Cooking for Two

I love to cook. Growing up I used to watch my mom cook and she made dinner every night for us and we had a family meal (without Haley though cause she was usually at dance class). But I remember sitting on the countertops and watching her cook and just seeing how calm and serene she looked while doing it. The majority of the time my mother and I spent together growing up was in the kitchen. So maybe thats why I love to cook.

Before I started dating Bruce I probably cooked for myself once or twice a month. I just never really did it because I hated cleaning up the mess and cooking for one is just so boring and wasteful. So the first few meals I made Bruce were kinda meant to WOW him, I made things with lots of flavor, lots of flair and made sure the table was always really nice. In the first few months I made him Chicken Piccata, Green Enchiladas, a roasted whole chicken, countless breakfasts, Carrot Cake, Dump Cake and more.

I haven't been cooking as much this semester cause we've both been so busy. What I have been doing though is keeping lots of food in my fridge so there's at least always something to eat. I keep healthier food around and try to limit the amount we eat out. I am loving the healthier food, I find myself eating substantially less fast food and fried food and actually rarely even crave it anymore. I eat all three meals a day usually with a snack in mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Things I like to always have on hand are: eggs, wheat bread, low-fat cheese, low-fat yogurt, milk, various nuts, stuff for sandwiches, apples, lettuce, spinach, cottage cheese, granola, wheat thins, cranberry juice, tomato juice, avocados, wheat pasta, trail mix, apple sauce, frozen fruit (for smoothies) and red potatoes. I know not all of this is healthy but a lot of it is much healthier than what I'm used to.

For me it isn't so much the losing weight, it's just about eating more balanced stuff. I used to live on Whataburger like 3 times a week now I can barely have one without feeling super super sick. Part of why I want to eat healthier is so that as a side-effect I'm also helping Bruce eat healthier. I know I can't control what he eats when he's not with me but I can make sure that when I cook, I'm cooking healthy balanced meals that are good for him too. He's diabetic and so these last few months I've been really reading up on it and trying to cook things that I know are good for him. Left to himself his diet usually consists of lots of fast food and about gallon of Diet Coke a day. Through my research I've found that there are certain vegetables and different things you can cook with that are great for diabetics and help work to keep his sugars down and kidneys working, so I always try to incorporate those into meals as well. He's definitely noticed my new found interest in getting healthy and I think its starting to have the effect I want and rubbing off on him. He's eating a little less, not drinking as much Diet Coke and most importantly smoking less.

So this week I've taken it a step further. On Sunday I made my birthmom's Vegan Chili which was about 4 cups of beans (red and black), bell peppers, onions, celery, carrots, chipotles, adobo sauce and seasonings. I cooked it all day and it turned out great! Bruce loved it, even though at first he was at first skeptical of the lack of meat. It was Super Bowl Sunday so I guess as a man it is the day to crave meat. But he loved it all the same. I made some spanish rice with it (which was not healthy) but luckily the chili is so filling that he didn't eat as much of the rice. Then for the rest of the week I've been making my Green Smoothies as seen below and they have been great. They are filling and I really feel the difference in my energy levels. When I have one in the morning it helps me stay awake and alert for the rest of the day.

So yesterday morning I was making my 4th Green Smoothie of the week and I ran out of Spinach! So I will definitely have to double my purchase or maybe just get a much bigger bag. But last night I was getting ready for bed and Bruce asked if I would make him a Green Smoothie and stick it in the fridge for him in the morning. I was so excited! I hadn't even thought to offer him one because it just didn't seem like the kinda thing he would normal go for but I was so thrilled that he wanted to try it. I told him I'd run out of Greens but that I'd happily make him a smoothie, I'd just have to figure out a way to put the lowest sugar fruits in it for him. So this morning I woke up and put a banana, 1/2 and orange, 1/2 an apple a small handful of blue berries and blackberries and then a good amount of carrot in the blender for him and whipped it up. I tasted it after to make sure it wasn't too sweet and it tasted fine. It didn't taste nearly as sweet as the ones I make for myself so I stuck it in the fridge for him. I am just so happy he asked, today I'm gonna look up online fruits and their sugar contents and try to buy some that I can put in the smoothie that will be good for him. I would hate to be giving him these delicious smoothies that are healthy for me to him and have them be unhealthy for him. I'm just so thrilled he is making a conscious effort to add some healthy-ness to his diet.

