Expanding the Family Dynamic

Amanda and I are almost done having kids. No, we don’t have a back-room sweatshop of little rugrats running around making us shoes and necklaces, nor have either of us actually reproduced yet, but we do have our brood of furry babies. Allow me to introduce you to them:

Pepper Anne

The eldest of the bunch (~4 years old), Amanda found our first kid running down the side of a back country road. She’s a Australian Cattle Dog mix (mixed with what exactly, we’ve never found out, but I’m guessing she’s part angel).


One of the smartest dogs I’ve ever been in contact with, Pepper loves chasing balls until she passes out, taking dad’s spot on the bed when he wakes up for work, and licking anything and anyone.

Izzykins Destroyer of Worlds

Cute, ain’t she? When we found her at our first apartment we lived in together, she was shivering outside mewing for her ma. I originally said “no”, but the damn thing had to go and sleep on my chest after I got home from work, and we ended up keeping her. Izzy started off well enough, but then she noticed she had these little sharp things on the end of her paws, and boy do we like putting them into mommy and daddy!

This little ball of fury is very independent, only allows you to pet her when she deems you worthy, and is generally the terror of the house; although when she gets in the loving mood she will NOT be denied.

Josie (a.k.a “JoJo”, a.k.a. “Tons of Fun”)

Oh Jo, you’re such the sweetie that Izzy could never be, and you’re also 3 times the cat Izzy is (and we’re talking square footage here). If you ever need some cuddling or nonstop purr action, this is the go-to furrball, just don’t let her step on you.

She’s not fat, just really big, and it feels like she carries all 13 pounds of her in her feet. We picked up this princess in an animal shelter in Lexington, KY., and she ended up helping to mellow Izzy out, so we’re happy with this addition.





So these are our 3 kids, and we couldn’t be happier with them. But you might’ve noticed a bit of a theme here. That’s right, they’re all female, and if you count Amanda, that makes it 4 females against 1 male in the house. Not really fair for the Y-chromosomes, if you ask me.

Ever since Amanda and I have been together, we’ve always said that we wanted 4 animals, 2 dogs and 2 cats, no more, no less. So with our recent nuptials we’ve decided to make our family whole (non-human, of course). And since Pepper was always Amanda’s girl, we decided that I get to pick out my little man. After many months of narrowing down some breeds and researching, allow me to be the first to introduce you to my buddy,

Murphy Einstein

Murphy was born on June 6th. He’s a pembroke welsh corgi, and the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen, although I may be a smidgen biased. We won’t pick him up until we’re settled in our new house, but we’re hoping he’ll be the pal for Pepper that she’s always needed.

NOM NOM NOM!!!

So our family is almost complete. I know that 4 animals seems like a lot, and most of our friends have 1 or 2 animals at the most, but I’m pretty happy with our kids. Yeah, they need taking care of and cost a little bit of money to keep fed and happy, but they make us so happy that it’s an easy tradeoff.

A rare Saturday post

I'm posting on Saturday because Andy and I need everyone your good vibes. We have some big exciting stuff going on in our lives right now and we need you all to pray, send us some good vibes, cross your fingers, light a candle, whatever method you prefer, we need it. I promise to update you as soon as we hear anything but for now I don't want to get ahead of myself. So wish us luck! I should be able to post a little more next week!

Where to start...

Wow, so it's been a little while. Sorry we fell off the face of the Earth for a while but it was for good reason. I'm just going to be honest with you all, Andy and I hit our first bump as newlyweds about a week ago. Not having a job has taken a toll on my self-esteem lately. Being jobless wasn't a big problem until after the wedding, when I didn't have anything to focus my energy on besides job hunting. When that's pretty much all there was for me to do in the day, so a lot of my focus went towards Andy and that wasn't good. I wasn't focusing on myself enough and I was starting to resent him for a lot of things, even though these things were in no way his fault. I resented the fact that he had a job, something to fill up his day, I resented the fact that I took on the burden of the tedious house work because it was all I could do to help out, I resented him for the weight I have gained, for the fact that no matter how hard I tried I wasn't getting any interviews. None of these things are his fault, but being unemployed has really taken it's toll on me. I was nit picking everything he did and said, trying to cause a fight because I was so angry with myself and the world. I didn't know any of this until one day last week when a major blow out occured.

Suddenly it all came spilling out, how I felt worthless, felt angry, and most of all how bitter I felt. It took a few days to really work through everything I was feeling with him but I am happy to report we are back on track and being disgusting newlyweds again. I'm working on the employment situation and our plan to move to Columbus is moving (pardon the pun) rather quickly, like we could be living there in two weeks quickly, but that's a post for another day.  I'm also working on some goals for myself. Like the C25K program (anyone else put on the newlywed nine and want to start this with me?), eating healthier, and finding ways to use my crafty-ness. I'm getting along better and feeling a lot better about myself and I realize that I am so extremely lucky to have a husband who is so supportive and understanding.

Has anyone else had their first bump as newlyweds?

Feeling Different and Electrolove Fields

“So Andy, how different does it feel to be married?”

I’ve heard this question probably close to 40 times so far during the 2 months that we’ve been married, I really wish I was kidding. Is this seriously the go-to question for people dying to be in the know? Not “How was the wedding?” or “How was the honeymoon (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, eh gov'na)?” or “What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?”, but how different does it feel to be married??

This specific question bothers me; partly due to the frequency this question is asked, but also due to people apparently thinking that getting married was going to be an earth-shattering experience for me. Evidently the sky was supposed to split open, the clouds would part, and Reese cups were supposed to rain from the heavens (which would be ridiculously awesome). Or just by putting a ring on my our hands we were supposed to be so much more in love, like the rings created some sort of Faraday-esque induction field that drew blood into our hearts and made them go “pitterpat” that much quicker.

Fig 1.4 Electrolove Field XOXO

Here’s a little secret for you: simply the sight of my wife, my lover, my best friend causes my heart to beat faster than any other artificial means possible. I don’t need any ceremony to influence my feelings, I don’t need a tungsten carbide ring (tho it does make me look uber-manly!). All I need is Amanda smiling at me and it makes me feel all mushy inside. Don’t get me wrong; I love being married. I wouldn’t take back anything that’s happened this year, and I wouldn’t want to change anything. I love being able to call her my wife, and I equally love being a husband.

So how different does it feel to be married? Not really any different, and I think that’s the point. Sure, our living arrangements would have been drastically different had we not lived together before the wedding, but I can't see how my feelings toward her would've changed.  I loved my fiance with everything I had before we were married, and I love my wife with just as much devotion now. I wake up next to her every day and she is even lovelier, more beautiful, and I’m so thankful that I get one more day with her. I love her because she loves me, not because “she put a ring on it” (though it certainly doesn’t hurt).

A new hat

I have worn many hats in my life; first I was a daughter (and granddaughter), then a sister, soon after a friend, eventually I became a student, a team mate, a captain, a girlfriend, a fiancee, a blogger, a bride, and most recently a wife. Today I added another hat to my list and I became an Aunt and Andy became an Uncle! Andy's wonderful brother and sister-in-law (really she's more like an older sister to me) had their beautiful baby this morning. Congrats both of you! I'm so happy and excited for them and I can't wait to meet their little one this weekend (and of course get some pictures of that adorableness!). 

To add to that excitment, Andy and I got married two months ago today! I can't believe it, it's really flown by quickly. Speaking of Andy (nice segway, huh?), he will be blogging for his first (and hopefully not last) time tomorrow. I have no idea what he's writing about so it should be interesting.

Have a great day everyone!

The Big Reveal

So when I last left off I left all of you in suspense of where our final destination would be. I have been debating all weekend on how to write this post. Should I reveal the big decison first and then follow up with reasons why the other locations were a no? Should I do the opposite, lay out the reasons for not choosing a place then lay the final reveal? My blog hasn't been going for that long but I bet you can guess what way I decided on, yep I am a big fan of suspense. Now I realize there is no way of me stopping you from scrolling through the boring bits and looking at our decision but I'm hoping that you don't do that.

So you ready for this? Good. Let's go.

First to get the Axe:

Yes, the beautiful Pacfic North West is a no. Oh how beautiful it is, and so far, so very far away. We just couldn't bear to be that far away from our families and friends. One of the things we wanted was to be sure of was that we could fly home easily and for a half-way decent price when we wanted to and if there were ever an emergency and we needed to get home, flying would cost a fortune and driving would take days.

Second to get the axe:

M-I-C-see ya real soon- K-E-Y: Why, because we like you! That's exactly why we chose not to live here. Orlando holds this kind of magical appeal for us, it's the little flutter and the feeling of being five years old again every time I fly into Orlando. I wasn't willing to give up that feeling. We currently live an hour from one of America's top amusement parks (heard of Cedar Point anyone?) and we are so blase about it. It's like big deal, we can go there whenever. I don't ever want to feel that way about Disney World.

Next to get the axe (sort of):

Columbus, OH

Which means the winner is:

                                   

Raleigh, NC

Now it gets complicated, I've told you two places that we are for sure not moving to in the foreseeable future. It says that we aren't going to Columbus, and that Raleigh is our final destination but that's not entirely true. In truth we are moving to both. I can see you reading this going Whaa??? but hear me out. Right now a move to NC isn't feasible, we would like to have a few months of savings built up so we can move down, get settled and then look for jobs. So for now, we are moving to Columbus where I have a larger market to look for a job. We'll stay there for a year or so, working our butts off to save up and pay off some student loans. During our time there I can get prepared for graduate school, take my GRE, get my letters of recomendations in order, so on and so forth.

So why not Columbus? While we love our families, that is really the only reason to move to Columbus. It's a great place really and we do like it there but we would like to live somewhere other than Ohio and since we aren't having kids for a while it makes sense to do something like this now. Maybe when our family starts to grow a little more we'll consider this place as a long term potential.

And why Raleigh? It's got the best of everything for both of us: near the ocean and mountains, easy access to weekend getaways, good job market, can easily fly or drive home, and a great graduate program at UNC. I'm so excited about this, I think that we made a great first big decision as newlyweds and we did a great job doing it!

Whatcha think of our plans?

Happy Friday!

Sorry folks, you have to wait until Monday to hear how our moving debacle turns out. Right now I should be in the shower or packing my bags but I thought I would at least post a few lines for ya before I take off. Not enough for you? Fine, you win, here's a wedding picture for you to drool over (or do only I do that?).