that time i was on the bachelor

the bachelor franchise is celebrating 20 seasons right now.  that means 20 bachelors only, plus all the bachelorettes, plus bachelor pad and bachelor in paradise, which puts them at 30 something runs at love. and there are only about 4 that i didn't watch.  i'm a total relationship junkie, and i guess you could use the bachelor phrase about me--i love love.

so it was absolutely "amazing" last night when i found myself ON THE SHOW!

things started a little rough just because i could not for the life of me figure out what was going on, and there were so many kids around.  i thought maybe mike fleiss didn't have to follow child labor laws and they were training all these little ones to be ABC interns or something. because SOMEBODY has to count out the roses and put the blankets with the picnic baskets and the hot tubs in all the middles of nowheres. but actually, there were just lots of moms on my season, and they all took their kids i guess, which, whatever, but mine were no where to be found, thankfully.  because honestly, i had seen the teaser about how ben responded to amanda's kids on her hometown date, and he looked a little stressed, so i was glad that mine weren't here to distract me.  this was going to be a good time.

i guess you could say the problems started early on in the night, when every.single.time i tried to talk to ben my phone kept buzzing with text messages from like, ALL of lillian's friends.  i caught on pretty early that he was absolutely not interested in me.  but i figured it was just because it was so hard to have a conversation with all those texts coming through!

so that was really disappointing.

but later when i was brushing my teeth by the fancy mirror, i heard my name in the conversation happening outside the room with ben and the other ladies. turns out they had given me a nickname, and i was the "religious spy." i first took offense to that, but then realized that maybe i should take it as a compliment, and hope that if nothing else it got picked up by lincee from ihategreenbeans.com and i could be featured on her blog every week. i guess if they were going to bash me for something, at least it was my faith, which meant that they knew that is a big part of me. but like, whatever ladies, i didn't come here to make friends...i was there for the right reasons (right reasons).

overhearing that conversation got me a little curious though if i'm being honest.  i mean, don't we often wonder what's said about us behind closed doors?  i decided to take it one step further and google myself.  big mistake.  googling 'andrea on the bachelor' revealed to me that the whole entire world had pegged me as THE BORING ONE and i found post after post and tweet after tweet about how badly i needed to go home.  it was like, worse than olivia. thankfully there was no mention of my bad breath or my ankles though (poor olivia) but they seriously wanted me off the show.

this was, of course, the straw that broke the camel's back.  it was obvious that i was not going to get a rose, and the night was going from bad to worse. i didn't care about the free booze or the potential of super fancy hotels and traveling and exotic dates. i was surrounded by people who didn't like me, and i was working SO HARD to just not crawl into a bed and pull the covers up over my head and cry. the introvert in me was like JUST DO IT but i knew i'd never find love if i did that.

it was a NEVER-ENDING night. i was exhausted. i couldn't figure out where my kids were. ben was totally uninterested. the ladies were mocking my faith. and bachelor nation said i was boring. this is not what i had signed up for.

but then suddenly, the setting changed. i tried to get my bearings, but couldn't quite tell if i was in tahiti or the badlands or what.  i was just hoping that my date wouldn't be on the water bc i'm just not a huge boat lover. or heaven forbid it has to do with birds. they always pick what you are deathly afraid of for dates. i started feeling the warmth of the sunshine on my left.  it was weird though that it was dark but warm. my eyes focused a bit more, and i reached toward the warmth, which turned out to be a 7000 degree steve hydeen with his back toward me, breathing slowly and steadily in a peaceful sleep as if his wife did not just spend the whole night on a show he pretends to hate. 

now, let me just say that i love this man so incredibly much every second of every day.  

but never have i loved him more than the moment last night when i realized that he was still mine, and i didn't have to convince him to like me, and not only that, but that he actually loved me, and all of my boringness, and that the longest night of my life was actually just a dream, and i could carry on with my life and my husband and my kids whose friends text me, and people who don't make fun of me for being a jesus-loving spy.  

hal-le-lu-freaking-jah. 

i snuggled up to my sweet husband, trying to get every part of my body touching his just to make sure it was real life.  it lasted about 3 seconds before i was dripping in sweat, struggling to get my foot out of the covers, and flipping my pillow to the cold side.  but even back on my own side of the bed, in my small house in Nebraska, with my boring self and an alarm clock that would be sounding much too soon, i realized how much i love MY love. and i love MY life. 

and the fact that these ridiculous shows can make me realize it. :) 

being intentional

wow, i feel like i'm dusting off an old bookshelf, except that i don't dust, so never mind.  but it's been fun to just browse through some of my old posts again... a bit like i'm reading stories of someone else's life.  things i had completely forgotten about, and wouldn't remember if they weren't recorded here on the blog.

i've gotten the urge to write again recently, and after reading my last post, from almost a year and a half ago, i realize that much has changed in the hydeen house (THANK GOODNESS), and i'm not really even sure how we got here, but it obviously happened!  my memory is crap.  but i do remember a moment that must have been during the same time frame as as when I wrote my previous post, bc it was the SAME pants fight, but this particular moment didn't make the blog.  probably because it was so embarrassing at the time, but now that i've taken a step back and get a bird's eye view on the whole thing, i realize that totally losing my cool and dumping EVERY SINGLE pair of pants and leggings on top of lillian while she bawled in a heap on the floor in her half-naked state of not wanting to wear anything, was really just representative of our whole stage of life at the time.  intense emotions.  over-tiredness. having to figure lots of things out.

