Valentine

While it has been six months since I've posted on this blog, it hasn't been nearly that long since I thought about it. Married life with an infant is definitely different. I'm not even sure what I want to write here at the moment.

As I've left my job and transitioned into the role of Stay-At-Home-Mom, I have enjoyed wonderful support from Jesse, as well as others in my life. There are days that I miss working with college students, miss planning for expansions and improvements, miss socializing with the variety of co-workers. But as I nurse TGM, read books with her, and mark her accomplishments, I can't imagine any part of that I would want to give up. I've tried to imagine what it would be like to go back to work--full-time or even part-time. And while the work part doesn't seem impossible, I can't imagine being away from her for that long and missing all the little things she smiles and laughs at during the day.

But this blog isn't about the newest love of my life, it's about the man who is my best friend and so much more. It's about the man who is supportive of my desire to spend all my time with TGM and works to make it possible! He doesn't complain about all the suppers I haven't made or the cleaning that hasn't been done. He listens to my long, rambling narrations of her activities. He accepts my concern about a rash or my frustrations at the end of a fussy day. And then he gives me a hug and plays with TGM while I work on what needs done or just takes break. I really have a great husband!

And today we did Valentine's day--our style. We took a collection of gift cards for Barnes & Noble and headed book shopping! We passed TGM back and forth, as we each browsed in our own favorite sections. I finally picked up my own copy of the Baby Name Wizard, revised edition! (A big thanks to SJ for lending us her copy at the critical time 7 months ago!) I also picked up a couple more board books for TGM. JM picked up a book that he wanted. I also made a list of books that I'm hoping I can borrow from the library.

After the afternoon at B&N, we stopped at Applebees on the way home for supper. As we ate, we relaxed and talked. We were actually between lunch and dinner hours, so we took our time there, without feeling rushed by crowds.

When we got home, Jesse decided to work on a project that we'd talked about earlier in the week. The washing machine hasn't been working perfectly--with every load it either gets out of balance or doesn't wring the clothes out thoroughly. While it still works, we are thinking we may go ahead and see about getting it serviced. Unfortunately, the positioning of the washing machine and the dryer behind the toilet in the half-bath leaves maybe a foot of clearance in front of the machine and only a couple inches of wiggle room on the sides--no room for access to completely remove the machine and very limited access to take the machine apart. It appears that if we were to trade the toilet in the half-bath with the toilet in the main bathroom, we would be granted about 3 extra inches of space in the half-bath. That would be enough to make it possible to remove the dryer, and subsequently the washer, when needed.

So Jesse began the process of removing the toilet in the main bathroom. Who knows when the toilet in the bathroom was last removed, and the bolts and washer disintegrated as soon as he tried to remove them. Removing the toilet also pulled out some of the tiles in the main bathroom. But as we were planning to re-tile the bathroom anyway, we decided to take the opportunity to do that too.

So currently, the main bathroom has no toilet and probably needs the board (the one under the tiles) around the toilet replaced. We removed the baseboard tiles, most of the floor tiles, and the floor vent. The half-bathroom also has no toilets. We have two toilets sitting in our living room by the front door. And, oh yeah, we have a guest coming in less than two weeks, as well as Jer coming next weekend. So in less than two weeks (and it would be nice if it were in the next week), we need to have at least one of the bathrooms put back together for our guest. But I expect it's good to have a deadline for these sorts of projects!

What is the point of all this rambling? That I have the most fabulous, wonderful, patient, loving, and supportive husband in the world! Happy Valentines Day, my Valentine!

First night in our new home

... wasn't last night; it was the Thanksgiving weekend while my family was down helping us move stuff.

I think it was Thursday night. Our old home was full to overflowing with family, so C&I thought it would be a good way to loosen everyone's sleeping arrangements if we were to sleep over at the new home on an air mattress.

We trooped over (in the cold) with our nice, big double air mattress and lots of sheets and blankets and stuff. The electricity was on and the house was nicely warm.

