Seriously Saturdays: Being Single Again

So about 15 months ago I started this thing called Seriously Saturdays where I said that each Saturday I'd post about something that just makes me say 'Seriously?!?'  Well, I did it for about 12 weeks and then I forgot about it somehow.  I remembered the idea though and decided to revive it.  So today's post is all about why I feel single again.

We got married in April...we're closing in on about 10 months of marriage which is roughly 40-45 weeks that we've been husband and wife.  And do you know that in that 45 weeks, Mr Fix It has been gone for about 6 of those weeks which is 13% of our short marriage.  And now he is leaving next month for another two weeks!  I mean, seriously?!? 

I might as well have stayed single! 

About a month after we got married, Mr Fix It drove up north to work on his parent's rental property for three weeks.  Oh man...that was hard.  We didn't have our new puppy at that time and my daughter stays with her dad for 3-4 nights each week so it was strange being in a house all by myself that I had just moved into. 

In November, he went up to his parents house for about a week to visit his family and spend the holiday up there...which I had already told you all about how I stayed home without him because my own family had our first Thanksgiving without my Grandmother who had just passed.

Then in January I mentioned that he went back up to his parents house yet again for another two weeks to work on a new rental property they just bought.  And now in March, he's going up to Sacramento to remodel a bathroom for his sister so he'll be gone yet again.

As much as I'm glad his family is giving him so much work, and they do take care of him well financially for what he does, it's very hard to have him gone for such long periods of time.  I really don't know how these military wives handle themselves when they have to watch their hubbys leave them...and possibly leave them for a dangerous job!

Anyway, I am definitely one who enjoys my time to myself and some peace and quiet and not having to answer to anyone.  But as a newlywed, it's not easy being by myself for over 15% of the first year we've been living together.

Seriously...can't my hubby find work here in our own county?!?  :D

What about you, ladies?  How do you do when you have to be apart from your hubby?  Have you had any long stretches of time apart?

Should I stay or should I go?

Considering it has been over two months since my last blog post, I am struggling with the inevitable question of whether or not I should just give up blogging all together?  Deep down, I know that I do not want to do that.  But with our wedding now over and moving on into a new year, I have decided that it would be good for me to journal about what's been going on in my life on at least a weekly basis.  So for now, I am going to try to start again by committing to weekly posts...regardless of whether anyone reads them or not.

In the past years, I have often loved going back and reading journals I wrote out to see what was going on and how I felt at that point of my life.  It is really encouraging and causes you to re-evaluate yourself internally.

Anyway, for now, here's a recap of what's been going on with us Beevers during the last several months...some good, some bad...but life nonetheless.

OCTOBER

We travelled up north to Redding, CA to visit Mr Fix It's brother and his in-laws for the celebration of a family member's 60th birthday party.  It was a quick, pop in/pop out weekend trip but it was super fun to see Mr Fix It's parents and the other family members that live up in Northern Cali.  The party was a costume event and so being the weekend before Halloween, it was the perfect opportunity for us to test out our costumes:

(I apologize for the quality as most of these photos were taken on my cell phone camera)
Oh and did I mention that Mr Fix It won best costume?!?

We finished out October at a Halloween party at a neighbor's house.  This was the first time for me to really hang out and get to know all the neighbors on our cul de sac since I had just moved into Mr Fix It's home 5 months earlier.  Needless to say, I was a bit concerned when I was served the following Deviled eggs:

After that, I took a tour of their house since Mr Fix It had done a lot of work on it for them.  I really flipped out when I walked into the bathroom to find this waiting for me:



In their defense, our neighbors are HUGE holiday freaks.  They love to decorate and go all out in their yard and their house.  It was actually quite fun to see all that they did around the entire place.

