DO NOT be that girl!

“I love you more than all the sand on all the beaches in all the world!”

One of my mostannoying personality traits is that I am the KING of useless information. Ireally love to hear about fun facts, and get the details about things thatreally have no importance in our day to day life. So when I saw my wife’s lunchletter today I just had to google “how many grains of sand are there on earth?”The most consistent answer I found on several different scientific sites wasthat there are 700,500,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on earth (or sevenquintillion five quadrillion).

Honestly now,that is a STAGGERING number. I’m sure this isn’t the first time you have heard someone reference loving someone more than grains of sand. But if I had to guess what my wife is really trying to say here is that her love for me just isn't measurable. Just the fact that my wife feels this way, and is able to express her feelings, is so humbling to me. The way I look at is, when you really love someone, it is not possible to tell them how much you care about them. You can try, but it's just not going to do your feelings justice. Your love is so ridiculously HUGE that you yourself can’t wrap your mind around it.

While my wife is great about communicating how much she loves me in a sweet way…some people aren't so lucky. Just like it is impossible to really understand how big the number seven quintillion is, some men just can’t come out and say to the people they love how much they really care. Now there is no way I am qualified to tell you all the different reasons men (and some women too) have such a hard time opening up. But what I can tell you is that each man has his own way of expressing his feelings.  

Now stick with me here, because what I’m able to tell you is VERY important. If your husband is the kind of guy who just doesn’t seem to open up, and you are constantly thinking “I just wish he would express his feelings to me!” I’m about to give you a really tough wake up call. If your man is not the type to quote you apoem, or tell you his deepest feelings and secrets…HE IS NEVER GOING TO BE! And I know what you might be thinking now too... You are thinking to yourself “But he was so sensitive and open when we first met…” Seriously, you can’t pull that card…otherwise men would pull the “padded bra and make up card!” That’s right…I said it…we all put up somewhat of a false front when we first meet. So what…that time is gone now,and you need to understand how your hubbs works.

For some guy’s (most guy’s actually) the fact that they would have to CONSTANTLY tell a women how they feel, and how much they love them is a complete burden, and a total turn off. Write this down…LET YOU MAN RELAX. If you are constantly on your husband about this you need to give him room. He isn’t going to change, and you need to begin focusing on his other good qualities because otherwise, you are going to bury yourself in misery, dreaming about the past and fantasizing about a guy that doesn’t exist (at least not under YOUR roof) And we all know that is dangerous territory.

So ladies…if you find yourself relating to this blog than give your guy a break. Learn to understand him, and stop wishing his less than perfect qualities away. Instead, actively seek to find what it is that makes you both tick, and stay focused on those great qualities. If you are scratching your head saying “This guy has no idea what he is talking about?” than you should rest easy that your sensitive man will be whispering sweet nothings in your ear as soon as you get home from work. Either way your are not alone, and you have someone who truly cares about you and your family. That is A LOT more that some people can say. 

Find his passion

“Hope you’re day is as sunny and bright as the near future of Alabama Football.

P.S. Have you seen our killer recruiting???”

It’s so hard for me to pin point my favorite thing about my wife. In all honesty, she has so many areas that make her amazing…But one of the top things I love about Heather, my favorite is that she is a DIE HARD University of Alabama fan. We both graduated from the University within 6 months of each other, and there is no question that she and I both love our Crimson Tide. So, every year we count down the days (which as of this post is 126) to kick off.

As you can see with today’s lunch letter her excitement is based upon some information she recently received about a certain player that signed on to play football at the University. She has such a passion for sport of college football, and so much enthusiasm for Bama. Can you imagine how it makes me feel, as a man, to be able to hold a conversation about college football with my wife??? I mean seriously, she knows every detail about the sport, the players and the overall understanding of the game. While my buddies are having to sneak games, or listen to their wives ask questions like “what is that guy doing kicking the ball,” or “can you explain to me how many points for a touchdown?” my wife is standing up, screaming at the ref for a bad call and high-fiving my friends with a cold beer in her hand.

