Sunday, March 22, 2015

One Year Later...

So, for those of you that were paying attention, today is our one-year wedding anniversary. Is the honeymoon now officially over?

Never. :-)

It's still kinda like having a slumber party every night with my best friend, and there are still a lot of nights (probably too many) where we're up talking and giggling until long past our bedtime.

Have I discovered that my spouse has habits that annoy the crap out of me? Oh yes. I won't list the things here because many of our mutual friends are likely to read this, but rest assured there are times I want to (very lovingly) strangle him. I regard this as normal, however, and try to keep a broader perspective... those little tiny habits that annoy me are a small price to pay for all the benefits I get out of this arrangement, such as:

1. Built-in Partner in Crime - If I can concoct a scheme for a thing I wanna do, I've already got an accomplice! And I'm not talking about criminal activities here, I'm talking about anything I think I might want to do that's more fun with a friend. Netflix and popcorn? Yep. Bowling? Yep. Going for a walk in the neighborhood? Yep. Taking a nap in the middle of the day on Sunday? Yep.  Still can't convince him to go with me to get his nails done, though...

2. Master Planner - Those that know me know that planning is not my strong suit. I don't even know where I'm going with this blog post yet... I just sit down and start writing. However, we're going on a trip next week, and my husband has already booked flights and hotels and rental cars and created an itinerary for what we're going to do on what day. Pretty much all I have to do is show up and have fun. What's not to like? His planning skills are not limited to that, however. He's also the financial planner. And we did have to learn to communicate clearly at first. When he realized that vague instructions like, "You need to start saving money," didn't work with me, he changed it to a more concrete, "Put $300 out of every paycheck in savings." Bam. I can do that. That's a specific instruction that I can follow. As a result, between the two of us we have now built up an emergency fund that could sustain us for up to six months or so, depending on how frugally we were living. I also no longer live paycheck-to-paycheck. This is HUGE change for me, and also it's really weird. Still kind of not used to it.

3. Partner in Domestic Operations - I was a single mom for over a decade. I'm used to doing it ALL, in the sense of if I didn't do something, it wasn't going to get done. So imagine how cool it is that often when I get home from work, dinner is already cooking! And it's not in a crock-pot either! Our current situation is a bit non-traditional... I'm working full time and making the bulk of the money. He is in college full time and working part time. So a lot of the time he will start dinner because he gets home first, and because waiting for me to get home and do it would be stupid. On these days, I do dishes/clean-up after dinner. Some days it's the other way around... I cook, he cleans up. And on the days when we decide the house needs a full cleaning, between the two of us we can get it done in about an hour.

4. Understanding of the Little Things - I am not a romantic in the traditional sense. Thankfully, neither is my husband. He told me for our anniversary dinner he might cook a pot of ramens and put a sparkler in it. I think this is a cool idea, and he knows this. He also mentioned to me that he found a dead crow in the yard while he was mowing the lawn yesterday, and that he'd left it for me so I could look at it. Yes, I want to look at it. Our relationship is built on a solid foundation of back scratching, massages, and fart jokes, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I could go on for quite a while about the million and one little ways in which we were so obviously meant for each other that even my kid can see it, but you're bored and I have a gelatin mask in my hair that I will need to wash out very soon. So I will just finish by saying that it feels like our family is complete now, and we have a plan and goals for the future for the first time. And also the first year has been a Carnival of Awesome, pretty much. Can't wait to get started on the next year.

And also we're flying out to Las Vegas on Wednesday night and we'll be driving to the Grand Canyon and Sedona and Zion and Monument Valley and all kinds of cool stuff, so expect another trip blog with heavy photography coming up soon... :-)