What’s Your Love Language?

Hey Super Friends!

How was everyone’s weekend? We had a nice little weekend (though of course it didn’t compare to last weekend) here in Austin. On Saturday, I reffed a lacrosse game in the morning then joined Stephen and Renley for some time at Red Bud Isle. Saturday night, we took a two step dance lesson and got to know a new friend over drinks and March Madness basketball. Sunday was largely spent cleaning the house from top to bottom in preparation for book club tonight and guests later in the week. Remember when a snowstorm kept Aaron from visiting Austin a few weeks ago? He’s trying again this week, and we’re excited to have his girlfriend Amanda back as well.

Now that we’re all caught up, I have a random topic to discuss today. Are you all familiar with the 5 Love Languages? I first read about this concept more than a year ago, but it still guides a lot of my daily actions.

Basically, there are 5 general ways to communicate love and affection:

1. Words of affirmation
2. Acts of service
3. Receiving gifts
4. Quality time
5. Physical touch

Objectively, these are all fine and great ways to express affection, but we don’t all interpret them equally. It is very possible that you speak one love language while your partner speaks another.

That’s actually the case for Stephen and me. When I first read about this concept, we took some time to discuss what makes us feel loved and to rank the love languages in order of importance (to us). Physical touch is Stephen’s preferred love language, while I ranked it quite low. Conversely, I feel most loved by acts of service, and Stephen ranked that as a 4 or 5 on his list.

Though these results didn’t come as a huge surprise to either of us, having the conversation really helped us focus on communicating in the other person’s love language more often.

Previously, I would mindlessly shrug off Stephen’s hugs if he caught me in passing or wrapped his arms around me at my desk. It never occurred to me at the time that this was him saying “I love you”. I had no idea that my indifference to his kisses and snuggles left him feeling ignored and rejected. Likewise, I would spend a weekend afternoon cleaning the house and preparing a nice meal, only to feel hurt by Stephen’s unenthusiastic (by my definition) response.

These days, I make a conscious effort to visit Stephen at his desk for a random kiss or hug, and I try to hold hands more often. In a similar vein, Stephen pours me a glass of ice water and delivers it to my desk while he’s fixing his lunch each day, and he takes care of the dishes nightly.

I’m sure that pouring a glass of water feels like nothing to Stephen, just like a hug feels relatively casual to me… but it’s not about you… it’s about the other.

I’m so glad I stumbled across the 5 Love Languages, and it has been so helpful and constructive in our relationship. I hope you find them valuable too!

 

Spring Breeeeaaaaak!

Okay, the term Spring Break definitely loses its luster once you are part of the working world. I am off school this week, but since I started working for the Kastles again, I was commuting to DC Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It didn’t help the spring break feeling at all when we got a few inches of snow Sunday night into Monday. Now it’s Friday, I’m off work and its finally a little warmer – things are looking up!

Can’t forget last weekend though which was spectacular in a number of ways:

Familia hanging out Friday night

1. Quality time with Adam’s family. Much of Adam’s extended family flew into town last weekend for our engagement party. Since many of them got in on Friday and the party wasn’t until Sunday, we had a little family dinner Friday night. Family dinner at the Kroll’s isn’t complete without plenty of wine and cocktails and a yummy snack spread with cheeses, hummus, celery and olives. Adam’s family is so fun and we had a great time!

2. I said yes to the dress!!!!! Saturday morning I went wedding dress shopping with my mom, Adam’s mom, Jessie and Jeanette. The first place we went had an interesting layout where your entourage was actually in the fitting room with you. This means Adam’s mom saw way more than she bargained for! I wasn’t super comfortable standing around in my skivvies, but it was still a fun experience. I tried on so many gorgeous dresses, but didn’t feel like any of them were the “ONE”. Our second appointment of the day was at a bridal salon that Carrie and Jeanette took me to the weekend before. The second wedding dress I ever put on made me tear up a little and after trying a bunch of others I knew I had to go back to that one! My mom loved it too and best part is it looks great with my veil! I’ll be wearing the same veil my mom wore at her wedding – it is in great condition even 30+ years later and I think it is a great nod to my mom and how awesome she is. I can’t say much more about the dress on this public forum, but the super friends have all already seen a picture of it!

3. Abby and Jessie’s weekend of fun! Jessie came for wedding dress shopping and stayed for the weekend and it was so fun to spend time together. Saturday night we went to dinner with Adam and had mouthwateringly delicious mussels and pizza. Saturday night we had wine and played Heads Up for hours – I swear that game makes me laugh soooo hard! I even persuaded Jessie to set up a JDate Profile. I know her Jewish Prince Charming is just around the corner 🙂

4. Blowouts! Sunday morning Jessie and I drove to Bethesda for appointments at Dry Bar to get our hair blown out. We grabbed coffee first and it was so nice to sit and relax and be pampered. We left feeling relaxed and with gorgeous curls! We felt a little cheated though because they didn’t offer us mimosas – apparently they do in NYC?!

