Out of all the stuff that we have learned so far, I think that stuff that I like the most is the stuff about building and maintaining healthy and awesome relationships. I think that people need to know more about relationships and how to nurture them; the world would be a much better place with a little bit of relationship training. Something that we have learned about that I wish more people would understand is the importance of thinking outside of yourself and giving you all to your spouse. I'm not saying that we should be a servant to them or put our own basic wellbeing at risk. but just live and interact in a way that demonstrates your love for your husband or wife and let them know that you are always there for them and are willing to work through problems and compromise with them. I think that a lot of the time people think that they shouldn't have to change for the people they love, and this is partly true, but I think what it really important to remember is that we should be willing to change with them. We should be willing to improve ourselves for them and help them to improve. Isn't that the purpose of this life? Isn’t that the goal we are all trying to achieve within our families, improvement? I think that we need to be willing to give a little for the people we love, even if we have to give a little of ourselves for them.

Here I am again, ready to rant. I know I've said this before, but I really do find it hard to organize my thoughts about what we have learned and spit it out on a page like this. I think its because our classes are very... all over the place. Don't get me wrong, it's a great thing and I love to have the conversation directed by the students, it’s just a little difficult to relate back and organize everything we have talked about. But I'll try.
Something that we talked about a while back was marital intimacy. I thought it was really good to talk about how important it is to have quality intimate relationships between married couples. I think that something that everyone can work on is their intimate relationship. We talked about the differences between men and women and how they are intimately different from each other. Something cool that we discussed about this was that men and women were made different like that for a good reason and that it helps us have to work together more and trust and rely on each other more. I think that this is very true. We talked about how we should use intimate moments together and how men and women think about them differently. It was just a really great class that helped us think more deeply about some things that we might not have considered before.

okay, I know this was short, but I'll write more soon.

I always have a hard time trying to organize the things that I write on here. I feel like I have all of this great information but I just can't figure out how to spit it out in a way that is coherent. To solve the problem I have decided to give up on trying to be coherent and just work on saying what I want to say. I hope it works out. So in our class we've moved from weddings to marriage to married without kids to married with kids to trying to stay married to affairs and what to do to avoid having problems in marriage to marital intimacy to teaching your children about marital intimacy. And that is where we are. There are a lot of things that we have learned about that I really like. I have been inspired about so much awesome in this class that I think my brain might explode. I think that the best way to do this is to take specific concept and talk about them individually and in no particular order. I know I wouldn't be able to articulate how they all interconnect at all, so I'm just going to explain about them (or at least what I know) one at a time:

Roles, rules, and expectations: In every married relationship, the couple should talk about the roles, rules, and the expectations that they are thinking will go with the marriage. The families that they each came from probably had different family cultures and unspoken rules that they adhered to. As a couple it is important to talk about what you want to carry over into your new family. Another important thing is to talk about what each expects of the others. If you have a husband whose mother always had dinner ready before his dad got home from work, he might be expecting that of you. Not because he is mean and wants to be bossy, but just because it is sometimes hard for us to understand that not all families are the same and that you husband might think that a wife is supposed to do one thing and you might think that a husband is supposed to do another. It just gets messy. It is really important to figure out what each of you is thinking and how you are going to structure your new family.

Build a picket fence relationship: It is way important for married couples to have the kind of relationship that has clear boundaries and attempts to keep unwanted intruders out. A husband and wife should learn to depend on each other and build their relationship together. Clear boundaries should be set that let everyone know that you two are in it together and that you are not to be split apart.

Don't question the character: It is so important that we don't start letting our interactions with our spouse become blaming and labeling. If we are thinking or talking about a specific issue, stay focused on that issue and don't start bringing things back to the character of your spouse. If your husband has forgotten to put his socks in the hamper ...again don't make the issue about his nature. Don't say “My husband is so sloppy; he never puts his socks in the hamper. He doesn't even care enough about me to try to keep the room clean. He doesn't appreciate anything that I do. He is and awful husband." I know that this is a pretty extreme example but I hope I've made the point. When the issue is about sock, keep it about socks. This isn't about your husband’s huge character flaws; it’s about a pair of sock. A couple can work through a problem about socks, but it would be a lot harder to deal with a problem about a wife who thinks her husband is sloppy, unappreciative and doesn't love her enough to keep the room tidy. Keep it with the issue at hand and don't let it be about the character.

I've run out of time but I'll be back and keep ranting soon.

Isn't it weird that the concept of weddings has drastically changed over that past few years? It used to be that a wedding was a community with family and friends coming together to celebrate a new couple going off into the world and making their own family. Now a wedding is about throwing a huge party for all your friends and family and, is a lot of cases, going into huge debt to do it. Weddings used to be simple and intimate, a celebration of life. Weddings are now increasingly become things that cause more problems than they are worth. These days, the drama of a wedding can create more relationship problems for the couple than the union itself will solve. This is a call for a return to simplicity! Where are the beautiful weddings from the past? What happened to the easy union of two people in love?



This rant will be continued later...

For my class we were asked to create a metaphor for our family and wite a paper explaining it. This is what I came up with:


Family Systems Theory Project :The Strawberry Plant

The Plant
I have decided to use the metaphor of a strawberry plant to describe my family. I feel that it is a very good way to describe the way that my family interacts. One of the biggest similarities that I found while I was thinking about my family is that I feel like my family is simple and small (despite the fact that there are six children). I don’t know if I can accurately describe it, but the way that the strawberry plant is close, small, and simple, reminds we of the way my family is. We are close to each other and our interactions have always been very straightforward and to the point. My family isn’t full of drama or fakeness. Sometimes we have our issues just like any other family but the family as a whole is just like a strawberry plant, simple.
The parts of the plant that represent my parents are the stems and the roots. The children are represented by the berries.
Stems
My mother is the stem of the plant. She is the one that holds the structure. All of the berries are connected to her and she holds them onto the plant. Similarly, my mother holds us to the family. She is the one that we have direct contact with and the one that keeps things going the way that they are supposed to be. She is the structure. She is also the parent that we have the most direct contact with, she connects all the rest of the plant together. Almost everything goes through her.
Roots In contrast my father is the root system of the plant. We have less direct contact with him but he is essential to the health and well-being of the family. He has more direct contact with mom and then mom with us, so he is more of a indirect influence on the family. He is the underground strength to the family and is just as important and just as necessary.
Team work
Mom and Dad do different things for the family in different ways. They don’t have the same level of influence but they are both essential to the growth of the berries and the continuity of the plant. Neither one could do the job of the other and together they are more effective than they would be by themselves or separately. They need to work together to accomplish their goals and without both of them working together, the family pant wouldn’t grow.
The Berries
The children are the berries in many ways. I see the similarities between us and strawberries because I think that my brothers and sisters and I are very similar. Just like the berries on a strawberry plant all look very much alike, we are very similar in the way that we think and act. The berries and not identical, and we aren’t either, we just have more similarities than we have differences.
The berries also are very close to each other. They are clustered together under the protection of the plant and are always near to each other. I think this is really what my brothers and sisters are like, we are very close and get a long very well. We always like spending time together and have really good relationships. In addition, although we are close, we are very distinct and separate form one another just like the strawberries are separate. We love spending time together but we have very different lives and things that we are doing, and sometimes find it hard to find time to be together. Without the help of Mom as the stems that join us we would find it a little harder to stay connected.
Also, we are equally close to each berry. There aren’t really any cliques that have formed among the siblings, we are all close to each other but no one is very much closer to one person than to any other. The only exception to this would be our little double-berry twins. They have a special bond with each other because they were born together but they are all still equally close to everyone.
I think that one of the most important things about my model is the offshoot plants. A strawberry has the ability to shoot off and create new and individual plants from the original. I have used this to represent my own family of creation. I have been able to separate from the main plant and create my own new little family. Although I am now my own family unit, I still stay connected to the main plant and stay close to my family.

The Leaves
Although He is not a physical part of our family, I think that God is the leaves of the strawberry plant. He protects us from the dangers of the world and shelters the berries and helps the plant grow. I think that God is a part of my family, without which we would not be able to grow.
There are some weaknesses to the metaphor that I have created about my family. One would be that the transition form being a berry to being the head of a new plant isn’t as easy as it would have to be in my model. I’m not sure how the process of off-shooting really works in a strawberry plant or if a berry is responsible for the new growth so I don‘ think that it fits into my model perfectly. I am sure that there are many more weaknesses but I can’t think of them.
The effects of these patterns that I have described are every important to our family. One of the things that I have already mentioned a little throughout the paper is that being really close to each other helps us keep a strong family. The kids all having really good relationships helps us be able to keep the family together, with the assistance of Mom and Dad. Another really good thing that I have already mentioned is that when the children go off on heir own, like I already have, they are still connected to the family and have a tie back to the original plant.
One of the more negative things about the way my family interacts is that we don’t have as much interaction with Dad as we probably should. Because my father has become more of a indirect influence in my life, especially as I have grown older, I have not been able to create the type of strong relationship that I would have wanted to. In addition, the fact that each of us children have very different and distinct lives creates difficulty in getting us to spend time together, or even interact, outside of structured family events.

