Tag: christian dating

13 things to do unplugged with your spouse

Published on by Jamie Shugart1 Comment

Is your love language quality time?  Is your spouse’s love language quality time?  Do you hate how much time we spend staring at our phones instead of being present with one another and fully invested in the moment?  Friend, I am here for you!  

But first thing’s first—if you want to follow along with our adventures of newlywed life, turning a house into a home, and all of the highs and lows of everyday life, click the subscribe button on the right (or at the bottom if you’re on mobile).  It doesn’t send you crazy stuff or give your information to anyone—it just sends blog updates directly to you!

Friend, today I have 13 fun and unique things to do together with your spouse that do not involve social media, computers, or screen time of any kind.  Put those phones away and stare into each others eyeballs for a sec, okay?

Let’s get started.

#1. Make something together.  Whether you just picked up a new piece of furniture that has much assembly required or you want to repaint a dresser you picked up at a garage sale, get to work together!

#2. Have a picnic in your backyard.  Spring is springing, the grass is greening, and the sun is shining.  Break out your biggest floppy hat, spread a quilt on the driest patch of grass you can find, and have no fear of drinking wine outdoors.  It’s your private property, after all!  And no one has to drive!  Don’t forget the sunscreen, though.  Winter has left you pale and vulnerable.

#3. Break out the instruments and have your own concert.  Will and I play piano, guitar, and all manner of brass instruments.  I love having worship nights together.  Print those chord charts or piano music ahead of time and put those phones away.  This is time for just you two.

#4. Bake something!  Make banana bread, cheesecake, or all manner of unhealthy treats.  You can share them with friends, or be greedy and enjoy the whole thing together.  Bonus points if you enjoy the fruits of you labor by candlelight.  

#5. Prayer time.  Write a list of prayer requests and pray over them together.  Pray over your marriage, your spouse, your family, your house, your dog, your cat, your jobs, etc.

#6. Create a vision board for your marriage.  This is about your vision, your goals, your mission statement, and your desires that you create together for your marriage.  Like I desire regular date nights with each other, no matter what season of life we are in.  Side note: if you are NOT crafty—like me—you can just create a fancy list or excel spreadsheet.  It’s basically the same, right?

#7. Go on a leisurely walk (don’t forget to bring the dog).  Whether around your neighborhood or a nice nearby park, pick a sunny day and take a long walk together.  If you’re on the east coast, don’t forget that bug spray.  The mosquitoes are coming!

#8. Have a double date and go try a new local restaurant or ask your friends where their favorite place in town is.  Don’t forget to splurge on dessert.  It’s the little things.

#9. Have a bonfire, roast s’mores, and tell ghost stories.  Bonus points if you camp out in the backyard afterwards.

#10. Game night!  Whether you play Nertz, Monopoly (not suggested for sensitive/competitive souls such as myself), or some crazy deck building game, make sure there’s a prize for the winner.  

#11. Couples who work out together stay together.  If you’re both active, create a workout plan that combines both of your favorite moves and techniques that you can do at home.  You could go on a run, or complete a squat and pushups pyramid challenge.  Will and I enjoy showing off our best ab moves to each other.

#12. Go out to the ball game.  Eat a hot dog and cheer on your local team.  Make sure to dress in team colors but watch out for the kiss cam.  

#13. Have a coffee date on your front porch.  Watch the world go by and just enjoy the moment with each other.

The world is so busy and fast!  We sometimes forget to just slow the heck down and enjoy the little things.  Even if you literally need to schedule a block of time to be with each other and enjoy each other, DO IT.  It is so very important.

Do you have any ideas that I didn’t mention?  Leave them in the comments below!  If you enjoyed this post, please give it a like and don’t forget to join the family and subscribe if you haven’t already.

Until next time,
Jamie out

our day date to a super old house

Published on by Jamie Shugart3 Comments

About a week or so ago, Will took me on a fantastic day date to a place I had been dying to visit.  I’m a sucker for dates and romance.  This one just tugged at my heart strings and was a perfect morning spent reflecting on history, how people used to live, and the things we take for granted now.  Like freezers, freedom, and air conditioning in the south.

The 1897 Poe House is located near downtown Fayetteville.  No, it was not owned by the poet, but by a prominent family that made and sold bricks.  In fact, much of the foundation of this home is made out of bricks made by Mr. Poe, although the deeds to everything they owned, including the company were in his wife’s name, per the prenup.  

The Poe’s apparently ordered this home out of a Sears catalog, which was not uncommon.  Everything was sent to a local carpenter who built it for them.  

We got to tour pretty much everything in the home and our tour guide explained how North Carolina had obtained the property, how much it cost to restore it, and what things the Poe’s daughter had renovated and converted from what it was originally.  It was interesting to see how a well off family lived, with their ice box, grocers delivering goods, cook and maids, and two stair cases.

Actual dishes that the Poe family owned.

I’m super into this dating thing.  If you couldn’t tell.

