Small investment big return

It's 11 PM and we just got home from an exciting basketball game as Piedmont knocked off Maryville at home. I still don't like Maryville. (I wish it were easier to switch back and forth between text colors. Probably not a whole lot of people do that.) Maryville has the worst school colors ever. Maroon and orange are not a good combination. 

In any event, it's always fun when we beat Maryville. Jen's team did it often back in the day, but the men's team never did when I was playing. Yeah you should have said it's always fun when OTHER people beat Maryville since you never did. One thing that made this one even more fun for me is calling the game on the radio. I've been able to follow the team closely and get to watch them improve game by game, currently on a 7 game winning streak.

Having said all that, it is a pretty big time commitment for me. I'm doing both the men's and women's games, and there are I think 11 games in January, and I had games this past week on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. That means our kids have been either without their dad or at the gym. What's wrong with being at the gym? And it also means I don't have my personal chef for dinner. 

I have tried to get the boys involved a little. I've had the kids on the air a little bit, and they both have used the extra headset to listen in to large portions of the game. And they've really enjoyed it. In fact, Reilly is Chase England's biggest stalker...I mean fan.

But no matter what, it is still a struggle...maybe struggle isn't the right word...it's still difficult to manage the boys either at home or at the gym while he is enjoying himself so much. 

At first I wasn't a big fan of the idea (at first?). If you read my last blog post, I'm already spending a lot of time on my own with the kids So the added time of him being away is difficult for me. I talk to kids all day long.

Not to mention, if she brings the kids to the game, they are often going to bed really late. I think they just now all three fell asleep at 11:10 PM. (On a side note, we're not those really good parents that do a good job of keeping their kids on a schedule. If you're looking for advice on that, go read another blog. Or talk to Jacob and Robin Thome. They were always good at it,) What that means is that tomorrow they might struggle to get up and get focused in the morning. And what that means is they will be big pains in the hind-end tomorrow.

A few things to take away from this...

First, as Jen mentioned, she was not and probably is not a big fan of the time I've committed to this venture. But, she knows that I enjoy it. Maybe she thinks it's a stupid thing to enjoy, but she knows I do. I don't think it's stupid. That's not a nice thing to say. I don't think it's stupid...I just miss you. Hahaha! I literally laughed in her face. But in all seriousness, both of us have to be careful about things we choose to allow to take up our time. With Jen doing photography, our time together is even more limited since much of the sessions are done on weekends or after work hours.

I try to go with her as much as I can, especially on the weekends when the opportunity presents itself. And she tries to go to the games with me when she can, or if she can't she even sometimes listens to me on the radio and texts me to tell me my side comments are killing her. Well, that's because the comments are stupid. But this is the second take away...when your spouse enjoys something, even if you don't quite get why they enjoy it, try to support them, but more than that, try to participate with them in some way. I just want to point out here that I have no hobbies. What do you call LuLaRoe then? That's called an addiction.

Another take away from this that we learned a long time ago is that it is important to invest time in your marriage, or more importantly into each other.When we were first married, we spent a great deal of time apart due to both of us working long hours at our jobs. Yours was more fun. At the time we were not devoting much time into growing our relationship. I think we suffered because of that. Every day of our marriage is the new best day of my life. (...sigh...eye roll...) What he means to say is, we are a work in progress (key word...work), and part of that work is spending time with each other and learning about each other. For instance, when your wife tells you exactly what she wants for Christmas and you go out and do the opposite, you probably should spend more time learning about each other.

(Changing subject) I think it's important that, even though there are times when one spouse will do things apart from the family that most of the time is spent together. We pretty much do everything together. (This kids even like to try to join us when we're going to the bathroom. Can I write that? Sure. You should put when one of us goes to the bathroom, It sounds like we're all going to the bathroom.) Maybe our outside friendships suffer because of that, but that's not the most important thing in my view. It's possibly also because we don't have any friends. That's not true. But we make every effort to never spend nights apart and always have. 

In the end, your spouse is who you will end up with, and by investing your time and learning to enjoy what they enjoy, you're investing in a happier future for yourselves. And you know what they say, a happy wife is a happy life (do guys even read blogs?).