another thing that never got mentioned in that post was that we were having MAJOR issues with josiah's stomach at the time. he'd eat certain things, which never created a pattern, and end up screaming his head off on the toilet, in so much pain that he was convinced there was something cutting up his insides or something. he could never fall asleep at night either, because of his stomach aches.  so we went through the whole rigamarole of charting every food he ate and the reaction if there was anything, putting him on acid reflux meds, attempting gluten free, and calling his pediatrician (who is also a friend from church and knows us well) in tears trying to figure out what in the world to do. she mentioned that it might just be anxiety (the stomach aches started, although much more mildly, after katie died, and josiah's heart just broke and he really struggled after that).  honestly, i thought she was crazy because it was so OBVIOUS to me that there was something actually PHYSICALLY happening in his stomach.  she was awesome in reassuring me that she didn't think it wasn't real physical pain, but that our emotions can cause physical pain, and to just try something for a while to see if it helped.  so we started "talking time" where every night we sat in his room with him, just to let him verbally digest his day.  he never said anything that made us realize "oh! this is what's giving him anxiety!" or anything like that. but sure enough, enough time passed and his stomach aches were gone.  i love that we were created to need each other like that.  the simple act of being intentional with each other can take away physical pain.  God has truly created masterpieces in us.

and that's the thing for me, really.  i want to be more intentional.  our family survived the absolute craziness a year and a half ago, with me working outside of the home, lillian's emotional peaks and valleys, and josiah's stomach issues.  yes, i do realize it was probably all connected to the fact that our whole life and family mojo changed with me working every day, but we found our new normal somewhere along the way.  so now that we can think and talk and dream and DO things besides survive, it's time to get intentional.

i think that writing again will help with that.  it makes me think about things in different ways when i know i might end up writing about it.  i can't decide if that's good or bad, but either way it's true. here are some of the ways i'm hoping to be intentional this year...

i want to read more books.  specifically books that lillian recommends.  the girl LOVES reading and it's definitely a way for us to connect and be able to have conversations that she can't have with anyone else.  right now i'm reading the mr. terupt books, and loving them.

we're trying to take time every night at 8pm to get things ready for the next day.  i know it's a total no-brainer for most people, but the hydeens don't do stuff like that very often.  we're very fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants and it just doesn't always serve us well. :) so we're doing things at night. and...it works.

me and steve are back in debt reduction mode.  i know i blogged a lot about that like 3 years ago when we hit it hard, and it'll probably come up again some this year, but after our intense year we just needed a little break.  if only that meant we bought whatever we wanted to for a couple years....ha....that woulda been fun.  it just meant we said yes on occasion instead of no all the time. and more grocery money, hallelujah. our kids are older now and into things like music and sports, which you all know cost money, so our budget looks completely different now than it did then, but it definitely reflects our priorities, which is good i think.  anyway, blah blah money.

i'm also going on two MAJOR trips this year.  listen, i know i just said we're getting serious about our student loans again, but ya gotta live a little too.  we've never been on like, a real vacation, just the two of us, since our honeymoon.  we were saving to go to mexico for our 10 year anniversary and ended up spending it all on redoing our shower that was leaking into our garage. ugh. so anyway, we're going to mexico this year.  found a sweet deal thanks to my friends tirelessly looking for weeks straight, saved steve's year end bonus and all our christmas money, and we're going to mexico, baby! not till november but still.  anybody want 3 kids for 5 nights in november??? :)

and...my big (and by big i mean teeny tiny) sister is turning the big (and by big i mean teeny tiny again) 4-0 this year, plus she moved out of the country in August, and let's just say that the little (and by little i mean...well...younger than 40) sisters didn't approve of not celebrating together.  so me, maria, and mel are headed to vancouver this summer to hang out and celebrate.  boom.  stamp that passport.

the being intentional part of those trips are because PEOPLE MATTER and we have to make sure to tend to our relationships.  and what better way than a trip, amiright???  but seriously, we have a plan for paying for them. my "second job" is donating plasma, don't judge, and we allow ourselves to use that money for fun stuff like gifts for Christmas and trips, woot! i very intentionally allow someone to stick a needle in my vein twice a week for 40 minutes, and we're gonna be intentional with that money.

also, i'm jazzercising. you guys should see me. i feel like i'm on a hidden camera show where everyone else knows what to do except for me. it feels like a joke every time. i'm not kidding. i think i might finally be getting the hang of it, as long as i don't try to do anything with my arms, or yell wooooo!!! when the rest of them do (which is a lot.  and it's weird.), or think about anything else trying to pop into my head, and think ahead at every single moment.  let's just say jim and sharon never paid for dance classes, and it shows. but I'm going every morning at 5:30, which is intentional and borderline crazy. but i like it. for now. :)

and more time in the Bible. i go through such phases of reading the book i claim to love, and being gone so much during the day now makes that part really hard.  but i know there's time available if i make it available. intentionally.

also, oxford commas and double spaces.  i refuse to get rid of either of those.

i'll be done now.  too much talking.  too much typing. maybe i should be intentional about shorter blog posts in the future...

i'm just really excited about this year. i think it's gonna be a good one.  i'm gonna make sure it is.