Here's a Tip...

Tip #1: Marry a man with a sense of humor. Most of you who read this blog are probably already married, but I just have to say that if you're not - look for a man who can laugh at himself and who keeps you laughing. We've been in a lot of tough situations around the world, and even in the worst of times, there were two things that helped us to keep our sanity - knowing that we weren't alone (God cared for us), and finding humor in everything. My family calls us "Statler and Waldorf" - the two heckling old men from the Muppet Show. Good or bad, that's a pretty good description of us. A couple of weeks ago I finished knitting a hat for Peter and asked him to model it. In "order to protect his identity"...this is what I got:

...and then I tried it on and Ms. Ham came out...

And now I've put them on the blog for anyone to see. :-) Which leads me to Tip #2: Learn to laugh at yourself. God gave us a sense of humor, and none of us are perfect. If you slip up and say something wrong - laugh with those around you instead of getting upset. If you feel like making a funny face and it gets captured - post the pictures! Don't be so uptight that if life isn't perfect, you're not happy. Life will never be perfect, so make the best of it and have fun along the journey!

Yep, those are new light fixtures on our heads. Peter wasn't really plugged it, but he liked making it look that way! This was taken while we were working on our kitchen almost 5 years ago. :-)

Peter and I rarely argue - it just doesn't happen. However, when one of us does get upset (usually me since I have the natural ability to get angry in a hurry - ah hem...), the anger or argument quickly breaks down because one or the other of us will insert some humor or start mocking the other person's anger and the whole situation diffuses. I realize this doesn't work for everyone, but my third and final tip (Tip #3) is to use humor to diffuse tense situations or arguments. There is a place and a time for this, but lets say you're fighting over something really stupid (like forgetting to pick up something at the grocery or eating the last slice of pie or leaving a pen in a shirt that gets washed), humor can quickly make you realize how unimportant it that issue is in the grand scheme of things. More often than not, our "fights" are over in a matter of seconds to minutes because we both end up laughing and saying we're sorry for being so dumb.

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength. - Proverbs 17:22 (NLT)