Happily Emma After

Growing up, I never had a hard time making friends. With a parent in the military, it was a necessary skill. As a kid, you don’t think of it as being a difficult task; you just sort of did it. As I got older, this task grew more difficult. As an adult, you now are picking friends based on common interests, similar values, or shared experiences. Tougher, but completely do-able. You are bound to find someone that fits the mold. The scariest friends I have ever had to make came much later. They were my in-laws. Back when I had been dating my husband for a few months, it came time to meet his family. I. Was. Terrified. Not only would I be meeting his mom, but also his dad and two of his three brothers. The task was daunting and I was a chicken. Would they like me? What if I don’t fit in? What if they think I’m weird? What if they don’t think my jokes are funny? Forget any melodrama-teeny-bopper “making friends” meltdown. THIS was way harder. Our Wedding April 2019 To sa...

I grew up with a big family. I have four siblings and I am right in the middle of them. Some of my favorite times of year are when we all get together. During these times together, my oldest brother can get bossy and take the (unwanted) lead. This is typically when someone will tease, “Who are you the boss of?” Family in ear shot will usually erupt with roaring laughter. Left: "Boss of his Teddy Bear" Right: My older sister! Center: Yours truly Years and years ago, when we were all just tiny, my brother would boss my sister and me around. His directives were typically met with doe-eyed stares; we were just babes! This is when my mom would coach him on just who he was the boss of. “Alright, now. Who are you the boss of?” she would quiz. His preschooler response: “Me and my teddy bear!” This story shot to my mind when I saw the title of the article I read this week: Who Is the Boss? by Dr. Richard Miller. “It was not my brother and his teddy bear…” I thoug...

I once had a roommate come home from grocery shopping with a new plant, showing everyone in the apartment. She was so excited to get it home to add it to her (dying) collection. With forced excitement (because she was always buying new plants) we shouted our “yipees” for our new leafy roomie. “What a shame,” I thought. “It’ll die like the rest of them.” To my dismay, my roommate religiously tended to the plant. Maybe this little guy would make it. Weeks passed. Her other plants died a slow, shrivel-y death, but that little guy she brought home was still kickin’! The plant looked as good as the day she got him. A short time later, we discovered her plant to be fake. My roommate was heartbroken, left with a graveyard of empty pots and her lifeless, evergreen plant. It's all smiles and rainbows until you realize your plant is fake. This sad, although comical, story came to mind when reading about a deeper, weightier subject. In Dr. Goddard’s book, Drawing Heaven into Your...

I love getting my home “in order” for the week. One way I do this is running errands on Mondays. This is the day I get a lot of things checked off the to-do list. Turning  inecycling, paying bills, mailing off packages, and grocery shopping. I enjoy this weekly “Day of Errands.” It gets me out of the house and I’m sometimes able to squeeze in my favorite thrift store. The "focus faces" you use when working towards your goals. By the time I get through my mile-long list, plus the unloading that needs to be done, the reality of making dinner is but a fairy tale. High hopes for a delicious homemade meal dissolve. The pending result? A disappointing night of leftovers, cereal, or an expensive pizza pick-up. Funny enough, we could be setting ourselves up for this same disappointment, but in our marriages. In Dr. Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work , he talks about people who have the highest-quality marriages are those who have high expectat...

Let’s pretend we’re planning a birthday party! (For the sake of this example, my husband is the person I’m planning it for). Together we decided where it’s going to be. We’ve narrowed down what weekend we think would be best. It’s a no-brainer that there will be good food there! And don’t forget a really good dessert! The face you make when you realize your birthday party is your WORST NIGHTMARE. The day of the party arrives and Neal shows up. In attendance is all of his extended family and everyone he works with. The room is decorated with rainbows and glitter confetti! (Yay!) In a land-locked state, seafood is the only thing on the menu. But don’t forget dessert! It’s jello fluff salad! Lastly, it’s a raging party that is planned to be ALL night! Now, if Neal actually walked into a party like this, he’d probably strongly consider walking out. A party attuned to Neal’s taste would look very different. There would be a small group of Neal’s closest friends in attendance....

Pride is an iconic flaw that often afflicts some of our favorite characters in entertainment. Prince Adam, in Beauty and the Beast , allowed his pride to keep him from sheltering an old woman (which led to his dismal circumstances). From Star Wars, Anakin’s (aka Darth Vader’s) pride catapulted him to become everything he had sworn to destroy. The Evil Queen in Snow White was compelled to murder because she was dead-set determined to be the “fairest of them all.” Lastly, one of my favorites, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice . Those knuckleheads almost let their pride get in the way of their love! (Those dummies.) In consuming these different forms of media, I will find myself frustrated with characters for their silly follies of pride. “Why can’t they just get over themselves?” or “My heavens, why are you being so dumb?” are often the questions that run through my head. It should be simple right? From the outside, looking in, we have all the answ...

By nature, I am a very boisterous, effervescent person. I love making friends and having a good time. Since getting married, I have discovered an untapped passion for hosting parties and dinners! I love a good joke and will laugh to my heart’s content upon hearing it. Baby-anythings always inspire an elongated, “Aw” from me and sometimes even tears with sobbing words of “It’s so  cute!”   When I love, I love deeply (and I will stick to ‘em like super glue). I am very much a dreamer in all aspects of life. I am constantly thinking up, sketching out, and writing down my ideas. When he does find my jokes amusing, this is the smiling chuckle. (I AM funny and he knows it!) My husband is very much an even-keeled, unflappable man. He has a small, tight-knit group of friends that changes at the pace of molasses in the middle of January. A vast majority of the time, he prefers a night at home with books or a good movie over a night on the town.   His laugh is more of a c...

I love plants! I love looking at them. I love picking them out! I love admiring the variety of colors and textures. And MOST of all, I love taking care of them! Plants, however, are tricky. You need to know how to take care of them. If not the death of your plant is likely. I, unfortunately, have learned this multiple times over. I have killed a plant from over-watering. I have killed a plant from leaving it in the shade. I have killed a plant from leaving it in the Arizona summer sun. I have killed a plant from not understanding the directions on its tag. I have killed plants from potting the wrong ones with each other. I have killed a plant from it dropping off my tailgate right after buying it. I have killed a plant when it flew out the window of my car. (I was going on a trip and was worried it would die while I was gone . Ironically, it died while I was there.) I have killed a plant from leaving it in the car to go into IKEA “real quick.” (There is no such thing as a...

Growing up in the military, you learn to make friends quickly with very little, if any, regard to commonalities. My sister growing up would often ask my mom if she could play at her friend’s house. When asked which one, she would respond with, “the one with the [insert color here] shirt!” If you were our age and liked toys too, BOOM, friends. Thankfully, in a military community, everyone was on the same boat you were; looking for a friend. The fact alone made making friends easier. With getting older, you can’t necessarily go up to someone and say, “Hey! I like your shirt. Let’s be friends!” I mean—you could, but I don’t know how successful you’d be. Most people would probably think you were a weirdo. It was easier, by far, to make friends as a kid. But friendships that last a lifetime? For me, that’s a steep standard to meet. Top: Amy and I on a road trip to Seattle! Left: Me and Danica WAY back in the day! Right: Being a sister and  best friends MEANS photo bomb...

Many people grew up hearing fairy tales. They came with a wide variety of settings and characters. More often than not, these children’s stories always shared a moral or lesson to be learned. In teaching these lessons they were often very black and white; you could always tell who the “bad guy” was. An often used “bad guy” in children’s stories was a wolf. We see this in “Little Red Riding Hood,” where she and her grandmother are devoured by the wolf. We also see this in “The Three Little Pigs,” were they each built different shelters to protect themselves from a hungry wolf. And lastly, we see it in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” where a boy foolishly gives false alarm so, when real danger comes, again a wolf, no one heeds his true alarm. We see this same setting in the Bible’s New Testament as well. In John chapter ten, we learn the story of the hireling and a shepherd. A hireling, back in the day, was someone employed to undertake menial work. So, as assumed, they would not b...

We're the Hansens! We were married early April of 2019. My husband and I have been married just over eight  months. Last summer, before we were married (heck, before we even met) my husband bought a house. When I found out this not-so-little news, I was THRILLED. I would browse the pictures on the real estate site and day-dream of our cute lil’ 1950-something fixer-upper. It was going to be beautiful; just like off of HGTV. What a dream…. …What a nightmare. Our drive way is a forty-five-degree angle. There are SEVEN layers of contact paper in our kitchen cupboards. There was no outlet it our retro lavender and dusty blue bathroom. Fifty-four gaping holes from past screws and nails filled the walls of our tiny hallway. And, call me crazy, but is the door at the end of the hallway crooked?? I was concerned to say the least. But then, I stopped to really think about it. My marriage is like this little house. “Emma, that’s dumb. You just listed all these horrible, ...