6 Months Down, Eternity To Go

I have a few reasons for keeping a blog.

1. Because I have this abnormal need to save literally everything. I worry that one day I’ll need to know everything about my life, and a blog is one, of the many, ways that I save my memories.
2. For the people that are far away that I don’t get to talk to all the time, like my grandparents, church leaders, and the people I have met throughout my life that live all over the world that wonder how I’m doing.
3.  Maybe I like talking about myself, and writing it down on a blog is better than just talking to myself, or rambling to the random people I see throughout my day about random things they don’t want to hear because they are the only people that I run into. If I keep a blog, then you have to CHOOSE to read what I have to say. So, you can’t get upset with me for rambling.
4.  I like writing sometimes.

With that being said, I am also terrible at keeping a blog. I don’t really get busy, I’ve just spent the last 4 months in a mail room with hours of time to do whatever I want. I have even brought my laptop to that mailroom every single day, just in case I decided to write on my blog. So, being busy isn’t the problem, unless being busy doing nothing is a thing. 

Honestly, I’m not sure what the problem is, but I’m fixing it RIGHT NOW, by beginning a blog post. (Go Kinsey!) 

My last post was about how Ryan and I met and fell in love and got married. We’ve been married for 6 months now, so I decided that this post would be about how those 6 months have gone, what married life has been like for us. (Get ready for another long post. I read the other day that Mark Twain once said “I didn’t have time for a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” And that just kind of reminded me of me.)

Our first few moments and days of married life were fun, but also weird. Nobody ever talks about it, but it just hit us over and over again that we were married. We went to St. George, UT for our honeymoon, and over and over and over again we kept saying, “Wow! Can you believe that we’re MARRIED?!” haha. We probably said it at least 15 times a day. We felt like kids pretending to be adults. 

Since we got married in the middle of the school semester, our honeymoon was short lived and reality was there to meet us as soon as we got home. Our schedules have been the exact opposite almost the entire 6 months. While we were going to school, Ryan would drop me off at my old apartment at 6:30 am, so he could get to his classes on time. I would then walk to work and stay there all morning, and go to my classes in the afternoon. After he was done with his classes, he would drop the car off at my old apartment complex and then ride my bike 3 miles to work. When I finished my classes, I would walk back to my apartment complex, pick up the car and drive home. At 9:30 pm, I’d drive back to Provo to pick him up, and then we’d go home, eat dinner, and go to bed. (Our schedule is similar now but less complicated. He drops me off at work, he goes to the gym, donates plasma, and then goes to work. During his lunch break he picks me up and we drive him back, and then I drive home. At 9:30, I pick him up and we go home together. Neither of us walks or bikes anywhere anymore, which is a nice change. Thank goodness for lunch breaks!) We’re glad it does work out though, and we make the most of the time we get together. 

I like to eat dinner with Ryan every night, so I normally make dinner at 8, leave to pick him up at 9:30, and then we get home around 10 and eat dinner together. One of the fun things about being newly married is not having all the normal furniture you’re used to. Like a table and chairs. It took us 3 months to get a table. (We looked at DI and both of us have drastically different styles that we like. It took us a while to agree on something.) For the first 3 months we used a big cardboard box as our table. I decorated it with a table cloth (a blanket) and a candle to spice things up a bit. (We really know how to go all out, that’s for sure!) It was super fun to use that, until Ryan decided to put his elbow on the “table” (cardboard box) and fell through the box. We filled it with lots of smaller cardboard boxes to fill it up again, but eventually we just got rid of the whole thing when we got a table. Also, you may not realize how important chairs are, but when you are short and your husband likes to try to help you out by putting your Nutella on the top shelf in the kitchen, you realize pretty fast how nice it is to have something to help you reach those hard to reach places. Luckily, I have had lots of experience climbing on counters in my life time, so it worked out, but I am grateful to have chairs now too.

Also, haha, notice the size difference between our bowls. The big one is mine... haha just kidding, he bought that one specifically for himself.

