Logic vs. Intuition.

Logically, my college educated, sociology laden brain is screaming, "NOOOOOOO! Baby is not the best choice!" But then there are millions of years of evolution inside me, quietly nudging, "BAAAAAAABBBBBBBEEEEEEEE, makeabaaaaaaabbbbbeeeeeee".

And it is slowly driving me nuts, the push and pull of it all.

So, since I love a good list, a made a pros and cons list for (possible) procreation. In no apparent order:

Pros:
-Will shut up biological clock
-Tiny clothes, shoes and hats w/ears
-Someone to take care of me when I'm old
-cousin for Baby M. (my niece)
-Sibling for Kiddo and Little One
-Having a mini-me (or mini husband in the case of a boy) would be cool
-Getting to parent the way I want, not tip toe around the hard stuff like I do w/the girls because I never want them to say in anger, "you're not my mother!" I already know that.
-Never a boring moment
-hugs and cuddles
-finger painting possibilities
-Being told "you two would make such cute babies!" makes me curious...
-Giving my husband the chance to do the baby thing, one last time when he will be there for all the milestones he missed out on with the girls

Cons:
-Body never the same
-Mass amounts of laundry
-Taking care of for 18+ years
-Another person to bathe, clothe, feed etc...
-Taking Dad time away from Kiddo and Little One
-Babies turn into kids who turn into teenagers (who, in general, are annoying at best)
-College $
-childcare costs (I doubt we could afford me to do the SAHM thing, sadly and that opens up a whole other issue with me: why have kids if I'm going to pay someone else to basically raise them?)
-doctor's visits
-sticky hands/faces
-Lack of sleep
-loss of identity

This is where I stand on the topic. 12 cons versus 12 pros. Completely torn.



***

My husband and I were watching a TV show last night and one of the characters was getting a vasectomy. He mentioned, "If you are 100% sure you don't want kids we should look into that for me". I all could say was I don't know. Twice. And that is a lot different than how I used to respond to such a discussion. I should have laid it all out for him right then and there, but I clammed up. I'm not so good at eating my words, and after years and years of claiming, "I like babies, as long as they are other people's" I am partially hung up on having to do just that.

I know there is not perfect time to have a baby, but at this juncture of our lives, I couldn't feel it is more wrong: we live in a two bedroom apartment we are quickly outgrowing (w/o another human being taking up residence) and I am on the verge of enrolling in a graduate program where I work while my husband is switching jobs, again (that is a long story, ending with panic attacks and his hair falling out). We don't even have a washer and dryer, we are kicking it at the laundromat once a week.

I just wish the nagging feeling that something is missing would go away, but I am seriously starting to doubt if it will on its own.

Toughie.

Do step-parenting support groups exist? If so, I need to know when and where and if there isn't, I should start one.

It is not an easy job...being a part-time-sort-of-parental-type-person. You (think you) know what you are getting yourself into, but at the same time, you don't at all; every family is as different as its individuals.

You have to remember why you chose to be with your partner AND their child(ren, in my case) when the going gets tough. You are allowed to provide basic care (ie: feeding, grooming, purchasing of things to feed and clothe them with) but beyond that, it gets murky, especially if the child's other biological parent goes out of their way to be difficult on a regular basis.

You can love the child(ren) immensely, but don't expect to be well received if things come up about how they are being raised and/or taken care of when with the other parent. You can worry about them, but you can't do more than volunteer solutions to your partner when it comes to problem solving issues with the other parent.

I always said I didn't want kids, but here I am, step-parenting away, which I am honest-to-goodness starting to believe can be harder than parenting in its own way. I am convinced being a parent is the hardest role anyone can have in life, but emotionally step-parenting has to be at least, on the same page as parenting, if not more confusing at times. At least I could be 50% of the decision making if they were biologically mine. Right now, I'm about 10% of one half (I suck at math, so you figure that one out) and all I can do is give my opinion to my husband, whether he takes it or not is completely up to him....and even if he does, the mom still has veto power.

My husband and his girls were a packaged deal from day one, and I thought long and hard before we got serious about how him having kids adds an additional layer of life-complicating situations. I wouldn't trade my life right now for anything, but some sort of step-parenting manual would be helpful. Perhaps there exists a "Step-Parenting for Dummies" manual? I need to research this.

