Marriage is HARD work!

Surprisingly, the other day I made a delicious, spicy, salsa!

I text Gerson super excited about my salsa and asked him to stop at HEB for tortilla chips and milk. We always have those two ingredients and had run out.

When Gerson got home w/ the chips and milk, two things we always have in our pantry and fridge, I realized they looked a bit different from the ones I usually buy.

Can you see the difference? I always buy Mission Tortilla Triangle Chips. When I say always, it's always! Those are my favorite. Now, the soy milk, we usually buy whichever is on sale, but always buy LIGHT (for me).

Gerson saw the Tia Rosa's brown bag and thought "Yup those are the ones we buy!" And I know he bought the Silk's Omega-3 soy milk because Gerson cares more about getting enough vitamins through out the day than drinking less calories.

This is how different we are. With even the slightest and smallest things, we are different. I'm detailed in some areas such as brands and he's detailed in health/nutrition areas.

After almost 5 years of marriage, I can tell you that the single life was much easier than the married one. I love my husband with all I am. I have absolutely no regrets of the commitment I've made with him. However, in my opinion, marriage has required a lot of hard work. I've told you about my difficult days of being
the understanding wife, we don't always agree on everything, and his career has demanded me to accept instability in our lives. There's been different stages in the 5 years that have made our marriage challenging. I hope I'm not sounding pessimistic, but I'm being honest. We are two different people that love each other more than other human being on this planet, but simply can't always agree on everything.

Our differences are the beauty of marriage. It's what makes Gerson and I a marriage. It's not perfect, it's not always pretty, but it's our commitment that keeps us together. The love and respect we have for each other has allowed us to continue growing, continue sparkling, continue moving. And all the good has outweighed the "bad" completely!

So for all my single friends, ENJOY IT! Enjoy this stage of your life. Enjoy the present. Don't dwell on being single. ENJOY IT! Love will come your way, if it's something you're desiring, I believe it will.

And for all my married peep, I feel you on your challenging days! But remember that your hard work in marriage is not in vain. Your effort is an investment of many more happy years with the love of your life. It's a big savings account of love! Always be prepared to work at it, find a solution, fight for your spouse if you have to, conquer her back if you have to, enjoy the vacations, the laughter, the joy that marriage brings. It's worth it!

Make it Fun!

Gerson and I are addicted to the phone game Words w/ Friends.

The bad thing is that I could beat almost everybody but Gerson. Finally, several weeks ago I won (and celebrated!).

So this past week we said that whoever won the first two games would receive a present. I asked for a lipstick and he asked for ITunes gift card.

First game Gerson won. Second game I won. Third game I resigned cause he was over 100 points ahead of me and I only had a few letters left. I knew I wasn't going to win. Well last night I get home to this

Super sweet!

I like having fun in my marriage. Being married doesn't mean the fun is over. Boring days are acceptable. We have weeks or months that go by and we do the usual: RedBox and Dinner. But there are other weeks that we enjoy doing silly and fun things. When we lived in Dallas we would plan a monthly date to an exotic restaurant that served different foreign cuisine. We would take turns and I loved planning the date as much as wondering where he was taking me.

It's good to get out of your little nest of love and do something different once in a while. What kinds of activities are you doing to make your relationship fun and special?

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You Might Just Need A Hand...

A friend told me an incredible story this past week.

Her husband is a pastor and travels on a weekly basis. He was boarding the plane to get to his destination. He sat a row away from an older American couple.

Entering the plane came a tall African American man. He was dressed very casual, with a hoody, jeans, and headphones. His seat was numbered right next to the older couple. As he got comfortable, my friend's husband realized that the couple did not look too happy having this man sit next to them.

Then he hears the older man ask the African American if he mind moving to the back of the plane because they were expecting someone and preferred to have him sit next to them. The African American replied "Sure." And walked to the back of the plane.

The plane takes off and the pastor realized that the older couple had nobody sitting next to them. They had lied. Besides, he said that it was very obvious the older couple did not want the African American sitting next to them.

During the flight, the pastor notices that the older man begins to have a heart attack. The flight attendant asks over the intercom if anybody on the flight is a doctor.

Can you guess who rushed down the aisle to save the man??

You've guessed right! The African American is a physician and literally saved the man's life.

I didn't write this to bash on the old couple. None of us really know the reason why they didn't want the man sitting next to them. All I want to convey is that we love one another. That we don't judge easily or think we're better than somebody because of the color of our skin or cause of the things we possess. One day you might just need a hand from the person you least expect.

