Being a One Car Family

One cost-cutting measure I've seen recommended numerous times is becoming a one car family. Ugh. Every time I saw someone make that suggestion, I cringed. I vowed that would never happen in our family. I'm sure part of my thinking came from my grandmother, who had her own car despite the fact that she almost never drove. Cutting back to one car just seemed too radical.

I started to think a little differently when we moved at the beginning of this year. Instead of being 20 miles away from work, my commute is about 0.4 miles. In other words, I can walk to work, home for lunch, back to work, and back home in less time than it took me to drive to work before. Do we really need another car when I'm that close? Even if the weather conditions make it unsafe for me to walk, it wouldn't be too inconvenient for a coworker to give me a ride. In fact, three people offered to take me home one day when it was snowing.

I still resisted the idea of going down to one car. I wanted to at least have the option to drive. But two weeks ago, Nathan's car died. Completely died. There's still a chance it could be fixed, even though we've been advised not to put another dime into it, but so far we haven't messed with it. Nathan has been driving my car to work, and I've walked every day, even in rain and snow. And guess what? It hasn't been that bad. Will we buy a replacement car? Maybe..maybe not. It will of course be necessary when we move or if I change jobs, but for now, one car is actually okay.

There are several advantages of not having a second car and walking to work...

• I'm forced to get some exercise.
• The walk to work makes me much more awake and ready to start my work day.
• I can't go buy fast food for lunch (at least not on my own).
• I sometimes see geese, ducks, and killdeer on my commute.  
• We save money on gas, even if not a lot. 
• If we do get rid of the second car, we'll save on insurance and maintenance. 

And the disadvantages?

• I don't feel like jogging when I get home. (I do walk another mile with Nenya though.)
• If Nathan has car trouble, I can't go pick him up.
• I can't run errands during lunch.
• It's not easy to go to doctor's appointments, although I found a dentist right by work.
• People think I'm weird. Walking commutes are rare in the suburbs I guess.
• I don't like inconveniencing people, so I hate asking for rides.

We aren't sure what to do about our car situation for the time being, but at least I know we can survive with one car.


Are you, or have you ever been, a one car family? If not, would you ever want to be one?


 

Ready to Move On

I haven't felt much like cleaning lately. Or cooking. Or blogging. Or crafting. Or doing much of anything really. It's not depression or illness. The problem? Want-to-move-itis. 

I've been doing my best to be content here. I know this apartment is much nicer than what many people have. But when I open up a dryer in the community laundry room and find something, uh, unmentionable, or when we come back after Thanksgiving and see my car looking like this...

...after Nathan's was broken into five months ago...well, it's hard not to want to get out of here.

The good news is, we are getting out of here very soon! While I had a list of the pros and cons of staying here a year ago, there is no way we could renew our lease for another year. Next month, we're moving into a rental house. It has a garage, a fenced in back yard with a deck, and washer and dryer hookups. The overall square footage is a little more than we have now, with a master bedroom as big as I could ever want. And, quite possibly the most exciting part for me, the house is only a half mile from where I work. After a year and a half with a 30 minute commute, I'll now be able to bike or even walk to work.

Although it's wonderful knowing how close I am to having so many new conveniences in my life, it's also making it much more difficult to live in the present. I'm trying to focus one major event at a time, and we have a few of those in the last half of this month! Tomorrow, we're getting on a plane to go visit Nathan's brother and his family in California. Once we get back, I'll be getting things ready for Christmas with both of our families. Since I have a company wide shutdown the week of Christmas, I'll have a week to work on getting everything packed to start moving our things in January.

I'm excited about all of it!

Changing Shifts & Shifting Gears

The good news is that Nathan started a new job this week. The bad news? He works 3pm-11:30pm. He doesn't get home until I'm in bed and doesn't wake up until after I leave in the morning. Both our jobs are a half hour from home and 20 minutes from each other, so dropping by for lunch isn't going to happen either. In other words, we aren't going to be seeing much of each other.

This is going to be quite the transition. These last couple weeks before he started the job, I tried to make the most of our evenings, spending as much time with him as possible. I wasn't worried about things like dusting, reading, or blogging. Now, I'm going to be on my own each evening with plenty of time to get work done. But so far, I'm not doing much of anything. I've just been sitting around while the dishes pile up and the floors get dirtier and dirtier. I've gotten used to this relax mode I was in.

