12 Years of Marriage in 4 Minutes or Less

A New Beginning

Today is my handsome husband’s first day at a new job.

He was at his last job for more than a decade–he started as an intern with his previous company before we met, which was thirteen years ago.

Wait–that can’t be right. We’re not that old.

Hmm.

Anyway, it’s an exciting day for him–for all of us–and I’m hoping he has the best day ever. I know it can be scary making that big a change, and awkward being the new guy, and all sorts of uncomfortable adjectives, but it can also be thrilling.

Let’s hope it’s mostly the latter!

 

Advertisement

My Handsome Husband

This is my husband (the guy in the glasses, not the chicken):

(I’m about to embarrass you, Darling. I hope you’re cool with that.)

He’s a pretty cool guy. I mean, he’s a humongous nerd…

How to Date Your Husband

My husband and I have been married for more than ten years. That’s longer than I’ve ever lived in a single house or even a single city at one go. Much longer than I’ve ever held a single job.

It’s amazing, to be married so long. It is also B-O-R-I-N-G.

Yeah, I said it. Marriage is boring.

The Newlywed Game!

I was organizing my office when I found two sheets of paper marked, Newlywed Game Questions.

I immediately found myself back in the small Methodist church where my husband and I got married, in the pastor’s basement office, on a marginally comfortable couch next to my then-fiancé, my knee lightly touching his. The pastor went through the bullet points of the church’s required premarital counseling and tried to get to know us as a couple–especially important since we were not actually members of the church. At the end of the session, she gave us her blessing and these two sheets of paper. They are unmarked. I don’t remember if we ever went through them.

Anyhow, it’s getting close to Valentine’s Day and love is in the air and we’re all thinking about relationships whether we want to or not so I thought I’d share them with you. I think you’ll have fun with them. (Also, I didn’t write these questions–they are a bit old-fashioned and more than a little bit sexist and I recognize that, but I find them amusing. I’m just passing them along.)

Five Housekeeping Habits

I have done a lot of research on housekeeping. I’ve read articles, blogs, sections of books  on the subject. There’s this one lady who runs a vlog called Clutterbug–that’s all she talks about! Housekeeping is a hot subject and there’s a lot of information out there and if you like to do research like I do, you could keep researching for years. There are so many resources for the hopeless housekeepers of the world, and if you’re an excellent procrastinator like I am you know if you’re doing research, you don’t actually have to clean or organize your home.

Basically, housekeeping is hard. And complicated. And if you have little kids like mine, it can feel like a waste of time. You get it, right? You hate cleaning. I know you do because I hate cleaning, too. Even my husband, who is always cleaning, hates cleaning. He just wants the house to be clean, you know?

A Bowling Ball Named Homer, and other References that Make Up My Marriage

Last month, my husband and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. Tenth! I’ve now officially been married longer than I’ve done just about anything else. Longer than I’ve lived in one place, longer than I’ve attended any school. Wow.

So–lately I’ve been thinking about my marriage.

My husband and I are nerds. “Geeks” might be the more precise term. As in we get really excited about odd things and get kind of obsessive about them. Most of our geekery is separate, but there’s one thing we tend to geek out on together: television. More specifically, animation. Cartoons made for grown-ups.

Smiley Face+Book+Computer+Playing Card (You Totally Get It)

My husband and I were texting back and forth about the baby, who was napping in her car seat while I sat in the garage waiting for her to wake up. We were discussing her sleep habits, which have been nightmarish lately. Naturally, we used lots of emojis. And when I use lots of emojis, which I imagine were invented to save time in conversation, I am inevitably asked to explain myself. The more I’m asked to explain myself, the more emojis I use, and the more nonsensical they become. Because winking face, poop, unicorn, hamburger, Dutch flag.

You get it.

Anyhow, one of the emojis I had to explain looks a like this:

I used it to indicate that I hoped we’d “hit the jackpot” tonight and she’d actually sleep. Not the diction I’d choose on my own, but scrolling through the emoji options can really inspire my writing. That would be a good exercise, actually: Quick as you can, pick six emojis. Now turn those emojis into a story. Go.

Anyway: the word, “jackpot.” What a weird word, right? Clearly it’s in reference to the “pot” of money the gambler hopes to win. But who’s Jack? I had to know.

Apparently, the jack in question is a playing card. The term was originally used in a form of poker, where the “pot” could not be won until a player could open the bidding with two jacks or better. I learned this by entering two words into Google: jackpot + origin. (I tried to paraphrase the definition but, well, it was pretty straightforward.) It’s amazing how quickly one can get information these days.

Texting the Days Away

Do you text your spouse throughout the day? Lately, my husband has been asking that I send him more pictures of what the kids and I are doing. (I asked that he send pictures of his day, too, and I received several blank-faced shots of him at his desk. Thanks, Hon.)

At first I kind of rolled my eyes. Since he spends most of his day in a cubicle or a meeting room, he seems to idealize our “freedom.” (If you’re a stay-at-home mom of littles like me, you understand the quotation marks.) But as I started sending more photos, I started focusing on the bright spots in even our dullest days, and seeing the humor in some of the darker moments. (Have you ever texted anyone a picture of poop? You can’t help but giggle about it.)

Having spent quite a few days doing this, there is one drawback: sometimes the pictures are quite repetitive from one day to the next. But that just adds to the challenge. I’ve started to look for the silliest things I can send, or the most mundane. He wants pictures, he’s going to get them.