A little more about marriage...

So, last time I shared some things I'd learned about marriage from living with my parents for nine months. Let's continue that, now, with number 3:

3. People don't really change (see #2), but they can still surprise you.

After 29 years, I'm pretty sure there are things about each other my parents still don't get. Despite how well they know each other, they are always learning something new about the other person. The key to this is not taking your husband for granted, and not pigeon-holing him into some pre-defined box. And it means not falling into a rut -- it means trying new things, as a couple and as an individual, and expanding both your horizons and your ideas about the other person.

Case in point: Our honeymoon was The Hubs' and my first real trip together -- our first time on a plane together! -- and I discovered something new about him. He's a generally reserved person around people he doesn't know, but he surprised me by chatting up our cab driver, asking him if he was from Aruba, what restaurants he recommended, how the tourism season had been this year. It made me love him even more!

4. It's about the bad times. I cringe when I hear or read people talking about their relationship and saying, "95% of the time, things are great, but that other 5% makes me want to end it...". Nothing is rainbows and puppies 100% of the time, but the tough times shouldn't make you want to run every time. In reality, it's the lows that define you as a couple. No matter how bad things get, you should always have each other's backs. And realizing that the tough times are just as important as the happy times in building your relationship makes them easier to bear and makes you less apt to want to throw in the towel at every little bump in the road. I can honestly say that, even when The Hubs and I have hit a rough patch, I never think it's lacking. Our relationship is great 100% of the time, even when it's not, because we're always a team and we're committed to making it work. And I know my parents have had tough times too, but how they've navigated those challenges has made their marriage last for 29 years.

You might notice these marriage lessons aren't super idealistic or romantic. What can I say? I guess I'm a realist at heart. But seriously, it's not all butterflies, people!

Anyways, enough lecturing. In only a short ten days, we'll be closing on our first house and reentering the grown-up population, at least in theory. While I did say I've enjoyed living with my parents, I'm more than ready to leave. It was nice being taken care of, but after a while I started to feel like I was losing the adult part of my identity. Come home from work, watch TV until mom says it's dinner time, eat dinner, watch some more TV... yeah, it sounds fun in theory, but after a few months, the grown-up part of you starts to feel guilty and a little unfulfilled. Who knew I'd miss dishes? I think we're more than ready for the adult responsibility headed our way!

P.S. This blog has a semi-new design and some new pages on design and decor ideas for our new house. What do you think? Soon this blog will feature more of our trials and tribulations in home ownership, like remodeling, decorating and figuring out how to use a riding lawnmower. Yes, apparently I have to learn how to mow a lawn. There are some adult responsibilities I'd rather leave to my imagination...

Paying it forward

I'm not gonna lie -- I've really liked living with my parents. Maybe it's because my mom cooks me dinner and insists on cleaning up. Maybe it's because my dad rents movies I want to see and lets me watch them. Or maybe it's because they're saving us a boatload of money through their generosity.

In any case, the situation has been a lot easier than I expected. I've always gotten along really well with my parents, and it's good to see them getting along with The Hubs and getting to know him more.

Granted, there are downsides to co-habitation: lack of privacy, and not just for what you think. We always have a mediator for our arguments, whether we want one or not -- and someone who can tell me after-the-fact, "You know, you were kinda bitchy." (My parents don't always pick my side!) Plus, as the only one who's lived with all of them, I sometimes feel like the middle man, working to make sure my husband isn't driving my parents nuts and vice versa, and explaining each other's quirks ("I don't know why The Hubs slams cupboard doors, Mom"; "I don't know why my dad likes spaghetti but not elbow macaroni, Hubs." Etc.) Even though everyone seems to be getting along perfectly fine, my constant worry over little wrinkles has left me feeling a little drained.

We've learned some lessons from my parents about what it means to make a marriage work. And now, I'll share them some of them with you!

(Note: I'm going to use male pronouns here when referring to a spouse, because I'm married to a man, and the linguistic gymnastics required by the English language to make it gender-neutral would make me give up writing this half-way through. This is not some kind of some heteronormative gesture -- it's a gripe with grammar!)