I need to figure out how to switch gears and restructure my time. My weekly chore schedule is going to need to change to make my Saturdays open. I'm thinking one day of intense cleaning, one day for intense cooking and baking, one day for shopping, and two days of light cleaning and whatever projects I want. We also need to figure out how to pack a week's worth of quality time into the weekends. We've been having date nights almost every Saturday since we've been married, but we'll need to make it a date day!

I'm thankful for this new job. I'm thankful we only had eight weeks with just my paycheck and didn't need to touch our emergency fund. I'm just not thrilled about this life change, and neither is Nathan.


Anyone have tips on how to survive working opposite shifts?


Check out more Try New Adventures Thursday at Alicia's Homemaking.

His hands are full too!

When Nathan and I first started dating, several of his friends told me things like "You have your hands full!" or "You don't know what you're getting yourself into!" It was all in fun (I think). What they didn't realize was that dealing with me isn't exactly that easy either. My own quirks and personality flaws have provided him with plenty of challenges.

Here's a recent example of one such challenge. Nathan was at the first day of GenCon, having tons of fun playing games without his wife. He was just about to begin Munchkinsanity, a game which he had very much been looking forward to playing.

Then he got a phone call. 

His wife had walked out the door to take the dog out and locked the door, only to discover that she had forgotten her keys. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to leave his game, but he knew his wife needed to be the priority and she didn't want to stay outside with the dog for three hours. So he left to return home.

After he had been home for a while, his wife went to get her keys out of her purse but couldn't find them. She checked the other obvious locations in the apartment. Still no luck. Finally, she went outside with the flash light and found her keys next to a bush right outside the door.

She had remembered her keys after all! They had just fallen out of her pocket when she tried to jump away from the attack of the lawn sprinkler! And, being the scatter-brain that his wife is, she had completely forgotten that she had remembered her keys.

No...I really don't think he knew what he was getting himself into either.

For Richer. For Poorer.

This past weekend, my longtime dream of riding a zip line finally came true! It wasn't a huge one, but it was a good starter zip line. Once we finished our adventure, Nathan broke the news to me that he no longer had a job. He wanted me to have my fun that day, but he couldn't put off telling me any longer.

For richer or poorer.

Those words are spoken in traditional wedding vows for a reason; both are very real possibilities in a marriage. When I made that vow at my own wedding, I started crying as I thought of everything we'd already been through and knew we could make it through anything. Sure enough, when Nathan lost his job after just a few weeks of marriage, we survived the poorer for a time. But then he got this new job, with great pay, and I thought everything would be better. Poorer? That was all behind us! And now, here we are, back to just my income. Although I hope this will once again be such a short period of unemployment that we'll hardly notice it, we have no way of knowing.

Marriage is kind of like a zip lining. Even though I'd looked forward to it for a very long time, I didn't know what it would be like when I jumped off that platform. Sometimes it seems like an easy ride, but sometimes you start spinning out of control. You just have to have faith that the cord holding you up is strong enough that you won't fall into the pond.  It's a crazy ride, but I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else.

I know we'll be okay. Living on my income is certainly possible, just not a lot of fun. I'm so thankful that we fully funded our emergency fund and paid off all consumer debt during our first year of marriage. If you have not yet done both of those things, I would truly encourage you to do so as soon as you possibly can. Although you may think everything is great now that you're richer, you never know when Poorer could come to visit.

Inconveniences and Blessings

When life gets a little rough, it's not always so easy to see the good in the situation, but sometimes bad circumstances or an inconvenience can turn into a blessing. We recently found ourselves faced with a series of inconveniences that worked out pretty well in the end, and it was pretty amazing.
 

Inconvenience #1: When Nathan's car was at the mechanic's, they dented the bottom of his door while putting it up on the lift.

Inconvenience #2: Although the door would be replaced for free, the mechanic is located in the town where Nathan used to live, about an hour and a half away. It's not so easy to just leave a car there a couple days, so we put off the repair for several months.

Inconvenience #3: Nathan walked out to his car one morning last week and saw this:

And this is where the blessing comes in. What's a broken car window when you already have a free car door with your name on it? Sure, Nathan still had to drive all that way to get it replaced, but I went along for a Wednesday night date night - dinner at a restaurant we both love and lots of time talking and listening to an audio book in our complimentary rental car. As for the stereo, we didn't like the one in that car anyway, and Nathan might be able to get a cheap basic one from a coworker. Not such a bad deal if you ask me!

