amended it for people who live in NYC.) The dynamics are all off. I tried this once, don't recommend it.

2) Don't date a guy who when you cut your foot, his first reaction is to be more concerned about his parent's new carpet then the huge gash in your foot that is squirting blood.

3) Don't date a guy who is rude to service people. (For that matter, pick friends who are nice to service people.)

4) If you start having to do more and more editing in your head before bringing up topics, get out now.

5) Don't date someone who won't admit he is wrong, and don't be that person either.

6) If you have just worked a 13 hour shift, gone home, taken a shower, driven 2 hours with your boyfriend to go to lunch with HIS mother, she give you the silent treatment because you are 15 min late, and he grovels and apologizes to get his family to talk, while you are thinking about how you have been up for almost 20 hours, get out, get out, get out.

7) Don't date a guy who never wants to hold your hand or touch you in any way, and makes you feel ugly after hanging out with him. He really is gay. (I am not saying that a guy should be all over you, what I am saying is that you should get some sort of sense that he finds you attractive)

8) Date someone for a least 6 months before getting engaged. I don't care how long you have known him or how wonderfully you click. If it is meant to be, then you can date for at least 6 months.

9) Don't date a guy who is always talking about other beautiful women all the time.

10) Don't date a guy who is probably clinically depressed.

11) Never date a guy who lives with his parents, ever. (There is a difference between a guy living with his parents and his parents living with him for health reasons and such.)

12) Don't have a crazy long engagement. It's to stressful for everyone involved.

13) Do have pre-marital counseling and don't cheat on the questions.

14) Do date a guy who supports you and encourages you to pursue things you enjoy.

15) Do date a guy who brings over soup and medicine when you are sick and will sit on the couch with you all day because he knows you are bored.

16) Do date a guy who helps with the dishes.

17) Do date a guy who has the same financial goal as you.

18) Date a guy who your best gal pals really like and they aren't just saying that.

19) Date a guy that likes to interact with people.

20) Date a guy who does not have apron strings attached. (I find that dating a guy say about 7 years older then yourself helps in this matter. Although Mrs. Juicebox was able to work it out with a guy about 5 years older, but that may be a unique situation.)

Little Montexan

On October first, our good friends, B&T, had a little boy now named Noah. Since T is also from Texas she had brought a ziplock bag of Texas dirt so that her son could be born over Texas soil. The hospital staff put it under the operating table and they dubbed Noah a "Montexan" since he was born in Montana over Texas soil.

T has been generous to offer to share her soil with me should we decide to have any babies in Montana. If we come to that point, I may just take her up on it.

Here's little Noah the day he was born. We were his first visitors!

T wanted to take some baby pictures to send out for Christmas, here are a few of our attempts yesterday.

Farewell to Jana

My friend Jana moved. This is distressing to me as she is one of my friends in Montana that I can say "hey, let's grab coffee," or "let's hike in the Glacier" at the spur of the moment and she is usually up for some girl time.

But since she is leaving no matter what kind of fit I throw, I decided instead to throw her a going away dinner. Here is my lovely table set for fall. I was going to put applesauce in the little pumpkins, but they are too cute to butcher, so they are gathered around the candle.

Bye, Jana! We will miss you!

(I apologize for the fuzzy picture, I won't let Mr. M take them in the future.)

First Snow

Yesterday morning I looked out my dreary window and saw for the first time this winter, snow. It melted in a few hours and I didn't even have to wear a coat today.

My rosemary bush is still going strong.

I put some red stars up in the window, but it's hard to photograph them.

Character

Most of the time, the only time that one hears character referenced is in regards to politics and even then, only at election time. However, the other place it is referenced, though not discussed is in sports. There is a show on Saturday morning called the "Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year". It's a nice show about what football coaches all over the country are doing to help their teams. It's also an advertisement for Liberty Mutual (whom I hold no ill will since they did feed my family for about 10 years).

The thing that gets me, is during the show's introduction the talk is all about the brave and wonderful coach who has so much character and leads his men to victory. He has character to keep being a football coach. This is the point when I roll my eyes. Sure we like it if the coach who wins is also a nice guy and his players go to class, but the reality is we like a coach who wins.

Players talk all the time about a fellow players great leadership and "character." OK, but this same guy may play great ball, but he has how many kids by how many different women and how much time does he spend with them?

Everyone loves Tom Brady. "What a great guy." "What a leader!" What character!" What if Tom Brady announced tomorrow that being away from his infant son is not good for him. What if Tom Brady announced that he was going to live near his son and work a normal job and be a real and consistent father to his son? Can you fathom the outcry? No one would be talking about character. They would be saying "what a waste."

Or how about a more down to earth example. What if the local high school football coach decided to just be a teacher in order to have more time to be a better father and husband? Why he would be "letting down the community."

What shows more character, doing something you don't like day after day because it is good for you or your family or doing what you love and running over everybody in you life in the process?

*Disclaimer: I know that there are many wonderful people involved in sports and I think that often sports can be a very positive thing. But sports like many things has a dangerous side that our culture refuses to look at or deal with.*

Congrats!

Congrats to several people in my life.

First, to Mrs. Juicebox for passing the bar exam. She is now a real live lawyer.

Second, to my friend Sarah, who got engaged. I am in the wedding in June!

Third, to Betsy, who is going to be an aunt in May!

Wii Update

I am in the castle of Bowser, but it is tough to throw those little guys at him.

Tiramisu

I recently inherited a collection of ladyfinger cookies and did what anyone else would do in my position: made tiramisu. Barefoot Contessa cookbooks are some of my favorites and I decided to use her recipe. Glancing over the recipe before going to the store, it calls for mascarpone cheese. I forgot to write down how much cheese I needed which I usually remember to do.

So I got to the store and found mascarpone cheese. Turns out that it is an Italian cream cheese and it is being sold for $4.oo an ounce. Now I am willing to spend some money to make things right (never use dried basil when you can use fresh is my motto), but 4 bucks for 1 ounce of cream cheese is a little much, even for me. So I bought a can of 8 ounces of light American cream cheese (a store brand) for $1.19. When I arrived home, I read that I needed 16 ounces of this stuff. To make the recipe the way it called for required at least $64 to make the tiramisu according to the direction. That doesn't even take account for the rum I bought too!