Month: April 2019

When I was growing up, both my parents worked. They worked hard. My dad didn’t (doesn’t) cook. Well, let’s be truly honest here. He makes the world’s best bacon and over easy eggs. I’m pretty sure it’s the bacon grease that’s as old as I am, but it’s the yummiest stuff there is! But the rest of the kitchen is my mom’s territory. She’s an amazing cook now, gourmet meals and creative recipes all the time. But when she was a corporate working mother of two, traveling a lot, breaking glass ceilings in the banking industry, being band parent, Girl Scout parent, going to parent-teacher conferences, the food was less than amazing.

Sorry, Mom!

Don’t get me wrong. We always had healthy, home cooked meals with fresh vegetables and grocery store meats. We didn’t do processed foods much, but definitely had the occasional pizza night. We are all very healthy, thanks to her and grandma.

Where it got troublesome was when we didn’t eat it all during dinner and it went into the lovely mismatched plastic butter dishes and lived in the refrigerator………..waiting to become…………the dreaded leftover night dinner. It was squishy vegetables heated in the microwave. It was dry meat….heated in that microwave. Or the worst ever for me since I so hate it………dump soup! Dump soup is a wet, clumpy conglomeration of anything that needs to be used in the refrigerator before it goes bad put into a pot and covered with chicken stock and heated…….again…….to be even more squishy and tasting…..squishy.

To this day, I struggle to eat the leftovers of what I make. I’m a very good home cook. Those leftovers……I just can’t. I’m a grown woman. And I just can’t. Sometimes I do. But I never look forward to it.

Let’s look at this idea of leftovers when it comes to people. Many of us work outside the home. We have to muster the patience to deal with inept coworkers, demanding bosses, cranky customers. We do it with a smile. We sympathize with emotional outbursts our coworkers share. We go to the grocery store and have to deal with that parking lot insanity, careful not to lose our temper when the last spot cannot be accessed because someone just couldn’t make it the 25 feet to the cart return area and left a grocery cart in the parking spot. We slump our shoulders and smile weakly at the deli worker who struggles to hear our order for the fourth time over the crowded store noise. We even say, “Oh, excuse me,” when someone carelessly crashes into our own grocery cart in the crowded aisles. We keep our composure when our kids push our last buttons and then innocently look up to us for a hug. We get excited at the kids’ soccer game and bring the post-game snacks for the team, smiling as if we have life together.

By the time we walk into the house after our day of whatever we do, we are emotionally spent. There’s just not much left, right? I get it. I’m a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. I am my husband’s bookkeeper/payroll/tax person. By the time my husband gets home, I’m exhausted.

He knows and understands why I’m grumpy and short-tempered with him, why I haven’t really listened intently to his account of his day and his struggles. I’ve had my own. He probably smiles lovingly when I fall asleep from exhaustion before he gets to our marriage bed. Well, at least he should…….right?

We have these friends, Eddie and Kathleen, who shared with us a truth bomb that really changed our marriage. Here it is: Our spouses should NEVER get the ‘leftovers’ of us, whatever dregs we have left of ourselves after our trying day doing life. They should get – they DESERVE – our best. If I can muster up the grace to politely respond to a grocery cashier, my husband should get more grace than any other human on the planet. He’s the other half of ME.

Here’s why it’s oh so important. How hurt and dejected are we when he doesn’t have the grace for us after his day? How does it feel when he’s grumpy after his day? Personally, I think it kind of sucks. I feel unimportant and as if whatever has gone on in his day takes my place.

Now, how do you think he feels if I’ve got nothing but dregs left of me to give him? I should be the MOST patient with him. I should be the MOST forgiving of him. I should be the MOST gentle with him. He should get the VERY BEST of EVERYTHING I have. He’s my husband. I chose him. He chose me. I put him first when we recited our vows.

What might that look like to walk out in everyday life?

Well, if going to the gym causes you to be too physically exhausted to be there for him physically, you may need to rethink your routine. Maybe gym time can be together time. Many gyms have childcare included in the cost of membership. Give him that cute wink across the gym, letting him know he’s still your one and only.

If your kids demand that they have THAT outfit clean for school tomorrow, that they won’t eat the food you prepared and want something different, a friend wants you to hang out when your family needs your time, things may need to shift.