It never fails…at almost every game, one (or all) of my friends will say “you are so lucky to have such a cool wife!” And they couldn’t be more right…

So here is my point…Do you know what your husband is passionate about? Do you know what makes him open up, and get excited? Whatever your husband is passionate about you might want to consider learning about it. You can’t imagine how much joy you would bring into your husband’s life if you were GENUINELY passionate about his biggest hobby, or interest. Pick up a golf club, watch a game with enthusiasm, sit in a deer stand…the list goes on and on and on. The bottom line is that he will immediately recognize your effort, and I promise he will perk up, and you will see the little boy in him come out to play.

At the end of the day a relationship is all about effort, commitment and sacrifice. If you just put a little of these 3 ingredients into your man’s biggest love (outside of you and his family of course), I assure you that only the sweetest of treats will be the result.

Click the link below for a women’s guide to understandingcollege football

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke2nI5tRhdA

When Heart Failure Is Funny!

"In 7 short years you'll have all 3 of our girls there for TYKTWD"

Today, April 26th, is National Take Your Kid To Work Day. Our company decided a month ago that we were going to totally blow this out this year. So we planned and coordinated what may just be one of the largest, and most organized Bring Your Kids To Work Day events for our employee's children today. Fully loaded with a meet & greet session for parents and children, a full breakfast, organized meetings, hands on construction training and even a group coaching session by our CEO with the kids. A local news station and our newspaper covered the event. The group coaching session was done during lunch, at which time a couple dozen cheese pizza's were served up for the kids and their parents. I brought my lunch today in an effort to avoid the hurt burn and extra calories. So fortunately, I got a lunch letter today. Unfortunately, It gave me a heart attack! Well... almost...

So here is the root of my heart sinking to my stomach...I only have 2 daughters!!! The note states I have 3...As I read this note to myself with all of our employees and their children around me I sunk into a state of complete shock. Immediately, the screams of the kids, and their laughter of their parents began to fade until all I could hear was a faint, high pitched ringing in my ears. 

Shock 1: My wife be pregnant! We just started working on this...

Shock 2: How could my wife tell me she is pregnant in a lunch note, on a napkin!

Shock 3: How am I going to get through the rest of this day knowing my wife is pregnant, and not be able to see her, or give her a hug and tell her how excited and scared I am all at the same time!!!

So in order to keep my sanity, and prevent myself from having a total melt down in front of our staff I sent a quick text to confirm the status of the lunch note. 

I'm such an idiot too! In the shock of thinking my wife was pregnant I couldn't even figure out the acronym for take your kid to work day...granted her penmanship is a bit off on her letters. 

Can you remember a misunderstanding of this magnitude in your relationship? Something funny that happened between you and your spouse that you still laugh about to this day? I really believe that when someone says "the good ole' days"....they are ultimately talking about the memories we are making in the prime of our lives. Times like right now. 

I want to challenge you to take just 5 minutes out of your day today. Turn your phone on silent, shut your door and REFLECT. Reflect on your relationship, and find a tiny memory. Find one that makes you smile from ear to ear. Make sure it is something you have not thought about in months...maybe even years. You can't imagine just how good it will feel to find a thought like that. And when your five minutes is up and you have your memory, open your pocket, stuff that memory in there and carry it with you all week. 

Swift kick in the pants!

“I packed you extra nuts today so you can stand up to the O.C. crowd.”

As the Chief Operating Officer of one of the country’s largest home building companies there is something about the spring time that just stresses me out to the max. When April hits it means it is time for me to meet with each of our many communities for their annual HOA meetings. For the most part all of our home owners are very happy, and wonderful to work with. However, for some reason there are always a few individuals in the crowed who find a real pleasure in raising their voices, and pointing fingers (and those fingers go straight at me).  Well…tonight is my first meeting of the year, and my anxiety has been particularly high at home.