Even though things did work out okay, this incident has added quite a bit of weight to our Reasons to Move list. It would be one thing if only our car had been vandalized, but after one neighbor had his car stolen and another had a wheel taken off their car, I knew our cars weren't safe. We're probably going to be getting out of here in six months, if not sooner.

The End is Near

 

In less than three weeks, on June 26, Nathan and I will celebrate our first year of marriage. As exciting as that milestone is, I'm mainly looking forward to June 26 for an entirely different reason: the conferral of Nathan's MBA. We knew Nathan's grad classes would make the first year a little rough, but things have gotten really rough now that he is in his capstone course, which is writing a 60-80 page business plan. It's a group project with 5 other people, and Nathan is in charge of the finance portion as well as editing the entire paper.

I haven't exactly felt like Nathan's top priority lately. One of his team members was telling him how great he is and that his wife is lucky to have him. I know I'm lucky, but it's kind of ironic hearing that from someone who has spent as much time talking to him this past week as I have. The frustrating part is that I know this project has to take top priority for him to do well in the class. If I want him to do well, do I really even want him to spend much time with me? I'm trying to keep busy doing things by myself, like taking advantage of this great opportunity to get lots of reading done.

Although I do my best to be the supportive wife, sometimes I get tired of being the cheerleader all the time. Nathan's stress is enough to push me to the breaking point, so much that I once sarcastically told him, "Yes, dear, you are going to fail!" No, he's not; I just fail at being a wife sometimes. If nothing else, this has been a good learning experience.


Soon...soon it will be over...just not soon enough!

Marriage Doesn't Give You Every Right

Even though Nathan and I are supposed to be one unit, it turns out there are some things we can't do for each other. When Nathan received a check from his grandma for his birthday, he gave it to me to take care of. I had him sign the back of it and then took it to the bank to cash it. After handing the check to the teller, she asked,

"Who's Nathan?"
"That's my husband."
"Okay, well he would need to come in to be able to cash it."
"Really? Even though we're on the same account?"
"Uh-huh."
"Uh...can I just deposit then?"
"Sure!"

I realize policies are policies, but I was still caught off guard. All I have to do to take money out of our account is fill out a withdrawal slip; I've never even been asked for an ID. But cashing a check made out to my husband? Apparently that's stealing.

Have you run into any surprises about what you can't do for your spouse?

Identity Crisis

Going through the name change process can feel like a bit of an identity crisis. After years of living with one name, suddenly you become Mrs. Soandso, and then the next day, you go to check in at your hotel for your honeymoon and have to give them your maiden name. When you use your debit card and sign your name, you're still signing your maiden name since that's the name on your card. For a few weeks, I had my name half changed and felt like half one person and half another.

I thought I had it all taken care of within the first month of being married, but there were a couple places I overlooked. One example of this popped up a week ago. After weighing the pros and cons, Nathan and I decided to renew our lease for another year. We went to the apartment office all ready to sign the paperwork only to find out that they had prepared our new lease with my maiden name on it. And of course, they had to see a copy of my driver's license to be able to change it. Does it ever end?

My name change went something like this:

• Drive to the City County building downtown to request copies of my marriage certificate
• Wait in line to pay for my copies along with a bunch of men there to pay child support
• Walk several blocks to the social security office to apply for a new social security card and wonder why there's a security guard there until he has to throw someone out
• Wait in line with my paperwork from the social security at BMV to get a new driver's license
• While at the BMV, confirm that I am not currently in prison in order to change my voter registration
• When my new driver's license and social security card come in the mail, take those to my HR department at work and then fill out new paperwork for taxes, life insurance, health insurance, and all that fun stuff
• Go to my bank to get my name changed on my checking account, debit card, and credit card

I did not change my name on my passport since I didn't want to pay the fee when I currently have no plans to leave the country. I didn't change my name on the title for my car either since the BMV told me I didn't need to. I also realized recently that although I have my health insurance in my married name, I still need to change my name on my health savings account. There's probably still something I've forgotten.

Learning to sign your new name is another story. I had tremendous difficulty applying for my library card, scribbling things out and rewriting them, probably confusing the librarian...

And, after all that work, my own husband has me listed in his phone under my maiden name because that's still who he thinks of me as.

