It's Just My Nature ~Book Review

It's Just My Nature, written by Carol Tuttle, is a guide to knowing and living your true nature (along with your spouses, and everyone you associate with).  This book helps you identify your primary personality traits, thought processes, body movement, natural gifts, and much much more.

I have always loved and have done many personality tests and quizzes (including the four color groups: red, yellow, blue, and white) just because it fascinates me, but I love this book the most because it goes so much deeper and further than just personality traits.  It really can better help you understand how your or your spouse's mind process gets from A to B, and other things like what might motivate one person and how it differs from another type.  My husband and I have found this information extremely helpful in our marriage, knowing each other better, and knowing that it's okay that the other doesn't move and accomplish things exactly like we think it should be done ourselves.  We are so much more understanding of why certain situations would make us feel certain ways or react differently than the other, and we can "let things go" more easily.

So I would in a heart beat, recommend this book especially for marriages, but also for yourself, or any other relationship that you have with people. OH, and it's helpful with children also, even though it's not really tailored to children, as parents you'd probably be able to figure out their true natures too and have it help with parenting.  I can't stress it enough, read the book, both my husband and I have seen so much valuable knowledge for our marriage from it!  And if you want to borrow mine, I'd be happy to lend it to you!

Here is a link to purchase your own, It's Just My Nature




Happy loving,
Rachelle

The Babysitter Issue

Getting a babysitter for date nights can be a challenge for a number of reasons.  Do your children get anxious and upset if you leave?  Sometimes it seems too expensive if you spend money going out, plus you have to pay a babysitter for staying with your kids.  Or, maybe one or more of you children are really too young to be left with a teen-aged babysitter.  I decided to write down a few ways that help me out with these issues:

1.  Swap free babysitting with your friends or family.  I have done this many times with my other friends in the same situation as me.  I think it is easy enough to watch your friends' kids once a month while they get a night out, and then swap on another night for your chance to get out.  If you want more free babysitting, you can find a couple of friends that want to do this with you, or maybe your siblings and in-laws too!  This is extremely helpful when you have a young baby and you really need another mother that knows how to take care of them well.

2.  At home dates when the kids are in bed.  This works if you have young children that can go to sleep by 8pm.  I do this the most often, and the creative dates I've found for at home are really fun and enriching.  Plus they are really fun to plan!

3.  Spend little to no money while going out.  If you want to get a babysitter, and need to keep the date budget friendly, choose something that is free to do, such as playing Frisbee in the park, or going to a local free event.  Or, getting ice cream or hot chocolate while you spend time talking in a restaurant still gives you time to reconnect without the cost of buying full dinners.  Then, go window shopping and get ideas for upcoming birthdays and such.

4.  A babysitting kit.  Perhaps your children have issues with you leaving them with a babysitter.  Try making a special babysitting kit that can only be brought out if there is a babysitter coming over.  Your child can help you put the bag of games and books together to get them excited and ease the stress of you leaving.  Examples of items you could include in your kit:  play dough, books, games, coloring items, special treats, stickers, alphabet fridge magnets, puppets, movies, and toys. (All these can be found at the dollar store!)

Most of the time it doesn't matter what you do for a date or where you do it, the important thing is that you take a time out with your spouse from the chaos of life and just focus on your love for each other.  It's really important to reconnect with your spouse often, so that's why I think it's beneficial to repeat Love Tip #2 here in this post - it fits perfectly into this topic as well!  You can see where I've used it before here.

Love Tip #2: "Date Frequently. You and your spouse need time together to renew your relationship. New perspectives come with time away from the mundane. That means dating is essential. If you have children but few resources, look for creative ways to go on dates. ...Above all, recognize that a babysitter is cheaper than a divorce."
(Ensign, January 2012, What Happily Married Couples Do, pg. 13)

Do you have more tips when it comes to getting babysitters for your dates?  What other issues do you come across for date nights?  Please share, I would love to hear about them!!!

Happy loving,
Rachelle

The Importance of Dating

I think often in marriages, women still want to court their husbands by going on dates and do fun things like they did before the marriage, but men don't think it's necessary-they already did that, and now that you are married, it's not required.  Or perhaps the issue is that you both want to go out, but don't have the extra money or time to do so.  The truth is, dates are not meant just to do fun things or meant to put a strain on the budget.  Dating is a specific time where you let the troubles of the world go, put everything else on hold, and focus on your love with your spouse.  It's nurturing your marriage, just as if you were going to feed your children breakfast in the morning, your marriage needs to be fed too!

