RJ McCollam: Just Beginning Life: September 2008

Another Monday

Monday, September 29, 2008

So today is another Monday, another beginning to another week, another end to the weekend and sleeping in, and another day of work rewarded with watching Heroes at night. Like most of you Monday is not my favorite day, but it is not necessarily a dreaded day for me anymore. My situation is blessed by the fact my work is something I like to do, am interested in, and giving me a reason to learn things I have always wanted to. Also I don't have to leave my building and go to a place of work, plus I get to see Amy all day.

This weekend was definitely a good one. It felt more like a 3 day weekend for us because we got to watch a parade for the state fair off of our balcony in the morning, another perk of living downtown. After the parade we all went out for lunch and spent the rest of the day loosely working. Saturday and Sunday followed Friday's structure just minus the parade. This Saturdays SNL had some cool skits too. My favorite was the return of Kristen Wigg playing Judy Grimes as the senior travel correspondant on Weekend Update. Kriten Wigg is so talented. Also if you have watched the Sarah Palin Katie Couric interview they did a spoof on that with Tina Fey and Amy Pohler. Tina Fey does the perfect Sarah Palin and it is cool to see her back on SNL. Here are the two skits:

I love spending time with Amy. This may sound strange or may make sense if you can remember when you were first married, but everyday it makes more and more "sense" to me that we are married and get to be together forever. Obviously I understand what being married is, but I get more revelation on how truly lucky I am to married to Amy. It hits me throughout the day and always make me so thankful.

With keeping being thankful in mind I start this AWESOME Monday and know that it will be productive and be the day that it needs to be. Hope you guys have a great Monday and a great week!

Appreciate Amy Day

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Smart, funny, insanely gorgeous, caring, loving, thoughtful, and selfless are just a couple of the words you could use to describe Amy. In the past week, despite being sick, she has done what to her seem like little acts of love, but to me mean the world to me and are a huge deal. I thought I would show my appreciation by sharing with you some of the things that she did.

First Thing

If you keep up with my wifes blog you know that her last one was about tastespotting.com and how awesome everything on the site looks. We decided to give a recipe a shot and it came out great. Although it didn't really look like the picture (we followed the recipe exactly) they tasted awesome. Surprisingly they were super filling too. I hope we get to make them again soon cause they are perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning. I always like baking/cooking with Amy. She is so good at it and defintiely looks hot when she is mixing ingrediants together.

Second Thing

I heard her banging around in the bathroom one day and when she came out she would not tell me what she was doing. I tried a couple more times, but with no luck so I finally stopped pestering her about it. A couple of hours had gone by and I had to go to the bathroom. So I get up off the couch and start to walk to the bathroom and Amy asks me where am I going. I tell her to the bathroom and she has this I'm trying not to smile look on her face. Still clueless I walk into the bathroom shut the door and I see this in the mirror (sorry I didn't rotate it for you). I put two and two together and realize this is what she was doing. Let me tell you how awesome it was to go to the bathroom and find this waiting for me. It totally made my day. I thought this was pretty spectacular and then she surprised me again with...

Third Thing

This thing totally blew my mind. On Sunday we had talked about getting into to somewhat of a routine and also talked about our plans to start a bible study and some other stuff. It was one of those good talks you have with your spouse. I had gone to bed and woken up feeling optimistic about the week and excited to get things started (even at 7:30 in the morning). I walked into the bathroom and I walked into the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me. I had gone to be before Amy and she had little words she had wrote and cut out all over the mirror with arrows pointing to my reflection in the mirror. Immediately I was taken back by the gesture and then i started to read the words. She used words like admirable, smart, funny, BATMAN, hot...etc. I couldn't help but stand there like an idiot with a huge smile on my face. It doesn't end there though, I go to the bathroom and turn around and there is a note on our hamper that says open me. I open it and it says "I Love You". This had put me over what I thought was my top most happiest moment. I go to turn on the shower next and in the shower there is a sign that says "You are SO SEXY!!!!!! wooo wooo" The morning only was getting better. So I take my shower and before I start to get ready for the day I went to check my email. Well on my computer were more notes saying how thankful she is for me and asking if I wanted coffee. I definitely did so I went to the coffee maker and more signs that said "turn me on" and "I Love You (the coffee pot had mold in it :( but I cleaned it out for you :)" along with my cup, sugar, creamer, and a spoon to stir it with. I felt like I was in a movie at this point. I go to grab one of my shirts out of my closet next to finish getting ready and in my closet there was yet another note saying "I am SO lucky to have you". Not done yet, it all ended when I walked out the door to go upstairs and prey that there was another note on our door that said "It's going to be a great day:)". This little chain of notes was by far the nicest most loving and caring thing anyone has ever done for me. At this point I was beyond happy. I was so happy that I didn't know how to be this happy. I had a huge smile on my face and was actually speechless.

There is only one thing to say and that is Amy is out of this world. She goes above and beyond and I appreciate her and EVERYTHING that she does so much. I am the luckiest guy in the world!