Some Days

Budgets are wonderful things. Menu plans are too. They allow you to save money and have some order and control in life. But some days, not everything goes according to plan. Some days work is a little rough. Some days when you finally leave work, it's snowing, and it takes an extra 20 minutes to get home. Some days this isn't a problem because you planned on your husband cooking dinner that night. However, some days, your husband's car won't start during his lunch break, and although he gets a ride back to work, no one is able to take him home. Some days he has to stay at work for almost an extra hour while he waits for you to pick him up. Some days by the time you get home and get settled, it's already 6:30. Some days you decide that, despite the fact that you've already gone $2 over your eating out budget, you just want to have Arby's for dinner. Some days, you do. And some days, you don't really regret it.

Budgets and menu plans are wonderful things, but having a little flexibility in life is pretty nice too.

In Sickness

This past week has been pretty rough. I started feeling sick last Monday - sore throat, fever, congestion, all that fun stuff. I'll start to feel better, then get worse again. Over the weekend, I decided to try that "resting" thing Nathan kept telling me to do. I was definitely in good hands; I got a breakfast in bed of oatmeal and hot chocolate on Saturday and a nice hot bath in the afternoon. Nathan also took care of the chores I'd been neglecting, including two loads of dishes and four loads of laundry. My menu plan has been revised and pretty much abandoned for the time being. Instead of the special dinner I had planned to make as part of our date night Saturday night, we ended up eating Lean Pockets! Thankfully, Nathan didn't mind this at all. I'm still not feeling all that well, but I am feeling very loved by my husband.

5 Things I've Learned the First Five Months

We've now made it through the first five months of marriage. I hope time has flown by for our wedding guests as quickly as it has for us since we didn't get thank you notes out until about a month ago. Being married has been a lot of fun, and we've had many more ups than downs. Here are 5 things our marriage has taught me thus far.

1. Our communication skills still have room for improvement. I went into this marriage thinking that we had great communication skills, and we do, but we're still constantly working to better understand each other and communicate with each other. Pretty much the only arguments we have are over what one of us actually said. It's an ongoing process.

2. It isn't easy to think of everything as being "ours" now instead of mine/his. Everything in out apartment should be ours now, with the exception of things like toothbrushes and shoes, but I don't think of it in those terms. This might be partly due to the fact that this was his apartment before I moved in. My books are separated from his books, my board games are separated from his games, my Tupperware is on shelves that I brought rather than in a cabinet. I referred to the fondue pot as "my" fondue pot recently, and Nathan had to point out that it is ours. That one isn't even debatable since it was a wedding gift.

3. Having a husband who makes more money than I do is a wonderful thing. We've flip-flopped in wages several times during our relationship, but Nathan took the lead again in August. I will most likely never make more than he does again, and I'm glad. It really is best for both of us. Nathan has always wanted to provide for me, regardless of whether or not I can provide for myself. Being the primary breadwinner makes him happy, and that makes me happy. I'd rather he be the one that's driven in his career. I was drawn to graphic design as a career partly because it's possible to work from home, not because I wanted to make money.

4. Marriage means letting go of the "that's how I've always done it" mentality. We're from two different families who do things different ways, but now we have to figure out how we do things in our family. In my family, we would usually leave the pots of food on the stove or on the counter and fill our plates before sitting down. Nathan's family puts all the food on the table. We can't do both, so I'm trying to get used to the latter. Also, Nathan doesn't like that I get out of the shower without drying off first and end up getting the bath mat wet; I thought that was the purpose of bath mats. It's a compromise.

5. Being married can change your love language. Or, maybe I have a better sense of my love language now that I'm married. Before we were married, my primary love language was quality time, followed by words of affirmation and acts of service. Acts of service have become more valuable to me and really makes me feel loved. After retaking the quiz I discovered acts of service has actually become my primary love language, followed closely by a tie of quality time and physical touch. I guess I've been able to experience acts of service and physical touch a lot more now that we live together. We were still long distance the first time I took the quiz.

An example of Nathan's acts of service. He hates folding laundry; I had to take a picture to believe this actually happened.

What has your marriage or relationship taught you?

The Holidays as Newlyweds

Oh, the holidays...a time of joy, a time when you gather with your family...until you suddenly have two families. When people ask if Nathan and I are spending Thanksgiving with his family or my family, I almost feel like they're asking which one of us won the battle. We live an hour away from both sets of parents, so it's not a matter of going to the place that's closet. And since they're in opposite directions, it's difficult to visit both the same day.
 
