Luniversary

When I originally wrote this post, it was a little too personal; and while I'm trying to be more honest in my blogging, I think it was just a little too much.  So I'll take the good parts and try again.

June 17th marks six months of Sam and me being married.  It was also around a year after we decided to get engaged.  It's odd to look back and think about how much things have changed.  I've always been perhaps overly nostalgic and thought too fondly of "how things used to be."  But this time, I don't feel that way.  And it's definitely not because things have been soooo good OMG since we got married, because to say that would be a big fat lie.  It's because I've changed, we've both changed, and I really like the changes.  We are nowhere near perfect, still.  To say that after only six months of marriage...hoo boy...we'd be ready for ascension or something, let me tell you.

There comes a point when you decide that your love for someone outweighs all of the other stuff, like thinking you're a swell person or always needing to be right.  That point for me was some time a couple of months ago.  Sam was at a meeting, and I was thinking about a disagreement we'd had.  I suddenly thought of "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac, particularly this part:

"Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?

Can the child within my heart rise above?

And can I sail through the changing ocean tides

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know

...Well, I've been afraid of changing

Cause I've built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Children get older

I'm getting older too"

I'll spare you my detailed mental analysis, but essentially, I decided that I was the one I had built my life around, and that if I was going to think about what it really meant to love someone, I was going to have to stop being a child and grow up in order to take what life threw my way.  And I really do love Sam, and I'm pretty sure he would shrivel up into a raisin if I ever did anything drastic, so I sat on the bed until he came home and talked to him about it.  I confessed to him that I had no idea what I was doing half the time, and he said he had no immediate solution, so we just hugged and called it good, promising to work on it.  You can't win every battle.  We just try our darndest to be aware of our shortcomings and work around them, and I try hard to always give Sam the benefit of the doubt.

We still have our disagreements.  Like the time we fought about whether or not people in the 1920s were better at reading body language because of their exposure to silent films.  Geesh.  And I wish I could talk to him about environmental or political issues without feeling the need to prepare for battle.  But all of the other stuff I don't worry about as much anymore.  Because we are far from perfect, and even if I don't know what to do sometimes, I don't have to worry, because that's okay.  Just take it as it comes.

All in all, I'm happy I got married.  Sam makes me a better me.  And he's pretty fine looking too, if I do say so myself :)

He's growing a beard.

A Whole Year

Some birthdays are just regular birthdays.  But I think your first birthday is a very important one.

Happy birthday to my darling niece Maya.  Here's to many, many more!

Oh, and a happy birthday to my sister Caity, should she ever read this.  I've only been 23 myself for a few weeks, but I can attest that it is a good age to be ;)

And happy flag day.

A Witty Fool

I often get insomnia.  Bad.  Thank heavens for melatonin and a bedmate who also often gets it, so at least you can be bored and sleepy together, and do things like read or talk about how to get the cat to stop biting peoples' legs when they walk by.

But sometimes when Sam is snoring away and I'm lying there staring at the inside of my eyelids, my mind wanders.  I let it, because concentrating on going to sleep never helped me, and if I'm thinking about designs for chicken coops for the chickens I don't have, maybe it will turn into a dream, and then I'll be asleep!  Plus, as long as its not the repetitive lyrics to an obnoxious 90s song, it's nice to think about random things.  Last night my mind wandered to memories of early summer a few years ago and I thought of a time when sometimes we make a fool of ourselves, but it's funny in retrospect, namely as with the time I call My Worst Date Ever (or, Shortest Record Time I've Had a Crush on Someone).

I googled "Awkward Date" and this was the best picture, sadly

I'm going to call this guy Greg, because I don't think I've ever met anyone in my decade named Greg, so it's a safe name (but sorry if I have, Greg, correct me).  Greg and I ran into each other after church one time, and I'd known him from back in California, but only on a professional basis (vagueness is important here, I promise).  Anyway, he proposed that I hang out with him and his friend, who I also knew.  I was moving to a new neighborhood and in need of some friendship, so I was excited about it.  I also decided this Greg fellow was my new crush.

A week or two later, we met up and had dinner (all three of us), then Greg's friend left the state for the summer.  A week after that, Greg and I were texting.  I figured with Greg's friend out of the picture, I had the opportunity to make some kind of hint of a move.  So, we decided that I would walk over to Greg's house to watch a movie.

I think my first mistake was that I was under the impression that this was some kind of date.  I may have been a skoshe desperate for one.  I mean really, I was young and single and in Provo and I hadn't had a single date that wasn't a set-up since I'd moved there (if you know me, you know I've been asked out on all of 1 actual date total, which ended up in marriage).  Whatever.

Anyway, so I got to his house, knocked on the door, anxious (and wearing perfume).  I heard a shout of "come on down" from the belly of the house, and did so.  There was Greg, sitting on the couch watching basketball with his ripped jeans on and bare feet on the coffee table.  If he drank bottled beverages, I bet there was one in his hand.  I sat on the opposite end of the couch and crossed my legs, trying to make small talk, which didn't happen, because clearly he was more interested in the basketball game than anything else.  After a while, I started to notice that his feet were the source of most of the stink in the room and wanted something to distract me, so I said "...Well, can we watch that movie?" and he was like "Oh sure, they're over on the table, pick one."

There were a handful of movies scattered on the table, so I picked through.  I saw Master and Commander, which happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time.  I picked it up, unable to control the "Ooooh!" that escaped my lips because, hey, a guy who likes Master and Commander is awesome in my book.  Greg reacted to my noise by saying "Oh, that, yeah, I borrowed it from a girl I know.  It was really boring."  Oh.  Hrrr....

Finally we settled on Hotel Rwanda, the only one that we could agree on (because neither of us had seen it yet).  And that was a bad idea.  Genocide and such...not great date material.  I was trying not to cry because I'm a sap, and I have no idea what awkwardness was going through Greg's mind.

Ten minutes before the movie ended, Greg's roommate came home (it was now almost 12:30AM), and said "Oh hey, Hotel Rwanda, that's a good movie" and thankfully joined us in watching the ending.  It ended, and the roommate said something about the time, which prompted Greg to turn to me and say "Yeah, if it wasn't Friday night, I would've asked you to leave a long time ago."  Yikes.  Curfew's not til 1AM, son.

I couldn't get out of the house fast enough, let me tell you.  And before I'd reached home, I'd recovered from crushing on the fellow-- good thing, too, otherwise I'd be stuck with musing about chicken coops.

Memorial Day Weekend

First there was a wedding:

And then a beautiful stormy lake:

And then a fun game of croquet: