Ahh, "married" life. For the past nine months, the unofficial hubby and I have been basking in the glow of my completed project. The story after the story is what we did in the days and weeks after the project wrapped up. For about the first week I did all of the most comfortable, familiar, easy things that I knew of. Included below is a partial list:
- Eat Velveeta macaroni and cheese
- Nap on the couch with the sun shining down on my face
- Watch 27 hours of DVRed television
- Wrestle a bear
- Make a snow angel in my driveway
- Go for a pleasant camel ride
Of course, those are only the least epic things I did after the project wrapped up. I don't want to scare you all away with the sheer awesomeness of my post-project activities. I tease, but the truth is that life is 100-million-thousand-billion times more amazing since starting the project. I spent a year in Being Joyful Boot Camp. I reminded myself that being bad at things can still be fun. I stretched myself beyond what I thought I could do. And most sappily, but importantly, I found the love of my life somewhere in the rubble of my 17th variation on children's art projects.
A lot of things have happened since the project, but one thing that has remained constant is that both the unofficial hubby and I tend to notice the beauty in the world a lot more than before the project started. There has been a near constant refrain of "oh, hey, I've never done that before" for the past nine months. Seeing how much we were still experiencing, just because we approach the world differently now than before, we decided it seemed silly not to continue sharing the adventures.
That will not take the form of a new, structured project cause, well, it was, like insanely expensive. I mean, I flew to California, drove to Washington DC, went to Chicago for a weekend, went to DC again, drove to Tennessee and flew to Vegas, all in one year. And that doesn't count all the admission fees, short drives and souvenir costs (which I fully acknowledge to be frivolous). In short, the daily new experience model is best left as an amazing series of memories.
Instead we're going to take a slightly less frenzied approach and just do awesome thing on the "when we freaking feel like it" schedule. I'm guessing, since we have the "oh neat, that was a new experience" epiphany about once every two weeks, it'll be on that frequency. Hopefully the entries will be as enjoyable as they were last year. I'm sure they'll be just as fun to experience and capture. So, without further ado, here's what we did for the past nine months.
January:
In addition to all the Velveeta eating and bear wrestling, we also settled into couplehood and being grown-ups. Justin was working at Access and I was working at Legal Services and SMART. For those of you keeping track, that means that he had a 40-mile one way commute each day and I had a 40-mile one way commute some days and a 60-mile one way commute the other days.
More importantly, we spent the whole darn month relaxing. Well, other than the WWE taping we went to at the Joe. I got to add to my "list of things that makes Justin awesome" when, as the super sexy WWE Divas took the stage, he yawned and asked if I was hungry cause he was going to go get some popcorn. In case any of you haven't seen the WWE Divas, let me provide a frame of reference.
Some distraction would've been understandable. And some drooling.
We were delighted to find ourselves in a short cameo behind Alberto Del Rio when he arrived in a car no one in their right mind thinks could be afforded on a faux-pro wrestler's salary. I've admittedly become a fan of WWE. If by fan we mean "viewer who finds it amusing and hilarious that no matter where the person gets hit, they clutch their lower back in over-acted agony". Our Monday evening relaxation time has become a WWE MST3K viewing party.
Most of January was spent recuperating from the year before and, quite frankly, enjoying what it felt like to have learned to see the world for what it really is. Now February... February was where its at.
February:
In addition to not being subconsciously bitter about Valentine's Day for the first time in my life, February brought us cramming for the bar, eating delicious cookies and the Wisconsin teacher's union actually standing up for their rights.
Tim and Christine joined us for the second annual Zoorotica trip. Having fully vetted it last year and determined that it was not, in fact, five hours of jaguars doing the hokey-pokey; we felt comfortable encouraging our friends to join us on the adventure.
Although Justin did get a little frisky with the giant tortoise.
The bar exam was horribly nerve-wrecking and I wouldn't find out until April that I'd managed to pass it. For those who don't know, the Michigan Bar Exam is a two day marathon of legal essays, multiple choice questions and tears. So many tears.
March:
March was significantly less eventful, but I did manage to do one new thing. Knowing, as I do, that 89x is the central repository for all meaningful thought in the Detroit area, I felt it was my patriotic duty to call the show and inform them of their incorrectness on an important topic. I'm just messing. I was bored and they were talking about some hilarious dirty stuff.
April:
Settling into two jobs made it near impossible to do much new and exciting. Between getting bar results and having first contact with BMC Software (which I couldn't share at the time), April was a good month. I also got to reconnect with an old friend towards the end of the month, which is always delightful.