This is especially important if you have children, if you are both going to school, both working, have a home to keep up, schedule way too much in a week, all of the above, or basically live in this day and age.  Because we live in a time period where we think it's normal to take on way more in life (and do it faster and better) than ever in the history of mankind, we usually exhaust ourselves and barely leave time to recuperate.  That leads to zoning out in front of the TV or computer at night, and being too tired to actually interact with our dear loved one for maybe weeks on end!  Maybe this is just me and my life, but I have a suspicion that this could be a universal problem!?!? 

That is why planning a time where you re-connect with your spouse is so important; so that LIFE doesn't over take you.  What happens when you don't nourish a flower with sun, water, and soil?  The flower dies.  When we let life get in the way of nourishing our marriages, they too will wither into nothing.  However, if you regularly care and give attention to your marriage, at any state that it is in, it will grow bigger and more beautiful than ever!!!

Dates are one way to provide opportunities to spend time with your loved one,  to continue to get to know (understand)  them, and allows you to enjoy life together.  Being reminded of why you fell in love in the first place over and over again, through dates, sounds delightful to me!  Who wouldn't want that?

Now, dates are not just defined as going out and spending money together.  As you will see in this blog, many dates I will post about are simply staying home, spending little to no money, but most importantly, focusing on each other.  What a date meant to us as newlyweds, was getting a Jamba Juice and $5.00 pizza to share at the end of the week, and we looked forward to it!  We didn't always have money for that either, and so we have played many card games throughout the years (which we still like to do).  Now, I am thoroughly enjoying discovering new creative dates, that provide new experiences and conversations!  Love tip #2 comes from Douglas Brinley featured in the Ensign magazine, January 2012 issue and I have been loving this lately!

Love Tip #2:  "Date Frequently.  You and your spouse need time together to renew your relationship.  New perspectives come with time away from the mundane.  That means dating is essential.  If you have children but few resources, look for creative ways to go on dates. ...Above all, recognize that a babysitter is cheaper than a divorce."
 (Ensign, January 2012, What Happily Married Couples Do, pg. 13)

What have you learned about dating in your marriage?

Happy loving,
Rachelle

Welcome Friends!!!

Welcome to my new blog, Live Romantique!  The word Romantique is to suggest the art of romance, or loving someone.  I am very excited to have a place to store my many ideas and discoveries that adds fun and romance into my own marriage and hopefully to yours too!  My vision for this blog is to include all things from date ideas, gifts, romantic destinations, food for thought, and basically anything that I find of value for strengthening and maintaining happy (totally fun) marriages!

AND SINCE IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY.....
I first wanted to thank the most important person in my life for loving me and continually striving to make each day better, my husband, you sincerely amaze me!  This Valentine's he gave me many gifts I didn't expect and that I of course adored.  But what I appreciated the most was how he took care of me and our family this past weekend while I was sick along with the two youngest children.  He had planned a Valentine's date for us this weekend and I was of course dissapointed that I didn't feel well enough to keep our plans.  He cheerfully went to the store to pick up things for the sick kids, and came home with surprises for all of us.

A dozen roses, chocolate bar, and a red (my favorite color) crockpot for me.  We needed a bigger crockpot, but seriously, he scored points because he bought the red one.  It's so pretty!  Weird that it brings me happiness, but I love that he knows me!  And the kids got new coloring books and sweetheart candy (Dollar Store).  He also borrowed some movies for us to watch over the weekend.  Despite being sick, this turned out to be a fabulous weekend seeing just how loved I am.  My husband did laundry, at least 5 loads of dishes, cooked the meals, cleaned up vomit from children, helped me get up with the sick baby at night, made cookies, painted our daughter's nails when she requested it, let me take a 3 hour nap, and continued to ask what he could do in advance to help make my Monday easier if I was still feeling sick!  When our house could have so easily been turned upside down, I was shocked to see the kitchen sparkling clean Sunday night and the beautiful roses on the table, and I thought, I am so very lucky to be loved by my husband!!!

 A lot of these things aren't really out of the ordinary for my husband to do for me and the family, but I was grateful that my eyes were opened to see that these things were his way of showing his love and concern.
  Love Tip #1:  Open your eyes and discover the way your spouse shows their love for you daily! 

Happy loving,
Rachelle