For Thanksgiving last year (when we were together but not "officially" engaged), we lucked out because my family had the Thanksgiving meal on Thursday and Nathan's family got together on Friday. This year, both of our families are having Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving. Can you believe it? Our moms both said "whatever you decide to do is fine," but that didn't really help our decision. Ultimately, we decided to spend Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday, then go hang out and eat leftovers with his family on Friday.

Now we just have to figure out Christmas!

Nathan and me at Christmas last year. I'm holding tinsel.

The main reason we decided to go see my family for Thanksgiving was that more of Nathan's relatives will be in town for Christmas. But of course, I want to be able to see my family for Christmas too. Last year we were at my parents' house for Christmas morning since that's when my family always opens gifts. Then we went to Nathan's parents' for Christmas evening, when his family opens gifts. As nice as it was to see both our families, Christmas becomes a lot more stressful when you drive two hours in the middle of the day. A part of me just wants to spend Christmas in our apartment and wear pajamas all day! I do consider it a huge blessing though that we both have parents that live nearby and with whom we want to spend the holidays.

What are you doing for the holidays?

Corn in Various Forms

Nothing boosts your confidence quite like dumping an entire can of corn on the carpet. Actually, I wasn't too upset since the corn was just for me and I was making beets for Nathan; I just ate raw cauliflower instead. I suppose since I saved $0.65 on Cinnamon Toast Crunch Saturday and wasted a $0.67 can of corn Sunday, it balances out somewhat.

Nenya of course enjoyed helping me clean up. I tried not to let her eat too much, but I didn't think it would hurt her. Corn is the main ingredient in her dog food, so it can't be that bad for her, right?

Wrong!

I jolted awake this morning and yelled, "She's throwing up!"
This woke Nathan up too. "What do you mean she's throwing up?"
"I mean either I'm losing my mind or she's throwing up!"

I turned on the lamp above our bed and looked around the bedroom for Nenya, who was nowhere to be found. For a moment I worried that I had actually dreamt it. We got out of bed and saw her in the other bedroom across the hall. As Nathan stood in our doorway, I pointed out a spot right next to his foot. Yikes! A second spot was in the other bedroom under the weight bench. I used a paper towel to get up what I could from both areas then let the expert handle the proper cleaning of the carpet (I lived two hours away during all the house-breaking fun). I got in the shower a little earlier than normal, Nathan went back to sleep, and life went on.

And then I got home from work. And there were FOUR MORE spots on the carpet! Nathan got home not long after and got to do more cleanup while I took Nenya outside for more expulsion. I don't want to see corn again for a very long time!

What's the worst way you've ever woken up?

The Downside of Renting

Renting can be better than owning a home for many reasons. Although I fully believe that renting is the best option for us right now, there are some times when living in an apartment can be difficult. This past Wednesday was one of those times. While I was driving home from work, I got a call from Nathan. He asked me, "Do you want to see if you can do a take your dog to work day on Friday?" What?!?

Apparently, one of our neighbors saw fleas in their apartment, so an exterminator was scheduled to fumigate all the apartments in our building on Friday. It would be safe to return home by the time we got off work, but we still had to figure out what to do with the other member of our family.

Nathan had already spoken with the property manager and the exterminator before he called me. The exterminator told us that they wouldn't have to treat our apartment but that we should put a towel by the bottom of the door if we left Nenya there. We decided that didn't sound too safe. I probably could have gotten permission to take her to work with me, but that wouldn't have been the best situation for either of us.

We ended up taking her to a doggy daycare. The place had good reviews, and it was only $15 for the day with the coupon they had on their website. 

Here's a screen shot Nathan took of their live webcam. On the right you see three workers and a big group of dogs, and on the left you see Nenya. What a crazy girl! We think she was probably trying to tell them that she needed to go out.

Even though it was an inconvenience and extra expense for us, it was good for Nenya. She normally sleeps a lot during the day and is ready to play as soon as we get home. She had such an active day that she was worn out by the time Nathan brought her home.

So, this wasn't really  a horrible experience. It's just frustrating that we can be told we have to leave our home since it's not really ours. And since we share a building with several other people, the actions of one of our neighbors could cause some really awful consequences for us. For these reasons, I do look forward to the day when we can be homeowners.

What's your opinion on renting versus buying?

Married to an MBA Student

Around the time we celebrate our one year anniversary, we will also (Lord willing) be celebrating Nathan’s graduation from his MBA program. It’s been interesting being married to a student. Recently, upon hearing that Nathan and I work the same hours, someone exclaimed, “Oh, so you have the whole evening together!” Well, yes and no. Since Nathan's classes are online, we’re both in the apartment most evenings, but we can’t exactly spend every minute together. This doesn’t bother me for the most part since I’m an introvert and don’t mind having time to myself, but sometimes I’ll want to tell Nathan something while he’s reading and have to try to keep it to myself.

Of course, I also keep busy doing most of the cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping. Nathan says he never expected his wife to do be the one to do all of that, but it wouldn’t really be fair for him to do a lot of chores on top of his school work when I don’t really have anything else to do. He does all the vacuuming though since he actually enjoys it and I dread it and also takes out the trash. He will help out with various other chores when he isn’t super busy.

Nathan getting ready to cook ostrich. He's a great cook, but he only cooks once a week at most these days.

The fun part of Nathan being a student is being able to learn along with him. A lot of his classes are IT-related and way over my head, but I’ve at least been able to pick up a few terms and concepts to make me feel somewhat more informed about technology than the average person. The classes that I find most interesting—the ones involving mainly theory and psychology—are the ones he can’t stand.

It only becomes really difficult to be married to a student when Nathan has to write a paper. While I freely admit that I almost always finished writing papers at the last minute, Nathan doesn’t even start papers until about the last minute. This is not good for my mental health. The craziest part? He still manages to write really good papers! A couple weeks ago, he started a paper the day before it was due, and managed to be one point away from a perfect score. I don’t know how he does it, and I don’t think he does either. Knowing he works well under pressure still doesn’t make it fun for either of us when he is under pressure.

I’m really looking forward to the day when he’s finally done with his classes, but I’m trying to be as supportive and understanding as possible in the meantime. After all, his extra credentials should eventually lead to extra income, so I can’t complain too much about that.

Were you or your spouse a student when you got married?

Finding a New Normal

After all the wedding gifts were unwrapped...

After all of my stuff was moved out of my old apartment...

After we bought a few more things that we needed to be able to live together...

It was time to figure out how to live together!

How do we spend time together when you're both working full time, and one of you is also working on an MBA and multiple computer certifications while the other tackles most of the cooking and chores?  

How do we cook meals when one of us is a "meatitarian" who hates nearly every vegetable and the other doesn't even eat meat on a daily basis?

What do we do when one of us is a total night owl who takes forever to get up in the morning and the other is an early bird who shuts down fast around 10:00 each night?

This is the journey that we're on right now. Were we aware of these traits in each other before we got married? Absolutely, but it's still an adjustment when you aren't used to seeing each other every day. 

How to live together...how to be a wife...that's what I'll be blogging about now.

For anyone still interested in reading about our wedding, I have the pro photos now, but I'm doing all the editing and sorting myself (since I'm a control freak/tight wad/masochist). So, it'll take me awhile to get those posted. I just decided I should go ahead and switch gears to blogging about newlywed life while we're still newlyweds. :/

Change your name and pay?

I recently read a post on Weddingbee that referenced this article about women taking their husband's names. According to a recent study, "women using their husbands’ last names are...judged as more dependent and less ambitious than women who keep their maiden names — but also as more kind and caring. More alarmingly, members of the Mrs. league earn nearly $1,500 less per month."


I'd really like to know what kind of people were involved in this study. Growing up in a smallish town in Indiana, I encountered few women who had kept their maiden names and was a teenager before I even realized that some women go back to their maiden names after they divorce. For me, changing my name when I get married was never something that needed to be debated. I want to have the same name as my husband and children. I realize sometimes husbands take their wives' names, and other couples create a new name, but the traditional method works for me. 

I'm really not worried about the negative impact that it could have on my career. I'm not a doctor or lawyer and have only been out of college for a year, so it's not as if I've built that much of a name for myself. Also, if I were to make $1,500 less a month than what I currently make, well, let's not even go there.

The only thing I'll miss about my maiden name is how unique it is. All but one of the Google results for my name are actually about me; my name is literally one in a billion. But I also don't necessarily like how easy it is to find information about me. When I was a freshman, a reporter for my college newspaper randomly asked me questions, and you can still find the quote I gave her. No one needs to read that.

I think I'll take my chances and change my name. If that makes me less ambitious, I'm fine with that. And if the only thing employers look at on my resume is my name, then I'm not sure I want to work for them.