Until next time,

Jamie out

5 things I learned in 5 months of marriage

Published on by Jamie Shugart1 Comment

Will and I just recently celebrated five months of being married!  We’re basically experts on the topic now.

Joking.

We were blessed to go through very little long distance time during dating and a lot of one on one time to get to know one another.  We asked each other a lot of hard questions, ranging from politics and religion, to hopes and dreams.  We were very intentional from the beginning about getting to know one another in a safe and healthy way, and to see if this could be the real thing.

Obviously, we got married, so we feel pretty strongly about one another.  We still continue to learn and grow in our relationship, and we’re not here to offer advice.  This is just us sharing us, and the five things we have learned in our five months of marriage.

I am not a morning person!

I do not want to see or hear another human being in the morning.  If I have to speak, it’s even worse.  Text?  Heck to the no.  Give me a shower in peace.  Let me get ready without interrupting my train of thought.  Give me coffee and back away slowly.

I gave Will fair warning on this one.  We even asked some advice from a couple of our good friends who are also opposites in this area.  The husband is the morning person while the wife is not.  He said that it took him a long time to realize that it was nothing personal—that they were just different and it wasn’t a bad thing.  They even get ready in different bathrooms in the morning!

Let’s be honest, we aren’t always on our best behavior, and our spouse sees that side more than others.  This will probably be a constant area of growth for us as a couple, and for me especially once we have kids.  I would love to love the morning time so if you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them!

 

PooPourri is no joke.

I thought it was, but boy was I wrong.  In amongst all of our wedding gifts, we came across a bottle of “PooPourri” in a lavender scent.  I laughed, “Haha!  What a great gift!  Newlyweds can’t poop around each other.  In fact, women don’t poop at all!”  

If you don’t know, PooPourri comes in multiple scents, in a little spray bottle that you are supposed to spray into a toilet before… well, you know.  It uses essential oils to trap odors.

I set the gift aside and it became an anecdote that I shared with friends and family during wedding week.  I secretly thought it would be great in a guest bathroom, just in case.  

Friends, you don’t need details, but let’s just say that after a bad experience with Mexican food and a very long night to follow, PooPourri will be a staple in our household.  In every bathroom.  Until the end of time.

 

He might want to order his own fries.

“Joey doesn’t share food!”

From a guy who had never seen Friends before we started dating, Will took to this quote like a fat kid on cake.  I’m ashamed to say that the first time Will insisted I order my own fries, I got a little hurt.  

Okay, maybe more than just a little.  I sat and sulked through the entire meal and continued to bring it up even weeks afterwards.

Just because we expect things to go one way, doesn’t mean that they will.  I realized that my parents always share their french fries.  They order a bigger size to share and I’ve always found it super adorable.  Will, on the other hand, didn’t find me wanting to eat his french fries all that endearing.  

Some issues in relationships can arise from unmet expectations.  If I find myself getting upset, I try to evaluate where it’s coming from, and if I realize I had an expectation that isn’t being met, I know where the emotion is coming from.  I also find it important to communicate with Will when that happens.  

“I can’t eat a small thing of french fries by myself most of the time,” I explained.  “So I feel like I’m wasting money for just a couple fries.”  

We’ve decided that springing for a large to share is a good idea for us.

 

Laundry becomes a huge thing.

Like… there’s only two of us.  How can washing clothes, drying clothes, and folding clothes become so much of an  exponentially larger chore than it was for just one person?  We don’t even have kids or pets!  

Also, I have never owned my own washer and dryer.  I have been trespassing on the hospitality of my family since I moved out in 2012.  Now that Will and I have been at a hotel for the past three months, I have been using the hotel’s (very inexpensive and stubborn) washer and dryer that work about half of the time.  I often have an explosion of clothing hanging up to dry in our bedroom.  And because it takes about three or four hours to dry three loads of laundry, folding everything gets put on the back-burner and… you get the idea.  

 

Sleeping in the same bed is my favorite thing ever.

Also, not having to say goodbye at the end of the day is fantastic.

Will and I did not live together before we got married.  He never slept over at my apartment.  Not even once.  And because I lived alone and there was no built-in accountability roommate, we avoided ever being in my bedroom together like the plague. 

Our number one, very favorite thing about being married is getting to sleep in the same bed.  It’s kind of like having a sleepover with your best friend every single night.  

So, for any newlyweds or engaged couples, I guess the only advice I would dare to give at this point is that if you can swing going to bed at the same time as one another, you should absolutely do it.  The pillow talk is great and it is a super special time for just the two of you.  It also gets you on the same sleeping schedule, and that has been helpful for me and Will out here in Arizona.  

 

Like I said, I feel like I need to have been married for about a decade before I can give solid marriage advice, so I’m not about that life on this blog just yet.  I think marriage advice from me would be the same as me trying to give a mom parenting advice—just bad news.  But I AM here to share our lives and experiences.  

If you dig it, give this post a like!  Have any advice for us, other newlyweds, or engaged couples?  Leave it in the comments below!  Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button and join our family.

Until next time,
Jamie out.