After whining and complaining to my wife she finally told me last night in a stern voice “Babe…toughen up! It’s not like this is your first rodeo. You got this.” I was a little taken back, but as I thought about it more and more I realized she was right.

I know that most of my time on this blog has been spent detailing how a wife should back her husband, and be kind and so on…HOWEVER…there comes a time when the lady of the house needs to give her man a swift kick in the pants, and hit his reset button. While men are definitely built tough (at least we like to think we are) there are times where we doubt ourselves, and our ability to get a job done. And I can tell you first hand…this is a BAD feeling, and ALL men go through this a some point in their life.

Heather’s lunch letter today was sending me the message that I needed to man up, and take control of my situation. Without her “nudge” I would still be feeling sorry for myself, wondering if I would be able to pull tonight’s meeting off. But she is so right (as usual) about this.

The next time your husband seems like he is doubting himself or complaining, and you are confident he can get the job done, let him know it. Sure you should be careful how you choose your words, but as a man we are wired to be able to take a tough conversation and turn it into a motivating moment. Ladies, haven’t you ever watched a sports movie with your husband? Imagine how those coaches talk to their players. They get in their players faces, yell and scream and ride them until they get the play right. Famous athletes always thank their coaches after a big win for being so hard on them. That’s because their coaches believed in them more than they believed in themselves. And that is how you should handle the man in your life (this goes for your sons too)! Believe in him more than he believes in himself. Give him some tough love every now and then….Do this in a loving way, and you will watch him win more in life than you ever imagined. Best of all…guess who he will thank, and give the credit to when the game is over?

Room with a view



“I love you, and trust you enough to still let you join a running club.”

I have two favorite times of the day during the week, and they are equally special to me. One is that every evening we eat dinner as a family at the breakfast table (FYI – Our dining room table has seen 3 meals in 2 ½ years – I’ll save that one for another blog), and the other is that my wife and I wake up early, and while I’m getting ready for work we have about 20 minutes to talk, and catch each other up on the days events. It’s kind of like a debriefing of the day, and this time keeps us on the same page for the most part. So last night I had the craziest dream about joining a running club. In the running club there was an attractive girl that kept chasing me. Eventually I wound up in the middle of a break in at a house where a friend of mine was trying to steal this girls huge flat screen TV. I know…it was crazy! While I’m in the shower I tell my wife the entire dream…ever last embarrassing detail. She was laughing, shaking her head, and at one point seemed a little concerned about how the dream could be interpreted.

On my drive into the office I was thinking about my wife’s reaction to the dream, and now that I see her note for today there is a very important point I want to drive home. This is my point…Ladies…give your husband room to be honest. Here is what I mean…Imagine if my wife reacted in a way that she was really upset about my dream…Truthfully, in some ways she did have the right to be concerned about the dreams content. She could have taken a totally negative approach, grilled me about who the girl was, and give me the 3^rd degree. You can probably guess what would happen the next time I had a dream and wanted to tell her about it.

I would certainly think twice about doing so.

Instead, my wife chose to take this dream, and use the conversation to show me how much she trusts me. As a husband, to know my wife trusts me, and has my back means more to me than anything in this world. Husbands need this type of confidence because it’s crucial to the role we play as a “guardian” to our family. With this lunch letter my wife single handedly showed me that she isn’t going to let something silly like a dream get in the way of our relationship. She gave me room to tell the truth! As a result, I will continue to open up, and share all of my feelings with her.

At the end of the day trust is all about confidence in another person. It is so fragile and delicate, and must be protected at all times. If you are in a relationship where trust and confidence are lacking it is something that must be addressed in order for a healthy relationship to exist. There is no room for anything less than the truth, even if someone has good intentions by trying to "protect someones feelings." I understand there are relationships where someone is actually afraid to be honest, because their partner would read so far into something that the truth would cause more damage than a little white lie. If you are on either side of this situation you need to realize this is a major relationship emergency. Check your marriage into rehab, and fix this immediately. Everyone needs “room to tell the truth.” Don’t be quick to react, give your partner the benefit of the doubt and ALWAYS HAVE YOUR SPOUSES BACK.