So it looks like my strategy is working. If I eat healthier he'll see it and want to do it himself! I know I wouldn't have started all this healthy stuff if he wasn't in my life. I want him to get healthy and the best way to do that is to get me healthy at the same time. For me the important thing is just adding lots more fruit and vegetables to my diet. I'm not taking away things, except for fast food, I'm just adding good stuff. I can't wait to keep exploring all theses great healthy food options. The best part is, that healthy food often has much more flavor than fatty-fried foods. They're also a lot of fun to cook. One day I hope I'll have little kids in the kitchen watching me cook healthy wonderful meals so they can grow up to do the same.

Green Smoothies Day 2

Green Smoothies Day Two from Tyler Archer on Vimeo.

So I'm slowly trying to add more healthy things to my diet- I'm not dieting per se I'm just adding healthy stuff to what I already eat. Right now its the Green Smoothies. One of my favorite blogs Happy Foody talks a lot about Green Smoothies and they have always been tempting but I just had never tried them. They seemed messy and like more work than they are so I just never went there. Well this weekend I was making Deirdre's Vegas Chili and decided to take the plunge and also try my first Green Smoothie. Happy Food has a very simple first recipe for them and I made my first one on Sunday. It was easy, it wasn't as messy as I thought and it tasted delicious.

The recipe is super easy:
1 Frozen Banana
1 whole peeled orange
handful of mixed frozen fruit (strawberries, cantaloupe, lots of berries and pineapple)
Fresh pineapple
Lots of Spinach

One thing that Happy Foody says that I wanted to try was putting you smoothie is a fun cup cause you'll be more likely to finish it. Also using a big straw so you get more of the good stuff faster. I'm using my Vegas cup from Fremont Street and it works great.

The green smoothie is awesome and freaking people out while drinking the green goop is fun too!

Last Minute Resolutions

Now that January is almost over, hopefully everyone has their resolutions in order. Thanks to a friendly co-worker who sent this to me in an email- I think these are some great jumping off points for how to always live, but even better to start the year off right by doing them. Try to pick at least 2 from each category and make it a point to do those things all the time. I'd love to make some of them mandatory for my office...but since I can't I'll just share with as many people as possible. I'm bolding the things I need to work on or already somewhat do and italics are my thoughts.

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water I've been trying to do this one all school year actually and it's going pretty good. Rarely does a day go by where I don't drink at least one bottle of water and several glasses with meals
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar Doubtful that I'll ever be able to do this one, Lunch and Dinner are usually my best meals
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants. I'm trying to do this one this semester- right now I'm in the just adding phase, I'm just adding these types of foods to what I already eat
4. Live with the 3 E’s – Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy. I think I've always kind of done this one and I try to pay special attention to this when I'm at the office
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games. I got a Wii :)
7. Read more books than you did in 2009. I would love to!
8. Sit in silence for at 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours I try to get 8 hours at least 4 nights a week and 6-7 hours the other 3 nights...but usually there's one night that I get like only 5
10. Take a 10-30 minute walk daily. And while you walk, smile. I'm trying to get Bruce to do this with me too sometimes- I suggested it like two weekends ago and we still haven't gotten to it...maybe this weekend...but I walk at least 30 minutes a day and probably usually more- plus I live on the 3rd floor of my apartment building so I move
    

Personality:

1. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is about. Will try...will try
2. Don’t have negative thoughts on things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment. I suck at this! I get totally wrapped up in things I can't control so I'm totally gonna try to do this.
3. Don’t over do it. Keep/Know your limits.
4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip. This is one of my actual New Year's resolutions but I specified it to family gossip because my family is horrible about!
6. Dream more while you are awake.
7. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. Enough said.
8. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with His/Her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness. I'm on it.
9. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others. I did realize this last semester and I've been doing much better with this one.
10. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present. I'm trying!
11. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
12. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime. I feel really lucky that I have some really great teachers too. I have tons of people trying to help me out with this one.
13. Smile and laugh more.
14. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. Bruce and I take turns winning and losing, but we haven't really had real arguments...

