In this enlightening episode of The Good News, Angie Austin sits down with the insightful authors, Bill and Pam Farrell, as they delve into their transformative work, ‘Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti’. Through humorous anecdotes and profound insights, they explore how understanding and delighting in our fundamental differences can enhance relationships. Join Angie as she brings out the best in the Farrells, who share actionable tips for navigating love, romance, and communication between men and women.
00:24:50 Navigating Family Dynamics During Holidays
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with The Good News. Thanks for joining us. We are going to be talking to the authors of Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti, and the authors are Bill and Pam Farrell. Oh, I love it that at the bottom of the book it says, Understanding and Delighting in Your Differences. Oftentimes, we don’t delight in our differences. Welcome, Pam.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, it’s great to be with you. I have my waffle man here, Bill. Right here. Hi, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome, Bill. All right, so one of you give me kind of an overview of the book.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, it’s really a fun look at the differences between men and women. We like, for example, women are like spaghetti. That means that when we everything in our life is tied together, there’s more connections in our brain on the two hemispheres. And so we do connect everything to everything else. So. If I am, you know, talking to Bill, it would sound a little bit like… Hey, Pam.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, hey, Bill, how’s your truck running? You know, I thought about your truck today because I passed by your favorite truck store because I love my way to go buy a new outfit because I found this outfit that I knew was going to look really good on me because it was my color. Because last year we learned all about what colors look good on you and what colors don’t look good on you. And I discovered I was kind of a spring palette. And so I found this outfit that I knew was going to look really good on me. And I was going to surprise you with it because I love it when you go like, hey, baby, you look really good in that. And when I know I look good, I’m more confident. And when I’m more confident, I think better. When I think better, I make better decisions. And that makes me easier to live with. And you know what? It was the same color that the queen wore at Meghan Markle’s wedding. I think that’s really funny. Like the queen and myself, we have the same color palette. But I know you don’t really care about all that. But I know you’re in the sports, right? So you remember the Olympics with the German skating team that had those black outfits with the big blue stripe? Well, that blue stripe is my color. So I look really good in that. And I thought that that, you know, it’s so sad that. That team that had the three ladies that were taking turns leading the race, and at the very end, one of them just fell down, and she crossed the finish line, but she fell down after four years of training. I thought that was so sad, and it reminded me that a lot of our friends have been falling down in their life. So do you think we could just stop and pray for a moment for our friends?
SPEAKER 03 :
Woo! We integrate our thinking, which is very different than how men think. When men compartmentalize, they think of one thing and one thing only at a time.
SPEAKER 06 :
It looks like the top of a waffle. A bunch of boxes, all the boxes are separated from one another by walls. And the way we as men operate is the first issue in life goes in the first box, second issue goes in the second box, third issue goes in the third box, and so on. And we as men, we spend time in one box at a time and one box only. So when a man is at work, he is at work. When a man is doing yard work, he’s doing yard work. When a man’s watching TV, he’s watching TV. And as men mature, we do jump boxes faster than we used to. So we kind of look like we’re multitasking. But in reality, we’re just jumping from one box faster than we used to.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s so funny. My husband’s always telling me, just with the kids and all the sports, and we’ve got three teenagers in high school right now, and he’s like, just tell me where I need to go and what time I need to be there. That’s all I need. That’s all I need. That’s all I need.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s so good. And you have the Hulk. Color-coded schedule, you know, and your grocery list and your to-do list for your whole week. And that’s just the way God wired us. It really goes back to Genesis 127, that God made us male and female. He created us. And so it was back before the fall. And so it was actually God’s good intentions that we are different, and then we bring those differences, and they work for us. in our relationship. When we delight in them, when we appreciate and value the differences, they can really work for us and our family and our futures.