1. Marriage is work. I kind of already knew this, but it's always a good reminder that the romantic comedy ending -- the realization that they belong together, a sappy speech and then smooth sailing -- only exists in the movies. The marriage is not the ending, but the beginning of a lifetime of new experiences, happiness, challenges and yes, work. The Hubs and I both acknowledged that things wouldn't always be easy, and hopefully anyone else who's gotten as far as the altar (or the birch arbor, in our case) has figured this out.

2. People don't really change. Again, romantic comedies -- not on the mark. Sure, it seems awfully sweet when the notorious ladies' man suddenly decides he wants a wife, two kids and a place in the 'burbs, but in reality, a complete 180 rarely happens (I won't say never because, well, I don't have that kind of authority on the world). That doesn't mean people's attitudes and reactions won't change as they get older, because our experiences do shape how we view ourselves and the world. And anyone in a happy relationship wants to make the other person happy too. A messy person may become less messy with lots of coaxing, and an impatient person might ease up once kids enter the picture. But a messy person will never become a neatfreak, and an impatient person will never become the picture of patience.

It sounds obvious, but so many people stay in a relationship waiting for the other person to become what they want instead of accepting the person they are. Marriage won't make a person grow up, want to clean a bathroom, like jazz music or care about politics. If you're marrying someone wishing he were different or, worse, expecting him to become different, then you might as well get your divorce lawyer ready.

Check back later for more marriage lessons!

In the meantime, The Hubs and I will be busy packing to move into our new house at the end of the month. Despite how nice it's been living with my parents, The Hubs and I are ready to move on to our first home -- and a whole new set of lessons to learn. Like how to paint.

The heart behind the wood and nails

My hands are clammy. My mind is racing. My heart is doing little jumps inside my chest. I’m checking my email every five minutes, waiting for that message from our Realtor saying our offer on a house was accepted. “Don’t get emotionally invested in the home buying process,” everyone says. Easier said than done!

Home buying, like other major life milestones (choosing a spouse, college, etc.), requires lots of planning and rational thought, and The Hubs and I came at the process with that in spades -- complicated Excel spreadsheets tracking our budget and spending, lists of our “must-have” and “would-like-to-have” features in our future home, a list of a handful properties we’ve been eyeing that we handed to our Realtor. We took a first-time home buyer class and did lots of research. When we showed up to look at houses (eight!) last Saturday, we each had a clipboard, a camera and our own checklists and questions to ask -- and some Power Bars and bottles of water, to fuel the search. Would you expect anything less from this Red Binder Girl and a detail-oriented engineer?

With a clear idea of what we wanted and how much we could spend, it didn’t take us long to find the one. A few hours after touring houses, we emailed our Realtor to say we wanted to make an offer. Monday night, we made an offer. Tuesday, the sellers countered, and we made another offer. It’s not a done deal yet -- the sellers still have a little under six hours as I write this to accept the offer and sign the papers -- or say no thanks. Thus, the sweaty palms, frenzied mindset and stomach flips -- did I mention the stomach flips yet?

Despite all our lists and spreadsheets and practicality, our bodies know this is an emotional process, especially for a right-brained girl like me and a guy who, despite his outward appearance, is pretty sentimental deep down. We’ve been trying hard not to get attached to this house, but it’s hard to sign your financial life away for a piece of property without envisioning how you’d live there -- what your furniture would look like in it, what great dinner parties you’d have, where you’d put the Christmas tree. Without this thought process, every house is the same -- wood and nails. There's a reason why they say the home is where the heart is.

Keeping my emotions out of it was hard while we toured houses, especially those currently occupied. It was weird to see pictures on the refrigerator, clothes in the closet and water droplets in the tub. The reporter side of me wanted to observe all the details and learn more about these mysterious people.

In the house we’re hoping to buy, U.S. Navy memorabilia decorated the walls. The documents signed by the sellers showed the wife signing for her husband. I couldn’t help but start to form a picture in my mind -- a husband in the Navy, shipped overseas or transferred to another base, his family in Maine left to sell what had been their home for six years. Who knows if any of this is true, but separating out the family from the house was harder for me than I thought it would be.

