Monday, February 4, 2013

A little more of the same


Here goes Sharon Jayne's fourth day of the romance challenge.

Romance Challenge

  • Make a list of 10-15 things you admire about your husband and send it to him in an email, post it on his Facebook wall, or tape it on his bathroom mirror.
  • Make him a little card the size of a credit card that says: Lifetime Member of the AAA Club of Marriage. I admire, adore and appreciate you.
  • Make an intimate coupon booklet for your husband and put it in his underwear drawer. Get a simple small notepad. Tear off all but 26 sheets. Make the first sheet the cover sheet that says Coupon Booklet for My Man. On the next 25 sheets, write something you know he would love. You can repeat certain ideas that you know he really loves. Ask him if he would like to redeem one of the coupons tonight.
In case you dont feel like clicking over to her blog to check out today's motivation for yourself, here's a little info she cross posted from a book by Dr Steve Stephens.  That wasnt very nice of his parents to call him that btw.  Anyhow in his book, Twenty Surprisingly Simple Rules and Tools for a Great Marriage, he lists four types of compliments.
  • One type is a compliment of possession, such as, “I love that sweater.”
     
  • The second type is a compliment of appearance such as, “That sweater brings out the blue in your eyes.”
     
  •  The third type is a compliment related to behavior such as,  “That was very sweet to let that car go in front of you today.”
     
  • And the fourth type of compliment is one of character, such as “Someone asked me what the definition of integrity was, and my mind immediately went to you.”
Sharon goes on to challenge us to look for ways to give our husbands a compliment every day.
"Pay attention to your husband and take note of his appearance, behavior, and character qualities. Then sprinkle a few compliments his way. Your husband may be confused or skeptical with this sudden showering of praise. He may say, “What’s up with all the compliments all of a sudden?”
If that is his reaction, just say, “I’d forgotten what a wonderful man I’m married to, and I’m realizing it more and more every day!”"

So you might remember that yesterday's praise and admiration challenge felt like overkill to me so i backed off and did a back scrub.
Today is Christophe's 42nd birthday.
And im going in for the (over)kill lol.

I have made him roasted caramelized beets.  i HATE beets (the smell, the texture, BLERK! it's my least favorite food in the world.  he LOVES beets.  so making him beets is a huge sacrifice for me lol.  and one he should really enjoy.  he often eats those nasty prebroiled or whatever beets in the plastic shrinkwrap crap from the grocery store so i'm telling you freshly roasted beets should be a treat!

I'm making him a tarte à la pomme with homemade pate brisée  .  I know, sounds like the worst birthday cake in the world but tarte à la pomme is his favorite desert ever so ...whatever lol.

I didnt buy him a gift because he doesnt ever want anything and if he does happen to want it he gets it for himself right away.  the only things he gets excited about are sports clothes and accessories and he's very picky about it.  for my knitting friends imagine wanting some beautiful smokey blue cashmere merino silk yarn and your husband going out of his way to pick you up that "perfect blue yarn you've been pining for" in the likes of a 100% acryl-ick 80's electric blue...lovely!  Well that's what would happen if i got him a bicycle helmet or a pair of running shoes lol.

But i'm going to use sharon's idea of a coupon booklet for a gift.
and i'm going to send him an email birthday card, listing 10 things he has done that i appreciate and/or admire.  Designing, drawing out plans for, organising the whole shebang, finding prices that would make a professional maçon jealous, and building our house by himself (with the exception of a few friends to put the roof beams in place, and paying someone to do the tiling because he'd had enough, and the air conditioner because that surpassed his know-how) in 6 MONTHS!!!! might just be one thing i add to the list.  Even though it's been years, i still think that's pretty darn awesome!

Tomorrow i'll let you all know how these little treats gifts and words of admiration make my DH feel.

While i'm in the kitchen , i am also making "purée of winter root soup".  hope it's  good but kind of afraid : filled with wierdish things like parsnips (discovered only a few weeks ago when i started making homemade vegetable stock from same book), rutabega (never had this in my life), sweet potatoes (a little rich and difficult to swallow for me often), and celeriac.  hmmmm.. we'll see lol.  i hope it's good because there is A TON!
My eat to live plan is going so well :D  1.5 weeks out of 6 down.

2 comments:

Tini said...

The soup sounds nice but then rudabega is kind of a Northern German winter stable :) as well as parsnips. I also like celery but E. is allergic to it, so I often use fennel instead.
I also strongly dislike beet except when a friend of ours makes beet carpaccio with orange peel :)

Rebecca said...

I wonder if E would also beallergic to celery rabe? that big bulbous veggie that tastes like celery? what do you do with your rudabega? and what's your fave parsnip recipe?