PERFECT 100

My random thought for this busy Friday is simply a big kudos to my husband.

Throughout 3rd year rotations, the medical students are evaluated or graded at the end of the rotation by the doctor. So performance is big for all of them. And although they do have a final exam for each rotation, their evaluation counts as a pretty big percentage for their final grade.

So Gerson shared with me this week that his grade for his General Surgery rotation, given by the doctor is a PERFECT 100!

Then Gerson's teammates asked him how he did, and thinking that the doctor had been lenient and had given everyone a 100, he shared his grade, and found out that absolutely nobody got a perfect score (not even close!). Plus, the doctor wrote great stuff about Gerson on the evaluation and didn't even bother to make any comments on anybody else's.

These are great news! I'm so very proud of my boo!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

FRIDAY'S RANDOM THOUGHT!!!

One of my favorites! HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!!!

ONE.

I chat online and on the phone w/ my twin a lot.

Today I asked her if she was excited about leaving to El Salvador (w/ her church to build a well in a town that needs clean water) this weekend.

She said she was but hated leaving her husband Lalo. Lalo,however, told her that although he was a bit jealous, he knew that a part of him was going. And my response to that was, "It's true Ari! A part of him is going!"

In my wedding vows, I told Gerson that my dreams were only getting bigger because his dreams were also becoming my dreams. I was excited and ready to share my life with his. I was ready to become as the Bible put it, ONE.

Fifteen days later, after our amazing honeymoon, I discovered that I had married a guy with probably $10,000 worth of credit card debt.

I couldn't understand how could someone with a decent salary owe so much money. WHY was the question I asked him over and over. WHY did he get into so much debt? WHY did he never tell me about it? WHY would he charge such things? WHY? WHY? WHY?

After literally crying and dwelling on it for some days, I decided to get over it! I realized that I was now a part of him, and not only would his amazing dreams become my dreams but his horrible debt would be mine as well.

Maybe what he needed was a woman like me to help him get rid of it, but I don't want to give myself too much credit. ;)

The point is that in a marriage you ARE as many like to call it, the other half. It's not only the good part that you should take from your spouse, but the bad too. Many times we have the habit of only taking the good because we refuse to accept our spouses' mistakes. I could have most definitely had the attitude of It's YOUR debt, so YOU pay it! But when I accepted that the debt was also mine, although I hadn't used any credit cards, I got my butt to work to help him pay them off.

I see Gerson & I as one. Is it easy? Of course not. But this is why I am here, to be his ideal help.

I believe in a marriage, we're going to screw up many times, but when we understand that it's not just me living my life, but together living this life, we're going to prosper much more.

Friday's Random Thought!

Sorry I haven't written much, but I do have many notes written that I have pending to share with you. Hopefully I can get to them soon.

Funniest thing happen to me yesterday. Out of the blue, in a matter of hours, I started to feel extremely sick. It began with aches all over my body. Thinking it was something minor, I called different spas to look for a masseuse that could see me that night. (Which I had no luck)

Shortly after, I began to shiver with chills and then became very nauseous. So I texted Gerson to tell him I wasn't feeling well. Immediately, he texted that he would come home to bring me some medicine and soup. I thought it was sweet because he was at the library studying for an exam.

He then calls to tell me that his Jeep would not turn on. And he had tried to find help but it seemed I was going to have to drive to his school to help him. Because I had chills I wore my parka coat, and with all that I could I drove myself to the library. It was one of the hardest things to do.

To enter his school you first have to go through security. My eyeliner was all smeared plus I was wearing a huge parka in 70 degree weather. I swear the security thought I was some pyscho ready to do something crazy! But I took a deep breath and explained my reason to attempting to enter the school.

Gerson, quickly used my car to give his a jump-start. It worked and we drove to the closest CVS by our apt. I waited in the car (and he left his on) while he ran to the store to buy me some meds.

We got home, he took my temperature to find that I did have fever. I took the thermaflu, got into bed by 7:30pm and crashed out! Through out the night, he checked on me to make sure I was getting better.

Although it was difficult to rescue Gerson, I did my best to get there. And he took immediate action to help me feel better. I loved that we both took action to attend and help each other.

It's not always easy to fully help your partner when you're under a lot of pressure or when you're feeling super sick. But I've got to say, Gerson and I did some great team work last night! :)

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!