Juli's family relations blog

I have always known that Fathers matter in the lives of their children because I had an amazing Dad and his influence along with my mother's was paramount in formulating me.  I was trying to think of the things they helped me become and there isn't anything in my life that they didn't help with in becoming me, the woman I am today.    In our family, we had 7 girls and 2 boys plus a mom and dad.  You might think that being the Dad of 7 girls would make any man crazy, all those hormones raging at different times of the day or month and add to that two boys whose favorite thing to do was tease the girls and make them scream.  At times it was a wild ride but we all love each other and get together as often as possible.   My brothers learned how to be men, husbands and fathers from our dad.  He is one of the kindest men I have ever known.  I don't think I ever heard him say an unkind thing to any of us or about anyone not a part of our family either.  That just wasn't th

Communication-we all try to communicate with those around us but we seem to have a lot of miscommunication going on.  Here is an example from this week.  My son and I went to Great Scotts to get a drink one afternoon.  I generally have a hard rule that I don't want him to drink energy drinks.  He decided that he wanted one and while I was pumping gas, he ordered a drink that contained an energy drink.  I was very angry and communicated that in the store which was an embarrassing situation for all of us and probably the lady helping us behind the counter.  What was the reason for the extreme reaction to ordering a drink, my interpretation of what I believe energy drinks are responsible for.  Whether what I think is true or not, I have assigned meaning to drinking energy drinks that my son doesn't realize and therefore, he believes that I am totally over reacting.  Hence, we have a miscommunication.  Luckily, I had just had my Family Relations class where we had been discussing c

This week, my family relations class was really difficult to sit through.  The discussion was on how families deal with crises' that arise.  We all have them in one form or another but how do we cope?  This was difficult for me because I am currently going through a crisis that I don't know when it will end if it ever will end.  The hole in my heart doesn't seem to be getting any smaller or less painful.  If anything, it seems to be changing but not diminishing.  How to cope is a daily struggle for me and for children,  especially my 14 year old.  Some days I cope better than others as do my children.  I guess my story began about 4 or 5 years ago.  I was serving in my church with a young mom who had 4 kids and a chronically ill husband.  My friend is amazing in how she juggles providing for a family and living with the uncertainty of whether or not her husband will survive his next hospital stay.  Another friend, whom we became close to just 4 months before her crisis, c

As I was pondering on what to write this post about, I am taking a quick trip to visit my parents because my 86 year old dad survived a heart attach last week and I needed to come and see them while the opportunity to see them and visit with them and love them is still a reality in this life.  As I have been pondering on my dad and the relationship I have had with him, My heart swells with love and gratitude.  My dad is an amazing man.  He is one of most kind and gentle men I have every known.  He was also ambitious and accomplished and masculine.  One of the most lasting and loving things that I was blessed to learn from my dad was the way women should be treated.  My parents will celebrate their 64th wedding anniversary in a few days.  For as long as I can remember, my parents have been sweethearts in every sense of the word.  They are passionate, and affectionate even now.   I can remember them having intellectual conversations about every topic under the sun because they included u

This week in our Family Relations class we started talking about the beginning of marriage.  We have been leading up to this discussion all semester.  As most of the students in the class are either newly married, engaged or actively looking to get married or dating, it has been a really fun discussion most of the time.  I'm old but I'm not that old that I can't remember the beginning of our marriage.  The classes have been fun but also very emotionally difficult for me.  Friday was the six month anniversary of Rick's passing.  While sometimes I can't believe he's been gone for six months, other days, it seems like it's been an eternity already.  I miss him terribly so while the discussions have been both fun and difficult, if I could give any advice to the young adults in my class and any young adult just embarking on this incredibly amazing adventure called marriage, I would tell you that baring abuse, make a determination now that divorce is not ever go

This week in our class we talked a lot about dating and the very wise counsel given in a book called, How To Avoid Falling In Love With A Jerk by John Van Epp https://www.amazon.com/How-Avoid-Falling-Love-Jerk/dp/0071548424 When I married 34 years ago, I really was just plain lucky (or blessed )to pick an amazing man to marry because I was only 18.  I loved him and he was an amazing young man, we dated for two years and I thought I knew him because we did each of the things listed below,  but I didn't really know him and I didn't have enough life experience to know the things that would be really important to me as we got into all of the messiness of life.  We shared 33 1/2 amazingly happy years before he died suddenly last December.  I knew him as an amazing husband and father to our 5 kids but I didn't know what an incredible man he was in each of his different roles until after he died.  It was an honor to find out that he was even better than I knew him to be.