Committed

I have finally found the desire and inspiration to begin reading again. I used to be such a book worm, devouring book after book -- I think as an adolescent I kept the high school library in business single handedly :-p

But when I went off to college, reading for pleasure took a back seat to school work and partying.  My attention to novels was dismal.  And ever since then, it has really been a struggle to return to my reading ways.  That is, until I found a used book store here in town!  50 cents for paperbacks, $1 for hardbacks!!!!  And you can sell back books and get 50 cents in store credit.  Can we say heaven?!  I've already spent so much money there... LoL.  My to-read stack is quite tall at this point.

The book that I am currently reading is Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a story of a woman who suddenly finds herself facing marriage when she and her fella were completely content with just co-habitating.  After a terrible divorce, neither of them are exactly excited about this development.  So Elizabeth kicks into research mode, deciding to learn as much as she can about the institution of marriage.

I'm loving this book for so many reasons.  Mostly because Elizabeth is not going into marriage with rose colored glasses on.  She knows that there is something about the ceremony that changes things, that changes the relationship, that can take things from simple and easy to complicated and hard.  A reality that I am personally going through, except I wasn't prepared.  I wasn't prepared for how much I would struggle with becoming a wife and the pressures that history/society/myself have put on my shoulders.  I wasn't prepared for the irritations, moods, frustrations, and just how different Daniel and I are.  Yes, I was totally naive to the institution of marriage.

As a result of my naivette, I've gotten some things twisted.  And this book by Gilbert is really helping me to look at marriage with a different point of view.  The cross-cultural and historical truths about marriage are not only interesting, but they really put things into perspective.  For example, I have learned that in Western society, we place a huge amount of stress that our spouse be our everything -- our best friend, our confidant, our protector, our inspiration, our comedic relief, our workout partner, our chore partner...  But that in so many other cultures, that stress isn't there.  The spouse is the spouse.  There aren't any expectations, so there aren't any disappointments.

Now granted, I am only about 1/3 of the way through this book.  But just reading the first 80 pages, I've let go of so many of my demands and expectations of Daniel.  Demands and expectations that might be "fair" if we were to split the household duties 50/50, but they aren't fair in the sense that they are things that are important to me but he really could care less about.  Why am I trying to force him to care about something he really doesn't care about?  Dumb.  So dumb.

It's requiring a lot of humility on my part, and a whole lot more physical labor on my part (hello more household chores), but if doing that will decrease my irritation/frustration and improve our relationship, then so be it.  Marriage is sacrifice, right?

And instead of depending on him to be my everything -- I've decided to depend on him less for my emotional needs.  Pause for gasping...  Men don't usually want to talk for hours about every little thing.  They just aren't interested, and their attention span just isn't that long.  So again, why am I trying to force something he doesn't care about?  Instead, I'm spending more time with my girlfriends, who do care, who will listen attentively, and who will understand my distress/concern and be able to help me sort through things.  Less annoyance for my husband.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this book, as I hope it will continue to educate me and inspire me to improve my marriage.

So many times my struggles with anxiety get the better of me. So many times imaginary fears and scenarios feel more real than reality does. So quickly can my mind spiral into worse case scenario.

It's worse when I'm tired. When I'm stressed. When I'm lonely. When I'm out of my routine. All of which I am tonight. Bad news bears.

As a result, I feel extremely separated. Isolated. Unloved. Less than. Depressed.
All of those are false feelings about my reality, yet the blues/depression remain.

I hate this about myself.

We Can't Afford Perfect

It's crazy to me how things work out.

My last post I shared about how frustrated we were getting about house hunting.  We found the "perfect" house but couldn't afford it.  We've looked at countless houses in the last two months, houses ranging from city homes to country homes.  Old homes to new homes.  Fixer uppers, mostly.

But after looking at the "perfect" house and cementing what our budget truly is, then spending some time in prayer (well, I did at least), a seed was planted in my heart. That seed was a house that we saw among the first houses that we looked at.  At the time, we had written that house off because it didn't have a fireplace and because it didn't have that it factor that we were looking for.  It was a fine house, nothing wrong with it, but we just weren't sure. But after two months, we finally had the experience under our belt.  We've seen what's available in our budget.  We've seen what you get in our budget.  And most of it is crap.  So when we went to look at this house on Saturday night, we were able to see the house with fresh eyes.  Eyes that had the experience and knowledge that wasn't there the first time.  And it was a whole new experience.

So we put an offer in. LoL.
We have a verbal agreement with the seller, but we aren't officially under contract until we get the paperwork, which will hopefully be today!

Is it perfect? No. It doesn't have a fireplace.  It will need a new deck.  It will eventually need a new HVAC unit.  Lots of paint (it's painted like a beach house lol).

But if there's one thing that I've learned, our budget won't get us perfect.

House hunting is the pits.

So can I just say that house hunting is over rated?  We've been looking for about two months now, which is not abnormal of a time period, but we are just getting to the point where we feel like we don't know anything anymore.

Our list of wants in house are: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a fireplace, a garage or outbuilding for Daniel's motorcycle, a dining room that will accommodate our existing dining room furniture, outdoor living area (deck or front porch), not on a main road/neighborhood feel, and charm.

I had no idea that such basic requirements would prove to be so difficult to find.

And I definitely had no idea just how expensive it gets so quickly.  We've gotten to the point where we've decided we just can't live in the city limits. Taxes are just too high which makes our budget even smaller.  And properties outside of the city limits that are not on main/busy roads that are in our price range are very few and far between.