For me the Personality Ones are gonna be the hardest- I'm kinda judge-y, I do get envious and I argue a lot. But I do a lot of the positive stuff too, I just need to balance it out better with more positive happy stuff and a lot less of the judge-y stuff.

Society:

1. Call your family often.
2. Each day give something good to others.
3. Forgive everyone for everything. I'm pretty good at this one already.
4. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
5. Try to make at least three people smile each day. DONE
6. What other people think of you is none of your business. Oh-goodness. Yes it is.
7. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
   

Life:

1. Do the right thing!
2. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or loyal.
3. GOD heals everything.
4. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
5. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. This is important because chances are once you do you'll feel better after you're there.
6. The best is yet to come.
7. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
8. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

A Healthier Me

The way people eat often reflects the type of person they are or are trying to become. I think food can be a spiritual thing for some people but also a healing thing for others. I greatly believe that what you put into your body is reflected in your physical appearance and energy. I'm really working on what I eat. I'm not trying to do anything drastic all at once like I've tried and failed at before, but I'm just trying to change the way I use food. I am definitely a stress eater, an angry eater, an emotional eater, and a social eater. I can eat all the time. If I'm upset the first thing I'll look for is all the chocolate that is hidden around my apartment for those such emergencies. I crave carbs and can stand in my kitchen eating tortillas with butter on them for 1/2 an hour before realizing what I've done.

I started last semester trying to take my lunch to work and try to have balanced meals and snacks. I was able to keep that up for about a month. Then when I started dating Bruce I started cooking a little more often, but also started eating Whataburger close to 3 times a week. When I cook I always try to have a salad and veggies but that is the extent of what was healthy in my meals. As the needle on the scale quickly started racing towards 140 I decided that none of the measures I'd taken to lose weight worked and if they did, they were not working for me. Last summer I tried several crazy diets- the 3 day diet which is basically starving yourself and eating less than 700 calories a day. I made it half a day. Then I was suggested Diet Pills (I should have known better I know). I took 3 or 4 Venom (The name alone should have scared me) a day and while yes I had great energy I also was incredibly dehydrated and had to force myself to eat the little these pills allowed me to keep down. Needless to say these were both horrible ideas.

So this semester I will try again. So I've gone to HEB twice since the new year and each time I've tried to get lots of veggies and healthier food. I hate wheat but I've been eating wheat toast, wheat sandwiches, wheat pasta, wheat cereal and more I'm sure. And I try to have at least one piece of fruit today. I drink low-fat milk and try to drink a ton of water throughout the day. I snack on whole grain wheat thins with a low-fat laughing cow cheese wedge. After only another month of this I haven't noticed that much of a difference. I've lost some weight but the clothes aren't fitting. One thing I have noticed is I'm not craving salty things anymore like chips. And if I eat something really fried it hurts my stomach. Which is sad cause I miss my Egg Rolls from Jack-in-the-Box, but hey I don't need fried food. I'm actually not craving any fast food. Now its only been a few weeks and I'm already really bored with my lunches. I do still allow myself to eat out but I try to only have fast food once a week (usually Sunday's when I take lunch to my mom up at the hospital). When I go out to eat I order something healthier and tend to eat only half of it and save the rest for lunch the next day. This seems to be working cause magically I've lost 8 pounds already.

Now enter the Wii Fit. I have been waiting for my Wii fit for about a year. I've been wanting it and after 3 days with it, I'm loving it. When you first get your Wii it puts you through all these tests to find out you Wii Fit age (it tests balance, coordination and center of gravity- it's cool). Based on the tests I'm about 8 years older than I should be. My BMI is right below the level for being Overweight at 24.4 and my Wii trainer suggests I lose about 16 more pounds to reach an optimal weight. So far I really enjoy the yoga on the wii. It's kinda like having your own yoga instructor- there are all types for more advanced and less. I also enjoy all the step-aerobics type activities too. The Hula Hoop training is fun but right now my personal fave is probably rhythm Kung-Fu. So I'm doing about 30-45 minutes a day on it and we'll see how long that lasts. Again I'm not looking for drastic changes, just a little at a time and just trying to be a little healthier overall.