A Fresh Start

Monday, September 22, 2008

Whether it is in life or just a rut you're in, most everyone could use a fresh start. I think a lot of times it is us as Christians that could use a fresh start. Do you remember that feeling when you first accepted Jesus Christ as your savior and that feeling of a weight being lifted off your shoulders. Why is it that we let that weight slowly creep back up on us. There is no difference in the way God sees us or anything more that we have to do in order to feel that same love we felt when we were born again. I remember how I felt having going 18 years without knowing God and then to have him in my life I felt free and I felt calm because I knew the good news. Call it habit or lack or lack of faith, but slowly the worries and pressures that I once felt creeped back into my life and I started to worry more about them then I did about God. For me it is the times when I am not pursuing a relationship with God that I find the worries of the world take me over. Is it the same for you? We are extremely lucky to have a God that wants us to bring our problems and worries to him so he can deal with them rather than us, because with him everything is possible. Encouragement from those who are close to you is huge with keeping your focus on God. I have been feeling like I have been straying from God lately. Just talking about it with Amy and the encouragement she gives me has been huge. Make it a point to lift up those in your circle of influence because it can be just what both you and them are needing. As I said earlier I think that Christians struggle most with the fresh start idea because we may feel unworthy or let our sins bring us down, but we as Christians have the easiest route to getting a fresh start whenever we need it. All we have to do is confess where we are and ask for God's guidence. God is compassionate and faithful and loves us unconditionally and when we feel down or at a low we can grab on to that to pull ourselves out of the hole we are in. Focus on the love of God and have an awesome week, I know that I will.

My Focus: Love & Truth

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

While I have my thoughts in order let me get this started. I was sitting at my laptop today and as usual I was thinking about Amy. I kind of dove into a little deeper thought process and started to really think about the type of love that Amy and I have for each other. Throughout my whole life I have always questioned people that loved me. I always wondered if it was genuine or not. Most of these thoughts stemmed from insecurities and a low self worth, but I just couldn't get it through my head how someone could love me. As I was thinking about Amy today I grasped onto the fact that she really loves me...loves me in the sense that I complete her and she would do anything to see me happy and not hurt. Of course feeling the same way about her I asked myself the question of does she know that I genuinely love her. There are different ways that I show my love to her and I hope she knows that without her I am not the person I am meant to be. Before I start to get off track what I am getting at is that today I got a better understanding of love. For most of my life I stopped people from loving me by not believing that they could, but today for a second when I dropped all my issues I never felt so loved by anyone. How often do I let my depiction of myself stop me from seeing what is right in front of me? What will I do to make sure that I step over this hurdle and reach my potential? This has been on my mind all day and to be honest I don't know what I am going to do. People say old habits die hard and the same is true for the way you see yourself. It is going to take constant checking of my thoughts to break out of this and receive what is already right in front of me. Acceptance without question is where I need to be. I am so lucky to have the life I have, the things I have, the people I have in my life with me, that I need to not focus or dwell on what my mind puts in front of me, but focus on love and the truth that is in my life

Playstation 1

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Amy and I were just playing ps1 and I must say she gave me a run for my money. I probably would say I won half and she won half maybe even a couple more :( This is a problem that I intend to fix, but Amy's got mad Skillz yo and I have my work cut out for me.

I have to say that it was pretty cool watching my wife play video games. Just another reason to add to my "Why Amy is Superwomen" list.

Totally Deserves A Blog

Friday, September 12, 2008

This happened about a week ago, but it totally deserves a blog so you are getting it now. Last week Amy gave me haircut. She has never cut hair before, but honestly you couldn't tell that at all. I told her to go a little shorter than I wanted it to be (that was my fault), but luckily hair grows (for the time being) and it looks great. I blog a lot about how amazing I think Amy is and how I think she can do anything. Well just another piece of proof that she can. Amy = best wife ever hands down!

Amy

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

So I'm sitting here working and like usual I can't stop thinking about Amy. It is so easy for me to get side tracked on her because I am completely blown away by everything she does. Talk about super women, she is so on top of everything. Her work ethic is incredible and I wish I had half the motivation, commitment and skills she had. If I did we would be super rich instead of just rich :) Honestly though I am so proud to be her husband. I love to wear my wedding ring and I want to just stop everyone I see and say "You see this? I'm married to most amazing women ever!". Words honestly can not express the joy and sense of wholeness that Amy has brought into my life. With that said I'm sure you can see how easy it would be to get sidetracked on a normal basis.

Back to work...

New Look for My Blog????

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

So I'm thinking about giving my blog a little bit of a makeover. I see everyone elses and realize mine is pretty plane jane. Not that that is a bad thing, but I think I'm going to spice it up a little bit if I can use Amy and her sweet skills. I've added some pictures and a video log of my YouTube channel on the sidebar. Make sure if you haven't seen it already to watch Amy and her cousin Chelsie sing and dance to Nsync it is hilarious.

RJ McCollam: Just Beginning Life