April 29, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Junior and I have hit our 19th anniversary this month and I am very happy with this marriage. With my Parkinson's Disease I am not as energetic as I have been and traveling is not easy on me as anymore. I find that we still need time away, to date each other and to focus on ourselves not the concerns of keeping our lives running. We have fallen away from dating each other even though for awhile the traveling back and forth to stores or to the Tri Cities for appointments felt like we were dating. These trips take sometime because we live more in the country away from the local malls and what not. We have not been big on dates at restaurants as a date because they have been routine in our marriage. Since moving to the country though we find ourselves not eating out as frequently so I have started to see that we may enjoy a nice restaurant for a date once in awhile. We have also thought about taking time to see some of the Civil War sights in the area and to visit a few of the small museums that are around. Last night we found ourselves running around town picking up a few things we needed and decided to have a "date" night by eating at a restaurant. We decided on a fast food restaurant "Captin D's" and instead of getting the food to go we went in and had our meal. It was nice visiting with each other. We still sit next to each other when we eat out which I like. We talked about the projects we are working on in the house renovation, our fur children and each other. The time relaxing with each other focused only on each other was uplifting and we finished the rest of our running then headed home. In our single's group and remarried's workshops we learned how important it is to take couple time. Being retired we are together all day most days and it gets easy to be about the business of living with me cooking and cleaning and Junior renovating and keeping up the outside of the house since I can't move about as easily anymore. When we first moved here we traveled back to Michigan or went on trips. The more our fur family grew the harder it was to leave them and find care for them while we were gone. Then we started to feel like we are on vacation a lot with the beauty of the mountains and the more rural setting we live in. One day we noticed we were in a rut so we remembered what we were taught about the importance of making time to be a couple. We were taught to have a date night once a week maybe every 2 weeks. Date night did not have to cost a lot of money for instance we could go to the park and walk around. Secondly we were taught that couples should go away overnight every month or two. We followed this advice until we retired and even awhile after we retired and again we got ourselves into a rut. We also learned that a couple needs to have time in prayer which was another area we had drifted away from. We started praying again a couple of months ago and I see a huge difference in our marriage. We were getting edgy with each other, Junior's PTSD was having him reacting more in anger when we decided it was time to come back to the teachings we had learned when we were single and then in the remarried classes we had. It has been difficult with my health declining, my ability to walk was difficult and we had no idea of what was wrong with me. Since I found out I had PD in Oct. of last year we are settling again, there is something about knowing what you are fighting against. Even better is dating within our limitations and prayer helps both Junior and I to understand each others struggles and see each others heart. We are "hearing" God's directions more clearly again and I believe that is the icing on the cake for us. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet