Kings

So as a continuation to my previous post about the book I finished reading last night, the final stage a man enters is a King. However there is a transition time between the Late Prince and the King, called the Tunnel.

The Tunnel is a time in a man's life when he achieved the success he has strived through his his building years as a Prince. In a building sense, the castle is complete and his kingdom has been realized. The Tunnel is in essence a time for self questioning, realization and internal reflection on who one really is as a man. Thus is the time most woman have coined the mid-life crisis, with the car and all. The car though is not a product of the the tunnel but usually what has happened is a man as a late prince who as a Page and Knight dreamed about a certain, car, truck, thing, can now afford that automobile. Unfortunately it has been considered a product of the mid-life crisis/tunnel. When a man is in the Tunnel, nothing his wife or girlfriend does or says will help him or answer any of the questions he has, and when trying to get answer or commitments, they rarely are able to give what is asked of them, because they see it as just more of something they can not offer.

On a good side, this only usually last from a few months to max a few years. It may be rough, but as a woman you are able to back off, allow him to talk to you without interruption, give him the love and support you always give, the man will come out the other side a King. He is essentially King of his Kingdom and now his wife is his Queen. The man fully knows who he is, what he believes, what he likes, dislikes and essentially has a I Am what I Am tough luck attitude. This is when men usually spend more time with their wives, their families and love to give opinions, love to help and share their wisdom, knowledge and skills. They also very rarely compromise as this is giving in on who they are and what they believe. They say what they mean and if they offer help or an opinion, are very hurt if they are rejected as it is seen as rejecting a gift they are giving their, wife, child, etc. As my dad always says when proud of an accomplishment, "Who's the King????" LOL Don't forget the belly slap and hands up making a crown on his head. HAHAHA

There is so much more I really can not put it solely here on the blog, but the book is a must read in my opinion. I have read Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands and other relationship books, but in term of understanding men and why they act as they do and trying to understand that when Travis says he will come to a decision in his own time, he truly means it, not in a negative way, but in a let me be who I am, make my own decisions because I am the man and let me act that way, kind of way. There are many things I would love to spout off about and voice my opinion over and push him to make decisions on, but I have learned doing that will only make him take longer to decide, which is counter productive.

So enough of my babbling, but I am sure I will have more to talk about as I have already started a new book. I need to head to bed as my new job definitely does not keep me bored, and I already am heading off on a business trip next month. I need to get up at 5am to go for a run. :) Keep your fingers crossed I am able to get up.

Pam

Good Reads

So I am finally back into my habit of inhaling books as my mom will vouch for me, I used to do when I was younger. It seems that ever since college it has taken me until now to really find the desire I used to have for reading. I am sure all of you college graduates can commiserate with me on this point, no matter what your major was. I know that the forced reading of books in weeks, sometimes days, will really kill a passion when it is turned into work. However on a good note, I have found my passion again, though I may fall asleep in the middle of it. :)

I have almost finished a book that I has turned on a light bulb for me, created that "ah ha moment". It is called Keys to the Kingdom. A friend of mine, Jim, recommended that I buy this book almost five years ago now, maybe even six years ago. He said it was life changing and from a guys perspective totally true. Well it has taken me these past 5-6 years to even open the book, and I can not believe I waited this long, it is amazing and really every woman should read it. I will try to explain the book and men you can totally pipe and explain yes or no, or say wow woman you should have known this!

The book is written in story form about this older woman, Claudia, who is essentially an anthropologist of men through trade and formal training, and her entire family was as well, and a younger woman, Karen. Karen and Claudia meet through a yoga class and when Karen chooses Claudia to spill her soul to about her frustration with her marriage, her lack of ability to communicate to her husband and feelings of inadequacy as a woman. The story helps in regards to explanation, readability and fluid description of the stages of a man and how to relate, communicate and respect them in each of these stages. The story follows Karen as she takes these lessons and guidelines and applies them and explains to her husband and the following reactions and changes their relationship goes through, only for the better.

The first stage, that I found really interesting and makes total sense, is a man is in what the woman calls Pages. Pages are from birth till just before Puberty. Pages are what the woman call wannabee knights. Their whole goal in life is adventure and fun and pretending to be like their older counterparts, Knights. These adventures and fun come in small stages, like burping and farting, climbing to the highest point on the monkey bars, running, being outside, pine cone fights, everything that drives mothers crazy. However, Claudia explains that because these little pages are trying to be little men, what they want is to be treated like men. So ask them for help, don't scold but say I know and respect what you are doing but please this is not the place, save it till we leave or till a later time. Respect them, listen to them, ask them for help and do not hold them back from discovering the little men they are trying to be.