Please don't call me Pookie

For as long as I can remember my nickname has been T-bird. All my family calls me T-bird and I think once my brother-in-law has but we both agreed it was awkward and he hasn't done it since. When I was a baby, or so I have been told, my paternal grandfather used to call me Smyler cause I was a very happy smile-y baby. Smyler never caught on but I still get T-bird all the time, mostly from my dad (he also class me just Bird sometimes for short).

When I went to High School I wanted to "reinvent" myself so instead of going by Tyler I decided to make the big, bad choice and go with just "Ty". My family made fun of me for months, friends would call and ask for Ty and my parents would jokingly start saying "Oh Ty, you have a phone call" and such. Eventually someone in my Musical Theatre class started calling me My-Ty (Mauy-Thai yah like the drink) and then that caught on with all my close friends. Throughout High School though I stopped introducing myself as Ty and just went back to Tyler, but with most of my friend Ty and My-Ty stuck. By the time I got to college I had completely dropped Ty and most of my college friends just called me Tyler, once I got closer with people though they'd take it upon themselves to nickname me Ty. Today I always get a little giddy or excited when someone calls me Ty cause it reminds me of high school. The secretaries in the office sometime make fun of me and call me Ty-Ty but Ty still makes me feel safe and at home. My brother-in-law and his best friend call me Ty a lot they don't usually call me Tyler, I guess they think Ty is more informal so they chose that. I don't really have a preference I've always really liked my name but Ty will always have a fun, sweet emotional reaction.

I call everyone "hun" or "honey" or "darlin" or "pretty girl" or "sweets". Those are just my general nicknames. I call my sister Hail (not spelled like her name mind you) and I am very possessive about this nickname. You have to earn Haley's nickname to be able to use it and I am totally the judge. I even call guys hun it's just kinda second nature. Every time I accidentally call one of the secretaries hun and then I remember that I probably shouldn't.

Now nicknames with guys are completely different. Not even with guys I'm dating but people like my brother-in-law and guys I've known forever I'm always "sweetie" or "love". If my brother-in-law isn't calling me Ty then it's sweetie. My birth-stepfather always calls me sweetie and one of my best guy friend's from high school calls me love. Strangers, bartenders, waiters all tend to call me sweetie (but that's probably just a female thing that they always do as the go-to nickname).

Boyfriend nicknames are still another issue. Babe. Baby. Love. My love. My darling. Simple straight and to the point. Nothing cutesy about it. I don't like pet names that are too overdone, that aren't just simple and to the point. I can understand sometimes when they're person specific or they hold certain memories, but maybe i've just never been in a relationship where those organically come about...which is actually fine with me.

What I find the most interesting is how few people actually call me Tyler. The students and my coworkers yes call me Tyler, but my friends, family and loved one rarely just say "hey Tyler". I tend to notice when people close to me call me Tyler, because it totally throws me for a loop. I'm like oh-wait that's me. Because I'm just not used to people using my name.