Bottom line: It is hard to care so much but keep your mouth shut at certain times. It is something I am still learning how to do 100% of the time. I try my best to be a positive role model for the girls, and enjoy the fleeting moments we get to spend as a family of four; every other weekend never seems to come soon enough.

Holi-don'ts.

I have already began dreading the next two months. I feel like it starts earlier each year, with Christmas nonsense already filling shelves of every store I've entered since last Sunday, and the TV commercials constantly reminding us of the things to come: Day after Thanksgiving sales, BIG DEALS, consume, Consume, COOOOONNNNNSUMMMME!

We are on a very extremely tight budget this year. With the husband losing his job and I being required to take furlough (long story short: campus will be closed from the week before Christmas until the Monday after New Years and one day of pay each month will be taken off my paycheck until next june, hurrah.) things could get hairy but we have a pretty exact plan of action when it comes to present buying. Mostly, not buying anyone anything besides the girls, Baby M. (my niece) and our parents (ONLY if we can figure out frugal joint presents for each set).

I'm also refusing to become stressed about family obligations. Plain and simple. If the girls can't be there, it will make me sad but I won't get all worked up over it. I'm already expecting my brother to muck everything up, with his "surprise" visit or ever changing arrival date (he is known for both, and while I know he doesn't do it on purpose, it always messes up already planned things....and when he's in another country with the Army its one thing, but he's in South Carolina for Pete's sake!)

So to re-cap Holiday Season 2010 Don'ts:

-No crying (at least not of the sad, we-have-no-money kind, tears of joy are allowed.)
-No stressing (aka no skipping the gym for this girl.)
-No present buying for anyone but the 'rents and the kids. Period. (I have a problem with gift giving...I enjoy it way too much.)

Did I use parentheses enough in this post or what?

Day Six: Never.

Something you hope to never have to do.

In all honesty (this is after all, 30 days of truth) I had a hard time thinking of an answer for this. I've been thinking about it for a few days, and the best I can come up with is: I hope I never bury my husband. Then I feel like an a**hole and selfish for some reason. Then the more I think about it, the more it makes sense....I hope to never have to live in a world where he doesn't exist. And then I think about it some more and get all panicky since, being the sociology major that I was, I know women's life expectancy is around 7 years longer than men on average. But then I remember a study I read once about how left handed people are prone to die before right handed people (I'm a lefty)....then I remind myself shit happens all the time, and we're only in our twenties and to stop thinking these things. It doesn't get you anywhere and it keeps you from living in the present.

I digress (I haven't had any coffee today and I just got up from a nap, so that could be why.....)

I've spent more time single than in a relationship at this point in my life, mostly because I was picky. HAH wait the honest explanation: the guys I actually wanted to be with just wanted to be friends, and most of the time we were. I was sort of famous for trying to date my guy friends and I was usually cool enough of a person to not be weird about it afterwards. So when I found the husband, back at the end of 2005, on one level I knew things were different; mostly because despite gigantic red flags (i.e. baby mama drama) that would have kept most girls from getting romantically involved did nothing for me but mostly because it just felt different and right whenever we were together. Almost 6 years later and I can't imagine him not being here. I can't imagine having to tell the girls he's gone.

So I plan on us living forever, so far it's working.....ooooor we'll go out in a painfully romantic way a la the Notebook...although the more realistic version is how Johnny Cash died less than 4 months after his wife, June Carter Cash.

Until then I'm thankful every day for the time we have together....even on the days he drives me crazy, I'm happy to have him here, doing so.

It strikes again.

Stupid Facebook.

I knew it was going to happen, just not this soon. Little One's mom (who used to stalk Husband on another social networking site, and stalk me and send me emails with lies trying to get to me to break up with him) wants to be friends with us on Facebook. Husband wanted to say "we can be friendly but I wouldn't call us friends" but he didn't know how, so he told her he would be alright with it, but maybe wait until we see each other more (as in, the mom and me). I told him whenever she requests/he approves, he needs to get into his settings and make some changes for what she can see. I know her type. She will be all up in our business. I think he is so glad they are getting along so well he doesn't want to rock the boat, and I am in the same opinion, plus we would get to see pictures of Little One and what not, its just scary? Nerve-racking? Stress-inducing? (All of the above.) I don't update my every move on Facebook anyway, but with her in the mix, I'm going to feel the need to censor myself. And I worry the crazy will come back. I worry the same girl who sent me messages telling me that she's sorry but my (then) boyfriend cheated on me with her and how "they were really serious about getting married some day" (which wasn't the least bit true) will reappear and cause a bunch of unneeded drama in my life.