It made me think about when my parents sold my childhood house when I was 12. I remember being angry we had to leave, even though the new house was bigger and better (to smooth things over, my parents promised we’d get a pool -- and 13 years later, that still hasn’t happened. I’ve given up on that dream). What made matters worse is that our new house wasn’t finished when we had to move out, so we spent three months living with my aunt and cousins. My pre-teen, angst-ridden self enjoyed telling people I was homeless, as if I spent every night in a cardboard box outside the 7-11 instead of in a perfectly nice house (okay, I had to share a room with my parents, but still). In my head, I thought of all the terrible things the new owners were doing to the place I grew up. Who were these new people in our house that made us leave even before we had a new place to go?

Now, I wonder if maybe the kids living at this house we want to buy feel the same way about me. While it’s a happy time for The Hubs and I, it’s likely a sad time for them. But I try not to dwell on that, or else I’d never make it through this process.

Instead, I think about our own kids, and the memories they’ll have in this house, if we do buy it. And someday, if we decide to move, it’ll be the place our kids remember as their first home. It’ll be the house, like The Hubs said, that our kids will drive by with their boyfriends or girlfriends, going real slow to see how it’s changed, saying, “This is where I grew up.” How are you not supposed to get emotional thinking about that?

But, if someday we do make the kids move, we will not pull that pool trick. That’s just mean.

Notes on a nuptial

The wedding is now nearly two months in the past, but I’m still thinking about it -- mostly because it was one of the best nights of my life and I would love to relive it (minus spending all the money).

It sounds cliché, right? One of the best nights of my life -- really? Hey, I’m surprised too. I imagined stress, drama, unforeseen disasters: buffet lines that never moved, drunken and rambling toasts, an empty dance floor save for one guy doing the sprinkler.

But instead, the greatest thing happened. We walked back down the aisle, husband and wife, and as soon as we got out of view, we wrapped our arms around each other and laughed in utter exhilaration. There are few pictures of me looking serene, contemplative or poised. I’m smiling or laughing in all of them. I’m impossibly happy.

During the reception, as we sat there at our sweetheart table and looked out over everything that had come together so well -- all the people in our life who meant the most to us, the people who had cheered our entrance as Mr. and Mrs. so enthusiastically -- all the stress and doubt fell away and this great big feeling of happiness settled over us. I don’t remember all the moments of that night -- it’s true what they say, it flies by -- but I do remember that feeling.

We worked hard to make it to that feeling, and may never have it again, at least not quite the same way. Short of reliving it via a magical time machine, the next best thing is to talk about it. Share the wealth. Pay it forward. Irritate people with unsolicited advice. Let it commence!

Be the red binder girl (or guy): In other words, be organized. My red binder was not just a fanciful collection of centerpiece ideas. I had contracts, questions to ask vendors, budget information, and lists and lists of things to remember, ponder and mull. I had maps, and phone numbers, even a calculator. I printed out pictures of our venue, which allowed me to show the DJ where he could set up and the photographer where she could shoot. Pictures and swatches of the dresses gave the florist clear ideas for coordinating colors.

Do not let people convince you this is being a bridezilla/groomzilla. Being thorough is not the same as screaming obscenities at your caterer for serving cantaloupe instead of honey dew. There will be people who throw out that terribly offensive word as soon as you open your mouth with, “I was thinking…” These people either got married 30 years ago when your parents still planned the whole thing, or are insanely jealous of how on top of things you are. At least that’s what I liked to tell myself.

Be thick-skinned: Your BFF will whine about not having a date to bring. Your in-laws will pressure you to have your wedding the same weekend as Nana’s birthday. Your fiancé will not care about favors, flowers or what color shoes your bridesmaids wear (but will, inexplicably, have strong opinions about what kind of tie the DJ wears and which Beastie Boys song is most appropriate for a wedding reception).

Do not take any of it personally. Human beings in general are selfish creatures -- it’s that whole survival thing. Many people’s immediate reactions will be to focus on how the wedding and its various details affect them. Don’t worry. It’s only a matter of time before you become that annoying friend who responds to news of a friend’s wedding date with, “June really doesn’t work for me…maybe you could do it in May instead?” (Oh, and the best Beastie Boys song? “Fight For Your Right (to Party).” Duh).

Screw etiquette: Don’t tell Emily Post I said that. But seriously, there are lots of antiquated rules when it comes to having a wedding -- what you should wear at what time of the day, who should host the shower, what color your cake should be. Only a few of these rules really serve a practical purpose; most serve to help people sell wedding planning books. Take all etiquette rules with a big (margarita and) grain of salt.