We found a beautiful, perfect home.  But it was 20k above our original budget, and although we were pre-approved from the bank for that amount, there was no way we would be able to make it work and maintain financial security.  No way.  You want to talk about heart breaking having to walk away from the perfect house...

Are our standards too high?
Are we not meant to own a home?
Are we being too picky?

I feel so bad for our realtor... I hope and pray that he isn't getting exacerbated with us and knows that we aren't trying to jerk him around.  He knows we're first time home owners, so he's probably used to it.  But I still feel bad.

I am so grateful for where we live now. But it is not ours. We're so ready to have a place that's ours.

Prayers over our hunt would be greatly appreciated...

Rare Day Off

There is something about a mindless day off... I don't get these very often.  Most of the time, my days off (comp days for working weekends) are filled with errands to places that only have 9-5pm business hours and I can't take care of since I work an hour away from where I live.  But today was a rare mindless day off.  I got to sleep in, enjoy a morning movie (thank you John Cena), wander around Michaels and the Dollar Store (without Daniel asking if I was done yet lol), and I even got to go look at some houses with our realtor!

Our house hunt continues, as the house we previously put in a bid on (it was a foreclosure) was out bid.  I was sad for a little bit, but I felt very much at peace with losing that house.  As soon as I heard we were outbid (we had time to increase our bid if we'd wanted to), I knew that wasn't the house for us.  So it felt really good today to get back out house hunting, and it felt really encouraging to find not just one but three homes that would be good fits for us.  So hopefully Daniel will be able to go see them Saturday and we can move forward.

And in the mean time, I continue to search for fun baby shower ideas for the shower I'm planning for June.  I had no idea that planning a baby shower could be so much fun! :)

But for now, I get to enjoy some rare couch time and hope that I can convince Daniel into going for a burger for dinner :)

New Financial Focus

You know what feels really good? Having one of our frequent budget meetings (we don't quite follow Dave Ramsey's suggestion to have one every month, but we have a budget meeting about every three months it seems) and being able to shift our financial focus.

Our first focus was two fold: paying down our credit card debt while building up 3 months of expenses in savings. Daniel's is officially paid off and mine is at it's lowest balance since my junior year of undergraduate college.  That feels REALLY good!  It isn't totally paid off, but it will be in the next four months! :) :) :) :) :) Annnnd we got our three months of expenses in savings (albeit this doesn't include a rent/mortgage payment because we don't have that expense right now).

Our second focus was to start saving for retirement.  This entailed many financial planning meetings (we went to a professional for this one!), lots of discussion, lots of reading on my part (I was woefully uneducated about investments and life insurance), and realigning our budget.  This was the first "big money bill" as a married couple that we had to add to our budget.  This took quite a bit of adjustment, particularly on my part!  But we finally figured this out and have settled into a routine where this "bill" no longer scares us nor do we freak out about making sure our bank account can accommodate this bill, because we know we have the money in the bank.

So now it was time to shift our focus for a third time in seven months of marriage (man we've made some great financial progress already!). Time to start getting used to having a mortgage payment.  We don't own a home yet, but we felt it was a good idea to get used to having an even BIGGER bill that we'd have to pay every month. And until we own a home, this money just goes straight into savings.  So we're seriously boosting our savings account while getting accustomed to an over-inflated mortgage payment (we chose to pay more than what we expect to actually pay for a mortgage so that the actual mortgage is less frightening and easier for us to meet emotionally).  I'm pretty stoked about this!  We'll build up three months of mortgage emergency fund money, and then we'll begin saving up for any necessary home renovation projects for whatever home we end up buying.

It felt really good to sit down with our budget and be able to make our money work for us, to be able to shift our financial focus once again.  It feels good to know that we CAN handle a mortgage while living comfortably (albeit with a budget that has zero room for errors).  It feels good to be in control of our money instead of our money ruling us.  And it definitely feels good to know that my husband and I are on the same page with the same plan of action!

Budgeting works folks.  Get on the same page with your partner.  Talk about it.  Set goals.  Work your ass off. And meet your goals!  Because YOU CAN!

Am I a Conservative or a Feminist??

Daniel and I are beginning the process of finding our first home, and we are so far enjoying the process.  There has been, of course, quite a bit of information, contracts, and legal jargon to digest.  And in some cases sign.  

I am all for the Biblical definition of marriage -- where the man is the head of the house and leads his wife and family.  LOVE it.  I understand its importance and that this traditional/Biblical view still influences business, society, and culture today (granted maybe not as much as it should in some instances).

But ever since I've gotten married, I have discovered that my signature (and thus my value as a member of the partnership) is "less than."  I am either signing second on everything or not signing at all.  And this is really bothering me.

It's bothering me that my husband is deemed more valuable than I by business.  It is bothering me that he has more say and more respect than I do.

Why do I always have to sign second?

Why am I relegated to cooking all the meals, grocery shopping every week, and cleaning the house while my husband's only responsibilities are taking out the trash (which he has to be reminded to do; and even then he ignored the giant pile of boxes on his week long vacation) and fixing things (that light bulb is still waiting after three weeks)?

I am struggling to accept the Biblical definition of gender roles in this case. I am struggling to accept my "place" as a wife -- as second.  And when I expressed these issues to Daniel, he responded by saying "I think you are more important than keeping the kitchen clean, the dinners cooked, and the bedroom clean."  Wow... Really??????  That's the automatic role that you put me in? Of course it is.  He had a week of vacation and cleaned the dishes once, never cooked dinner, never made the bed, never vacuumed, and didn't even bother to go grocery shopping (in fact complained that he didn't have any food to eat).

How to I reconcile my Biblical beliefs with my frustrations of being "boxed in" and feeling limited?