Around Puberty men enter the next stage, Knights. Knights are what women consider to be full of themselves, irresponsible, and lack commitment. However as Claudia explains to Karen, Knights are full of themselves because they who they are and want to be as men. Their entire goal during this stage is having fun, living life, having adventure after adventure after adventure. During this time men will date but most are not looking for their life partner, however if they do find their partner who will share in their adventures, not hold them back, they are fulfilled.

Around the mid 20's, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, men develop into Princes, who have three phases. The first, an Early Prince, is trying to set up where he will build his kingdom and what it will consist of. Some Princes if they have found their partner will marry at this point and build their kingdom around and with this woman and some men want to build their kingdom prior to marriage so they are able to provide in the ability they deem as necessary in marriage. Once a Prince has decided his career and where he wants to build his kingdom. This is called the Middle Prince Phase. During this phase and all of the Prince phases, Princes have one single focus, build build build, which for women seems that all they want to do is work, think about work, how they can get farther and more successful in work. When they are free from thinking about these things, that is when women normally spend time criticizing them saying, they don't get enough attention and they have screwed up in these ways. Which Claudia says, women should be respecting them for their hard work and taking advantage of the time men are giving them and spend it being appreciative, happy to see them and communicating any needs they may have and what they may need help on, in a positive way so I a man can respond and help in the way he knows how, which is not wrong, it is the man's way. The very last Prince Phase, Claudia tells Karen is very quick, while the others take years, this is the stage where the man has reached his goals in his career, he has attained the level he has been striving for. All together the Prince Stage Lasts from approximately 10-15 years.

The last Stage Kings, is where I am at in the book. It is almost done and I am very excited. These explanations and almost real life examples gives me a great reference for how I can incorporate this in to how I understand Travis and other men in my life. It also makes me realize that many things I have previously thought and did, were quite wrong and that I need to work on some things, which I am OK with saying. :) As I finish the book tonight I will let everyone know how the last stage goes, which for most of us my age, this is where our father's are in their lives.

Oh and on a side note, at church yesterday we found out our pastor just had his first book published. Here is a picture of the cover and a link to find more about it. I am going to be purchasing it next weekend, as the line was quite long.

Happy Monday everyone!

Exsisto Castrensis!

Not much has been going on around here...Pam started her new job which will be a big change in schedule because she has to ride the light rail into the city. Hopefully that adjustment will be alright for her.

We've turned the TV off for lent, as well as a few other things and its getting to the point now where its not fresh anymore, it just plain sucks! Continueing on in our committments is tougher and tougher. But as my Dad used to say, "Builds Character Son".

I've been contemplating getting a tattoo for about 8 years now and I think I may be getting close. "Builds character son", runs through my head often. Building character...acting in a way that properly represents the God that I worship and love. Acting in a way that is different from others, because the vast majority don't know what the heck they are doing! Building a good character...

I wanted to get either a symbol or phrase that meant something to myself and each time I saw it I would be remembered of my commitment to it. Originally I was thinking something like "brotherhood" that would remind me of the great friendships I've had since childhood, however, that would only be a strong thing for me if they were to join in the ritual, lol. I also like the saying by lance armstrong, "Live strong". Unfortunately, Lance came up with it first!

In highschool, "Get Saved" was fun for a while. I think I remember having a good laugh with jason many a time. We'd be talking about a news story or friend who was doing crazy things, or had done crazy things. Not like crazy cool, but crazy huh? "Dude did you hear about that NBA player that got caught doing 100mph down I-5 while smoking a joint? ...Get saved!" It became an expression for us. Instead of saying, "thats wack" we would say get saved. Of course the whole point was to get saved, invite Jesus into your heart, and let him change your life...I decided that just wasn't going to fly for my tat.

I would get it in Latin, so that if people would want to know what it meant they could ask me...I think that would be cooler than just having some Old English tat that looks like gang crap, and you have to get close enough to smell the person in order to be able to read it. In addition, others would actually have to ask me about it, which would give me a great opportunity to take the conversation wherever I felt like it.

Anyways, I was thinking about living a disciplined life and how important and central discipline is in my life. Every day I struggle to do right, struggle to love others, struggle to work hard, and maintain my goals. It seems like such a constant thing and important thing to have these days that I might just put it on my body, to remind myself of my commitement to myself, and to others...to lead a disciplined life.

Dictionary.com
Discipline:

1.) Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.
2.) Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control.