Maybe she is a changed woman. Maybe she'll continue to play nice and eventually we will turn into some 21st century thing that sort of resembles a quasi-family. I would actually really enjoy that scenario, but the worry is still there, and probably will be there for a few years.

So there you have it, yet another reason Facebook is the devil.

(Pleasantly)Surprised.

Child support procedures are pretty messed up these days. The amount my husband is responsible for paying each month was established on September 13. Approximately a week after this, he received a letter stating he was past due and owed X amount of dollars by the following Wednesday. After some quick math and a Monday morning call to the Child Support Enforcement Agency(CSEA for short) the reason was established: he owed back payments from the date he received the court papers. That was Father's Day. I guess they expect people to pull a number out of their hineys and save moolah whilst they wait 3 months for their court date where the actual amount of support to be paid is established?? I definitely gained a few wrinkles trying to make sense of that injustice.

(disclaimer: I know there are scumbags out there who don't care about seeing their children and/or financially supporting them, but the same rules applying to good fathers is a bunch of archaic bullshit that really needs to be reformed.)

But wait, this post was titled '(Pleasantly)Surprised' although there is nothing pleasant about that scenario. I know this, the previously described turn of events was scary, especially since once he talked to CSEA he found out he owed for September as well, which was not included on the back balance and to top it off, we were going into the first month of no paychecks for him due to getting downsized. Fantastic! I had more than one angry crying moment due to it all. It has been handled and he is current (for now) but it was not fun times for a couple weeks.

Moving on to the good part. Yesterday the husband got a phone call from Little One's mom thanking (whaaaaa? this is unheard of in our world) him for the money. She said she was very surprised at the amount and she told him its all going into a savings account she has for Little One. She also suggested meeting at a Chuck E. Cheese 15 minutes from us (they usually meet half way between where we live and where they live, which is 45 minutes away) for this week's visit and that it's all on her. This is coming from the woman who kept husband from seeing his child for years. I'm not sure why or how this change of heart has happened, but it is absolutely amazing.

The part about her thanking him really floored me. It makes me believe she doesn't feel entitled to the money, she feels grateful for it and that makes paying it each month a lot easier. This is much unlike Kiddo's mom, so it is nice to know someone appreciates it.

There was a brief conversation about me coming today, because the Chuck E. Cheese they are meeting at was the one I first met Kiddo at in March of 2007 but they are meeting at 4 so I'll still be at work. Plus I really want her mother to be alright with it, and have time to be ready for me to be there, so it will wait a bit longer. Plus I'm hoping for a sunny fall day/a trip to the park for me being there, because I'll probably cry and then I can hide it with sunglasses at least. I'm a crier, and the last time I saw this child she was a bebe still, and she fell asleep on me at his parents house, and it was precious, so there will most likely be tears.

I was guardedly happy at first at how well things are going with Little One, but that guard is just about gone. I'm sick of having to be so cynical; having to expect the worst, so its nice to see things continually getting better.

Now, if someplace would call the husband back about a job....

Money CAN buy Happiness....

Or it can at least buy the husband the right to see his child and that makes us both really happy, especially since (in my completely biased opinion) she is pretty stinking cute:

Little One (who isn't so little anymore!) Last Thursday

She is outgoing and full of energy and I love hearing the stories of his weekly visits. Her favorite animal is a skunk and she loves to swing and draw. In November I'll be going with him to visit/"meet" her. (I use quotations, because I knew her from two weeks old to September of 2007, but we are not sure if her mother knows this, and Little One of course won't remember) He wants me to be there when we reintroduce the girls to each other, since Kiddo is pretty reserved around people she doesn't know and Little One is so extroverted and the last time they saw each other, Kiddo was 5 and Little One was about a year and very blonde. I'm sure it might be uncomfortable at first, but once Kiddo warms up to her, they will probably have tons of fun. Or not. Either way, we are a family, albeit a very non conventional one, but a family nonetheless.

***

We are just as poor as when I was still in college but man, are we happy. Husband job hunts every day, and has taken to Frisbee Golfing a few times a week to get him out of the apartment. I am not looking for a job anymore right now, because I can't take a pay cut with Husband not working. Also when I interviewed at a local private college last week and was told the pay was minimum wage I decided its time to put my job search on hold, and just worry about paying the bills and keeping current on things. And living life and not getting caught up on the problems so much, because really, who wants to waste their time on the bad parts? Not me. I have step-daughters to play with, an adorable baby niece to tickle, a husband to laugh with and great friends to see me through and right now, that's about all I can ask for.

Year One.

I could not ask for a better person to share forever with. Happy Anniversary to us.

One Year.

A year ago I was in the home stretch week before my wedding. I was ready to be married and even more ready to be in Florida for the honeymoon. Life was good and that week in Florida was spectacular.

So much can happen in a year. So much to make you realize what marriage is really all about.

Since I've became a wife I've also became a stepmother, an aunt and a godmother. Also a person who is capable of caring for a baby for extended lengths of time (I hadn't ever been alone with a baby for longer than a few hours before). I've become that married woman who doesn't want her own babies and I'm okay with it, even though society tends to freak out whenever it comes up. I'm learning how to bite my tongue occasionally and just be supportive but also how to ask him for help when I need it. I've learned how the dishes are not a valid reason to be angry, ever.

In 3 weeks I'll become the solitary earner in our household. To me, this is the scariest scenario to date. Just when I had finally gotten to a place where our finances were not a constant on my mind worry, his company decides to downsize the graphics department and relocate it to an office an hour and half away. Yes, he'll file for unemployment and yes, I'm sure he'll get it, but it is only a percentage and then there's Kiddo's child support to pay and the court date for Little One is the Monday after his last day of work, which we are responsible for the court fees. And Christmas will be impossible and the possibility of not being able to stay afloat which is very real makes my chest tighten and my eyes water and the room spins and I don't even know where to start or what to do to make this better.

***

I have a job interview tomorrow. The money is better, the job similar to what I do now but (hopefully) with less of the BS. If it goes well and a job offer comes of it, I'm taking it and we'll be moving shortly after once again. There are more jobs in Columbus for Husband to pursue and as much as I LOVE where we live now, driving one hour both ways to work every day isn't very appealing. Things are bad, but could be worse, right? Right.

Just call us Gypsies.

I have dedicated some serious time in the very recent past to google maps. Why you ask? I'm trying to map out the best place between work(not my current place, but the state capital where a majority of Ohio's jobs are right now, where I may or may not have interviews in the next month, stay tuned), Kiddo and Little One (who live approximately an hour apart) and our families (which is hard since I'm from 30 miles north of Cincy and he's from 30 minutes west of Columbus).

There is no place that is a neutral good in-between place for us to be.

Right now, we are 30 minutes from Kiddo, 45 minutes from my parents, 1 hour from my niece, 1 hour 20 min from my in-laws and 1 hour and 45 minutes from Little One.

The closer we go towards the kids and his parents, the farther we become from mine. I have come to accept this, but it doesn't make the idea of being even farther away from them any easier....especially since I've become increasingly attached to my sister's offspring.

Even factoring out the distance to my side of the fam, it is hard to come up with the best place between the kids (in two different towns, mind you) and Columbus.

Then there is my need to be within a 20 minute drive to a Target that further complicates things, since its Blue Signed Department Store Country, excluding the ritzy burbs of the state capital.

I'm on the verge of suggesting RV living for us, because really, thinking of all the driving and the cost of gas to do that driving, makes me ill.

A friend on Twitter even informed me the particular Blue Signed Department Store welcomes overnight RV parking for free. Parking Lot-Sweet-Parking Lot.

I guess I need to accept the fact that we will be spending some major time in cars for the rest of our lives....and then start saving for something roomier but gas efficient, since my car hit 100,000 miles earlier this summer and really isn't all that great for Ohio winters.

It sucks to grow up.........

Dear Husband,

You are phenomenal. You own your mistakes. You somehow don't let the small stuff bug you. You are patient and kind. Even when no one would have blamed you for taking the "easy way" out, you wouldn't do it because you are such a wonderful father. You love your kids regardless of what their mothers have/will put you through.

I couldn't be more proud to be your wife.

Happy Father's Day. We'll get through this.

Revisions.

Most of the time, I appear to be a genuinely happy person. I have good friends, family and all that jazz but more so than not, I've got a lot of dark and twisty (Grey's Anatomy fans know what I'm talking about here) going on beneath the surface.

I have an insistent and neverending urge to worry and be constantly anxious about damn near everything around me. It's exhausting. It makes me crabby and one giant Negative Nancy when it surfaces, usually around events I have little to no control over. I feel like its my masochistic job to carry these worries around, constantly rolling over them in my head. It's ridiculous, yes, but telling me not to worry is like telling a dog not to bark. It's a waste of air.

So when I wrote this post last week, I was in full dark and twisty mode. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, I was anxious and worried to say the least.

Over the weekend, I had a talk with my husband about everything and I finally got how he is feeling about all of this out of him. And the weight seems a little less heavy and I seem a little less worried.

The I don't want babies of my own thing is a lot more complex than ever....and I'm trying to figure out the best way own it, and not let it bother me when people try and tell me, "oh that could/will change blah blah blah" because I'm going to hear it for the next 20 years. And I'm already sick of explaining myself. In a few years I can just start lying and saying I can't have kids...that should shut people up a bit faster on the subject.

Maybe if I can get over my own issues from childhood (try being chubby with gigantic early 90's glasses, frizzy hair AND a speech impediment and NOT coming out scarred) I may want to procreate, but right now, the thought of creating a little person to possibly go through what I did just seems wrong.

Contrary.

I am full of giant contradictions.

I am bothered by how there are two women in this world who have something with my husband that I do not have. Plus its something I don't think I want. I won't even try to explain this...because I don't even understand it. I try to not think about it often, but with Little One finally coming back into the picture, it is hard not to right now.

I love my step-daughters ferociously, more than I think my husband realizes, or even thinks is possible since, you know, I've always said I don't want kids...how could I possibly love someone else's so much? That answer is easy: they are his and I love him more than anything else, so in my world, that means I have the same feelings towards them. They are part of who he is. That part is simple to me.

I want to be strong and be an unfaltering support system to him as we go through this head on, but that is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I don't feel strong. I have so many worries and anxieties about all of this and I have my own amazing support system, but it is pretty much an unprecedented situation to them as well as me, so its frightening.

I feel like I'm allowed to be emotionally invested with these kids on certain levels but not all, (not that it has stopped me, because it hasn't) I get the feeling I'm not supposed to have any say in any of this, but I'm allowed to bathe, clothe, feed, hug, play with etc. Most people would not see this as a bad thing, but I feel like since I am a presence in the life of this child, a legally acknowledged presence that will be there every step of their lives, all the milestones and I'm allowed to do many of the day to day parenting why can't I be part of things more?

***

When you are the other woman, (the childless other woman in my case) in a situation like this, its so hard to sit back and watch someone tell your husband when he will and will not see his kid and not react to it. And to not tell him "that's bullshit" and that he needs to "try harder and do x,y, and z" even if he's done it a million times in the past and it doesn't get him anywhere. He really wants me to not react. That makes me worry he doesn't know me nearly as well as I thought he did. I'm feisty, and stubborn and I stand up for things when I feel like people are being wronged. He has been wronged a 1,000 times over when it comes to these girls and I hate that he has basically given up, because he learned when he went through this with Kiddo, the system doesn't care about the father, or his bills or life, just as long as he pays that precious child support.

We're going to make it through this, and hopefully he will see Little One again and we'll come out on the other side wiser and stronger but its going to be hard and right now, the high road has never seemed longer or more unattainable to me.

Letter.

Dear Little One,

You are not so little anymore. You'll be four years old on July 5! You will always be the younger daughter; the second daughter, but you will always be your father's daughter. Today your paternal grandma (your daddy's mommy) who hasn't seen you in almost 3 years either, is meeting you and your mother for lunch. I hope you like her and I hope your grandma can talk some sense into your mother. We want to see you so badly.

Your daddy wants to be in your life even though the circumstances and events over the short time you've been on this planet have kept him from doing that. I want you to know he is a good person, and he tried to do what was right, even though some people made that very difficult for him. I want to be your step-mommy, too. I remember the first night your daddy had you over night. I don't think I'd ever been around a baby that small in my life and I remember thinking, "wow you are so tiny and pink."

I remember the last time I saw you. We were at your paternal grandparents house, with your older half sister (aka Kiddo) and her cousin. You were a bit fussy after eating and wouldn't go down for a nap. So I held you until you fell asleep. I didn't know that was the last time I would see you, and I think about that day often while I wonder how you have changed and grown since then.

We can't change the past and we'll never get back the 2 1/2 years we've missed, but hopefully in the near, near future we can start over and be a part of your life (and you a part of ours) in a more permanent sort of way.