Case in point: After lots of agonizing debate, we decided not to have kids at the wedding, except for The Hubs’ niece and nephew. All the etiquette books said to simply write the parents’ names on the invitation and spread the news word-of-mouth. “Writing ‘Adult-only reception’ is tacky,” they said. Big fat flop. Our RSVP cards were full of write-ins, and we probably ended up hurting some feelings. Those three little words that would have been like Kryptonite to Miss Manners probably would have been well-appreciated by our guest list.

Make it count: Remember, you will (in theory) only do it once. Many people use this as an excuse to spend $200 on trivial things like monogrammed cocktail napkins everyone crumples up anyways or $1,000 for a three-foot-tall cake with frosting that looks like plastic.

What it really should mean is that you should make it what you want. Ignore what the magazines tell you about which colors go well together or what’s “in” for centerpieces this year, and do what makes you happy. Want a bouquet made out of aluminum wire? Sounds good. Want Mario-themed invitations? Go for it. Want to get married in a Taco Bell? Hey, whatever floats your boat. Want to get married dressed as Wonder Woman? Why not?

But seriously. A wedding is a big investment no matter how much you spend, and there’s no point in going through the whole shebang if at the end of it you feel like a cookie cutter.

We skipped the costumes or fast-food locations, but we did our best to inject our own personalities. Hey, we turned 13 pounds of strawberries into homemade wine! Not too shabby.


(Wine photo by Clare Norton)

DIY = MIA

I've done it. I've gone and broken the cardinal rule of blogging: Thou shalt not abandon thy blog. Yes, it's been months since my last post, and I can't shake the shame. It's kind of like not going to the gym. At first, you have a good excuse -- major work deadline, a cold -- and it's only a couple days. Then, it's a week, two weeks, and still you justify. Hey, after meeting that big deadline, I deserve some down time! Next thing you know, it's been three months and you're too ashamed to show your face again, because you can't just walk in there and pretend like it hasn't been weeks. I suppose, just like the work deadline and the illness, I could claim a legitimate reason for my absence -- planning the biggest and most expensive party of my life.

I was never that girl who played wedding with her Barbies. Instead, I usually sent Barbie and her buddies on a wild ride down the stairs in her pink Corvette, on their way to rescue Ken, who was usually tied up and being held prisoner in the basement. I never got married on the playground, or put a pillow case on my head like it was a veil.

So I was kind of surprised when I got so into the wedding planning process. Favors, escort cards, centerpieces -- I loved them all, and I wanted them to be unique, to reflect our personalities and our relationship. I spent hours researching ideas, talking to other brides on theknot.com, clipping pictures and putting them in a giant red binder (it's now too heavy to carry with one arm). With every new idea, the Fiance (now the Hubs) kept me in check: "How much will that cost?"

Wanting to make things unique and to stay in budget, I did something I've never done before. I turned to Martha Stewart. I started making things, being crafty. I spent lots of time at Michael's picking out card stock, ribbon and floral wire. I perfected the art of making pomanders out of tissue paper, I cramped my fingers tying tiny ribbon around 120 pink bubble tubes, I fed over 100 pieces of card stock through my printer -- twice -- and folded each one in half. I became best friends with a rotary cutter, an Exacto knife and a quilting mat. I even got the Fiance involved, turning birch trees into an arbor and table name holders.

I might have saved some money, but I lost all my free time.

In the end, all the finger cramps, paper cuts and hot glue burns were worth it. We had a fantastically fun, perfect day full of personal touches that I think our guests really appreciated. Everyone said the wedding seemed like "us." Which is really what it's all about, isn't it?

Dead pets, virtual pets

There’s nothing like cleaning out your closets and packing up everything you own to make you feel like you should be on an episode of "Hoarders." For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it’s a reality show on A&E that features people so attached to their junk that they end up practically living in houses made of yard sale leftovers and old pizza boxes.

The Fiance and I caught an episode recently where a woman’s adult kids were literally shoveling piles of trash out of her kitchen that must have been there a while, because they uncovered -- a dead cat. Correction: HALF a dead cat. And when the woman was informed of little decayed Fluffy under her layers of garbage, she was disturbingly nonchalant about it, and also more upset that they had only uncovered half of her dentures set. Scary.

