The Lifestyle challenge for February was to think of three things and do them for someone you love. Since my three things were for That Husband, I’m not going to tell you what they are (annoying I know). I don’t want to list them here because I worry that when he reads them he will wonder if I did those things because of the blog, because I wanted to impress all of you or something, not because I really want to make changes and serve him more. One of them has even become a little bit of a habit now. And I didn’t even have to do it 21 times!

But I did my three things. Mrs. H-B, Kate, and Jenny all finished the challenge.

Visit Bean’s blog to read about what she did!

Brandy has me thinking that maybe breakfast in bed would be a good idea for a Saturday morning treat for my hard working husband.

Breakfast in bed.  Done!  Stuffed french toast with strawberries and fresh orange juice on Valentine’s Day.  I will do it again tomorrow morning.  He really loves this- the way to his heart is through his stomach!

For me to stop nagging him as soon as I get home from work.  I have the bad habit of nagging about the messiness of the house as soon as I come home from work.  It is the first word out of my mouth.  Why is your stuff every where?  Didn’t you promise to empty the dishwasher?  I stopped, even though it nearly killed me.  And turns out, I don’t even have to say anything anymore, he’s made a big effort to put his stuff away.  Without me saying a word.

I quit drinking soda to support him in his efforts to quit.  Soda is his addiction while, I have one every other day or so.  But, I quit and kept it out of the house so it would be easier for him to quit.

I love that Rachel focused on the things that her boy had been asking her to do, or things that she knew would really mean a lot to him.

I vowed to listen to actually listen to M asking me to be less stressed and drink more water and have done both. I have also tidied up things without him asking and have tried to be less selfish in relation to the dinners and tastings he has to attend for his job (which are often in the evenings and free and make me irritated). I think I have made an improvement!

I was really touched by the three things one reader chose to do (I’m not going to reveal her name because I think her words are rather personal). These are the things I hope to make happen with some of these challenges. She didn’t do all of them for one person, but I don’t think it really matters, as long as you are doing something for someone.

One of the things we planned to do together is to take time with his older sister who is struggling with alcoholism. We took our week-end to go visit her while she was in the area and made sure we had time just with her to talk. Tell her how much we love her, that we believe she can do it, and that we are there. We want to be there to be supportive and help her out.
The results are only partially positive, well it’s not like she’s going to stop like that, but she started calling my husband more often after that and I know he feels better about her maintaining communication. Like we told her, we’d rather know she’s not ok than not hear from her.

The second thing was to let his younger brother stay at our place more than once. I have at this time no trust in him, no respect and he knows he’ll have to regain this from me after what he has done in the past. He owes us an his family money but I did my best to let it go and let him stay at our place while he was looking for a job. And trust me it has not been easy and I will be happy when he finally moves in his rental. I don’t pray often, but I had to pray for God to give me strength to stand him being there without blowing up. I’ve talked to him like a mother does to their children trying to educate him and give him better values. I’ve done that not for him, but for my husband and his family who have to deal with it too.

And to finish I got my hair cut last month, and I’m sending my cut hair to Locks of Love. I’m so excited that I can give something to a charity that is so much about love and supporting children.

Also: