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Writer's pictureRachel Berntsen

ninety-nine problems...not.


Just to briefly piggyback off of last week's post, I remembered an area of my life that I've been working on, especially this summer: my ability to be a good hostess. Hospitality is not one of my natural gifts - hosting stresses me out quite a bit. I don't like cooking while people are here because  cooking and hosting at the same time is not something I'm good at, so I always make sure the food is prepared beforehand or that it's finished right around the time I'm expecting people. I always stress over the cleaning, both the cleaning that needs to be taken care of before guests arrive and the cleanup afterwards. Peter is much more relaxed when it comes to hosting, and I'll admit, sometimes I resent him for it, but that's mostly because I wish I could be the same way (and then it's partly because I sometimes wish he would help me out more with the cleaning). I think I'm getting better at living in the moment though - enjoying quality time with people that might not have otherwise occurred had they not come over to our house. I also remind myself that I don't always have to be responsible for preparing an entire meal for people - having people over outside of meal times and providing light refreshments is totally acceptable. It's a work in progress, as are most things in my life, but the key thing is that I am seeing progress in this area. It helps that I do enjoy having people over, even if it stresses me out a little (or a lot, depending on how many people are here lol). I guess this was on my mind because in the past week, we've hosted four different groups of people at our house. Peter and I have sure been busy this summer!


A brief update on tutoring - about a month ago, I celebrated the fact that I had received my 100th 5-star rating on Wyzant, the tutoring website I've been using for almost all of my students. It was extremely exciting and felt like my hard work was paying off...until I received a 2-star rating two weeks ago. As you know, I take people's opinions of me very seriously, especially when those opinions are negative. Seeing that 2-star rating hurt. I immediately started replaying the session in my head, wondering where I went wrong. Was it because I only managed to address one of the two areas that the student's dad had asked me to address? Was it because the reading material was a little dark (Have you ever read The Lottery? Well, it's actually a really insightful read and it's considered one of the best short stories to use with middle school students, in my defense)? Was it because I ignored the student's dad at the beginning of this online session (Sometimes parents will introduce themselves during the first minute of an online session, but this dad lingered for 5-10 minutes without saying a word, and I didn't really know how to respond to that)? As I sat moping around though and wondering what I could've possibly done better during that one-hour session, Peter reminded me that that one bad rating doesn't define me. There are still 113 other ratings (and counting!) that suggest I'm doing a fantastic job! He reminded me that the one outlier proves that I'm actually a great tutor and that I'm not secretly bribing my students with chocolate to give me their 5-star ratings. Yes, having that low rating sucks, but it's really not the end of the world (the way I originally thought), and I'm not going to let my confidence waver because of it (I honestly forgot about it the next day, which just goes to show that I'm growing!).


Anyway, something I've noticed as a newlywed is that a common question people like to ask is "How are you and Peter doing?" Sometimes they'll take it a step further and ask something along the lines of "Have you had any problems yet?" That's when it gets awkward. Do people just assume newlyweds have a bunch of conflicts at the start of their marriage? I thought the honeymoon period meant that wasn't the case lol. I know people mean well by asking (at least, I assume so), but it's just a weird question to answer. I honestly don't think Peter and I have encountered more conflicts as a married couple than we had when we weren't married yet. They typically stem from the same areas, anyway, like miscommunication or...yeah, it's mostly miscommunication. Maybe a month or two before we got married, I insisted that things would get better once Peter and I were married, because we wouldn't have to part ways at the end of the night (which would make sharing a car a lot easier), we would officially start sharing our money (instead of constantly wondering who was going to pay for things like groceries or family birthday gifts), we could share one Netflix account instead of each having our own, you get the gist. In all honesty, I think I was right. Being married has been a lot easier than simply dating and being engaged. A lot of that has to do with the fact that we decided not to live together until after we got married - I'm sure getting married doesn't feel any different for a lot of people (maybe until they have children, anyway). I'm just pleasantly surprised that being married has been easier and not harder. We definitely can't end the day without resolving a conflict because we share a bed now and Peter wouldn't let me go to sleep until we did lol. I can't pretend to be fine when I'm feeling depressed because Peter is always around now, which is actually really good for my mental and emotional health (one of the many reasons why I thank God for him). Those are just a couple of examples of how marriage has made our lives much easier. Our marriage is far from perfect (A dialogue from today while I was cooking to the best of my memory - Me: "Ow!" [said while throwing steaks into a pan of oil and getting burned in the process] Peter: "You should put them in earlier." Me: "I'm trying to do a million things at the same time right now!" Was I? Nope. I was just frazzled from being burned and I also didn't want to acknowledge that he was right. Sigh.), but I think we're doing well with what we have, and for that, we're blessed.


Peter and I will have been married for two months tomorrow, and all I can think about is the fact that I'm just as ecstatic about being married to him as I was when we first exchanged our vows. I don't really believe in "soulmates", but I do believe that God knew Peter was a really really strong candidate for me when it came down to choosing a life partner. I often joke about whether or not I picked the right person in front of other people (especially when Peter is being a huge dork), but the truth is, I know I did, which is why I'm so comfortable joking about it (I think our friends and family know we picked well when we picked each other too). They say marriage is hard, and I'm sure it is, and I'm sure it won't always be as easy as it's been, but at least for now, it's nothing but wonderful to me.

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