May:
It goes without saying that the highlight of the month was my and the unofficial hubby's one year anniversary. We spent a fun-filled-first-filled weekend in New York City to celebrate. A partial list of firsts for your delight and amusement:
- Having to run to catch a plane at the airport
- Justin's first NYC cab ride
- Staying at a real NYC hotel with a real NYC view (ie: a brick wall)
- Riding the carousel at Central Park
- Seeing a Broadway puppet show (Avenue Q)
- Visiting the Museum of Sex and having aphrodisiac themed drinks
- Justin's first ride on NYC subways
- Justin's first time in Times Square
- Riding the bus through the Bronx to get to the airport
And, of course, this:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The man I love...
We both got to touch the Wall Street bull's balls, which was one of the things that I'd really wanted to do during the project and never got the chance. It was one of the more amazing weekends of my life and getting to spend it with the man I love was icing on a delicious, delicious, sexy cake.
May also brought the news that I'd gotten my first professional, non-internship job. Now that I've been at BMC for a couple months I can say with certainty that it is an amazing place to be. I am so blessed to get to be at a company as great as BMC. And no, they don't pay me extra for saying that.
Then there was the difficult "first". Both Justin and I had never lived (on a permanent basis) away from our families and Justin had never lived outside of Michigan. The last weeks of May and first weeks of June were incredibly difficult for both of us emotionally, but extremely worth it in the end. I had the great joy of getting to help assemble friends and family for a surprise going away party for Justin and I. My mom had the last laugh though, slipping good friends of mine on the guest list without me knowing.
June:
Its good the party went so well too because what we didn't realize is that moving would quickly become all-consuming. I was deeply proud of myself and of Justin as June got going though. Neither of us had ever run a move before and we managed to get ourselves down to Texas without losing or breaking anything.
As we drove south on the first day, we were both pretty emotional. That was soon replaced by excitement.
We were both excited about moving, starting our life together, getting to see the new place and all that delightfulness. We also made some amazing stops along the way. The first night we stayed in Indianapolis with some amazing friends of the family. The second day we had a delicious dinner at Lambert's and then drove through our first dust storm before rolling into Little Rock for the evening. On the third day we had our first, somewhat scary, conversation with a guy on meth (fairly obvious) and signed our very first lease together.
Within a week our stuff arrived and it was on to the unpacking and working. You know, that whole job thing. Marcia came down to spend the first week with us, which was amazing and made it a lot easier to be away from everyone. Most importantly, we got to show Justin's mom where he'd be laying his head. My mom still needs to make an appearance (but that's not a hint or anything, ma).
July:
July was all about getting settled and relaxing. We finished unpacking our apartment, set up my quilting area, hung pictures and basked in the syrupy sweet joy of young love. We also realized that Texas is hotter than balls in the summer time and that air conditioning must have been sent to earth by an angel.
On the 4th of July we made s'mores over the stove and listened to the fireworks from our patio. The big story in July, however, was our trip to Gatlinburg to see Justin's family for his grandfather's 80th birthday. Four days, a cabin in the woods, my unofficial in-laws and I didn't run screaming. Quite frankly, that's a ringing endorsement.
I kid, but I simply adore Justin's family. And we got to play witness to an amazing event. After two fun-filled days of tooling around Gatlinburg, mining for gems (another first) and all-you-can-eat catfish; we were there to see Derrick (Justin's sister's boyfriend) propose to Courtney (Justin's sister). We had the (minor, but flattering) honor of holding the ring for the couple days leading up to the proposal to ensure that it was kept safe and undiscovered.
It was a beautiful moment to witness and a perfect end to a perfect July.
August:
Texas continued to be hot. I know, alert the media.
I found volleyball and softball around the beginning of August and while those aren't firsts, they did make me insanely happy. I had missed playing those games terribly. More importantly, Justin and I found the Michigan bar for Houston and have been able to see every football game surrounded by screaming Michigan fans.
August, quite frankly, was one of the reasons we decided to restarted the blog. Not because so much happened in August, but because so little happened. We really fought hard to see the newness and joy in the world last year and its something we both still care about. We sat down and decided it was time to spend some energy getting out there and seeing the world around us.
And then Justin had his wisdom teeth pulled. That put the kibosh on seeing the world for a little while. Mostly because the post-surgical drugs they gave him were so good he wasn't seeing much of anything. I have a picture of him with adorable chipmunk cheeks, but I promised I wouldn't share. Which, of course, means that its going to cost you if you want to see it. I accept cash, credit and personal check.
September:
And then all of a sudden it was September! Our first football games at the Michigan bar, our first softball game, and our discovery that all of Houston comes out of its collective home as soon as the weather turns.
There's still plenty of time left in September and lots of things to share.
Most importantly, while this has been a little dry, as an entry, it should catch everyone up to speed. I promise to be funnier next time. Will dance completely innocently for tips and giggles.
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