Premarital Counselling

So Jay wrote a blog post on another blog but rather than me writing my own blog I will post his! Here it id:

Good day, gentle blogger. As you may recall, after Mark wrote a post about pre-marital counseling, I offered to write about my experiences in pre-marital counseling since I was about to undergo the program. He also told me that when I was ready to post about it, I was to log in and post away. So if you want to take the day off to keep healing from your recent sickness Mark, I've got you covered!Last night was actually the second time Sarah (my fiance, naturally) and I had met with our counselor. I didn't write an article about the first meeting as it was pretty uneventful; in truth, it was more of a fact-finding mission for the therapist, which makes sense since she needs to know what to talk about!
So yesterday evening we drove into the city and, after a stop-off to see Sarah's recently-returned-from-Phoenix parents, we went to our session. We waited a few minutes for our therapist to come and get us, which is normal. When she came out front she looked at us with a rather confused look; it seems that when she called me to book the appointment, she didn't write it down, or erased it somehow. Considering we had just driven over an hour and a half on a work night to come in, we weren't pleased. Our options were to reschedule, or wait until 9:15 and finish around 10:45 (remember the hour and a half drive home). We decided we were already there so we may as well just do the session late.
So after killing some time at McDonald's, we went back to find the exterior doors locked. No big, the therapist said she'd come get us if we got locked out. While we were waiting some people were leaving the building, so we thought "Great, we can get in". The woman exiting the building would not let us in and it took some convincing to make her stand aside (I had a fleeting thought that if I really wanted to get in she really couldn't stop me, but that would be a much bigger can of worms!). Once we were inside we discovered she had alerted security to our presence, so he came in to check with the therapist that we actually had an appointment. I know he was just doing his job, but I was getting a little annoyed at everyone looking at me like I was a criminal!
Anyway, we finally got our session started at 9:30. Our therapist, I'm not going to give out her real name but let's call her Aretha, cause I like that name, brought out copies of our Prepare exam results. For those unaware, the Prepare exam is a multiple choice quiz we had to do before our second counseling session; we had to do the quiz separately. The point is for the couple to answer honestly separately from each other, and then discuss the results in the session.Anyway, Aretha pulls out our results, and she gets a very surprised looked on her face, and makes several surpised noises as she quickly flips through. Naturally, our first reaction was "Uh-oh, that's not good!" It turned out that Aretha was shocked at how postive our results were; on a graph charting different marriage types and the percentage of typical answers, we were literally off the chart in one or two aspects.Now, you at home may be thinking that we cheated, that's why our answers matched up so well. I can't really blame you for thinking that, because we had almost considered answering together, but we decided that no, if we were going to do pre-marital counseling, we may as well do it right.So we went through the survey results, painfully slow at some points. Aretha went over every answer very thoroughly, seeing how we matched up. We kind of felt that she could have spent a little less time telling us how old we were and that we were both caucasion, but whatever. We went through 10 different areas of a marriage (things like communication, conflict resolution, marriage expectations, etc) and picked a few to discuss. We also picked some to discuss next time. The process is pretty logical.What did we get out of it? Honestly, not very much. Why? Because we've already talked about all of the issues that were in the Prepare, most of them before we even took the test. Sarah and I are both pretty logical people, and we know things aren't always going to be rainbows and skittles. I knew within 2 months of dating Sarah that I wanted to marry her, but I made myself wait to propose because I wanted a stronger relationship first, and I'm glad I did.For those who haven't discussed things ahead of time, I think the Prepare system is pretty good, and the counseling would be very beneficial. We have one more session to go yet, so we'll see what we take home from that. I really hope I'm in bed before 1:30 next time though.
Keep your stick on the ice!
-- Jay Boaz

Ahhh so now I am paying for the late night and needing sleep badly. Maybe it was a test in our relationships flexibility! :)
~S

I know, I know, I know it has been over a MONTH since I wrote on my blog. In all fairness there is not all that much to write about. I have been busy, with work, school, wedding, etc. but there is little to report that would actually be interesting for all those in cyberspace.

However, now I do have news. We have been thinking about where we will be living post July 19th, there isn’t that may places to rent around here so we started last month to look around. Well it looks like we now have a house! We are going to be living in the Mennville Church house. We went to look around tonight, to see the inside. The basement is unfinished but will be great for storage and such. The upstairs has three bedrooms (or office spaces!). I am so excited that we will have space! Right now we spend a lot of time at my apartment. My apartment is TINY, and I have too much stuff as it is, so we certainly won’t be living here. The house is also great because Jay can move-in in April (his roommate is getting married in May). I tried to upload pictures but it didn't work (silly dial-up) but if you are on face book you can check them out there!