NOVEMBER

Of course November ushered in the holidays.  And as you may remember from one of my last posts, I had my first Thanksgiving ever (without my hubby with me) in our home.  We had about 20 family members there and I mostly did everything myself.  I forgot to take pictures when everything was first set out so here are a few I snapped after people had started chowing down.  The lighting's not great cuz I took them on my cell phone:

I was so excited to use all of our brand new serving platters and casserole dishes.

All of these items were wedding gifts!!!

My brother-in-law did a fabulous job of carving up the 20 lb bird!

Again, I got to use a new wedding gift:  a 3 pot crock pot/slow cooker!  This thing was so cool!

DECEMBER

December of course meant Christmas.  Christmas was a little hard for me since I was usually really into it the day after Thanksgiving.  I would put all of my decorations out and get so excited to decorate my fake tree.  Had to be fake because I liked to leave it up from the day after Thanksgiving until the day after New Year's and we all know real trees don't last that long. 

But Mr Fix It is all about a real tree so I opted to wait until about 2 weeks before Christmas to put out all the decorations.  Especially because with our new puppy in the house I was petrified he was going to destroy everything!  Surprisingly, he did well and didn't really go after anything at all...not even the stockings that I hung from our fireplace mantle. 

In early December, I got together with the six girls I had led in a bible study for almost 5 years.  We don't meet regularly anymore since I got married because almost all of us are now married and we don't live as close anymore.  So we make it a point to get together once a month instead.  In December, one of the girls hosted a fabulous tea party and she was excited to use all of her brand new tea set.  I absolutely loved this mad hatter style table setting but with a Christmas feel to it.  She went so far as to put pictures of us girls at each place setting!  I loved it.

One of our favorite memories of our first Christmas together was driving to my sister's house on Christmas morning.  We decided to get up early to go see my niece and nephew open all of their gifts.  On our way down to South County we happened to come across this guy driving in a station wagon full of gifts on the 405 freeway!

I mean, come on!  Does it get any better than seeing Santa on Christmas day driving with a car full of presents?!?  We honked at him and he waved and gave us the peace sign with a big smile on his face.

JANUARY

January meant a new year.  As much as I was so thrilled with all of the exciting things that went on in 2010 (like oh, our wedding and honeymoon), I was really excited to say hello to 2011 and begin what will hopefully be a great start to our lives together.  But in January, Mr Fix It left me yet again for about 2 weeks to go up north to his parent's house to work on a rental property for them.  This picture of our puppy, Brody sums up how I felt during that time: 

We missed the man of the house and Brody is looking out our front window waiting for him to come home like me!  Thankfully, I had my daughter, Little Miss with me to keep me and Brody occupied.

We finished up January with me, Little Miss and my mom taking a quick flight up to Seattle for the last weekend to see my cousin star in a little musical play he wrote.  He attends college at Cornish school for the performing arts and I know he'll make it big some day.  It was so fun to see him act.

While we were there, we took in some of the sights...like the very first Starbucks ever!

My mom, Little Miss, my cousin (the future star), my aunt and me

We checked out this silly wall of grafiti near Pike's Market (a popular outdoor market).  While we were there, we went and had lunch at the restaurant where Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner filmed a scene for the movie Sleepless in Seattle.

We walked on the waterfront



They made us check out this stupid wall of gum. 

A dumb tourist site in my opinion where people stick their chewed gum. 

And of course we saw the Space Needle (as well as Qwest & Safeco Fields)

FEBRUARY

Of course, I don't have photos for February yet since today is the first day.  But this will be a super fun month.  And here's why:

Sunday is Super Bowl day.  Though I am not thrilled with the teams that are playing at all :( I do love me some good football!

The following Wednesday is my daughter's actual birthday and then that Friday Mr Fix It is taking me to Vegas for the weekend to celebrate Valentine's Day.

The weekend after that, an old friend from high school (who just happens to be the President of the World Poker Tour) got us tickets to a celebrity invitation reception and event that they are holding near our house.  Mr Fix It is a huge poker fan so we are super excited about that.

