I haven’t been bored

While driving into town yesterday afternoon, Justin mentioned that I hadn’t written anything here for a while.  I told him that I just didn’t feel like I had much to say lately.  Things are going pretty well and it’s been nice and quiet around the house and I’ve been enjoying the well-going nice and quiet.

I have been up to things though.  I’ve been working on switching things around for spring.  Saturday afternoon I reorganized the porch closet so I could get to the gardening tools and the grill.   I reorganized the dining room closet to move the scarves and mittens into storage and the picnic supplies and bicycle helmets up front.  I reorganized the hamper drawer at the bottom of the steps, packing away the ice scraper and getting the sun screen, bug spray, and umbrellas up and accessible.  And while I was at it, I reorganized under the kitchen sink because it was just a mess and I wanted to be able to grab Windex without crawling all the way to the back of the cabinet.

Yesterday I organized 3 months of receipts, checking them against the categories they were marked as in my budgeting and finding out how many I’m still missing (about 5, for the whole 3 months).  It’s a long task, but rewarding in the end, when I’ve got envelope after envelope of receipts all organized and in rows.  It makes it really easy, come tax time.  I’ve got everything marked down in my finance program on my computer, so I can search for whatever I need, and then I can go to the envelope for that month and look for the physical receipt and read that.  If I need a receipt, I can find it in under 5 minutes.  It’s a system that requires constant maintenance, but one that can really pay off in the end.

I finished my book for March, but I’m not sure yet what I’d like to read for April.  I’ve got to go look through my bookshelf and see what I haven’t read yet, see if anything sparks any interest.  The last book wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as some of his others.  Maybe I should do a book review for each book I read?  It would be good for my LibraryThing account.  And my GoodReads account, too.  And if I decide to get rid of the book, it’d be good for my BookMooch account, too.

I have a lot of online book-related accounts . . . .

I lost 2 more pounds last week, bringing my current total weight loss to 16 pounds.  I’m very excited about that.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIII for the last couple weeks, off and on.  It’s a BEAUTIFUL game and I’m having a really wonderful time playing it.  It is, so far, the only game we have for our PS3, but that’s because we bought it to play BluRay discs on, and not for playing video games.  But let me tell you, this game is AMAZINGLY beautiful.  I could sit there just looking at the pretty pictures for hours and be perfectly content.  But there’s also game play and that makes it even better!

I worked a full day again on Friday because they switched up the schedule on me and now I’m behind on a couple of projects.  It’s frustrating.  I keep hoping that I’ll finally catch up to everything, and then they go and move things on me.  I’m getting really frustrated with working more than 40 hours a week.

My allergies are starting to pick up. It’s about the same time as last year, so I’m not terribly surprised.  My eyes itch.  I sneeze a lot.  I’m tired.  I think the grass is out to get me.

And these are just a glimpse of the things that I’m ready to talk about.  There are other things, like improvements to our bedroom and the yard and my photo collection, that I’m not ready to talk about yet because I want to have everything finished before I talk about it.  But we’re making good progress on those things and I hope to have more news on those soon.

Until then, I just have this one last thing for today:

Two years ago today, I stood on shaking knees and pinched toes with sweat dripping down the middle of my back, between friends and family on one side and a gazebo on the other, with candles that kept being blown out by the wind, across from the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, who promised to support and protect me, and who slid a ring as far as it could go onto my stress-swollen finger.  We danced our first dance to music I can’t remember, and his grandfather cut in before the end of the song.  We celebrated and smiled and danced and ate and had a wonderful time with our most precious friends and family.  And then we cleaned up and went home before the rain started.

Since then, we’ve gone through sicknesses and job troubles, celebrations and parties, days when communication failed and days when we worked together in prefect synchronization, days when there wasn’t enough money and days when there was more money than we expected, days when the world in my head didn’t make sense, but he stuck beside me anyway, days when we didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, but we pulled and pushed each other up and stood on our feet and helped each other make it through the day.

People keep making comments about us being newlyweds and honeymooning and that the glow will eventually fade, but we believe that the honeymoon is the rest of the marriage and that we’re the ones actually doing it right.  He brings me flowers when he goes to the grocery store.  I wake him up in the morning with cuddles and kisses.  We call each other at noon and again when we leave work, and sometimes more than that just to hear each other talk.

I love you, Justin Barnett, and I am so happy to be your wife!  Let’s keep it going for another 80 years or so!