There is a quick update for you!
~S

How-To

In class right now I am having my students write a “How-To” essay. Many of them have gotten right into it and are shocked at how many words it takes to describe how to build a snowman, how to make a sandwich or how to set a table. I must say I look forward to reading these essays!
So here is my how-to: How To Plan a Wedding

I planned on having a long engagement, although at times I think I was a little crazy. So I thought, long engagement, less stress (makes sense right!?). Well I don’t work like that and really I create stress in my life in order to get things done. So right now I am in “let’s get this done” mode. I must say this week has been very productive on the wedding front. Here are instructions for how to get a wedding planned (of course the trick is find a great guy (sorry Jay is taken), on who can plan, and has access to a phone!):

Every night you should go to your favourite wedding forum (I love Canadian Bride). Find a post that interests you, discover you are not doing something that you should be doing and then freak out. If you are really lucky you loving, wonderful fiancée will be in the room and will witness freak out. Try not to freak out at him, this won’t help your problem, just let him see the stress level build (right now work is REALLY stressful so the stress level is well beyond normal so it doesn’t take much). I like the line, “aahhh we need to start thinking about ___________”. Hopefully this will start a conversation about that topic. Together create a plan. Then have the wonderful, loving, fiancée put plan into action. Yes, that is right I am so thankful that Jay is part of this wedding planning process because he has:
· Booked the church
· Booked the reception, figured out a good menu, talks to the hotel all the time, etc.
· Found, met with and booked the photographer
· Come up with decoration plans
· Come up with a good idea for rehearsal dinner location
· Booked premarital counselling
· Figured out musicians for the ceremony
· Booked engagement pictures
· And who knows what else I am forgetting
·
You ask what have I done… well I have bought a dress! Remember that that took two attempts. I also went “shopping” for the bridesmaid dress. I like to think I am the one that lights the fire and pushes to get things done, and Jay is the “doer” Which makes me one lucky girl to have Jay help so much with this (thanks Jay!). So I guess the real trick to planning a wedding is not to have an absent groom; a marriage is a two-person job, and so to is the wedding planning process.

Here is a public thank you to Jay, who has done so much wedding planning!
Love you!

~S

Time to get back into routine!

Christmas has come and gone, and I am so looking forward to getting back into routine!
Christmas was spent with family, family and more family. Jay and I managed to squeeze both sides of my family and his family gathering into our time in Winnipeg (which was 5 days). The gatherings were a little spread out so we spent some lazy days at my parents place. Maybe because I never had extended family around for Christmas when I was growing up the family at Christmas now is so important to me. I love Christmas eve with my mom's family, usually it is pretty casual, mom makes food, we eat, drink, and talk REALLY loud. Grandpa usually reminds us to quiet down every so often. With so many women in the room there is lots of talking, and whoever talks the loudest gets heard! Okay so I usually win. After the Putnams leave there are usually many hours of talking with just the four of us. This year we expanded to six and mom and dad were the first in bed, but there was still talking.

In the afternoon of Christmas day Jay and I headed over to his aunts place for their family gathering. I hadn't met all the extended family so it was a good chance to meet everyone.

Later in the week we had our Hayward gathering. This gathering was a little different as this was the first Christmas without grandpa. Almost everyone was there (one cousin and her family live in edmonton), which rarely happens. There is always less talking but more shouting at this gathering as it seems that deafness is as Hayward trait. We seem to have expanded in number each year at this gathering, after many years of fitting around one table we were forced to two!

We spent some lazy days in Mennville before New Years. We brought in 2008 with friends at a smallish gathering in Mennville.
2008 promises to be an exciting year. I love the possibilities of a new year, and this one is full of them. Of course getting married is the biggest excitment for me this year, but there will also be a move, and who knows what else in the next 12 months!

Enjoy 2008!
~S

Christmas is Here!

I love Christmas! Last night Jay and I decorated my house, put up the tree, took out the Nativity set, and listened to Christmas music! YEAH!! He would have waited but we made a deal that Christmas could begin on Dec. 1, I even waited 2 days! Last year was the first year I set up a Christmas tree at my house, it was special to do it with Jay, and now we can do it every year together!

Some of the best memories from my childhood come from Christmas time: Family Christmases at Blue Lake, and in Banff, special Christmas mornings when Joel and I woke my parents up insanely early, my dad singing O Holy Night… the memories are endless. Ironically the worst memories of my childhood also come from this time of year: Dad’s diagnosis, the Christmas we spent in the hotel when dad was having his treatment. In the end Christmas is still one of my favourite times of the year… the tree, the smells, the peeking at presents, and of course the reason for the season, the birth of Jesus! AHHHH I love it!
Have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Another Post

When I was in grade 11 my biology teacher talked about Bio 20 and 30 being like a train, it pushed and pulled you forward and it wan in your best interests not to jump off. If you did it would be hard to get back on. Really he was trying to tell us not to slack, skip class, or take it lightly. Right now my train is moving really fast! There seems to be a tone of stuff to do, and not enough time to do it.

Report cards are done, and that is a relief! If I could not do one thing in my job it would certainly be Report Cards. It is so difficult to give marks you know are going to disappoint people. Overall they went okay though.

Now it is on to Christmas. I have assigned parts and am starting practices for the Christmas play (Come join us Dec. 20th at 7:30). Soon it will be practice, practice, and more practice at school. Fun times, and yet it takes a lot of time to find things for everyone to do.

I am starting my Christmas shopping next weekend. Yes, I haven’t even started yet! Luckily I only have my students, Jay, and my family to buy for (and maybe a couple of more). My hope it to get it all done on Friday and Saturday. I am looking forward to enjoying tie with friends over the weekend too. It seems like forever since we saw our Winnipeg friends so that will be enjoyable.

Okay there is a quick update.

PINK, PINK and more PINK!!

I really want this to work so let's give it another shot!
There are the pinks! We have picked one but would love to hear your opinion!

1)
2)
3)







This is my final attempt!
~S