SPEAKER 04 :
And then, Pam, explain that I see the guy riding a bike shaped like a piece of waffle, and I see you riding the tandem bike, which, by the way, that’s a recipe for disaster right there, the tandem bike. We had one. We drove it. We rode it once. And you’ve got the spaghetti hair. So I kind of get that we are not singularly tasked or minded here.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, right. If you look at a plate of spaghetti and you follow one noodle around that plate of spaghetti, it’s going to touch every other noodle on the plate. And that’s the same way we women process life. We travel through life making emotional connections. To the people and things that matter most to us. And so by nature, we’re really great at multitasking or in today’s terminology, a lot of times it’s called toggle tasking, jumping from thing to thing to thing to thing. And it all connects up for us.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I think about, too, with our family, I like, pardon me, I like a good adventure. And so I plan, I guess we have for sports, I think we have eight trips planned this year. But some of them are like, you know, go to Salt Lake City for a three-day volleyball convention in the winter. Like, it’s not like a destination I would choose, like, on my own. Like, yippee, I can’t wait to go to Salt Lake in winter. But let me take a drink for my frog in my throat. But when I do these, I’m like, oh, my gosh, I found this like really cool world’s largest ball of twine and a gift shop in the stomach of a dinosaur outside of Salt Lake. And I want to drive out there and get pictures of the kids in the dinosaur stomach while we go shopping for gifts. And he, if you deviate from his plan, is so irritated that it almost borders on angry.
SPEAKER 06 :
Angie, we’re going to Salt Lake for volleyball. We’re not going for dinosaur stomachs. We’re not going for yarn. We’re going for volleyball.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s so funny. But sometimes we’ll make the stop on the road when we’re driving to see Paul Bunyan or something, right? And then we laugh about it for years to come. So he does sometimes see the beauty in my adventurous side to do really stupid things. And he is, I guess, he placates me sometimes. But boy, if he’s a man with a mission, there is no stopping for the world’s largest ball of twine.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, it’s really great how God wired us. uniquely, you know, and it goes all the way down to our DNA, XX, XY. I mean, testosterone and estrogen, it makes a difference in all of our lives. And so it’s great that God wired those differences because a family, a church, a community, a business, we need all those strengths brought to the surface, brought to the front. It needs that teamwork to make our life work. And so one of the things that Bill and I also appreciate is that if you know the differences and life gets stressful, then you kind of know what to do in that stressful situation. For example, when women process stress, we talk our way through stress. Like when I’m stressed out, my mom knows it. My best friend knows it. My prayer team knows it. The clerk at the grocery store will know that I am stressed out. We talk our way through stress. But guys, they like to go to their favorite easy box to rest and recharge. It’s kind of like a battery sitting in a recharger when you look at a battery sitting in a battery recharger it looks like it’s doing nothing but it’s doing something it’s recharging so sometimes the family’s under stress and you know mom’s running around and dad is like looking at his phone uh or in the garage like can’t you see the world falling apart you’re doing what nothing no he’s recharging so he has been the energy and focus to manage the stress And so when you realize that our stress is different, then we can give the gift of lowering the stress. For example, God kind of helped us girls out to recognize these favorite easy boxes of men because most of them are kind of ship-like boxes. When you think about it, the TV screen, the box, computer, the refrigerator, the phone, Football field is shaped like a box. Basketball court, baseball diamond, pool table, garage, all shaped like boxes. The bed is shaped like a box.
SPEAKER 04 :
The garage heater, Bill, is shaped like a box. The garage heater that’s oftentimes on. And do not open the square garage door while the square garage heater is on or you are in trouble.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re starting to get it.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re rocking it. You’re rocking it. And, you know, when you realize the difference, it’s like I, even as a young girl, I’ve spent a lot of time with my grandparents. And my grandfather’s square shop with a square, like, stove in it with that square garage shop door. You’re right. It was his haven. And when he was stressed out, that’s where he would go to recharge. And then he could have, you know, the energy and energy. the clarity to deal with whatever life was challenging at the time.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love it. I want to talk a little bit about waffles and spaghetti and love. If you’re just joining us, we’re talking to Pam and Bill Farrell. Men are like waffles. Women are like spaghetti, understanding and delighting in your differences. And I hope you can stay for the next segment because I don’t think we’ll have enough time to go through this. But let’s start on waffles and spaghetti and love preparing for the main course.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And so we do definitely romance each other differently.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. One of the things that men need to learn is that what women consider romantic are connections. So anytime a husband makes a significant connection into his wife’s life, she will likely interpret it as an act of romance. And we basically come to a place where we think almost anything can turn romantic under the right circumstances. We know of a man who wanted to do something nice for his wife, so he went to his neighbor’s yard and picked flowers, wrapped them together in a bouquet with duct tape.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, nice.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, normally, on a list of romantic things, stolen flowers and duct tape are not considered romantic. But she saw it as he’s a duct tape kind of guy, and this was a sincere expression of his heart to hers. And so she thanked him for it. So, wow, you went to all this effort to get this for me. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that was the right choice for her to say thanks because then he wants to go back to that romance box and do it again. So if a husband really wants to wow his wife, he’s going to want to tie together a lot of emotional connections in romance.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. So, like, if a guy wants to do something nice but he doesn’t have a lot to work with, If you have a simple date on a Friday night, but the Monday before, you give your wife a personal invitation asking her if she can spend Friday evening with you. And then on Wednesday, check in with her. Make sure the calendar’s open. Give her some guidelines on how to dress because women will always want to be dressed appropriately where they go.