Unless your children are toddlers, they can learn to do laundry. If they can operate a smart phone and/or tablet, they can handle a washer and dryer. If they won’t, they’ll probably find something else to wear. Distribute the responsibilities. Don’t allow yourself to be a voluntary slave. Don’t allow your kids to grow up thinking someone else will always be there to do things for them. Give them the tools they need for life. They don’t have to do your delicates or the entire family’s laundry. But they can handle it.

The food you put on the table needs to be what your family eats. If someone isn’t satisfied, they can learn to cook. Again, you’d be amazed at how young your kids can be to be able to make their own PB&J. Suddenly, your food will look incredibly appetizing. Or maybe they’ll take on a night of their own to prepare a family meal. My 6-year-old can make a mean sloppy joe pizza!

Friends must respect your family responsibilities. Your family comes first. Yes, things happen and you need to be there for your friends. But when your family needs you, be there for them. It will be soon enough that they will push you away if you choose hanging with friends over them.

You are in control of your life and your schedule.

Put the priorities in proper order.

First, God.

Second, family.

Third, the world.

We gave our spouses the very best of us when we were dating and looking for more. We took extra time to make our hair look amazing, looked anxiously at our phones for a text or phone call from them at all hours. We listened with wide eyes to every account of every day when we got together letting them know they were the most important person on the planet. Don’t give up and let them become a passing ship. Become partners in life. Give them your very best and not just those reheated, squishy, yucky leftovers. It’s worth it.

My husband is a one-in-a-million-type of guy. He works so hard to provide for our family, is always ready to help someone in need, is ready and willing to help me with household responsibilities, and is forever working on improvements around our home. He is honest about when he’s tired, but pushes through even when he should be resting many times. He backs me up, even when I’m wrong, in front of others and gently speaks with me about things he doesn’t agree with when we are alone.

I’m as quick as I can be to thank and appreciate him for all he does in every way I can think of. So, when he one day became grumpy and withdrawn from me, I was stunned. I knew something was going on, but I couldn’t read the situation rightly to fix it.

So, after a few days of his behavior, I finished cleaning up after the dinner I had prepared, put our daughter into the bath with a kid movie playing on my tablet, and headed into his office area in our home quietly. I sat down on the floor beside his desk while he stared at his estimates and emails, probably pretending to ignore me. And I asked one simple question, “What’s bothering you?” I was hoping the concern in my voice wouldn’t cause me to use some accusing or panicked tone, which would cause him to immediately withdraw to a battle line formation of defense.

Thankfully, we had been at this marriage things for a while, jumped victoriously over hurdles meant to end us, held tightly together through blustery storms of hurtful behaviors. The ball was then in his court to return gently looking for a pleasant volley or to slam back looking for a mighty overthrow. He calmly, but ever so broodingly, stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. Then he opened gently with how he felt unappreciated for all that he does for us. I was devastated that I had failed. He was right. He does so much for us all so selflessly, and somehow I had left him feeling as if it wasn’t enough.

Return volley. It’s in my court now. Do I return gently, looking for another gentle response and hopeful resolution? Or do I slam him with my defensive responses? I KNOW I’ve appreciated him. I KNOW I’ve thanked him. I KNOW I’ve always been readily and happily available physically and emotionally for him. It’s up to me now.

I chose gentleness. I took a few seconds to gather my emotions that threatened to throw me headlong into battle and attempted to talk our way through figuring out where the breakdown had occurred so we could repair the breach.

I first apologized. No, I hadn’t neglected to thank him, to appreciate him, to be there for him. But somehow, here we were. So, I apologized………FIRST.

I shared what I had thought was my perfect attempt at appreciating him, the times I had said this, done that, gave this. But then I ASKED HIM what he thought was what he needed to be appreciated properly. It turns out that my way of appreciating him and his way of receiving appreciation weren’t the same.

I WAS SPEAKING ONE LANGUAGE. HE WAS SPEAKING ANOTHER.

