Money

I have always been taught, from as far back as I can remember, how to take care of money. In fact, one of my most fondest memories is of the ceramic piggie bank my dad gave to me one year when I was a little girl(he said I was always really good at saving my money). From an early age I gave 10% of any money that I had to the Church for tithing. My parents also opened up a savings account for each of their girls when we were younger to teach us the value of saving money. I received money for my report cards: so much for an A & B, nothing for a C, and if we got D's or F's, we had to pay our parents (luckily that never happened!). I remember I would always be so excited when report cards came around because I would always have such good grades, then I would promptly go to the store and look at cacti....yes, as in plural cactus. For some really weird reason, I loved cacti. Every time I had money I asked my mom to take me to the store so I could by another cactus. Weird, I know (hilarious now that I look back on it!). To sum up, we were definitely taught the value of money from an early age.

Once I turned 15, I got my first job and started saving any money I earned. Once I turned 16, I got my driver's license and then spent the money I earned on things like gasoline (a few clothes here and there, but I was never much of a material girl). Once I turned 18, I was off to college. By this time I had quite a bit of money saved up.....and as soon as I was out of the roost, my spending habits took a drastic change and I felt the need to spend my money on everything and anything that looked good to me (hair dye, clothes, food, shoes, car accessories, you get the idea....).  Since then, money and I have had our ups and downs, but I am definitely the one with the budgeting skills in our family.
I think its time we heard from my dear hubby on the matter.......

Growing up I had a very skewed concept of Money. My parents were extremely generous and for this I am grateful. My mother would often give us dollar bills here or there to spend on school lunch or whatever we could scrounge at the local market. 

As my siblings and I became adolescents and teenagers I do not remember ever having the talk about how to balance a paycheck.... Never mind my wife just corrected me and its actually called a checkbook. Case and point, I learned to manage money the hard way. 

I probably didn't get much sympathy in terms of watching every last penny I earned go to  'God knows what' because I didn't even have a decent job until I was 18, and even then I was quite the naive slacker. When I moved away from home I learned real quick that if you don't manage your money other people will manage it for you. Although I was convinced that my naivety would somehow miraculously play itself out It never did and I was poor. 

So lesson learned: If your poor get married and convince your spouse to be your personal accountant. Although the traditionalists will question your masculinity take pride in knowing that at least your dollar is going to a good cause: Family.

 

The dinner table

(the wife's viewpoint:)
So lately manners have been a topic of discussion in our humble abode. I was brought up to be very polite and pretty much always put others feelings before mine (not that my parents said “everyone else’s feelings are more important than yours!” or anything, it’s just how I ended up) and to always be courteous and make everyone feel comfortable. I find these to be good traits and always kind of prided myself on being Mrs. Manners (elbows on the table? Not me! Chewing with my mouth open? Never! Making sure everyone is comfortable and happy? Always.). I have never in my life thought any of these qualities to be a detriment to my personality until last night as we were driving home from my parents house and my handsome husband say: “You know what always drives me crazy about going to your parents house?”

(Oh great, here we go again) “……What…….?”

“Everyone is always SO polite!”
Huh?

(the husband's viewpoint:)
Growing up in a home, where there was absolutely nothing holding me or my 2 sisters back from letting loose at the dinner table, highlights one of the cornerstone traits of my personality. Top 3 things you would never see at my childhood home:

1) Prayer & reverence
2) Sharing or consideration
3) Good manners

3 things you most likely see:

1) Inapropriate jokes made constantly (even in front of grandma!)
2) Shoveling food into our mouths similar to the simpsons.
3) Laughing so hard that millk squirts out your nose all over the main dish.

So you can see that in comparison, I become bored with politeness. I have nothing against it of course. In fact I encourage it now that I'm a father. However I hope to bring to my own family the kind of fun and laughter of which I was raised straight to the dinner table. The key to being mutally captivated is finding a balance between the conservative family dinner and the opposite. Luckily I have a great wife who can bring the manners “to the table” while I bring the raucousness. Cheers to compromise.

the background information

I grew up in a loving family of four girls, and oh yeah- a happily devoted Latter-Day Saint. Every Sunday it was church for three hours, every Wednesday it was youth group, and who could forget the early morning (early as in 6am every morning before high school) seminary class (if you aren't Mormon, seminary is pretty much bible study). I enjoyed music from a young age and spent a lot of my free time playing an instrument. I was heavily involved in anything church oriented and loved every minute of it. I was always counseled by my amazing parents that the man I chose to marry should be an Eagle Scout and a returned Missionary (Mormon boys typically leave for a 2 year mission at the age of 19). I had always planned on doing just that.......but when I was 17, I met this wildly handsome 15-year-old ruffian at auditions for the play "West Side Story" and, well.......that's where our story really begins. 7 years after we met on the spring day in 1999, we were married. It's been an amazing ride, and I love every minute of it.

I am one of a family of 6 siblings, 2 of which are half siblings on both my mothers side and my fathers side. My oldest brother Chris is in his 30's and we share the same mother, my youngest brother Nash is 4 years old and we share the same father. This should tell you that yes my parents are divorced. The difference is my parents divorced at an appropriate time (not to say it had no affect on our family). By the time my parents had split I had moved out of the house and was reaping the benefits of my upbringing which includes but is not limited to:camping, hiking,family dinners filled with laughter, underage drinking, smoking, using illegal drugs, and listening to and modeling my life after rock n'roll music. While my parents worked full time jobs to provide for me and my 2 younger sisters, we were raised by my maternal grandmother and a mixture of HBO, MTV in the late 80's-early 90's, and Nickelodeon. This might be the reason why I wouldn't mind living in a trailer as long as I had a 60 inch LCD flat screen television on the wall with surround sound and all the goodies. My family believes in science and I do too. However I don't discount the possibility of what Christians believe, I just think its a little more complicated than that. I never thought that I would fall in love with someone who is Latter-Day Saint. It is hands down the best decision I have ever made, the decision to love and be loved, a feeling that I resisted for many years. Now I am extremely happy.