5. Engagement Party!! Adam’s parents threw us an amazing engagement party at their house and so many friends and family came out to it. We munched on yummy passed apps and it was great to catch up with everyone – especially four out of five super friends! We had a blast but wow it is tiring to talk to everyone and greet every guest – I think we got a preview of what the wedding is going to be like. I feel like I barely saw Adam so on wedding day we’re definitely going to have to tag team it and talk to everyone as a couple just so we get more time together! Of course, me being me, we had to take a bunch of photos and I must say we look adorable!

6 out of 7 bridesmaids!

We’re getting married! ❤

 

 

SXSW 2014

I hope you all had a nice weekend! We were busy here in Austin. SXSW started on Friday, so there is a lot going on!

I volunteered for SX in 2012 and 2013, but I decided not to do it this year. In short, it’s a lot of work and a lot of stress. To earn a Gold badge (admittance to badge-only Interactive and Film events), volunteers are required to work a minimum of 40 hours. 40 hours on top of my normal 40 hour job was tough to balance in years past. Plus, March is a big month for lacrosse games, so my officiating schedule is jam-packed. Add wedding planning to that mess, and I just knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to commit again.

While a badge is required for most events, there are PLENTY of fun things open to the general public, and Stephen and I devoted Saturday to checking out a number of them.

First up, the Game of Thrones exhibit at the Austin Music Hall, sponsored by HBO. We waited in line for 1.5 hours, but interesting people-watching made the time pass quickly. Even better, right when we reached the front of the line, Maisie Williams, the actress who plays Arya Stark, came out to throw shirts into the crowd. She doesn’t exactly have a rocket arm, so many of the shirts fell right into our row. Score!

The weather took a turn for the worse while we were stuck in line, and by the time we got inside, both of us were wet and cold. Sigh. The exhibit was great, though, especially the costumes and props on display.

Many of the garments are hand-embroidered. The care that goes into these costumes is just INCREDIBLE; it’s really a shame that you can’t see the details in the show.

After the Game of Thrones exhibit, we braved the rain and walked back over to the Long Center and the Palmer Center for the Create festival and the Gaming Expo.

Look who we found!

Mike (Sarah’s boyfriend) is in town working a gig for Samsung. If any readers are in Austin this week, look for the guys in bright blue T-shirts and black backpacks. They’ll switch out your Samsung phone battery FOR FREE.

We met up with Mike at the Gaming Expo on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning for breakfast. He’s great company (Sarah says ‘duh’), and we really enjoyed getting to hang out, even if just for a short time. Hopefully we’ll meet up again mid-week!

I’ll end with a few shots from the Gaming Expo. Abby, I know you’ll love the big Catan board!

Life is Beautiful

Hi Super friends!

WOW long time, no post (especially for me, the serial poster). The past few weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I believe when we last left off, I had just returned from a fantastic trip to Florida with Adam and adopted Jack, our amazing pug/dachshund/jack russell mix (follow him on instagram @jackzkpup). Shortly there after, Jeanette’s father was in the hospital, suffered a rapid decline and passed away.  It felt like it happened in the blink of and eye but at the same time felt like the culmination of two painful and emotional weeks. The funeral service was truly an amazing tribute to Jim’s life and the readings Jeanette and her sisters recited will always stay with me. At this same time another friend of ours from our group of friends from college was going through some personal things and her father ended up in the hospital as well (luckily her father is on the mend). Still another friend of ours from the same group lost her beloved childhood pet. All in all, February was a tough month and we spent the last two weekends together sharing support and love.  I feel so lucky to have made such amazing, lasting friendships in both high school and college.

Girls (and Jack) spending QT together

The importance of having a support system of some sort to fall back on ties into a conversation we have been having in our super friends email thread as well. A far too high number of students at our high school, WT Woodson, have committed suicide in the past few years (I mean even one student taking their life is too many, but this has been more than that) and a lot of conversation has recently been generated on the subject in our school’s alumni facebook group. Many alums are showing support for the Woodson community by sharing “We are Woodson” and “Woodson Strong” images and a mature dialogue has started to take a look at the culture and circumstances that may be leading to students feeling alienated, bullied or unloved. Clearly no one has the answer and every individual student’s circumstances are different, but the messaging that it will get better and nothing is worth taking your life over is shining through. The common feeling in our email thread is that high school is tough – we all felt enormous pressure to get the best grades and to participate in numerous extracurricular activities while also balancing the social aspect and peer pressure from classmates. We were fortunate enough to have each other while we navigated the halls of Woodson, but I wish I could have done more to make sure none of our classmates ever felt alone or without someone to talk to. Stealing Lindsay‘s words, “Life is about so much more than grades and salaries. I am all for working hard and feeling a sense of achievement, but I’ve only recently understood that these things should never come at the expense of my happiness, mental health and personal relationships. I wish I’d learned THAT in high school.”

Between the heavy events of February and the ongoing conversation about Woodson, I have had plenty to think about lately! Mostly, I want to treasure every moment I have with my loved ones. Since I’m in the middle of a job search, I want to find something I truly love to do and get excited about. I want to stress less and do more of what makes me happy. And I hope you all do the same 😀

And so I leave you with two images that I found on pinterest that make me happy…

I love Harry Potter. So much.

I also love Frank Sinatra.