This Week's Lesson from TV: Damsels in Distress

This week has proven that the Damsel in Distress act is still effective. I have three examples from The Bachelor, Jersey Shore, and Parenthood.

We'll start with the most well-executed act. This clearly goes to the ladies of The Bachelor. Showing any form of fear or distress gets Brad's attanetion and earns the girls a little extra one-on-one time. From Emily's understandable issues with last week's Nascar excursion to Jackie's fearful overdramatic episode when repelling down a cliff, Brad's proven his caretaker instincts to be intact. The award for best execution of what is clearly an act does not go to either of them. After all, their distress was genuine. It goes to (no drum roll needed as this will shock no followers) MICHELLE!

It was painful to watch her practically throw a  tantrum while the girls were repelling on their group date despite the pact Brad had made under Michell's direct pressure to repel again only with her. The pain really set in when, after she called him a "bleep", he still repelled with her exclusively rewarding her five-year-old behavior. The crazy schizophrenic control freak topped the charts this week with her surprise visit to Brad's private room listing off the girls that should go so she and Brad can live frightfully ever after. As if this weren't enough-the best act came when he confronted her about her recent antics at the rose ceremony. She turned the tables so quickly, it was masterful. In light of the waterworks, Brad was feeling guilty for the confrontation and had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm so glad I'm not dating anymore because this was just scary to watch. I wish I had a clip to share!

The flowing tears were preceded by last week's Jersey Shore episode when Sammi got so upset with Ronnie, she threatened to leave the house. Before you knew it all housemates excluding Ronnie and J-Woww were convincing her to stay. A call to mommy the next morning to cancel her request for an emergency ride home led to an evening out making up with everyone she'd wronged. Everyone included Jenni who she's had a very big issue with for almost a year which had previously included 2 physical altercations. This flow of tears had its rewards. The rewards are likely to be short-lived of course but that's what keeps us watching (shamefully).

On Parenthood, a much deeper and very real issue was presented. It is ironic that I would see this as a "real issue" considering it's the only one that's not a reality TV show. After her parents refused to let her date her older, recovering alcoholic, living-along love interest beginning with the spoken phrase "As long as you live in my house. . . ", Hattie moved in with her grandparents for a week. When she returned after some encouragement from her grandmother, her parents expressed their change of heart. Victory! As a non-parent follower, I think they just finally came to their senses. However, it appears that Hattie's expressed distress through an absence her parents found agaonzing got her exactly what she wanted with some restrictions.

This proves a valuable lesson. The tried-and-true classic act of a damsel in distres still proves extremely effective. The more manipulative you are, perhaps, the better the rewards. However, I also have a feeling that future epiosdes will refresh our memories of the lesson of the boy who cried "wolf". These plotted acts of distress will soon downplay any actual agony these girls may encounter in the future causing less of a reaction when it may genuinely be needed. So, instead of taking this lesson literally, I am reminded that genuine distress exists and faking it may cost us supprt when we need it most. So while some say choose your battles wisely, choose your cry-outs wisely too. Oh-and don't let them be caught on film! :)

NFL Penalty: Excessive Celebration

We've all seen crazy touchdown dances. Well, I assume you have because I don't watch football all that much and even I've caught a few. If you're new to the concept, check this out! What I find interesting is that these dances are no longer found to be acceptable forms of celebration and are considered unsportsmanlike conduct. I use the term interesting because I, in most ways, agree. After all, touchdowns are what you get paid millions of dollars to achieve aren't they? Could you imagine getting up to do a victory dance every time you did your job well, made a good dinner, or got a great deal? Okay, I'll admit I've been tempted a time or two over a great  deal! :)

However, if there were any penalty I'd want called on me in real life, it would be this one. It would definitely come with danger. In most cases, this excessive celebration is a result of rejoicing in one's own accomplishments (there's the danger). In my life, I'd be thrilled to get caught excessively celebrating someone else's. Have you ever stopped yourself from seeming too excited? For yourself? For others? I know people on both ends of the celebration spectrum. . .

<From apathetic to ecstatic!>




Positivity isn't something that comes easily to all of us. It's something I would certainly like to increase in my own life and in my contributions to the lives of others. The apathetic response certainly can't be motivating and might cause you to become a person with whom people aren't that excited to share news. The ecstatic appraoch may be a bit over the top and cause you to become the person others can't tell anything. . . in public! I would like to land at overtly excited versus overly excited. This, I'm thinking, would cause me to become the person people are excited to share good news with! And who doesn't want to hear good news?