SPEAKER 03 :
You look great in that, honey.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then go enjoy the evening. And on Saturday, drop a thank you note in the mail that she gets the following Monday or Tuesday. You will have taken a simple date and tied together a week full of memories for her. And it probably adds up romance points for a few months.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, double bonus points if you arrange the child care guys, too. So that’s what’s romantic to a woman is tying together those wonderful emotional connections. But what’s romantic to a guy… is tying together its favorite easy recharger boxes. And so oftentimes, if I want a romance bill, all of our boys are in sports. You’re a sports family, we’re a sports family. So all of our boys ended up getting college scholarships for sports. And so two tickets to a college football game. Woo, box number one. Box number two would be a good, gourmet, healthy restaurant. Box number three would be what we call the bingo box. That’s that bed box, favorite box for a husband to go to. It’s kind of like the free square in the middle of a bingo card. Right, yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, the winning square.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s how you romance a guy is tie together his favorite easy boxes. And so a lot of times it’s really simple to romance a guy. You want to lower his stress and raise his ability to succeed and So perhaps just sit down next to him and watch the game and only talk during the commercials and bring a food wrapped in bacon. That might do it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, they have those bacon air fresheners for your car, too. Those are really good. I know my husband, to show he loves me, he likes to armor all the car upholstery and vacuum out the inside of the car and spray out the garage. And so it’s good that we recognize what’s important to each other in terms of making the other one feel special.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, speaking of feeling special, I’d like to make you feel special and keep you guys around for another segment. We’ll be right back with the good news.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Fine Bluffs, Wyoming is tuned to the mighty 670 KLT.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello there, it’s Angie Austin and Grace Fox, and we are talking about forgiveness today. Her book that we’re discussing is Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. And I want to welcome you, Grace. Hello.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, it’s so good to be back with you, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, you’ve been traveling so much. Are you still traveling?
SPEAKER 05 :
I am still traveling. Right now I’m in South Carolina.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I saw you post something the other day on Facebook about the countries you’ve been to to do ministry and how when you got engaged, your husband said, do you want to go, was it to Nepal?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. He said, do you want to go to Nepal with me? That’s how he posed the question. And I said, yes. But I had no idea that it wouldn’t stop with Nepal. It just keeps going and going.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Name some of the countries you listed because I was just trying to look it up again that you’ve been to.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Oh, let’s see. For ministry purposes, we have been to India. We’ve been to Russia. We’ve been into China, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, my goodness. And you just were in Spain speaking, right? Portugal. Oh, Portugal. That’s right. That’s right. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Well, so many people have been posting about Thanksgiving and the holidays and getting together with people. And they’ve been saying things like, you know, how are you going to deal with Thanksgiving after the election? And, you know, people, you know, talking about, you know, telling people off and ruining family relationships and everything. You know, or there’s like a past affront. And so, you know, with my brother, for instance, he was murdered. But prior to that, he had an issue with drugs and alcohol. And so I would tell my mom, like, okay, he can come over. For Thanksgiving, but the minute he wants to drink, then I’m done, then he needs to be taken home. And so I remember my mom took him to get beer because she wasn’t one to stand up to anyone. And then when he arrived with the beer, he was a very angry drunk. I just said, you know what? It’s time to take him home. And, you know, my mom was like, oh, and I hope, yep, it’s time for him to go. Like, I’m not going to stand for it. And maybe I was 19 at the time I was in college. And I just had it like he’s more than welcome to come, but not when he’s drinking or doing drugs. I do. I’m not going to be around a violent drunk, you know, for the holidays. Now, with that said, I always had forgiveness for him because I realized some of these things were out of his control. And so I do believe in forgiving family members. However, if there’s abuse involved or it’s going to result in something really uncomfortable, either have boundaries or maybe you can’t get together with some family members. But I think a lot of people just blow things up out of proportion and want to be right, and they start so many unnecessary verbal scuffles because they want to be right. So let’s go over your forgiveness devotion, and then let’s talk about maybe navigating the holidays.