Art in Education

When I was in Elementary School I remember always seeing the ads on TV for “Save the Music”. Musicians and artists would come on TV for PSAs talking about schools cutting music programs due to costs and such. I never really knew what they were talking about because my elementary and middle schools all had very strong music programs that I was very much involved in. When I went to High School it was another story. I went to the North East School of the Arts (NESA) at Robert E. Lee (I also went to ISA but that’s another story). At NESA I was a musical theatre major in a class of 17. From the start of the program we were trained by amazing teachers. Mrs. Bianco, our voice teacher, was an amazing performer and great teacher, she helped all of us find things in our voices that weren’t there before NESA. Ms. Starnes our dance teacher and later Ms. Mabry pushed lots of us to our dancing breaking point leaving all of us sore in places were weren’t being sore in “My body doesn’t bend that Ms. Starnes”. Mr. Connelly our acting teacher put us through the most amazing acting exercises that made us an extremely close knit class. All throughout NESA these 17 classmates were my best friend and all of that is because of Mr. Connelly, he made us best friends, people we relied on and needed to be with. I’ve never experienced anything like it before then or since then. We were able to work on our craft everyday for HOURS and it never felt like work because it was what we all loved and enjoyed. When we did shows, sometimes we were at school from 7 AM till 11 PM. We’d be exhausted but we’d always show up the next day. This of course instilled in us a great work ethic. Musical Theatre was everything but we still had to do well in our academic classes to stay in the program. Musical Theatre was almost like the reward for going to High School. Well as I’m sure some of y’all have heard, yesterday there was an announcement that NESA may be a casualty of the NEISD budget crisis. Dr. Middleton (NEISD Superintendent) is considering either laying off some of the teachers or cutting the entire program. The average High School student costs the district $6,500 a year while a NESA student costs about $8,000. But look what you get out of it. Dr. York notes that 99% of NESA student go to college and last year alone NESA students received over $10 million in college scholarships. NESA students do better academically and on standardized tests too. The idea that NESA may not be around next year is heartbreaking. I know that NESA made up such a huge part of who I am and has influenced and effected my entire life. If it wasn’t for NESA I wouldn’t have learned about ISA (my other magnet school) and I wouldn’t have graduated in the top 5% of my class, allowing me to get amazing scholarships, that allowed me to go to an amazing private university. I owe so much to NESA. I had some amazing life experiences there too. I just am so sad. My little sister Grace is there now and I just can’t imagine making all those students in their first few years of High School go back to their districts and their own high schools. If you want more information or want to join a Facebook group about it please see the following links:

Video:
http://www.foxsanantonio.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/vid_949.shtml

News Article:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/Cost_may_kill_NEISD_School_of_the_Arts.html

Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=246423119716&ref=mf

"When You Say You Love Me"

When you say “I love you” everything changes. When you actually say it out loud to someone where they can hear it and understand what you’re saying then things are never the same. I’ve said, “I love you” (and meant it) to 3 guys that weren’t my friends or family members. The guys have always said it first; I’ve always been too scared. That first time it’s spoken in a relationship, though, that’s the best. That first time you hear someone say “I love you” the world kinda stops for a minute and if it’s welcomed then sheer joy follows. Then time picks back up and you say “I love you” or “I love you too” or “love ya” all the time. The words then get said a dozen times a day to that person and they become almost a required part of the relationship. If they aren’t said once then the worrying begins. But at the same time since they are being thrown around so frequently they become a habit and almost just a secondary response. Only sporadically do you stop to think about the words you’re saying to make sure that their real meaning is still there and being understood. But that first time, the first time you say “I love you” is the scariest, the best, the worst and all feelings in between.

In high school I told all my friends I loved them. My musical theatre class was really close, there were only 17 of us, and we were constantly throwing “I love you”s around. This slowly leaked over to my life with all my friends. Phone conversations (this was definitely before Texting) always ended with “I love you” or “love ya”. I didn’t really date in high school to the point where “I love you” was ever even proposed so I didn’t have to deal with telling someone I loved them and having those feelings not reciprocated and the drama that I’m sure would have followed.

My first college boyfriend and I had been dating a little over two months when he first told me. He said he had wanted to tell me after the first month but refused cause he “knew” it was too early. I think I kinda worked the actual “I love you” out of him cause we were standing outside somewhere and I was complaining about not knowing how he felt about me and he said something along the lines of “you know I love you”. I didn’t say it back right away, I waited probably another two weeks or so. Again this was before Texting too so we said it on the phone a lot, also we lived in separate cities the phone was a large part of our relationship. We dated for about a year and over the summer I went away to camp as a counselor and we had tons of phone calls and actual letters that ended with “I love you”, the letters probably were just singed “love” but I can’t really remember. All I know is that with him I did not overuse “I love you” I really tried to only say it at the end of calls or when I was actually with him. It didn’t need to be said a hundred times a day or constantly when I was with him- it was fine we knew we were in love so lets move on. And then one day I moved on. One day I woke up and realized I wasn’t in love. I didn’t know this person I’d been with for a year and was worried that the love wasn’t there.

