One year

Wow. Has it really been one whole year since we got married??  Actually, this Sunday the answer is yes!!  This strikes me both as a normal everyday kind of thing AND a crazy, what in the world kind of thing!

What I've learned (that all of you already know but I'm going to share anyways):

1. Marriage is hard, a whole helluva lot harder than I imagined.
2. Marriage is likely made more difficult by: moving away from my everything in my life except my husband, my crazy independent nature (please note the word crazy in this sentence), my mother (haha, not in the way you might think but because she instilled in me some hardcore cleaning expectations that neither myself nor my husband can live up to and yet I still want to attain), not having any many friends here but I mentioned that already, so on and so forth...
3. I'm amazed at what we can do together.
4. I'm amazed at what I can convince my husband to do (like get another dog, plant a garden the size of our garage, start making our own - insert whatever type of food here - and so on and so forth)
5. I love our leisurely coffee drinking weekend mornings (at least until I start freaking out about the house needing to be cleaned or the - insert type of food here - needing to be made).
6. There is nothing quite like having his support, especially on the things that he knows mean the most to me
7. We've learned more about one another - mostly good things thankfully.
8. Patience is a necessary skill.
9. So is communication.
10. Both go out the window when I'm hungry - I'm working on this one.

Ten things is probably enough for now. To be honest, we've had a hard year. This year has been full of loss for me and it has been hard to manage at times. In the last week of May 2010, I got married (yay!) and moved away from my family, my friends, the paths I was on to creating the career I want, basically EVERYTHING (boo!). And it has taken me almost the entire year to adjust to that. I could never expect how terrible I would feel. In addition, it hasn't been easy for the husband either. He has a good job but it at times lacks the challenge and activity that he wants. He also moved, although a few months earlier, away from his friends and further away from his family. Through all of that, we have had to figure out marriage. And I think we've done a pretty good job this first year. Despite all that we are facing individually we come together as a team quite well. The upcoming years I'm sure will include more challenges and even more triumphs and times of happiness. I look forward to this all, knowing that we will face it together.