In Between

So...hi. This is awkward. It's been nine months since I've been here.

I never had much interesting to say - this blog is domestic, self-indulgent - but I still feel it's important for me to write our story. To keep it. Especially now.

Snapshot: I'm 27, Joe's 28. August 17th will be our 7th anniversary. Our marriage has been 92% fantastic. Our life is fun, secure, tranquil, comfy, routine. Like living in one of the squares of a waffle. I love it.

Last year, as my first real academic accomplishment, I was so proud to have earned a real estate sales certification. By now, I've realized that real estate is a pretty bad fit for me. Joe's on his 4th year in the Army. Seems that's another bad fit. With 22 months left on his contract, we've started to work on an exit plan.

We bought a home last year. We have a dog and a cat and two birds, some grape bushes!, two living rooms, two spare bedrooms. One of those bedrooms is full of boxes. The other bedroom was painted and curtained and made into my office. I couldn't find the perfect "resale beige" paint, so I went with what I really wanted - a perfect delicate blue-green. It turned out that the blue really was perfect...turned out that I was painting a nursery for the baby I'd given up on.

There are 55 days until his due date, August 3rd.

Now, we're in between. In between "us two" and "we three." Between home office and nursery. Everything we've known, and the rest of our lives.

It's summer. Outside the back windows, our yard is overgrown and green and hazy with humidity. The sun sets slowly. We play video games side-by-side like always, watch movies on the couch, cook and clean together. Everything is still so normal. But ten times a day we walk past the calendar months I printed out - April to September all taped together on the fridge - and every night I cross off another day. So many have been crossed off already.

It's been seven years of just us, of adventure and figuring stuff out. Strange to think how soon that will change. We're ready (as anyone can ever be,) but I'll always remember, always keep these last days of ours, these perfect summer in-between days.

Locked Out FOREVER

Y. E. S. !!!!! JOE INSTALLED A KEYLESS ON OUR ENTRY FRONT DOOR! WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!!!!!! It's like being in Korea again (cause that's how you get into all the apartments)! Guys, this is seriously SO luxurious.

Funny story: There is a set of keys which open the locks of the doors of foreclosure houses in our area. Someone at our local Century 21 had the key to our front door when they sold the house to us, because that's how they sell houses, by getting inside to show people, you know. When we bought our house, we didn't receive a copy of our key, because then we'd be able to get into a lot of other for sale homes in the area. So we haven't been able to unlock our front door the entire time we've lived here.

We never got around to replacing the front doorknob; we ordered an expensive keyless entry system and door handle thing that we liked, but they were both broken, and time just flew by, and the back door had a new knob that we used, so it was okay. Climbing over the fence to get into the back door a few times never hurt anybody.

Well, the other day, when I got my real estate license, I gained access to a set of keys that would open the doors of a lot of houses in the area - including my own.

I got a key to my front door because I became a real estate agent.

LOL.

Six

On August 17th, I didn't write to tell you I love you. I was washing the car. I should have been in here, typing, waiting for you to get home from work on our anniversary, but instead I was out there in the rain scrubbing something that never stays clean. But that's how it goes, isn't it? Paychecks need to be earned, things need to be fixed, I get tired of thinking "I should wash the car this weekend." Before you know it, it's been a week since we've really had time for each other.

This year, our anniversary was just a whisper and the familiar date on the calendar.* And cake, chocolate cake chocolate frosting chocolate chips brownie chunks and chocolate syrup, that good old standby from our olden days (like 4 years ago).

From the olden days.

We didn't really do anything (except cake,) but it was comfy just holding your hand and saying "happy anniversary" and not making too much of a thing of it because there was last year and there will be next year. To get to the point where anniversaries aren't as momentous, because we've already had a few. 

So if last year was complicated, this year is comfy. We're back from our Great Asia Adventure. We have our household goods and the Passat and the couch. We're buckling down and settling in for a long stretch of very normal life - two jobs, a cat and a dog, retirement plan, mortgage. I can't say I'm exactly excited about it; there's nothing exciting about working to pay off a bunch of surprise debt, and about not knowing if things are going to go the way we've planned. But whatever happens, at least I'll be with you...and really, our life always has just kept getting better. 

Here's to another year of shared memories, even if these will be more mundane than seeing the Great Wall of China or visiting volcanic islands or seeing people poop behind bushes in public parks.

I love you.

* There was also a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with my family at Golden Corral, where I got four cotton candies and we laughed together like we haven't laughed together in years, and then me and Joe got a beautiful new toilet, but as awesome as those things were and as much as I wish we could do them all the time, they were not romantic.

