Tag: newlywed life

Adventure, Books, Happiness, Life Lessons

A Happy Weekend

As a social media specialist, I spend most of my working hours browsing feeds. And I’ll be honest, it’s a little depressing. I haven’t run any stats but it does feel like 87% of posts are predominately negative.

In an effort to balance out that ratio, I wanted to quickly share 3 wonderful things that happened this weekend and 2 silly ones.

3 Wonderful Things

1. I had a chance to read in a coffee shop and this sparked a conversation with a girl and her grandma about Russian literature and wedding planning. If you’re hesitant to start a conversation with a stranger, go for it. It might just make their day like it did mine.

2. I went into a local gift store where I had a gift card to use. The name of the store had changed and I found out when I got inside that the entire ownership had changed, and thus the current owners didn’t have the money that was paid for my gift card and would basically be giving me free merchandise so they couldn’t take it. As a business-minded person, I completely understood, we had a pleasant conversation, I said I would make the purchase anyway, went to grab my item and when I came back was told they would honor the gift card anyway. Customer service for the win.

3. My husband and I made our bi-weekly trip to the library used book store and realized once we got there that we didn’t have enough cash for the awesome new (old) classics that had come in. Before we realized what was happening, a sweet elderly lady pushed a $20 bill into our hands and told us to buy all the books we wanted. Since our bill was way under that, we passed the book money on to the girl behind us.

2 Silly Things

1. We went to Costco on Friday and the receipt checker said “Thank you and see you tomorrow!” as we departed. I died laughing but almost felt bad we didn’t come back on Saturday to say hi.

2. A man was brushing his teeth in the Home Depot parking lot when I dropped Luke off for work. Weird, but funny.

How was your weekend? What made you smile?

Happiness, Life Lessons, Marriage, Personal Finances, Writing

Marriage | The First Year

As of today, we’ve got 365 days of married bliss under our belts and while that doesn’t quite make us marriage experts, it does give me the authority to comment on the dreaded “First Year of Marriage.” Cue the dark lights and sad faces.

Real confession time: the first year of marriage was great.

I’m 100% speaking only out of my own experience so if you’re first year of marriage was the worst or just so-so, I’m truly sorry & hope things got better. But since I have so many friends that are getting married this summer (as evidenced by the growing number of bridesmaids dresses in my closet), I wanted to share this ray of hope.

The first year of marriage does not have to be horrible. Contrary to what every well-meaning marriage book and article will tell you, the first year of marriage does not HAVE to entail:

  • Fights over money
  • Time battles over friendships
  • Arguments over where you spend the holidays
  • General despair
  • No more fun
  • Battling over how you squeeze the toothpaste tube (does anyone actually fight over that? Buy separate toothpaste tubes people. Problem solved)

Those are the common issues that a quick Google search will show you. Or just read the first chapter of any marriage book. Most of the ones we read started with: “You thought marriage would be great. But it’s actually super difficult and painful. Say goodbye to happiness now.”

That might be a bit of an exaggeration and while I completely appreciate the effort to set realistic expectations, but I fear that going into marriage with this deluge of fear-mongering propaganda about how much you’ll fight, the dark secrets you’ll discover, and just how generally miserable marriage can be won’t exactly set you on the path to success.Thankfully, Luke and I were blessed with great premarital counseling, wise older friends, and an innate love of budgeting. I’d highly encourage you to read those marriage books because they have a lot to offer after the first chapter. Here’s my summary of the advice from books, the Bible, and mentors that helped us have an awesome first year of marriage:

  • Discuss as many unspoken rules as you can find before marriage.
  • Embrace the money talk. Budgeting can sound scary, but it also can be super fun to set saving goals and get creative with a food budget.
  • Over-communicate. Girls, we love to get offended when guys can’t read our minds. “But shouldn’t they know exactly what I want to eat for dinner without me telling them?” Or worse: “He should know that xyz would make me upset! By doing it anyway, he clearly doesn’t care for my feelings.” Actually, it’s pretty uncaring to get mad at someone for not being able to read your mind or your hints.
  • Don’t keep score. I learned this one the hard way, which you can read about here.
  • Know which battles to fight. If I wanted to, I could probably get annoyed with Luke about pretty much anything. But I don’t have to. I can choose to take a page out of Queen Elsa’s songbook and simply let. it. go. It’s beautiful. And my out-of-tune warbling rendition of this overplayed mantra always lightens the mood 🙂

I’m beyond excited to witness the many marriages that are forming this summer and have loved learning from the other newlyweds and not-so-newlyweds in my life. As I reflect over this past year and sentimentally sob my way through the many wedding cards, notes, and kind advice given to Luke and I, I mostly want to say: Thank You. Thanks to the family and friends that made our wedding day so special. Thanks to the new friends that helped us move across the country and settle down in the foreign land of California. Thanks to the old friends who have stayed in touch and encouraged us every step of the way.

Change, Cooking, Life Lessons

365 Days Later

If I’m reading my Facebook news feed correctly, everyone graduated this weekend. Congrats! I personally had the pleasure of jetting up to San Francisco and watching my talent sister receive a well-deserved Bachelors of Fine Arts. Pretty sure she exerted more energy in a week of dance classes than I did in my entire 4 years of scurrying across my square mile campus.

It’s cliche, but true, that it’s hard to believe an entire year has passed since I too sweated in a black hospital gown and tried to keep my cap from escaping off my head (my hair has a mind of its own and didn’t like the competition).

Other than telling you how awesome my sister is, I don’t have a great thesis for this blog post but I’ve been in a reflect-y mood lately and figured other recent alums might be in the same boat.

Side Note: I’ve noticed lately that I over-hyphenate. See last 2 sentences for examples. Not sure when this started, but every time I read something I write I find at least 5 unnecessarily hyphenated words. I’m considering removing the worn-out punctuation mark from my keyboard. Just did it again. Unbelievable.

Post-college life has been far better & far worse than I imagined. Off the top of my head, below are my top unexpected life lessons from the last 12 months.

1. Keeping yourself alive (without spending a fortune) isn’t as easy as it seems

Most recent college grads don’t have $500 to blow on food each month. Limited grocery budgets means a lot of planning, home-cooked meals, and leftovers. Some weeks, getting food on the table EVERY SINGLE DAY takes more strategy than a pro chess game.

2. Evenings are the BEST

In college, there is no clocking out. Study, sleep, shower and repeat dominate your schedule. Once other people start paying you to do work instead of you paying to volunteer your free labor, you can actually stop working. In fact, it’s recommended if you want a working lifespan of longer than 3 month stints.

3. Everything changes but then it doesn’t.

The first few months out of college were a Wizard of Oz level tornado. Getting married, moving across the country, new job, car insurance, realizing you grossly overpaid for car insurance 3 months later, the list of “real world” acclimating to-dos felt endless. Until it ended. And then you feel sadly nostalgic and wonder why your life doesn’t change dramatically every semester anymore.

Three?! That’s all I could come up with after moving cross-country, new jobs, weddings, innumerable finger cuts from bulk slicing onions, and dozens of conversations with post-grad friends?!

I need your help, guys. What have you learned in this past year (or years) of finding our own little corners of the world?