Divide and Conquer

Our life is busy at The Little Blue Bungalow. It is not necessarily a pace I'd recommend for every family and sometimes it is downright messy, literally and figuratively. Between two full time jobs, kids in activities, building a garage, trying to grow and preserve much of our food, chasing chickens and taking in family adventures, we definitely have to lean on one another to push through to the next day. Our lives are FULL.

















It is funny how life's lessons can be applied to everything...even marriage.

By now, most of you probably are reading the title of this post and wondering, "Huh?"...Divide and Conquer = Marriage? Yes, I definitely can say our marriage is all about dividing and conquering TOGETHER.

Because of this crazy pace Drew and I often lean on our strengths to complete the daily tasks. For example, I am excellent at budgeting so all the bills are my responsibility. Drew is amazing at packing in the every last dirty dish and has become the expert dish wash loader in the house. Drew is allergic to grass, trees and almost every living creature (well, almost) so the yard work falls to me. However, Drew is amazingly patient and talented at building and not to mention the best toy "untangler" you could image. (Well, if "untangler" is a word.)

Whatever the task we come up with a game plan and get to work...divide and conquer! Hence, the City Solve race is and has been one of our favorite "adventure" races. Two weekends ago we participated in Seattle's City Solve race. If you haven't heard about City Solve, it is worth a quick browse on the computer. It truly is a race where brain collides with brawn. Armed with wit, your cell phone, feet and mass transit teams solve clues around the city and prove they have completed a task or visited a check point by taking their picture. Trust me, it gets kinda' wild running all over the city, but worth the fun.

This year we relied on our skills as a couple and tackled the clues dividing the sheets when we received them. This alone was the key to our great success in which we shaved off 50 minutes off our first race. We still ended up getting lost in a park for 20 minutes, laughed it off and got an amazing workout up and down those stairs. (Seriously Freeway Park...you are crazy!!!) We also befriended many strangers (ahem...ok...I befriended) along the way asking for help. Drew was the expert navigator and mass transit user. Seriously, he knows his way around maps and navigating on this phone. Nothing like a little trust when Drew says, "OK, this way 10 blocks." I have no choice, but to trust and run even if it is up hill...both ways.

Though we didn't earn any amazing awards or qualify for nationals with a time of 2 hours and 47 minutes. (Close, in the early 30's for placement against 100 or so teams.) However, we did have fun and got some great quad work up and down the hills of Seattle. The race was a testament to our daily lives of dividing and conquering, because together we are unstoppable.

From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean