It's Time For Real Life

    We have now reached the "real life" part of being married. Sure, lots of it is still the honeymoon phase, but slowly and surely we are making the move towards normalcy...

     

    When we were talking about getting married, and my mom was all, "Oh, boy! You'll have a whole house to take care of!"

 I was pretty sure it wouldn't be that difficult. There's only going to be two of us - how hard could it be? 

It is HARD! 

     Even with just the two of us. We don't have a dishwasher so all the dishes are by hand - that wouldn't be bad, except I love to cook and experiment which equals lots of dirty dishes. Honestly, washing dishes is still pretty relaxing. The question is, how long will that last? 

     We also don't have a washer or dryer yet, so we go over to my parents or his parents to do about 2 weeks worth of clothes in one run. Lately, I've started working more hours at my dad's clinic, which means I don't get home until 5, and every other weekend I host weddings so I'm gone for the majority of the weekend. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for housework. 

     I also have to keep track of bills; when things are due and where. That's actually pretty fun... if it wasn't real money leaving our real accounts. 

     Then there are the other things like emptying the trash in the house, organizing the boxes of stuff that still don't have a place, dusting, and still feeding my husband who manages to track dirt clods all over the house and leave his hunting stuff out. 

     Don't get me wrong! I love being married. I love cooking, washing dishes, and all that comes with it. I just didn't expect it to be so... much. How in the world do all you mothers do it?! 

     All in all, this past week has not gone as smoothly as the previous weeks. We've fought over things, made up, gotten annoyed with each other, and somehow still love each other and had fun. I'm not even sure how that works, but I'm glad it does! 

    At our wedding, we had advice cards on the tables for guests to fill out. Now, a month into being married, I think it's time to look back through them. There was definitely some good (and goofy) advice we received, and I've picked out a few of my favorites to share! 

If you are going to fight, fight naked. If you can still fight it is worth fighting about! 

Do not hang wallpaper together. 

Each of you make it your goal to be a life long student of your spouse. Learn all about what makes them tick. 

Kyle should always wash his hands when he comes inside. He may have had his hand inside a catfish, or just skinned a squirrel, or roasted frog legs. 

Always make her feel beautiful! Buy her flowers (even $5 ones from Wal-mart)! Love God more than you do her. 

Give Kyle a hug every time he comes in the door. 

If you have kids, always have Kyle go change diapers and get up in the middle of the night. Lol. 

Marriage is not 50/50. It's 100/100. 

We both LOVED reading these, so thank you to all of you who filled them out! There were more categories besides advice, such as: how many kids we will have, where we will be in 25 years, what we should name our kids, etc. Some of them are HILARIOUS, so I'll have to share them too! 

Here is one last bit of advice that really hit me, especially when it comes to the "normal" view of love and marriage.  

To love is a choice. Choose it!