A couch was another difficult situation. We found a perfect couch at DI a few weeks before we were married, but I figured we could wait and it would be fine. After we were married we went back and the couch was gone, and it was replaced with lots of ugly, gross, uncomfortable couches. Ryan fell in love with one especially hideous couch, and that was a source of contention in the DI store for about 15 minutes. He laid down on the couch and looked like he was prepared to stay there as long as it would take for me to just give in, but he married someone *almost* as stubborn as he is, and I won that battle. We provided entertainment for the man that was sitting on the couch next to us. He had previously been listening to music while sitting down, but I saw him look back and forth between us while we debated over this hideous, brown couch.  Eventually we found a decent couch for pretty cheap. It looks nice and it’s comfortable enough. I’m looking forward to one day having a nicer, more comfortable couch, but this one will do for now.) 

Our apartment is all put together now. We have a couch, a table, 4 matching chairs, a chalkboard that Ryan built for me, a string of pictures on the wall above our kitchen table. We bought a nice blender on sale last week, we finally bought hot pads last week as well (so I don’t have to use t-shirts and towels to get food out of the oven anymore), my parents sent us an extra can opener that they don’t use so that I wouldn’t have to attempt to open cans with a knife, we have a bed, a dresser, and bedside tables (that are actually cardboard boxes, but they work just fine, and we don’t care.) We have a few paintings that we want to hang up, and we mentioned once that we might hang up curtains eventually. Also, we will also eventually buy a trashcan to put in the bathroom so we don’t have a grocery bag for trash hanging on the back of the door. But besides those few minute details, our house feels put together and home-y. I’m happy with it. 

My attempt at opening cans with a knife.

Ryan made this chalkboard for me. :) I love it!

Enough about our apartment. 

We have been really good at going on weekly dates. We pretty much make a date night out of almost every evening that we get to spend together. (Meaning, anytime we get to spend time together earlier than 10 at night.) That happens about twice a week. Sometimes we just relax at home and watch a movie. Other times we like to go out. We like eating food (I especially like not having to cook dinner). Our favorites are Thai Village and Red Robin. We also go to Olive Garden semi-frequently. We’ve tried lots of places though. Provo has tons of options to choose from. I’ve been wanting to try all the different places to eat around here, so sometimes we’ll just walk down Center Street and we’ll pick a new place to try. Here’s a funny story that I told my mom in an email one week that shows one of our experiences of walking down Center Street: 

“We decided to go to Center Street to find some place new to try for dinner. I love walking up and down Center Street because it's so pretty and all the restaurants look fun and exciting. But it's also very expensive. So, we walked up and down trying to find something we could afford that also sounded good, we didn't find anything. We did go inside an Italian place to look at the menu to see how much it cost ($17 for fettucine alfredo is not worth it!) But when we first walked in, Ryan said "They're playing Les Mis music! They must be good!" (He LOVES Les Miserables) It was super loud though, and then we couldn't figure out where to find the menu and then we started walking to the other side of the restaurant. As we were walking, I saw my coworker on the sidewalk outside, so I tried to point her out to Ryan. Then a waitress walked up to us as I was pointing out my coworker, and there was too much happening all at once, and then I realized the Les Mis music was actually coming VERY LOUDLY from Ryan's phone, NOT the restaurant. And then we looked at the menu and we decided to leave. It was a whirlwind of things that all happened in about 3 minutes. And we probably totally disrupted the nice feeling of the restaurant.”

These kinds of experiences on my own would probably embarrass me and make me want to hide in my room forever, but with Ryan it’s always just fun or funny. Life is way more fun with him by my side.

I really enjoy making everyday life a little more fun with little things. If I don’t, I get a little melancholy. So, sometimes I try to mix things up by making an especially nice dinner to surprise Ryan, and I’ll light the candles for those occasions. One time, while he was at work I made a fort in our bedroom for him to come home to, because I love blanket forts. Sometimes I write on the mirrors or leave random notes for him. Occasionally I’ll write him ridiculous poems. And one time I stole this idea from the internet as a surprise for when he went to the bathroom. 

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One of our new hobbies is making Italian sodas. We’ve been collecting flavored syrups over the last few months, and we always have club soda on hand. (Syrups are more pricey but they last a long time, and club soda is dirt cheap!) When we go to DI, we always pick out a couple of 75 cent champagne glasses, and sometimes we get shot glasses (to sample new flavors). (We break an average of 1-3 glasses a week, so we have to keep getting more, they’re super cheap though so it doesn’t matter.) 

Another thing we like to do is going on Friday nights to clean the temple we were sealed in. We’ve gone regularly enough that we are now friends with the head housekeeper of the new Provo temple. (She even made us nametags!) She lets us pick where we clean sometimes, one time we got to clean the font, while there was water inside! (It was like a warmish hot tub, it was great fun!) We’ve cleaned almost every part of the temple, which has been awesome. A week before we got married they even let us clean the sealing room that we were going to be sealed in a week later. That was pretty cool. 

Ryan is a really good sport. He is content to just be with me. He would be happy if we were to just sit and read books next to each other, enjoy some food, or lay in a hammock at the park. I on the other hand always have weird ideas of new things that I want to try. My bucket list has at least 200 things written on it. (Literally, I have them written down, and I keep coming up with more things to add to it.) Ryan’s bucket list consists of marrying me, having a family, and providing for us. I’ve slowly coaxed a few other things out of him (like traveling to South America to serve others), but he’s much more practical than I am. He’s happy to just help me fulfill my dreams. For example, a few weeks ago I told him about goga (goat yoga), that I saw someone doing on Instagram and I was hoping he'd be excited about it, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He thought it was more than ridiculous that anyone would want to do yoga with goats. He thought it was something for looney people! So, I gave up on that idea, and then later that night he said that if I really wanted to do it, we could. Here is a picture that captures perfectly how he felt about it. 

His face says it all.

 

But he agreed to do it anyways and I had the best time ever!

I’ve been rambling, so I’ll try to finish this up. I guess what I’m trying to say is that married life has been great and life is good. Here are a few extra tidbits:

• I’ve learned how to make dinners big enough for 5. One serving for me, 3 servings for Ryan, and one left for me to have for lunch the next day.

• I’ve discovered that married couples don’t cuddle all night long while their sleeping. It was impractical of me to think that anyways, because I sleep with 3 blankets and Ryan sleeps on top of all of them with just his one. Those 3 blankets make cuddling a little more difficult.

• Honesty and communication come a long way. Our arguments normally last about 10-15 minutes and then we talk through it and then we’re over it. Letting things fester just isn’t an option in our relationship.

• Men that wear great t-shirts that say things like “My favorite Disney princess is my wife” and other fun things like that get lots of compliments.

• Some people are just more destructive than others and you just have to get used to spending money on them for things like phones, shoes, belts, key chains, etc. (I’m not naming names…)

• I’m learning that it’s okay to spend money on frivolous things sometimes. Money is meant to be spent. (I’m a cheapskate, it’s in my genes, so learning to be okay with spending more money on dates and other things has been a work in progress.)

• Getting up on time is way harder when someone is in bed next to you refusing to get up on time.

• The days go by better if you pray together when you wake up. Also, on that note, if you say something like “We’ll pray together after we’ve gotten ready when we are more awake.” you’re way more likely to forget. (We haven’t remembered a single time that we’ve said that.)

• A good blender is worth it for mornings when you need something to eat really fast.

• Dawn dish soap even gets rid of stains that cover you from head to toe when your husband accidentally flips a bowl full of sauce and it lands on your brand new favorite outfit.

• Cars are expensive and frustrating and it’s dumb that we need them to get everywhere we need to go. But because we need it to get everywhere we need to go, I’m grateful that ours works, even though it’s taken a whole lot of money that could have been spent elsewhere to make it work the way it should.

I’m sure there are other things I have to say, but I’ll just let that be it for now. You’re welcome. ;)

Love, Kinsey