Oh the pain...

“I miss you already! I love you!”

The day is short, and I’m heading out of town soon for my trip that I spoke about in yesterday’s blog. I’m limited on time but I have to tell you that last night my wife gave me 8 cards (I couldn’t make this up ya’ll). One card for the road, one for each morning and one card for each night. So it looks like I will have some notes/cards to post when I return.

I think it’s neat that you can miss someone before they are actually gone. Just the pure anticipation of the separation totally changes your body’s chemistry. It adds an element to a relationship much like when you first begin dating. It’s really nice to return to that anxiousness (or at least a different form of it) from time to time. When you miss someone so much it hurts, you are definitely with the right one!

Do not be a zoo keeper!

“Only 72 48hours until your adventure begins JI love you baby”

There is one concept that is missed by most wives…and when Isay missed…I mean MISSED! By nature, men need comradery.  We need to feel a sense of brotherhood, andfrom time to time men just need to get away with the guy’s, curse a little, burpand fart a lot and tell the same stories with “the guy’s.” If your shaking yourhead right now and thinking “that’s such a typical guy thing to say…my husbanddoesn’t need to do that” well then I have a wakeup call for ya sister! If youdon’t encourage your hubby to get away with his pals for a little “man time”than you have clipped the wings of an eagle.  And if you are one of those womenwho refuse to give “permission” to your spouse to enjoy some time away, youhave essentially casterated the lion. Im mean for cryin' out loud its already been tamed, and lives in a cage. Seriously...don't be a zoo keeper!

Consider this…from the beginning of time men have been thegathers. They roamed the land searching for food, killed their prey and broughtit back to the village to eat. They did this as a group. Rarely did huntersseek out meals alone. Picture these dirty, hairy, smelly cavemen returning totheir village with their animals in hand…I can just hear them grunting and seethem pounding their filthy hands on their hairy bare chests. All trying to outdo theother… Now imagine the stories those cave women had to listen over and overagain. And newsflash…if they ever corrected their exaggerating cave-husband and said anything like “now honey…the dinosaur youkilled wasn’t THAT big” it would be WAAAAP! Right upside the head with a club.Now I am certainly not condoning the clubbing of wives so don’t hit the deletebutton just yet. Believe it or not I’m getting to a really good point here.

In 2 days I will leave for my annual backpacking trip with some of my oldcollege roommates. You have no idea how many of them will be telling storiesover the 4 day trip about how their wife hasn’t talked to them for 2 weeks becausethey are so upset with them for leaving. And then there’s myself and Jason. Jason has a great supporting wife who is one of the kindest people you would ever meet. Wewill laugh at these other guy’s the entire time because our wives gave us somuch support. And while the other guy’s are sitting around the camp firetalking about how selfish their ladies back home are…guess what? Me and oleJason will be sitting there with a smile on our faces, and all the whilewondering why we came into the woods because we miss our wives and kids sostinking much. It never fails. Jason and I, every year, do nothing but mope inconfidence because we are so homesick. Sure…it is FANTASTIC to get away. Butreally, you can’t imagine how much I miss my wife.

If you struggle with letting your husband spread his wings alittle you might want to try changing things up. Heck…you could even suggestthat he go enjoy some time with the guy’s. Watch his face when you encouragehim to go play golf or go fishing with a buddy…while he is gone send him a text(don’t call) about how happy you are that he is getting some guy time….and whenhe comes home have something fabulous ready for him for dinner. I’m tellingyou, he will be so impressed with your attitude that it could be a real gamechanger.

*Disclaimer: this blog is based uponan every now and then occurance. In no way to I support spending more time awayfrom the family than with them. Unless your husband is into deer hunting. …ifthat is the case you just out of luck J