The last Friday of February, I am throwing yet ANOTHER surprise party for Mr Fix It's birthday!  His brother is flying in from Sacramento to surprise him along with 20 other friends who will be waiting for him at our local Lucky Strike Bowling Alley and Lounge.

Oh and Little Miss is taking her driving test in the middle of the month as well.  We bought her a car from a family member and she is dying to be able to have her own car and drive herself to and from school finally.  Scary stuff to see my little one growing up but I am excited about all the new changes coming.

Thus I am so thankful for February and all the celebration it is going to bring.  On the downside, Mr Fix It and I lost a very dear close friend of ours about a week and a half ago.  She went to Hawaii after our wedding (in July) and came back with a nasty cough that wouldn't go away.  The doctors soon found out it was lung cancer and once treatment began, it soon spread to her brain.  We were devastated when we found out they only gave her a month to live when it was determined that the treatment was not working whatsoever.  She lost her battle on Wednesday January 26th.  Mr Fix It and I cried and are trying to make sense of why someone so loving and genuine and beautiful was taken so soon.  But her boyfriend (our dear friend) summed it up best when he said "I guess God just wanted her back sooner than we had all hoped."

Audrey, you will be dearly missed and we love you so much!  Rest in peace lovely lady.

A loveless marriage vs. an unloved child

Today a 'sort of' co-worker asked me how I liked married life.  I told him it was great (neglecting to tell him about the little argument Mr Fix It and I got into this morning before I left for work).  Now don't get me wrong, what is great about *my* marriage is that within 15 minutes of that little spat, Mr Fix It had humbled himself to see my side of the story and why I was frustrated and we had calmed down and lovingly kissed each other goodbye.

But what made me sad was the next thing this co-worker said after he asked me the question.  He said "Yeah, you know."  So I knew there was hesitation there and I asked him what he meant. 

He responded by saying this: "Well, it's just hard to keep the love alive in a marriage when you have kids to take care of and work and you're tired at the end of the day.  My wife and I have been married for almost 20 years now and it's just...I don't know."

The way he said it made me so sad.  It made me feel like he found no joy or pleasure or happiness in his marriage...at least not today.  I answered back by saying, "Yes, I know what you mean.  Mr Fix It and I have only been married for 7 months now and I already feel like we have a lot of mundane days.  When you work all day and are trying to keep up a house, a pet and kids, it's just really important that you work hard to keep romance in your relationship.  You have to be very 'intentional' about each other and trying to surprise one another."

I went on to tell him how different married life is from dating someone because when you're dating, you put everything else out of your mind when you are out with the other person because you know that is *your* time together.  But married life is seeing each other day in and day out...paying bills and cleaning and all that unromantic stuff.  He said that's exactly what it is.

Ladies, many of you are either newly married or soon to be married.  And at 38 years old after having spent 6 years with Mr Fix It before we married and moved in, I can tell you that marriage is WORK.  Relationships are work.  There's no getting around it.  Whether it's with your boss, your mom, your sibling or your husband/wife...you have to work to be respectful of each other, to please each other, to comfort one another and to keep the spice in your life. 

What truly makes me mad though is how easy it is for people to just walk away from marriages nowadays.  We take divorce so casually or we decide to just live with someone without 'putting a ring on it.'  That way, we always have an 'out' if we need it*.

Well, guess what?  I don't have an out when it comes to my daughter, Little Miss anymore than I have an out with Mr Fix It in our marriage.  We would *NEVER* talk about our children the way we talk about our spouses.  We would never say it's hard to 'keep the love alive' for our son or daughter.  We make just as much of a choice (if you want to even call it that) to love our child as we do to love our spouse.  Could you imagine a mother telling her daughter "You know, I just feel like there is nothing between us anymore.  I mean I'll always love you, but I'm just not *IN* love with you anymore.  I think it's best we just part ways"?