Conclusion
I think that I have learned a lot form really thinking about my family system. There were things that I thought about my family that I have never considered before and as I progressed through my project I saw connections that I had not previously seen. It was a wonderful experience to really look at how my family interacts within itself, especially among us kids, and see, or at least articulate, some of the patterns that I had found or already knew. I know that being able to understand my family of origin will help me to create my new family with purpose. I think that some of the things that I will want to encourage in my own family is connectivity between family members, unity, and safety. I really like the way that my family is close and with the help of parent, connected and strong. I really enjoy being close to my family and I want my children to feel that same way. I also really love how I feel like my family is a safe refuge from the world. Tucked between the strong roots and stems and sheltered underneath the protective leaves, the strawberries can grow strong and full. I want to provide that kind of environment for my children and also make sure that they understand the part that the Lord has in their lives.

We were talking about gender differences in lass for the past few days and I love what I have been learning. Believe it or not for the rest of the world be men and women are different. Wow, who knew? (I really knew). Anyways, so it turns out that no matter what the feminists say, men and women are just different in some things. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of being equal I just don’t approve of being identical, or wanting to be identical, because no matter how hard we try, men and women are different. Science has had a part in explaining this to people. Men and women have different brains that are better at doing different things for different reasons. Women have more white-matter in their brains which forms connections between the emotional and the vocal areas helping women be more able to express their feelings. Men have more grey matter. Men are more logical, task oriented, and aggressive in general. Women tend to be detail oriented, interpersonal, and have better eyesight. There are lots of individual differed of course, there could be a specific man that is more interpersonal; then a specific women but that does not mean that these typical characteristics do not stand. God has created men and women differently to be able to do different things as part of his great plan for us. We each have specific roles in the families that we create. Fathers are to provide the necessities of life, protect for danger and harm, and preside over the family in love and righteousness. Mothers are to nurture, love, and teach children. Men and women can share these roles with spouse, but it is always a mother’s role to nurture and a father’s role to provide if they can. I know that we have always been male and female even before we were born in this life and that they way that we are as males and females is because that is how God intended it to be. Our differences are special and we should cherish and respect them as we make our way through this life. We are being told on every side that men and women are the same except for a few body parts, I know that isn’t true. We have special jobs to do as men and women and if we use our differences together and work with one another we will get further and be happier than we otherwise could be.

Family Systems Theory!
wow. Who knew that families are so complex? This theory completely blew me away but made total sense all at the same time. I don't think that I can explain it all very accurately but I am going to try to touch on the important parts.
Basically, A family is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts; the parts being called subsets. These subsets are made up of people in the family and one person can be a part of more than one subset. Mom and Dad can be a subset: The spousal subset. All the girls in a family (if there is some kind of special bond that connects then) can be a subset. There are a ton of possibilities. Basically we all have roles that we fulfill in the family and within our subsets, they can be different at times and can change. Someone can be a mother, a wife, a sister, and a daughter all in the same day depending on which subsets you interact in. In every family there is an individual family culture and very important unspoken rules that the family follows, whether they realize it or not. The key to understanding your family is to understand those rules, the roles we play in our families, the subsets we belong to, and the way that we interact with the people in our family.
Of course, this is just a theory and there are other theories that attempt to explain family interactions but I like this one the best. J
Understanding the family systems theory helps me understand my family, and the way that I fit into my family, better. This might be more trouble than it is worth though since I find that I now over analyze everything that goes on in my family. I think it is kind of fun but my husband might think that it not so enjoyable, I always like to play therapist on him. Understanding family systems theory has also helped me see my place in my new family. I was recently married and am finding it interesting to see a different family culture than I am used to. All of what I’ve learned helps me see it with more understanding than I would otherwise would have been able to. My education is paying off already.