In 2015, we upgraded from a full size mattress to a queen. Our Ikea bed frame, which pre-dated our marriage, was no longer able to hold our mattress. I had a good idea of what I wanted to replace it, but I couldn’t find anything that I was willing to pay for that looked like what I wanted. I looked for plans to build a frame, but I didn’t really like any of them, either, so I decided to do it on my own.
Here are my original plans.
I built my frame out of 2×4’s, 1×10’s, 1×4’s, and some scrap wood.
I based the 2×4 frame’s measurements on the dimensions of the mattress, with a little added width and length (1-2 inches) so that we could change the sheets without too much of a struggle.
Everyone helped.
I’ve found tremendous relief in the fact that it is no longer considered scientifically sound to lump men and women into one muddy pot where everyone is human, but just barely. There were two problems with that for me. One, men and women ARE different. And two, when we generalize, men usually win. And when women lose, everyone loses.
So today I want to talk about two of the many books I’ve picked up recently as I have made improving my marriage my job. The Female Brain, and The Male Brain, both by Louann Brizendine, M.D. I didn’t expect to learn so much about relating to other human beings, or that it would change the way I think about my kids.
This week, I’m with my husband at a marriage intensive in Branson, MO. It’s not an enrichment for people who just want to make their marriage better. It’s for people who have hit the wall.
There are times when you’re stuck and it’s easy to pretend you’re still moving. Other times, it’s so obvious that you are stuck that pretending otherwise would be folly.
We had reached the latter situation.
Hard to believe we met in our 20’s and are now staring down 40. Well, one of us is. I still have a couple of years left. 😉
This has been the hardest year of our married lives, and one of the hardest of our whole lives – it feels unfair at times because at our age, it seems like we should have started to figure things out.
I hope this period of growth is something we can look back on as the start of something even better than what we already knew.
So many of the photos I found were of Cylon in Dad mode:
helping kids,
holding kids, carrying them where they needed to go. 
And smiling with them.
Happy 40th Birthday to the precious soul I am privileged to do life with.