So, on this Monday (the most popular day in Western culture), find someone worth celebrating and do it out loud. Do it out of character even. If you are already the Pollyanna in your group of friends, extend yourself to celebrate someone outside your normal circle. If you're the Eeyore in the group, start with a celbration of yourself and then extend yourself. To all my friends and family-you are cause for excessive celebration and I use these posts to do it when I can't see your beautiful faces and embrace you with hugs that warm your bones. Sending my love your way! Pass it on!

Thoughts on Settling. . .

I was told tonight that at my age, I should start settling for anything that is 80% of ideal in terms of career/relationships/etc. Between the ages of 30 & 40, this number drops to 60%. 1. These people apparently don't know me...and 2. I need more optimistic people in my life.

This was a recent facebook status post by an amazing friend! Keep in mind, this proposed age of settling is a vibrant 26! Luckily, her last two points in response to this piece of advice she was given are right on! How do you feel about 80%? The whole idea of settling, a few years ago, would have seemed absolutely ridiculous to me in these two categories of career and relationships. I would have been shocked and appalled to have a comment such as this made to me (and I am for her sake). However, I’ve been surprised at how much all of that has changed in recent years.

Thankfully, I didn’t settle in the category of relationships when marrying my best friend! My every single day is blessed with him in it. I’ll admit I forget to show it at every waking minute but he knows the truth! Still to this day, I don’t want to settle in any relationships. Friendships that aren’t worth having, I no longer have. Grudges that aren’t worth holding, I no longer hold. Feelings that aren’t worth hurting, I never intentionally hurt (and have found value in an apology if I do). There will be relationships in years to come that require a full 100% of my love and dedication resembled by communication and effort. That is one place I certainly hope to never settle. 80% for our two dogs. . . never. 80% for future Decker babies-not a chance (and NOT an announcement)!

However, I have found that the same is not true of my career aspirations. In fact, my overall career aspirations are at only about 80% of what they once were (and 30% of that still remains unclear or, more appropriately put, flexible). I’m just saying, I used to want to reach the top and now I see the benefits of the middle. I still want to give 100% and feel successful and rewarded in a job I find meaningful. I hope that meaning always consists of more than paying the bills with the occasional excess for a self-indulgent shopping spree or home renovation.

My point is this: I am surprised at how much of my “100%” is met through relationships. I have my husband, friends, family, four-legged companions, and God to fulfill more of my life than I ever knew they would. The sense of accomplishment I once thought I would feel from work is felt tenfold in my most meaningful relationships.  I hope you feel it too. . .  from me, from others, from Him! We all deserve 100% whatever that means to each of us. No mix is better or worse as long as it is led by the best director we could ask for!

A woman’s heart plans her way, but the Lord directs her steps. ~Proverbs 16:9

Pupdate: Morning Time

I once posted about how our dogs wake us up. . . If you recall, Tucker discovered his nose can turn on the touch lamp on our bedside table and found it is the most effective way to get me up from bed. Now, this pupdate is about when the dogs decide it's time to go back to bed; when they determine it's just too early to be up on a Sunday morning.

You can imagine what this bed would like like completely made. The comforter neatly in place pulled all the way up to the top of the bed. Four decorative pillows were neatly placed at the head of the bed in front of the four well-fluffed sleeping pillows. Only five minutes later, it looked like this: Only two of the four froofy pillows remained on the bed and and the other two were on the floor. The smallest of the four made its way to the foot of the bed where Tucker was resting quietly. When I asked him, "What did you do?", this was his response (below left).  He perked straight up as if he'd been caught. A few seconds later, he realized he wasn't in trouble and went back to his slumber (below right).

However, the real culprit in this bed-messing scheme was Little Miss Lily. She is the one who burrowed through the nicely-made bed to get herself comfortable. Tucker was an innocent bystander enjoying the fruits of her labor. She is the lump under the comforter on the right of the first photo. She hid making him look guilty. Smart little thing! :) Just another example of the many ways they make me smile!

Bearing Fruit: Friendship

Continuing on with my 2011 goal to bear fruit and be abundantly productive in multiple facets of life, I am reminded of what that means in friendship. As we all get older, the concept of friendship changes: the time, shared activities, shared interests, communication methods, interactions-everything. Most often, so do the actual friends. In some cases, there are lucky people who maintain friendships for life. I am currently wrapping up a book that highlights a group lucky enough to have lifelong friendships within a circle of 11 girls from grade school to mid-life. These women have shared experiences from training bras to potty training, wedding planning to divorce decisions, child births to parent deaths and have maintained their connection throughout.

The book is called The Girls from Ames and is mostly documented reminiscing on the part of each woman. Pairing their recollections with the observations of the writer who sits in on one of their annual reunions, the book is a quick read that will instantly make you think of friendships of your own-past or present. They've been through things I have not and some I hope my friends and I will never experience. Amidst the story-telling are splashes of research findings about friendship, marriage, and parenting. The most predominant message is that friendships, particularly and much more so female friendships, are important to a well-balanced life and have impact in our lives and marriages.

Friends serve as a sounding board that sometimes doesn't talk back but often does. They share interests and insights with us our partners might not. They fill a part of our life that we cannot rely on one person alone to fill. If we're lucky, they also reflect God's image and allow us to do the same in each other's lives. I am grateful for my friends. While I did not stay in one school system throughout my entire life as the Girls from Ames did (and many other Iowans I would presume), I can't tell you about the one friend I've had since kindergarten (let alone ten). However, I can tell you that I am blessed in the friendships I keep to this day.

I have friends from high school, college, and since that are prevalent in my life. Each of these friendships have changed and are changing frequently with marriages, children, careers, college and other activities being in our recent past or not-so-distant future. To keep bearing fruit in these relationships takes attention and intentional action. A shift in the life of a friend may require a shift in the friendship. In an effort to keep these friendships alive, I am trying to learn more about the people they're becoming, remind them of the people they were, and praise and celebrate the people they are.

Bearing fruit in my friendships means two things to me. I want to support them in whatever way I can and whatever ways they need. I want the same from them throughout my journey as well. While this changes from sleepovers to dinner parties, from trading clothes to trading recipes, from bachelorette parties to baby showers, I hope I can rise to the occasion. I am blessed to have the friendships I have and look forward to being productive in all of them-old, new, and yet to come.

After Series: Kitchen Sink

In an effort to follow through on my promise to share "afters" of the many projects we take on in our home, this is the first to be shared. As usual, there is no real "before" to be shared. We decided to replace our kitchen sink. The old one was a deep and wonderful white cast iron sink. The depth was great but the color was not easy to maintain. I was tired of bleaching it and Mike was tired of watching the water gather and not fall toward the drain as it should. So, enough was enough!

We went everywhere looking for the right sink and knew it had to be stainless steel. What we found is that we did have to sacrifice the depth. However, we also found it would only go best if we also added a garbage disposal. That makes sense, right? If you're going to tear the sink apart anyway, you might as well get the whole job done! It's decisions like these that make a small project grow bigger, take longer, and quickly become more expensive. So, under the sink he went. And, the dogs couldn't let him go alone. . .

 

In these kind of working conditions, a weekend project could easily last through Tuesday night and it did! The disposal is certainly what made the project harder. The easy stuff still made it take longer-counter had to be cut, everything needed re-caulked, the faucet had to be replaced to match the new sink, and the sawdust had to be cleaned up. (When I said easy, I meant easy for Mike). That is how this "weekend" project took four days! 

The crazy annoyances and outbursts many wives have imitated from years of home repair were replicated in our house during these days. Despite his agitation while attempting to follow the instructions he actually read while so many men would not have, he got it done! And the "after" is here. It's not that exciting or glamorous but it's the love and labor of my hubby in my home! 

With every sweaty home project, where the end result is not a work of art, I'd still consider it a work of heart!

Pupdate: GRADUATION!

Finally! We are, in fact, rewarded with great pleasure at the end of our dramatic 7-week journey through Beginner's Obedience Class!Our last night was blessed by a talent show from each of the dogs. The kids did wonderfully leading up to the group photo of half the class shown at the bottom of the collage. Lily also played very well with the first group as you can see in the top left corner. Tucker did a great "focus" and wowed the crowd with his "dance" and "pawshake"! Lily did just as well with the typical commands and both got a houseful of smiles on their "up" in which they jump into our arms to be carried to departure!


This led to the resolution of both becoming graduates! Lily wore her cap and gown for the shot on the left.

Tucker hardly wasn't quite as agreeable to adorning the graduation cap but we did get a pic!








Both received certificates commemorating their accomplishment. However, the real work came from us. Not that we deserve all the credit but obedience training takes much more work and training for the parents than the pups! It took a lot of discipline to keep after at-home training sessions, repeat all the commands, and maintain the consistent rewards they need for good behavior while resisting the urge to correct unnecessarily.  We learned a lot. 


There are still plenty of tricks we could learn but we are very pleased with our progress. We think the issues we ran into had a lot to do with the leashes. Our dogs are friendly, fun-loving, people-pleasers who we believe are ready for puppy-mingling play dates and they're looking forward to one next weekend already! We appreciate the training, apologize to our classmates for the growling and are thrilled we had the opportunity to put that frilly dress on Lily (and promise not to make that a frequent occasion)!