Lots of Love,

Your Step-Mommy.

Little One, date unknown, but more current than any photo we have. Sent from her mom, to Husband's mom.

Married life.

Growing up in the good Catholic family that was mine, my parents stayed together (although there were many times I feared they'd divorce, due to Dad liking the sauce a bit too much, but that's a whole other fish to fry). This created a vision of "married" in my little developing psyche that my grown up marriage doesn't coincide with at all.

A bit of history:

My parents had already been married 12 years when I was born and were 35 with a 10 year old and a 3 year old. They were tired. Dad worked long hours and Mom bounced from part-time jobs that included Midnights and weekends for years. They did what was expected. They got married (at an older than average age for their time period: married in 1972 when they were both 24) and started a family. Somehow they raised us right and there were no babies out of wedlock or major let downs: both my sister and I graduated college and my brother is a Sergeant in the U.S. Army.

Fast forward to now. Married for five and a half months. I don't want children and we have Husbands 7 year old (and estranged 3 1/2 year old) to make up a very different kind of family. I still don't feel how kid version of myself imagined things would feel, mostly because I don't think you can fathom what adulthood feels like in general. More so, because I'm living a different experience than I watched as a youngster.

We have good days and bad days, like any couple. To this day, whenever we have a disagreement/argument (whatever you want to call it), it is the only emotional situation where I feel like I could hurl (everything else almost always triggers emo-eating). When things are bad, it only makes me want to fix things, learn from it and move on. When things are good, they are really good, like, I almost want to slap myself because I wonder how I lucked out and found someone so made for me. It's slightly nauseating.

Step-parenting, at its worst, feels like attempting to walk on egg shells that have been strewn across a semi-frozen lake (to me at least) but most of the time it isn't like that. Most of the time its nice to be important to someone other than Husband on a regular basis and to take pride in her accomplishments. She is a great kid, and that makes things so easy. Whenever Little One comes back into the picture, who knows how things will ensue.

I still don't know about babies. I love them, and my sister is having one in May which I couldn't be more excited for, but I just don't know if I want to share my husband any more than I already do. Call me selfish and weird, but its the damn truth. Plus the whole shaping of an individual's psyche freaks me out. Add in the expectation of child-rearing once married (why? we aren't farmers and over-population is sort of a problem these days) and I just don't feel the need to procreate.

I never had a relationship that lasted more than 6 months before I met my husband. I feel like I could spend the rest of our lives enjoying that (along with our kitty and maybe a dog, if we ever get a house) and investing our time and energy in each other, and his kids he already has.

I know, I know, I can hear you saying, "you will just wake up one day and want a baby of your own" and maybe I will, but for now, I'm going to spoil my niece that is coming in May, focus on my marriage and help raise my step-kids, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

Vacation Obsessed.

We spent the 7 days post-wedding with this as our back (actually it was more like side, but you get the picture) yard. I had been very excited about the trip, but I still never considered myself a "beach" person.

Until now.

I am consumed with the planning of a return trip we are going to take next spring. Even though its far away. And I know it won't be the exact same because it won't be immediately following our wedding, but I'm hoping it will be just as awesome, if not a bit better since it won't be their rainy season. (It never rained for an entire day, but it rained every day at some point, hence the awesome price of the condo we stayed in.)

I'm not sure if this is goes to show just how much we dislike our jobs or just how badly we needed a vacation. I can be a pretty high strung individual, but give me 2 to 3 beach vacations in a year, and I think I would be A-ok.

I had been warned about post-wedding blues...how I would be so sad that it was all over. Wedding-wise I couldn't be happier it is all over. I hated wedding planning. The wedding day itself was awesome, and yes, if I could replay it just once, that would be cool. I am however quite bummed the honeymoon trip is over....but the silver lining is the blissful we-just-got-married tone of our lives right now. It's like nothing I've ever experienced before...i sort of reminds me of those first 6 months of dating, minus the anxious "do they really like me" feelings, but that doesn't really sum it up either.

It is just so strange knowing I'm going to go gray with this guy...I mean, we put it in ink and everything (completely his idea, no joke):


PS- Tattooing slightly sunburned skin is a SUPER bad idea, but what can ya do when your new hubby wants matching tattoo's with your wedding date? Oh and I changed the look around here just because a little change sometimes can do ya good :)