But where does the love go when you break up with someone? How do you just fall out of love with someone you’ve been with for a while or that you thought you could love forever? When you’re broken up with I understand the falling out of love thing. A**hole broke your heart so yah you’re not gonna love the jerk anymore. Dumba** cheats on you again totally understandable to fall out of love. But are there other ways to fall out of love? I guess sometimes you later find out things about a person that you didn’t originally know and that can make you fall out of love but that’s more sudden. It’s the slow fading out of love that troubles me. When over a period of months you just become indifferent towards the person and you try to convince yourself that it’s still love but one day it’s gone. It makes you wonder if it was really love to begin with.

The next time I said I love you was with my ex-fiancé. We started dating in the spring of my sophomore year of college and it took us about 5 months to become actual “boyfriend/girlfriend”. But before he even asked me be his girlfriend he told me he was falling in love with me. The day he told me he actually loved me was the day he asked me to be his girlfriend, almost 5 months to the day since we met and started seeing each other. He just said it the once and I started to cry and told him I’d be his girlfriend but didn’t say I love you. I finally told him I loved him about 2 months later. Again it wasn’t a frequent occurrence of the words and eventually I said it more than him. I always told him I loved him when I saw him, when I left him, on the phone, for lots of reasons. We were together another year and a half after that. But the last 5 months of our relationship were like the first 5 only reversed. We slowly learned that we weren’t right for each other and the love was there we both admitted to still loving each other, but we fought all the time and started avoiding each other till one day we decided to take a break.

Why isn’t love enough? This goes for friendships and relationships. Cause both can end even when there’s still love there. I go back and forth between believing that relationships can survive even if it seems like the love between you is all you have. But sometimes I just don’t believe that love is all you need to stay with someone. There are so many other things. Respect, honesty, trust, laughter, affection. These things are also needed to make a relationship work. I know some people would probably argue that without these things then you don’t have love either, but again where did the love go? It was there and then as these things go does it just disintegrate? I think that love can still be there even when these things aren’t. But at the same time I think respect, honest, trust, laughter and affection are needed to make a relationship work. If you still love someone but these other things aren’t present then obviously something in the relationship isn’t working. Is that the time you give up and say you don’t want to be together? Or is that the time that you count on your love to bring you through and hope that one day those things will come back?

This brings me to my current boyfriend. Things are still good and great and wonderful so I don’t want to do too much reflection, just kinda look at the facts then look at the similarities and differences of my “I love you” moments. We hadn’t been together very long before the first time I wanted to say “I love you” to him and if he hadn’t of said it when he did I’m sure eventually I would have just busted out and screamed it at him. About a month ago we attended my sister’s wedding and it was all just so romantic, pretty and happy. We danced a hundred slow dances together and I would just look up at him (he’s very much taller than me) and think wow what an amazing guy this is that was brave enough to come to a huge family event like this after only being together a month and a half. That night he told me that he didn’t want to tell me he loved me but that he was definitely falling for me. I was happy with that reaction. Another month went by and everything just kept getting better and we were still very luckily just as happy with each other. About a week ago we went out karaoke-ing (how we met) and he was introducing me to the last of his friends that I hadn’t met. I make horrible, horrible first impressions and was incredibly nervous about the whole situation. Afterwards I had a mini-girlie-emotion attack in the car while we were leaving and while trying to calm me down he said “you’re gonna make me say it now aren’t you? I love you Tyler” and that just of course made me cry even more and he said it again and then I told him that I loved him too. Now considering it’s been barely a week I sure as hell hope we both still feel the same way but it’s just so nice. I just look at him now and am so happy just knowing that there’s this great guy who loves me and that I love too.

Comparing this to the others- I’ve always been told “I love you” at night and in the later nighttime hours. Like I said earlier I’ve never said “I love you” first. The biggest difference with my current boyfriend and the others is that this is the first time I’ve said “I love you” right back, all the others it took me a while to finally get to that same place. No judgment or reflections on this love compared to the others since it is so new. Right now it is just love.