We started unrolling things and Charlessa noticed a little glitch in our plans - at some point we had lost the plug to our big air mattress. Hmmmm. That would make things a bit rough.

So I carefully ran back over to our old home (I happened to be wearing a kilt. Don't ask.) and grabbed the first air mattress box I saw, and again, ran carefully back over to the new place.

We unrolled it and saw ... that it was a twin-sized air mattress!

Oh well. We love each other. We can sleep on a narrow air mattress without divorcing, right? Right. Builds character!

We inflate it, get the sheets and blankets set up, and manage to fit together on there. We chat away, pretty comfy at first, but I have a strange sensation that with every exhalation, I'm sinking in toward the middle. Must be my imagination.

After five minutes, I notice something. My hip is feeling something under the mattress.

It's the floor.

After another 15 seconds of verifying that, yes, it is the floor, I say "Charlessa?"

She cracks up laughing!

Thus was our first night in our new home!

(Everything turned out well. We re-inflated the mattress and tightened up the plug and cap as best I could. It probably took until 3 or 4 in the morning before we started hitting the floor again. We're even still married!)

Day of Encouragement

Jesse picked the right day to send me some encouragement!

My morning started out pretty rough. But then I arrived to work to find that Jesse had left a card under my office door (probably Tuesday evening). There was also a basket of flowers (see picture) waiting for me at the library circulation desk. He sent me a text message of encouragement early in the afternoon. Later in the afternoon, he sent me a message on my phone with him singing to me. And on his way to Bible study in the evening, he surprised me by dropping in for a visit.

I got asked a couple of times if it was my birthday. (Why else would a girl get flowers?) I was very proud to be able to say that he sent them just because!

And all that doesn't include any of the six e-mails he sent or at least one phone call he made that were primarily about other issues.

I truly have the best husband in the world!

Our laid-back house search

It's been a very low-grade sort of search since we're satisfied with where we are now for the most part. Eventually we want to own, but we like our neighborhood and general location quite well, and the townhouse is big enough and nice enough to serve well enough. With all those enoughs, our current place isn't our dream home, but certainly satisfactory for now.

All that to say we haven't quite been pounding on the realtor's door. Instead we've got some automated Internet searches for listings. Since we're not in a hurry, we've been pinging our realtor for the occasional house viewing for a year or so, some of them more out of curiosity than actual interest.

Since we aren't in a time crunch, we've narrowed down our search to an almost silly range of variables. It hasn't been until 2008 that anything really started showing up in what we would consider our price range, and even then they were typically dumps. Prices have continued to fall, so we've slowly seen more places that are in our price range and are less and less dumpy.

The one we most recently saw is bank-owned, has some major mold damage on a wall and a leak that was heavy enough to soak down through from the upper floor down to the lower one and make a LARGE puddle. Even with all that, the bank is still asking for more than we're interested in paying. We would drop their price further, and require that they fix everything first. Other than those problems though, it's a nice place.

If they just laugh at us, then oh well, and we'll continue to wait.

Such is the exciting life we lead.

Living Life

Please don't be alarmed by the fact that there are currently three contributors to this blog. I'm in the process of sorting out which e-mail accounts and which Google accounts I want to keep and which one I want to use. So at the moment, I'm a contributor from two different accounts. I'm still deciding how I want to handle accounts, so I'm not sure if this is a temporary arrangement or a long-term arrangement.

My sticking point is that I want to use one Google account as my primary e-mail account and I want to use the other Google account as my primary blogging account. Since Google doesn't allow one to log into two different accounts at the same time (even if one is blogger and one is e-mail), I have to re-login everytime I want switch between e-mail and blogging. That has been part of the reason my blog posting has been down in recent months.

Despite the lack of posts, life has been going very well for us. Jesse still surprises me with text messages and the so many little things he does for me--hot tea, foot rubs, opening doors, or just waking me up with a kiss.

I'm sure no one's cares.....but it was 31 months ago that we started dating and 22 months ago that we got engaged!