Here’s a little anecdote from my life to keep you entertained. I had this employee once when I was in the mortgage business. I was the Underwriter/Operations Manager. She was a Loan Officer. She was from Costa Rica and was fluent in Spanish and had quite a few Spanish-speaking clients as a result. Many times, she would come to my desk with her cell phone on her ear relaying a certain set of circumstances to me to see if the ratios and determining factors would work sufficiently toward an approval. Several times, she would be speaking Spanish into the phone and quickly turn to me in English with questions. I don’t speak Spanish. I only know a few words here and there. She would get going so fast sometimes that she would forget to switch from Spanish to English and rattle off a stream of words to me thinking she had made the switch. I would just stare at her and wait for her to figure out that I had no clue what she was saying. We would laugh hysterically sometimes and the client could be heard chuckling on the other end of the phone at us.

WE WEREN’T SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE, SO I DIDN’T HEAR HER.

Back to my husband and me in our dilemma. Many years ago, I had read a hugely popular book called The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.) It outlines the differences we all have in the way we send out and the way we receive love and appreciation. Here are the five ways discussed in detail in that book:

Words of Affirmation

Acts of Service

Receiving Gifts

Quality Time

Physical Touch

I’ve figured out my own love languages. I say languages, plural, because we typically have a primary and secondary set of languages unique to us many times as a result of our own life experiences, family dynamic, and cultural lifestyle. Mine are Acts of Service, primarily, and Quality Time, secondarily. I’m a doer. So, to show my husband my love and appreciation, I will most likely be found preparing a special dinner or planning a date night for time together or finding something fun to do as a family.

His love languages are Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch.

Uh oh. Would my yummy dinner tell him how much I appreciate him if he’s looking for me to verbally praise him? Would my fun family outing say a single thing about how thankful I am for his hard work if he’s looking for me to caress him tenderly? I’m saying, “I love you and all that you do,” and he hears, “It’s dinner time and we are all going out as a family later.” It may not be what I’ve said, but if I’m speaking another language, there’s a breakdown in what he hears. I may as well be speaking German to my handsome French Canadian who only speaks English (he’s French Canadian).

WE WERE SPEAKING TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.

Thankfully, I chose to hear him and not get defensive. We fixed it together. Thankfully, he chose to communicate instead of finding the love and appreciation elsewhere. But, this is where “falling out of love” can sometimes begin. We have to choose to become lifelong learners of our spouses. We have to choose to always be looking for what lies beneath the surface of their emotions (and ours) so that we can become a learned scholar, the very best source for all things ‘him’.

Let’s get back to the book for a moment. You may not be married. You may already apply is information to your marriage. But here’s the amazing thing: this information applies to ALL your relationships. In the workplace, I can use it to see how each individual employee is motivated. While one employee may love to be appreciated in front of the rest of the office staff, another might be appreciated best with a special gift certificate to their favorite restaurant or a monetary bonus. Yet another will be most uplifted by a private office meeting where you tell them how you appreciate their diligence and excellent work ethic. Be careful about the personal touch language in the workplace. It can be handled appropriately with a hand shake, high five, or group huddle. But it can get out of hand easily.

How about in your extended family? My mother’s love language is Gift Giving. She’s exceptional at it. I didn’t know it for years, until I was an adult and learned about these love languages. I always wondered if she was simply trying to buy my affection with stuff when all I had really been looking for was for her to tell me I was doing a great job. What a new relationship once I had figured this out! I had to learn to give quality gifts and how to hear her when she gave me gifts. There are several books by Gary Chapman related to this topic that delve more into specific application. You really should check them out. There are apparently SEVEN love languages of teens! Come on! We all need help with that one!

I’ve been to China a few times before my husband and I married. Because we were such good friends before we dated, I asked him to watch my house and collect my mail while I was gone each time. Of course, he always did. He’s just the kind of guy pretty much everyone can depend on to help in any situation. So, off I flew!

This was back in the very early 2000’s, and I haven’t been overseas in a few years, but at that time there was a significant delay when you were on the phone from China to the USA. It was about a 2-second delay, actually. Two seconds isn’t a huge amount of time, but it’s enough to put a damper on the flow of natural conversation. Imagine that delay when I called my husband (remember, we hadn’t married yet and ——-

There’s a funny backstory I just have to interject here. So, Valentine’s Day was the first date my husband and I went on together. That’s February. It was obvious to both of us pretty early on that this was probably the relationship God had for us and that we were destined to marry someday. Well, right around May he got a little overwhelmed and nervous about how quickly our relationship had escalated, and he broke it off. I was heartbroken, but I didn’t let it show. I wanted his friendship, even as painful as that was. It’s now June, and I’m headed off to China with him watching my house…..as friends, of course.

Well, this friend called that friend from China to check in and see how things had been going while I was gone. Don’t forget that delay in the phone lines! I’m waiting the few seconds to hear his greeting. Great! He’s there! It’s a 12-hour time difference. I know for a fact that I’ve woken him up in the middle of the night. But we’re friends, so it’s ok. Teehee! He tells me, in and out of this delay, that he has held a dinner party with our mutual friends at my house, has been in every room in my house praying for me while I’ve been on this trip, and……….here’s the funny part……….how he’s decided that he doesn’t want to live the rest of his life without me! Delay……..delay……….while I remember to breathe, decide that the words are real, decipher whether or not he’s making a strange joke that I don’t understand……..delay……delay……….

Ok! So, I’m getting married! Oh, dear. What am I going to tell my mother? I just told her we weren’t seeing each other anymore. And how protective she is after my ugly divorce. Oh. And I’m in China, where she doesn’t want me to be in the first place. And I’M GETTING MARRIED!

Ok, that was a fun memory. A two-second delay on the phone is annoying but certainly not a conversation-killer, or worse, a relationship-killer. But what about those delays we choose to cause when we have some sort of disagreement or when our feelings get hurt and we hold our loved one at arm’s length, maybe even giving them the silent treatment? What about those times we decide to withhold sex?

I’ve been there. This is what would go on in my head, “If he loves me, he should know that I need….,” or, “Why does he always leave the date night planning for me? Doesn’t he care and want to spend quality time with me?” Even the littler issues, “I cooked this dinner after a long day and he doesn’t bother to say a word of thanks or even that it tastes good,” or, “He hasn’t said more than ten words to me since he’s gotten home and now he just expects me to perform in the bedroom after the stressful day I’ve had.” How about when we leave subtle hints around the house, like a magazine open to a certain page of something we are interested in? Or a book that deals with an issue your husband should be fixing in himself (hmmmm, is that really our job?)?

Of course, none of this actually gets said out loud in calm conversation. It gets bottled………and tamped………and stirred……………until one day…………it blows. “What about meeeeeee?” screams in my head. Suddenly, a two-second delay on the phone in China seems like an immediate response to the delay that’s been created in my marriage relationship. These are the times wrong thoughts can come into our minds, wrong relationships online or with coworkers can become something dangerous.

What if, instead of expecting our loved one to “just know” what we need or what we feel or what we think, we just sit down together calmly, maybe at the end of the day when the kids are in bed, maybe when the kids are in the tub (that’s my favorite time), and just talk calmly with each other about it? We can look at our spouse without the escalated emotions of these things piling up unspoken and just express our thoughts respectfully (uh oh. I’m probably stepping on some toes with that word). That means that we choose not to demean, name call, or yell at our spouse. We communicate with all the love we felt on our wedding day in our pretty dress with our hair coiffed perfectly and our friends and family watching our every move. Guess who else is watching how you deal with this now. Your kids. Your friends. Your family. What’s your testimony you’re leaving about who you are and how you treat others?

We’ve all watched “chick flicks” from time to time, right? I can’t stand them. They’re based on this convoluted idea of romance. Girl meets boy. They flirt. They play coy (not the fish, that’s koi). They start to date (and I use that term oh-so-very loosely – it’s much more that they simply get naked and bump uglies). Then, girl decides she’s going to be rude. She starts to figure out that there are better, more qualified fish (wait, maybe it was koi) in the sea. They break up. He’s dejected. She plays mind games. She manipulates him. She’s a rude, selfish, promiscuous jerk to him. THEN! Somehow, these writers decide he’s going to welcome her back with open arms, after she’s treated him like dirt. And, they live happily ever after. It’s no wonder there are so many failed relationships!

We CANNOT behave like we are in the movies. Not communicating and expecting our spouses to understand our subtle hints about what we want is nothing more than manipulation. In the Bible, there was a woman named Jezebel, who used her womanly charm to manipulate and get everything she wanted out of her man. He was the powerful king Ahab who justly ruled the Jews, until she came along and messed with his head, disregarding the humanity of those he ruled. She made a huge mess of things. And we can too when we mess with people’s heads this way! Personally, I’d rather not be known as someone who manipulates anyone, much less my husband, to get what I want out of life. How much more wonderful to be able to lovingly speak honestly with him, state my wants and needs, only to find that he respects me enough to NOT ONLY give me those needs I express but also those that lie deep within my heart that only my husband who holds they keys to the innermost sanctums in my heart can access?

If he’s been tricked into giving me anything, do you think he’ll be ready and willing to reach out with more? No, probably not. He’ll be more protected. He’ll be more withdrawn from me. He’ll be looking for other tricks he thinks I’ll be playing. Men have hearts that are fragile. Our society doesn’t teach them to be very sensitive and put their emotions out to be judged, lest they are hurt and broken. If we act as if we are in some ridiculous chick flick or sit com where men are portrayed as idiots tolerated by women for procreation, they’ll start acting like those men. It’s emasculating. And it’s the breakdown of the fabric of the family. I made the decision years ago to stop watching those types of things. I don’t want it finding a home in my head and using my abilities against my family. I can manipulate. I can do it well. But I will NOT, by conscious decision, manipulate my family to get what I want.

The divorce rate in the US is around 65%. The divorce rate in the church is around 55%. I’m out to change it. I know how horrible divorce is first hand. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Let’s get together and change it. Let’s undo the damage that’s been done, whether simply in our society or from generations in our own families of destruction. It’s important. Really important.

So, I think I mentioned my little blended family in my initial post. My step-daughter was a teen when we got married, and I was a childless adult who thought she had all the parenting answers and was oh so very ready to explain what every parent was doing wrong. Yep. I was “one of those” people. In my infinite wisdom, of course, I thought the struggles you have with your teen were because you did this wrong and here’s why; I thought the reason your kid had a tantrum in public was due to this parenting mistake and here’s the fix. Yep. I was ready and willing to point out the wrong and provide advice for doing it right………….unfortunately to my new husband.

Our first year of marriage was filled with stress and fighting. Neither of us were equipped with healthy communication tools, having both been in failed marriages before and raised in less than healthy families in our childhoods. To this day, I’m amazed we made it work. Thankfully, we had some amazing friends who mentored us through it, were very honest with us, and who lovingly walked us into healthy communication with each other. I had to learn that whatever he was saying to me wasn’t really his veiled attempt at telling me I’m a useless idiot. He had to learn that what I was saying wasn’t really a viscous attack of his parenting skills or his intelligence. And I had to stop attacking his parenting. His daughter, while certainly going through her tenuous teen years, was a delightful young lady with a huge heart and a deep devotion to her family and friends. I’m so glad she can laugh now at the memories of those days in the beginning. We have grown a lovely relationship that I personally treasure.

We had the opportunity to celebrate our first wedding anniversary at a marriage retreat in Colorado Springs, CO. It was so beautiful, packed with one-on-one time together, candlelit dinners, hikes into the mountains with packed lunches, and short marriage teaching groups over the weekend. We had some tender moments bearing our hearts with one another and even some emotional breakthroughs. It was perfect……….I thought.

When we got home, he admitted that he felt I had trapped him into going so that he would be forced to talk and share his feelings. He had been miserable.

In one of the teaching sessions, the husbands and wives were separated and given the chance to really talk about things apparently only women discuss and things only men discuss. I had truly assumed that the men were discussing sex and the women were discussing what the men refused to help with around the house. Well! Was I wrong! The women talked ONLY about sex and the men talked about COMMUNICATION! No wonder he was miserable! It was our main source of contention in our relationship and he had no way out. Once he was able to calm down, he admitted what had really happened with me. Here’s how it played out, according to my husband:

Leader: Let’s talk about conflict resolution.

Attendant #1: My wife yells a lot and I yell back. It gets loud. We usually say things we regret and it takes us days of silent treatment to recover.

Attendant #2: I yell. My wife cries. We have great make-up sex.

Leader to my husband: How about you, Steve?

My husband: I just refuse to participate. She gets upset and tries to fight, but I won’t do it. It’s not a fight if I don’t participate.

…………silence in the room while they all look at my husband………

Leader: Oh, you’re one of those. You’re the worst kind. You won’t even validate her feelings. You won’t even admit to a problem. By not participating, you’ve abandoned her and left her alone in the cold thinking you’re ready to leave her. You’ve left her emotionally by doing that.

(Ok, so let’s take a GIANT step back for explanation. My first marriage ended when my husband left me. I came home to an empty house following an office function. My biggest fear is being abandoned again.)

Yep. He felt trapped and as if I had cornered him on purpose. It took us a while to move past it and find a place to communicate safely, but it began there. He took a mighty look within, and I took the time to hear him tell me for the first time what he was feeling. We were beginning to learn to listen to each other, to actually HEAR each other.

Now, we have adapted a few listening techniques that really work for us. I’d like to share them:

1. We DO NOT interrupt each other. Listening only begins with our mouths closed and our ears open. Yelling in anger or even venomous retorts will result in more brokenness, not healing and restoration.
2. We listen with the intent to UNDERSTAND the other person. Listening isn’t just the time we don’t talk and prepare what to say (or yell) when the other stops speaking.
3. We CLARIFY. One of our favorite things to say after hearing the other is, “Ok, so what I heard you say is….” This gives us the freedom to interpret what we think we have heard the other say. It is the time for PATIENCE with one another as we strive to find the communication breakdown. We each bring a lifetime of experiences, good and bad, to the marriage, which leads us to hear with our own interpretation of things. I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve heard him say specific words that meant one thing to him and a TOTALLY different thing to me.
4. We give each other TIME to process information. This was the most difficult for me. I want instant results showing we’ve fixed it, that we are already past whatever the issue may be, and that I don’t have to worry that I’ll be abandoned again. My husband needs time on his own to ponder what I’ve said, how he feels, what changes may need to be made (or not), and what the Truth really is. This was all new for him to explore communication and certainly new to me to explore communication in a healthy way. I needed to learn to wait for him and not demand he close the discussion right away. How can I expect him to respond in a loving and caring way, displaying godly behavior if I’m not giving him time to reflect on God’s Truth about the situation?
5. We had to learn to SET TIME to come back together after he had time to process, so we could talk again. In the beginning, we would attempt to talk, fail and argue, divide with the pretense of processing information, and never come back to resolve anything. It was avoidance and abandonment all over again. We had to decide it was necessary and commit to resolving when the time was right.
6. When we finally resolve our issue(s), we always commit to praying together. We are so thankful for every step of growth we have experienced and will continue to experience. It is only with the strength God gives us that we have come this far. (I explained in my initial post that we are a Christian family, devoted to prayer and to Christ. It’s who we are and it works for us. I am always willing to discuss with anyone who disagrees or has questions, but I will limit it to polite discourse and will never respond to hateful or demeaning rebuttals.)

I’ve always wanted to start a blog. Maybe it’s vanity. Maybe it’s just a way to get my thoughts out so they’ll stop circling like vultures in my head. I’m not sure. I’ve been asked more than a few times to write a book. Who has the time?

This blog is all about living life daily in this wacky world. I’m a wife. I’m a step-mom. I’m a mom of an adopted child. I’ve been married once before. I can tell you exactly what didn’t work probably more than I can tell you what does work. Because we all have our unique life experiences to bring to the table, I’m pretty positive there’s no one way to do this thing called life.

You may disagree with me; it’s all good. I’m not afraid of comments or emails. But, here’s a little about who I am. I am a Christian woman who believes the Bible is alive and relatable as well as able to withstand the scrutiny of anyone who attempts to disprove it. The only reason I’m stating this is because you’ll see me reference scripture and prayer often. It’s how I get through life. But I’m a realist. To me, that means I don’t ‘live in the clouds’ or that I exist only within church circles. It does mean that I’ve found life to be easier with God than without Him.

This is my second marriage as well as my husband’s second marriage. I have no children of my own, but my husband has a daughter from his first marriage. We began this journey with a teen girl in the house. Yep, it was a crazy start together, but we’ve made it more than 13 years so far. In 2012, we were asked to step in and parent a child whose biological parents were mixed up and lost in a drug and crime culture. So, we have a 27-year-old and a 6 1/2-year-old in our lives and in our hearts.

Here we are! This is the beginning of my little blog. I’ll promise never to tell you I’ve got all the answers. I’ll never tell you my way is the only way. Hopefully, you’ll be kind in your comments, but keep it real! I will, too.