We would think all sorts of unpleasant thoughts about that mother.  Unfortunately, parents do indeed abandon their child.  Our world is full of unloved children.  But a loveless marriage is just as ridiculous as an unloved child for those of us who profess to be somewhat healthy and responsible.  As much as Little Miss frustrates the holy heck out of me sometimes, I would absolutely NEVER imagine waking up one day and not feeling pure, unconditional love for her even if she felt like she couldn't stand me. 

So why do we think it's okay to let ourselves 'feel' like we don't have the marriage we once did or want anymore?  I'm telling you now, ladies and gents, if you want a romantic, passionate, loving relationship filled with all the joy and happiness that you felt on your wedding day or in your courting days, then you better be prepared to have mundane, boring, frustrating days with that person that you will not be able to get away from.  Because marriage is indeed work.  I have to forcibly remind myself to walk into the house and go give Mr Fix It a kiss before I pick up all the crap he and Little Miss left all over the place.  And even then, after a day at work, I'd much prefer to just grab a bag of Cheetos and plop down in front of the tv than have a conversation with Mr Fix It.

But last week, as it was a super chilly night, while Little Miss was away at her father's house, Mr Fix It and I started a fire, made some root beer floats, turned the soft rock radio channel on our television and just snuggled up with our new puppy on our sofa sitting in the dimly lit living room.  We didn't make love that night and we didn't watch tv.  We just sat and listened to the music and talked about whatever came to our minds. 

And in the morning when we woke up, Mr Fix It hugged me and said "I had so much fun with you last night just doing nothing.  We need to do that more often."  And it reminded me all over again that while our lives may sometimes be boring or busy, our marriage will always have love as long as we remember to value each other as a family member that we cannot get away from. 

An infant who cannot offer you anything in the way of reciprocated affection, entertainment or conversation and is quite possibly just demanding of your time as their parent would never be unloved any more than your spouse/significant other should be once you have chosen to commit to them as their one and only. 

*Let me clarify that I do believe there are times when divorce is unavoidable (abuse, etc).  I am referring to those who simply say they 'have lost that lovin' feeling' without any rhyme or reason or real effort.
Blessings to you all and I hope you are excited about the upcoming holiday season.

Reflections on Marriage: Comfort

I had only lived with one man before I met Mr Fix It and that was my daughter's father.  We were never married and it lasted less than 2 years.  I was 21 at the time which seems like ages ago now that I am close to 38.  Crazy! 

Anywho - Mr Fix It and I did in fact spend the night at each other's place sometimes during our six year relationship...but the last two years before we got married we didn't really stay over that often.  I think I was relishing in my final days as an independent woman who didn't need to answer to anyone in her own home.

So when we first moved in together on the first day after our wedding, it was something I was wondering about...how would it all pan out?  Would we easily settle into married life *AND* living together without any real issues or arguments?  Or would it be a real adjustment phase that took some getting used to?

For the most part, we eased into it pretty well.  Though I have to admit, Mr Fix It's bed (a Queen size) is truly not big enough for the both of us.  He definitely moves around a lot when he sleeps and he made comments about how I really don't move much at all while sleeping.  Yeah, good thing...because it is a pain learning to share a bed with someone.  If we had a California King bed (something I have high on my list of priorities when we are ready to move into a new house in a few years hopefully), it would be no problem at all.

I am the type of sleeper that when I get up in the morning, if I slept in the bed alone, all I would need to do is pull the one top corner of the sheets and comforter up and throw a few pillows at the top and the bed is made.  Not so much with Mr Fix It.

Half the time I wake up in the morning, the sheets and comforter are totally ripped out from every corner of the bed and are in complete disarray.  I usually have to turn the comforter a few times to get it back in it's correct position to tuck it in. 

Alas, sharing a bed - at least while actually trying to sleep in it - is not something I have been excited about when it comes to merging as a married couple.

What about you ladies?  Any of you have similar problems or something else that has been difficult to adjust to while trying to live with a boy?