Is/was whether or not to change your name a big decision for you?

Valentine's Day

Last year for Valentine's Day, Nathan cooked me a seven-course dinner and gave me a gift with each course.

 

This year was a little different.

We went to Nathan's parents' house on Saturday since he had to get his birth certificate to get his new driver's license. Nathan and I both had horrible stomach pain on Sunday morning, but his went away in less than an hour. I managed to go to church, and in the afternoon Nathan bought me some Alka Seltzer, which did the trick. I felt well enough that evening to meet with our wedding officiant, Pastor Joe, who used to be the pastor of the church Nathan attended. Since I had previously only seen him briefly in Office Max, I was glad to be able to talk a little more with the man who's going to pronounce us husband and wife.

Later that night, though, things got worse again, much worse than stomach pain: I found out my grandma had passed away. It was difficult news to hear, even though it wasn't a complete shock. I was glad I was still at Nathan's apartment at the time so I didn't have to be alone. We both cried for a while, then I made Nathan do some work for his graduate class, and he plopped Nenya (our dog) on my chest. 

Eventually I decided that I wanted a milkshake, so Nathan took me to Steak 'n Shake. Why a milkshake? I haven't the slightest idea. I never went to Steak 'n Shake with Nana, nor can I even recall her ever drinking a milkshake, although she did make me plenty of ice cream cones when I was little. It just sounded good at the time.

  

Nana with Eric, me, Rachel, and Trey

As sad as it is that Nana won't be able to see my wedding, even in pictures, I wouldn't want her to go through another 4 months of pain. She lived for over 83 years, and I had her in my life for 23 years and 1 month. All of her grandchildren are old enough that they will remember her. 

I'm thankful for the memories. As I drove to work Monday morning in the snow, I remembered how much she hated snow. I used to yell "Snow showers!" to her out the car window as we left her house, and she would scream. I think this tradition started when there actually was snow coming, but I kept doing it for a long time. I remember how worked up she always got while watching sports. "Hey! You be nice to Peyton!" I remember how she told me, "You are going to get on that bike and RIDE!" as she gave my bike a big push into the driveway, forcing me to ride for the first time without training wheels. I remember how she tried to get me to eat my greens by telling me that the little green man in my stomach was jumping up and down because he was hungry. I remember how I loved to scare her by walking into her house and saying "Boo!" to make her scream. When I got older, I tried not to scare her, but she still screamed and I still loved it, as horrible as it is. I remember sitting next to her in church - the sound of her voice and the smell of her leather purse. I remember doing watercolor with her on the screened-in porch, and how almost all of her attempts at painting animals turned into "happy little rocks." I remember how much she loved her family, and I am glad she no longer has to worry about us.

The Midnight Move-in

At 10:30 this past Monday night, when I would normally be getting ready for bed, I was instead doing this:

Alone in Nathan's new apartment, lying on the floor.

Meanwhile, Nathan was traveling from his old apartment driving this:

After several relatively warm days, it snowed the evening Nathan chose to move his furniture. Nathan was driving a 14-foot U-Haul, and his brother Tim was driving Nathan's car. A trip that normally would take about 1 and a half hours took 5 hours, with over an hour at a dead stop thanks to a collision between two semis.

I arrived at the apartment at 7:00, and I ended up spending more than four hours there before they arrived. I talked to one of my bridesmaids for about an hour and a half, and the rest of the time I just paced around, hoping they would make it safely.

The crazy part is, despite the fact that we didn't even begin unloading until 11:30, we brought in EVERYTHING that night except for the couch! We definitely have Tim to thank for that one - there's no way Nathan and I would have even attempted it if he hadn't started moving stuff in. I ended up leaving around 1:30 and made it to bed an hour later.

But now, finally, another important step in the wedding planning process is complete: living in the same city! (I'm technically just over the county line, but still in the same metropolitan area.) Nathan has wanted to move here since we started talking back in September of 2008.

Unfortunately, since Nathan works 1:00-9:30 and gets Sundays and Mondays off, we won't be able to spend a whole lot of time together, but we'll at least have Sundays and Monday evenings. I'm just happy that the travel time between us has decreased once again. We were originally 2 hours apart, then 1 hour 15 minutes when I moved, and now 40 minutes! And, in just 5 months, I'll be moving to the new apartment as well. At least I'll get to move everything over gradually, and it most likely won't be snowing in June.