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So forgiveness, I just like to say forgiveness is, no, let’s go back to unforgiveness. That would be the word. Unforgiveness in a person’s life is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die. Yeah. And so, you know, it’s not healthy for anybody. So whether a person in the family is saying something that’s really unkind and I take up offense, if I hold that unforgiveness in my heart, I’m only hurting myself. And we’re the ones who end up imprisoned in our souls then. when we can’t get past what somebody else has said or done, where we’ve chosen to pick up an offense. But the picture of forgiveness is so beautiful. It is just being able to hold that person, the one who has hurt you, in an open hand and just hand them over to the Lord and say, Lord, you deal with that person’s life. And then we go free, right? We’re not going to be the ones taking vengeance. We’re not going to be the ones spitting out the hurtful words back, hoping to defend ourselves or trying to prove ourselves right. But it’s giving that person, that offender, over to the Lord for him to deal with, and we go free. And that’s what forgiveness is all about. And, oh, my goodness, we need to exercise that in these days.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think, you know, I know with, you know, the political landscape, but always, you know, holiday time when families are getting together, when there are past, you know, hurts, you know, it can be difficult. I like to have like an escape room. um like if you’re gonna have a lot of people over like uh that would be like maybe a room where kids are doing a craft or there’s like a puzzle or a football game and i like to just remove myself if there’s or like in like the case of my brother remove him um myself from you know what maybe is getting starting to get you know into a heated thing my husband loves to debate politics and uh he and my uncle had completely different you know views on politics and I don’t know. I don’t get any joy out of it. It’s not fun for me. It’s not like a challenge to win a debate. My uncle was, at the time, in his 70s, and I knew my husband wasn’t going to have any impact on his political beliefs. And so it’s kind of a waste of time. And I still laugh because my aunt trying to defuse the situation. We were staying with them. She said, we still have the joke today in our family. Anyone care for some Cheerios? So whenever she and I would be around something we felt was uncomfortable, I’d say, care for any Cheerios? He was trying to get us to leave the TV room to go eat breakfast because the TV room had a certain political news station on. And so it became just the family joke, the levity to lighten the, yes, I’d love some Cheerios.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s your code word, right? Every family should have a code word. It’s time to cool it down. Yes. I think you hit on something a moment ago that is just, really good to note angie and that is you talked about having to be right and i’ve been thinking about that a lot in the last couple of weeks too and how easy it is with family members especially where you get into that kind of a debate and it might be over politics it might be over the way you raise your kids or you know whatever it is but rather than having to be right can’t we just be loving like do you do you want to be right or do you want to be loving How do you want to be remembered? And I’m thinking there’s so many where it’s so easy to have to be right, and then you can pick and pick and pick at somebody else. But why? Why? What is it at the root of whatever it is in us that has to be right? Why can’t we just let stuff go and be loving and respectful to We might not feel super loving towards somebody at the time, but to at least be honoring and respectful.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, it’s so funny that you said, do you want to be right or do you want to be loving? Because I often repeat what Dr. Phil says, do you want to be right or do you want to be loved? And I remember that so often because my husband does love to be right. And I’m perfectly fine with letting him be right, you know, or at least think he’s right. You know, I have no problem with that whatsoever. And I’m really trying to teach my kids, too, about like apologies, even when you’re really mad, like when they’re mad at their dad. I’m like, you know, he’s your dad. You have to respect him. You know, apologize for your part in whatever this disagreement was. And that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It’s saying I’m sorry for whatever I did to contribute to this disagreement. And then generally, my husband apologizes back. You know, there is always the person that’s the lecturer. My mom loves to, when the kids apologize, like, sorry, grandma, I didn’t pick up my backpack and my bubble, but that’s fine. And then she wants to go into a five minute lecture about why you needed to apologize and what you did. And I’m like, mom, just, you know, they apologize. Like, you just let it go. They don’t need the five minute lecture about why you need to be right. And so I’ve just seen over my lifetime, so many people needing to be right, damaging relationships. And like, why is it so important to people to be right? And when, like you said, do you want to be right? Or do you want to be loved? Do you want to be loving? And I just think agreeing to disagree, you know, can work. And it’s funny because my son pulled that on me the other day when we uh, disagreed about something. And I was like, no, wait a second. Am I married to you or your dad? Because he loves to jump on his dad. So like if we’re having a discussion in the front seat and he’s in the back, he likes to side with his dad because he thinks it’s fun to get in good with his dad. And then I’ll be like, wait a second. Now I married your dad. So I don’t know who’s in the back seat right now, giving me advice or whatever, you know? So he goes, well, let’s mom. He turned the tables. Mom, I think we should agree to disagree. So I said, that’s fine. That’s a great idea. I love that.