Back When I Made Spiderweb Cotton Candy

I had forgotten that I used to have a spiderweb harvesting stick.

The trailer we rented when we first got married was full of spiders. We'd have to walk from our bedroom across the living room to get to the bathroom that worked, and the webs would spring up across the living room overnight, and I'd walk into them.

I found the stick picture while searching my Pictures folder to find out what me and Joe were doing on this day in history six years ago. On July 14th, 2007, we were fixing the place up; Joe was working on the floor, and I was raking leaves. We'd be married and moving in a month later.

The cast-iron woodburning stove against the front door added extra security.

Raking in progress! How exciting!

And below is a nice picture of the moldy-carpeted rotting-wooded broken hot tub I later pulled the carpet off of with the back of a hammer. The tub was never used for anything but garbage and storage, especially after the water pipe under it burst and had to be sealed off.

It wasn't the type of place we ever imagined ourselves living, but it was ours. (Kind of.) And despite the mice and the spiders, and the mystery of HOW ARE THESE WASPS GETTING IN (they had a nest in that yellow rectangular stove vent next to the little window,) I haven't been more attached to any of our other homes.

Some Cool Stories About Our Life

1. Sometimes we go to the IHOP near our hotel. It's the first restaurant we visited when we got back to the States, 'cause it was in the middle of the night and 'cause we'd eaten there before, like three years ago when we first were stationed here. The other night, I wanted to go there. We got in the car and started looking for it. It's three minutes away from our hotel and also never where I expect it to be, and we didn't see it, so I just figured we drove past it. I turned on the GPS and we turned around and it said "Arriving at destination on right." BUT THERE WAS NOTHING THERE! except some dirt in a parking lot. I commented, "Wouldn't it be crazy if it got torn down," and then we ate at Denny's instead, and saw a cockroach, and then I researched that IHOP and found out that it had been torn down and we'd eaten there in its last week. CRAZY.

(the newspaper's picture)

2. When we went to the hotel's front desk for our weekly Thursday week-renewal on the room, the price was lower than usual. "The price is lower than usual," I said to the receptionist. "So it is," she said. "I wonder why." It turns out that we're no longer being charged a hotel tax because this is now considered to be our place of residence. LOLLLLLLLL

3. I feel like the greatest right now because I'm taking three classes to become a licensed Realtor and investor. Joe's on night shift, so I'm awake all night, which makes things complicateder. The week starts on Tuesday mornings with salesperson training at 8:30 (which is like 9:30 PM to me.) I have to leave for that at 8, half an hour after Joe gets back from work. I get home at noon (or "1 AM,") and sleep a few hours until I have to get ready for pre-licensing class that evening. I drive Joe to work (he has to be there at 6 PM) and I go to school (I have to be there at 6 PM.) After school, I drive home at 9:30 PM and watch Flip or Flop on HGTV! Then take a nap, because in eleven hours I have salesperson training again. After that, I get home at "1 AM" and finally get some sleep. That night, I do homework and the week's first session of online Real Estate Investing class (which is only like 30 minutes of reading.) After that Tues-morning-Tues-night-Weds-morning set, things are easier because I don't have class again until Thursday night. Friday is my second weekly session of online REI class. Saturday Sunday Monday, relax, sleep, homework.

This is the first time I've ever felt like I'm "doing something with my life."

4. Between the hours of 4 AM and 7 AM, all HGTV plays is infomercials for anti-aging creme. The Krispy Kreme near us closes at the stupidly early hour of 11 PM. And the McDonald's next to our house hotel shuts down its icecream machine every night for cleaning from the hours of, like, 2 AM to 6 AM. It's the worst. I guess. Last time I was over there at 3 AM, a guy asked if I had a place where he could sleep. I went back to the room and used all the locks.

5. We've been buying gallon bottles of water because who wants to drink gross warm chlorine city tap water? Not us. (Even though most bottled water is city tap water - it's "from a municipal source.") Since I grew up in a rural area, I prefer the taste of nice cool fresh water straight from the ground, that still has minerals and sand floating around in it. So I've been trying to find the brand that makes water (hehe) with the least "municipal" flavor. Nestle Pure Life water is the best I've found. Crystal Purified Drinking Water tastes like inflatable pool toys. (Joe just buys whatever's cheap and squirts MiO flavoring in it.)

6. I wanted Japanese food. We went to a Japanese restaurant. It was going to be fun. We were seated and ordered our drinks, one Coke and one Diet Coke. Joe saw our waiter, who was on his way to our table, take a sip out of Joe's glass (I assume the waiter forgot which one was Diet.) We left and ate at Red Lobster instead.

WOW! Those were some pretty cool stories!