The phrase would be "Be Disciplined" and off the cuff online translator to latin says, "Exsisto Castrensis". Its very easy to go through life and lose who you are. Slowly, for us I feel like TV has come into our lives and taken away something very valuable of ours, time. Our free time is our avenue to creating a life for ourselves and lately, we've been spending the majority of it in front of the TV. Since having the TV off for lent, we've been exposing ourselves to all the other things we could be doing with our time. Listening to talk radio, music, reading books, building RC trucks, going to bed earlier so that we're more refreshed and awake during the days, studying for an exam or learning something new.

For me, being disciplined means two things. First of all it means having goals. Without goals, a person simply doesn't have anything to be disciplined about. In addition, I think that by not having any goals in life a person becomes stagnant in their development towards being a better person.

The second portion of being disciplined involves taking action to meet your goals. Anybody can sit on the couch and say, "hmm, yup, I want to lose 10 lbs", "I want to be an executive", "I want to learn how to fly a plane". Without taking action though, nothing will ever happen. Often times I fail to take action for a number of reasons; fear of failure, simply not knowing how, laziness. However, hopefully by practicing this, "being disciplined", I'll be able to transform myself into someone who is able to take action, and make things happen!

So we'll see. I mean it might take another 8 years to get me in that chair. Might never get it but despite the tattoo I've still been thinking a lot about tweaking who I am a little bit, and moving towards being more disciplined, do what I say I will do, live strong.

Exsisto Castrensis my friends!

-Travis

WOO HOO

So I officially finished my last day of work!!! Yeah!!! So now on to the new job!

Oh and Happy Wednesday!!!!

2008 Election

So I am usually not one to preach politics and voting, but the more I have been learning, reading, listening, and just absorbing all the information I can about the upcoming election and candidates, I feel very strongly to request people to do the same. I am given a hard time at work because I listen to talk radio over music, I read the Wall Street Journal Online, I love Foxnews, and I read the blogs as much as I can to know truely what we are in for in terms of November of this year.

Here are some links I highly recommend reading:

www.realclearpolitics.com
www.pragerradio.com
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog
www.wsjonline.com
www.foxnews.com/youchoose2008

I feel very strongly that my money is my money, that I can choose how to spend it, how I wish to contribute to society in terms of volunteering, community service, monetary donations and in how I wish to provide healthcare to myself. Without telling you how to vote or how to choose, morally/conciously, please just read and really look beyond just the headlines and the rhetoric to what a condidate believes. Are you for a $16 an hour immediate hke in minimum wage? Required wage garnishment for universal healthcare, a program that would cost upwards of $1 billion dollars, giving amnesty and citizenship to people who came here illegally, while others who are trying to come in legally are blocked and wait listed because people are cheating and breaking our laws.

So please please please read, I love to talk politics, but usually wait to hear others opinions first. We still have time to really get to know a condidate before making your opinion.

pam

My last Three Days

It is finally Monday of the last week of my job with Ware Malcomb. This has been a great job for the last two years but I am very excited to be moving on. These next three days are going to be brutal and super long I have a feeling. Hopefully I can stay busy so the days will fly by.

Our week last week was fairly uneventful. Valentine's Day was very low key and included my making dinner and us watching a movie, a great movie, but just watching a movie. For dinner I tested out a new recipe, Chicken Cacciatore with steamed brocolli and couscous. Dessert was homemade breadpudding, which I remember I do not like because of the brandy in the sauce your pour over the top. Travis and I exchanged cards, very simple gifts and then watched We Own the Night. This is the new movie with Mark Whalberg and Jaoquin Phoenix, based in the 80's in New York. I highly recommend it.

Friday night we went bowling with some people I work with that we are slowly becoming friends with. One couple just became engaged on Thursday and they were very excited to be telling everyone about the proposal and like every girl should, showing off the beautiful ring. I have to say it is one of the most beautiful rings I have seen. It is white gold about 1.5 total carat weight, a princess cut center stone with diamonds running up both sides meeting at the center stone. The sides of the ring have an amazing beveling that just adds a very simple elegance that you usually see on more antique and older looking rings. I definitely prefer this over the huge single center stone.

Saturday I went for a nice five mile run, and it was so great to finally be able to run without feeling either winded or cut short due to coughing attacks. I also had another eye doctor appointment. Well good news on the eye front, the Ulcer is gone but now he found I have inflamation in both eyes that is bad enough in my left eye that I was seeing double. Which now I am on round two of treatmeant for my eyes, a steroid antibiotic to help eleviate the inflamation so I can finally, FINALLY, get back into contacts.

After the eye doctor we headed out to test out a new trail Travis had heard about from a co-worker out in the southern foothills. It was a twelve mile round trip hike up to a damn, which for mountain biking is about when the single track supposedly starts. It ended up being a beautiful day, it was supposed to snow, about 40-45 with some mild wind. We saw some Big Horn Sheep, some pretty cool ice, and just really enjoyed the time together to talk and get outside. When we did get home, we were a bit sore but felt so great having been outside.

Sunday was our pretty normal Sunday, Church in the morning, grocery store, gym then popcorn and a movie. Love it! We did watch Elizabeth, The Golden Age. It was really a great movie, I don't know a whole lot about the Elizabethan era but it was really interesting to me to see how this movie chose to depict such a famous person in history. After all she was just a woman, but a woman who started a reigion, ran a country and gave Spain their greatest defeat of all time. :) One kick butt woman. Oh and I am finally about 3/4 of the way done with the final book in the Left Behind Series. YEAH! With no TV tonight I should be able to easily finish the book.

Well, enough of my recap, I should probably throw on some make-up, brsh my teeth, grit my teeth and finish out my last three days of the work.

WHOO HOO!!!

It is official

I have a corneal ulcer! I have antibiotic drops I have to take every 2 hours for the next 4 days and then go back to the doctor on Wednesday. I am not to wear contacts for at least a week and well this sucks! But I am glad I went to the doctor. :)

Update

Well this has been one interesting week to say the least. I have a new job, found out I have bronchitis YUCK!!, now I have to go to the eye doctor. The one thing about Colorado if you don't know, it is really dry!! So since moving here I have been having a heck of a time dealing with my contacts and my eyes, especially my left eye, which I have been told is notoriously dry. So about 3 days ago I woke up with my eye completely red, swollen, and just a slow burning feeling. By the end of the day it was so irritqated I could not have any lights on or near me, it gave me a migraine and left Travis wondering if it was time to trade me in for a new model. LOL

I have given it a few days, haven't had my contacts in since about 5pm yesterday and it is still very irritated and sensitive to light. So I called our local Costco and made an emergency appointment with the Optometrist. I have a feeling they are going to say no more contacts for a while, which let me tell you it it not fun to run in glasses. I hope they are able to give me an answer though as I really can't handle the pain that I am in by the end of the day.

We will keep you posted on the dog situation as we have our appointment in an hour to an hour and a half. Oh and the whole no TV, not that bad, except my eyes has been so painful I can't read, the whole no sugar or sugar substitute sucks!!!! I love my Diet Dr Pepper and a yummy Non-fat, sugar free vanilla latte. Well amoung other things we have given up, this is going to be a rough 40 days. :( Oh well, we will get through and make us better people in the end. :)

Love you guys!

New Job

So it is official, I have a new job as of the 21st of February. It was a really hard decision for me to make, though I am so excited and know that this is a great opportunity. Half of my bosses, I have like 10 I swear, well 4 actually, were disappointed and the other half were excited for me. My official title is Sales and Proposal Marketing Manager. I get a little bit of an increase in base pay and I get an annual bonus of 15% that is paid out quarterly. I also will be riding the light rail in to work everyday and was able to get reimbursement for that included into my offer letter. There are the standard medical, dental, vision, 401K with matching contributions, tuition assistance, 3 weeks paid time off and other items. The thing I am most excited about is working with people again, no answering the phones and having a mentor in the office. So now I officially have short timers and can not wait to start the new job. :)

On another note, Travis and I are observing lent. He asked me yesterday if I would be open to the idea, and of course I said yes. So I have given up sugar, sugar substitutes such as spenda, butter and butter substitutes. We also are no longer watching TV, except for Blazer Games since we bought the League Pass. I am reading the Bible 30 minutes a day and Travis has given up a few more things. This will be good for us and be a definite growing time.

Oh and on Saturday we have our interview with the Vizsla rescue people to adopt a dog. This will be interesting since I will be getting my new job, but if we can make it for a few months before we are able to get a house, I think we would both love it.

Snow, Lighting and Hail, Oh My

I have now officially seen the weirdest weather ever. My parents are in town for the weekend and my dad had gone outside to get some fresh air and he started babbling about seeing lightning. My mom and thought he was crazy or just kidding around. It had started to snow and we both were thinking, no way lighting and snow. BUT about 5-10 minutes later, boom lightning again! Then as we got in the car to take them back to their hotel, we realize it is hailing, while snowing and lightning! How bizarre!