SPEAKER 05 :
That is a great idea. That’s a great idea. And as people head into Thanksgiving and then into Christmas and there’s a lot of family dynamics going on, please, can we agree to disagree and do it respectfully? It is possible to do that. I had somebody say to me one time, I can’t agree to disagree. I won’t agree to disagree because that means you’re right. Oh, ouch.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
What, what is that about? So like that, that’s a case of, I don’t appreciate that. I don’t know what is going on at the, at the core of who this person is, but I’m not going to linger there and get stuck in that mess. I just, I don’t want to just go on and you know what, let’s, let’s be respectful. Let’s be honoring and, um, And be kind. Can we just be kind?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, boy, that’s like jumping into a tar pit. You’re not getting out of that one. I mean, I don’t even know where you go with that. I would be like, you know what? Let’s agree then that you’re right because I think that will make you feel best. And I’m okay with that. You know what I mean? Like, let’s just agree you’re right. I’m perfectly okay with that because I’d like to move on from this discussion. Oh, my goodness. I get really worn down by those kinds of debates. It’s funny because… Sometimes when my husband and I are debating about something we’ve already decided on, like maybe a particular college our kid is going to go to. And he’s like, well, I don’t know if this is going to work. And I’m like, what is going to work? And I’m like, this man has spent a whole year. with my daughter, emailing coaches, sending videos of her volleyball. We’ve decided on a school. We’ve made up our minds. We’ve committed to them. And then he’s like, well, I don’t know if it’s going to work. And I’m like, I feel like some of these discussions are… completely like a waste of time, right? Because we already know she’s going. So why would we discuss why it’s not going to work or why she might have problems with math or why she might fail, you know, English or something, right? So I just don’t understand. Like if we’re sending her, we’ve already agreed upon that. Then what’s the use of discussing everything that could go wrong? Like to me, it’s just exhausting. Right. And so those are ones I try to get out of. I know. Well, why do you think it’ll work? You know, so every every argument I come up with, he can counter with why it won’t work. And I just feel like what’s the purpose of the conversation is we know we’re sending her anyway. right? So it doesn’t matter how long we debate this thing. We still have the same outcome that she’s going, you know? And if we don’t send her, then that’s a failure. And if she goes there and she fails, then that’s a failure. So we might as well give her a shot, you know?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. Holidays, any kind of family dynamics, any time of the year can be challenging, but especially at holiday times when Some people are bent on their traditions being more important than what the other person needs, and, you know, some people just have to stay away because they can’t be in the same house. I don’t know, but we just need to learn to be respectful.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I think, you know, with your situation with your kids and all the grandkids, we are called to make an example, you know, and – As a Christian mom, my kids are watching me to see how I handle myself, if I’m forgiving, if I, you know, blow my top, if I, you know, behave in a way that they were like, Mom, you need to. I remember my daughter saying to me the other day, Mom, you need to learn patience. And I thought, oh, gosh, you know, when my 17-year-old daughter is telling me I need to learn patience, you know. it’s just so funny to me, but you know, they are watching us. So we need to be a good example because if we want them to have a good marriage and to be good parents themselves, then we need to show them how to behave. Like you said, in a respectful manner and to, you know, have a loving relationship with someone and not tear it down by the need to be right, which I think is one of the biggest, um, you know, one of the most harmful, um, aspects, uh, of a marriage is the need to be right. And I want to make sure people can find you, Grace. The book we’re talking about today is Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. So where’s the best place for them to find you?
SPEAKER 05 :
They can find me on my website, gracefox.com.
SPEAKER 04 :
Gracefox.com. Thank you, friend. And I hope your holidays are wonderful. I know you’ll be gathering with tons of those kids and grandkids.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. Well, you have a great morning, too.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