So, after that, we felt a little better about the things that we uncovered while packing and moving -- like a box of pasta that expired in 2005 (The Fiance and I didn’t even start dating until 2006!). It also made us feel better about the sheer amount of stuff we had (at least eight pick-up truckloads-worth).

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a packrat. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder as much as overly sentimental. In preparation for the move back home, my mom and I cleaned out my bedroom closet and uncovered a bunch of childhood relics. Among the discovered items: a shoebox full of notes my friends and I passed in middle school (had to keep for entertaining reading later in life!), a bunch of old stuffed animals, including Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies and Kitty Kitty Kittens (kept the first two, sadly parted with the latter), and a three-legged My Little Pony (in the trash now!).

But the best thing I found was my Tamagotchi. This circa 1997 digital pocket pet from Japan was a major source of entertainment for me on the playground, and its theft led to what I remember as a zany sleuthing adventure that culminated in a dramatic last-day-of-school chase and me ratting out a boy to his grandmother. It would have made a good Disney movie.

Being the packrat I am, not only did I keep the Tamagotchi, but its batteries and the little screws that held the batteries in place. I popped the batteries (also 13 years old, mind you!) into the back, the little machine beeped, and a pulsating Yoshi-esque speckled egg appeared on the screen.

Barely unable to contain my excitement, I carried it around in my purse for day, keeping an expectant eye on it and waiting for that little egg to hatch. After 24 hours…nothing. I couldn’t imagine they’d expected kids to wait 24 hours for the damn thing to hatch, so I Googled “Tamagotchi 1997” and found the official instructions. Jackpot!

I finally got it to hatch, and as the little blob with eyes floated around the screen, the memories flooded back -- carrying it around clipped to my belt loop, hiding it under my desk at school while I played games with it. The excitement didn’t last long, though. The little bugger needed constant feeding and game-playing to keep it happy. When I lost the game, it scowled at me and beeped in displeasure. “I can’t eat dinner now, Mom,” I said, waving away the tacos. “I’ve got to take care of this damn thing.” I must have had more patience when I was 12.

But at least when the virtual pet goes back in the bottom of the closet, my kids won't be digging up its petrified corpse in 30 years.

Goodbye apartment, hello apart-'rent

Well, it’s official. We’ve moved out all our stuff, paid the carpet cleaner, relinquished our keys and set up our mail forwarding. We’ve officially bid adieu to our apartment, our first home as a couple, and my first home away from home.

Even though I’m happy to be moving on, I feel a tad sentimental about leaving our first love nest. We only spent two years there, but it was a pretty crucial two years. We learned how to live together, how to balance the mundane details of everyday life with making time to keep getting to know each other. I learned how to cook. The Fiance learned that bringing home flowers spontaneously could inspire said cooking. We both learned that neither one of us is a particularly good dancer (but we kind of already knew that). We had some bad times (The Fiance falling down the stairs and breaking his leg), some good times (a surprise proposal), and lots and lots of little moments in between that turned that 80s townhouse into home.

As I surveyed the empty apartment, looking just the way we found it, I remembered the night we first saw it. It was also the night I got pulled over for the first time. I was running late to meet The Fiance (then The Boyfriend) at the apartment, waiting to turn across traffic, holding the phone with one shoulder while he gave me directions. I decided to cut someone off, and realized too late that someone had lights and a siren.

I always thought I’d cry the first time I got pulled over, or at least have some kind of good story. But as flustered and rushed as I was, all I could manage to do was say, “I know, I’m sorry” as the cop reminded me that I did not have the right of way, I was not paying attention and I made his life flash before his eyes. I got off with a warning, though, without any tears or clever stories.

By the time I made it to the apartment, The Fiance had already seen the whole thing and was in love with it. “Let’s take it,” he said as soon as I walked in. Annoyed he’d already decided without me and irritated that I’d broken my spotless six-year driving record, I caved and said yes. Only afterward did the excitement set in. We were moving in together.

It was a different kind of excitement -- bittersweet -- we felt as we left the apartment for the last time: ready to end that stage of our life and prepare for the next, but sad to say goodbye to our first place. The whole thing called for a couple of celebratory beers and Belgian frites at the local pub. Cheers!