Tagged... All you ever wanted to know about me and Brent

I talk a lot, so brace yourselves. You don't have to read it all, I will never know the difference.

What is his name? Brent Clark Stringham

How long have we been together? Um, I guess that it's been around 6 years.

How long did we date? I hate answering that question. What is considered "dating"? We met in December, decided to get married in January (although I think it was February before I had a ring) and got married in May. It was REALLY fast and I wouldn't recommend it to most people. We both joke that if we hadn't just gotten it over with, neither of us would have gone through with it.

How old is he? 31 (GASP!)

Who eats more? Probably me, under normal circumstances. Brent is always concerned about maintaining his girlish figure. As a general rule, when he goes out he plans to eat about half of what he is served. He doesn't eat much bread or chips first, because he doesn't need the calories and he figures he should be able to get two meals out of everything. He also eats really slow to make sure that he doesn't over indulge. Ya... I'm not like that at all.

Who said I love you first? Goodness knows. When you meet and get engaged in 3 weeks, how are you even to remember? I'm tempted to say that it was Brent, but I think it was more of a "I'm falling in love with you" than an actual "I love you." It really should have freaked me out, but we were apparently on the same page since I didn't tell him never to talk to me again.

Who is taller? I am. Oh the shame! only by like half and inch and when he wears shoes, you can't really tell. Problem is that I have to wear shoes too. hmmmm. He doesn't mind. He encourages me to rock the high heels. Gotta love that kind of confidence.

Who can sing better? Oh, that's me for sure. Brent is as close to tone deaf and anyone that I've ever heard sing in real life. Its like killing a dog or something. He claims that he's been asked to leave choirs before and I believe him. I have to ask him to stop singing sometimes in church.

Who is smarter? Hmmm, I'm not sure. This must be resolved.

Brent! I challenge you to a battle of wits!

We are smart in different ways. Brent's really good with numbers, and I'm clueless, but he's an idiot socially, which I find to be just as important. He's got very few social skills, it surprises me how well he functions sometimes. I think that in general we are pretty evenly matched, we keep each other on our toes.

Who does the laundry? We both do. I'm awful at doing laundry. I always wait until I'm desperate and I'm like, waiting for my underwear to get out of the dryer before I can leave for church. Either that or I put it in the washer and then forget and then I go downstairs 3 days later and wonder why it smells like mildew and realize that it's my laundry from 3 days ago, so I have to do it again. If not that... then I leave it in the dryer forever or the basket until I start throwing dirty clothes back in the basket and it all becomes dirty by association. It's B-A-D bad. Brent realized this great fault in my character early on and has been doing his own laundry ever since.

Who pays the bills? I do. Me for sure. Brent (being an accountant) bought Quicken a while ago and wanted to start running all the bills through it. I said I wouldn't do it because I liked my system so he decided to take over. That lasted about a month since I realized that in that month he didn't pay anything! No mortgage payments, a few bill payments, we had money on the credit card that he didn't pay off even though we had cash to do it... I was furious. Never again, Brent, never again. He's great with numbers but he has a terrible memory.

Who sleeps on the right side? Me. The window opens on the left and since we sleep under the window and keep it open when we sleep for a large part of the year, I get too cold.

Who mows the lawn? I have never mowed a lawn in my life and I certainly don't intend to start. Wouldn't even know where to start. My mom always said that if we never learned, we'd never have to. Good advice, Mom.

Who cooks dinner? Me. I do all the cooking and he does all the dishes.

Who drives? We share. It depends on the mood we are in. Brent doesn't actually LIKE to drive the minivan. Something about it being too big, but I make him sometimes.

Who kissed who first? I don't really know. This is all a blur. I think that it was a mutual thing. We were pretty far into our 3 weeks of dating and I was feeling a little strange and wondering why he kept asking me out if he didn't like me that much. It all worked out well, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Who is more stubborn? I am more stubborn than Brent and anyone I know and anyone I don't know. It's really bad and I'm trying to change, but truth be told, I kind of enjoy it. Not only that, Brent can be kind of a push over so I basically always get what I want. He's too good to me.

Who asked who out first? Brent asked me out. Although we lived on the same street, we had been in different wards. They combined the wards and had an FHE activity and we met at that activity. Shortly thereafter he asked me out. I normally wouldn't have been interested in him, but he was sweet and I said yes. It was a good move on my part.

Who proposed? Again, it was kinda mutual. Brent is REALLY passive aggressive (it's SO annoying) and I usually don't let him get away with it, but I didn't really pick up on it while we were dating (3 weeks people!) All his sisters were already married. He told me that the oldest any of them were when they got married was 26. He was 25 at the time and said he didn't think that he was going to make it past that. You do the math. So we kinda decided together and we went together to pick out a ring and a stone and everything. He officially proposed at his parent's house then hopped on a plane to Nicaragua the next day and was gone for a month. It was weird since he was gone for about as long as I had known him. I had promised to marry a guy that I didn't even know and then he took off to another country. I remember telling my mom that I didn't really care whether or not he ever came back and at the time, I really didn't. It required a LOT of faith to hang in, but I knew that I was supposed to go through with it. Now I see why.

Who has more friends? What are these "friends" that you speak of? Each of us has one. Brent has Cameron and I have Leslie. We've actually started to get to know people in our neighborhood more (now that we've been here for 5 years) but we get to know them all as couples. That puts us about par all the time.

Who is more sensitive? Uh, that'd be me. I started out sensitive and every time I get pregnant, I get worse. I cry every time I see the end of Cars, without fail. I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm sad or tired or overwhelmed or angry or just having a conversation with someone. Brent is like a rock. You can say anything to him and he'll just look at you. He's just Even Steven, all the time. I'm working on breaking him down. It's hard, but I am determined and remember how stubborn I am?

Who has more siblings? He does. 5 sisters for him. I've got one sister and one brother.

Who wears the pants? I'd say that we each get one leg. I have a really hard time letting Brent have control, but I'm working on it. I want to handle everything all the time, it's just too hard for me to worry about it all. For my own sanity I've got to learn to let him control things. It's getting better. I think that we are working towards a good balance of just trusting in each other. Instead of either of us making a decision, we try to make them together. It makes life so much easier that way, so I hope we can keep it up.

Um, I guess I have to tag people now. I'm going to tag my blogging sisters in law.. Cheryl and Danielle. Have fun girls!