Some Updates

I have been pretty bad about posting regularly to this thing. Mike has been way more diligent and I feel compelled to attempt to keep up with him. So here's a little bit of what I've been up to lately. I should probably write about some of the traveling we did between May and September, but I'll save that for a later day.

September has quite simply flown by. It seems like yesterday we were counting down the days til vacation and Pat & Brittany's wedding in the middle of the month. Shortly after the wedding, a fellow Gettysburg frisbee alumnus joined us in Portland and we've started hanging out. It's been a totally refreshing experience and Mike and I are really excited to have a friend in town, pathetic as that sounds. Mike started classes today, and now it's practically October.

This Friday and Saturday is Reunion Weekend at the school where I work. As the only staff member responsible for Alumni Relations, this event is basically entirely up to me to plan. When I think about what that would have meant at Mercersburg, it's kind of daunting. At my current school, however, it's a much smaller-scale event and a bit less intimidating. In many ways, though, that has actually made it much more stressful. I'm nervous about how the weekend will actually go and what will happen in the aftermath. There are approximately a million things I would do differently next year - would have done this year, if I had the time. Hopefully things will go as well as they can and then next year can be great.

Sunday morning, I fly out to Chicago for the AASP conference, which will be a good chance for me to create/improve some structure and process for the work I do. Although it stinks that it's right after Reunion Weekend, I think the timing is otherwise perfect. I've been on the job just long enough to be able to think critically during the sessions and get a lot of use out of them. I'm happy to be staying with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend for the duration of my stay, and I should get to see the parents-in-law, too. It will be a good visit, but bizarre without Mike there.

So, lots of new things and experiences and stressors, but life is pretty good overall. I've come to believe that, when done correctly, marriage is an exercise in perfect happiness. Whether it's talking for hours about everything and nothing, battling gigantic moths in the middle of the night (perhaps more on that later), a welcome-home kiss or just cooking dinner, it's heaven. I can't believe how ridiculously lucky I am.

More later, maybe!

The Joys of Budgeting

I'm pretty sure no one likes budgets, and certainly no one who is married likes budgets. When you're single, it's a fairly simple thing to look at your paycheck, decide not to leave your house aside from commuting to work, and emerge from your fortress of solvency when you feel better about the balance on your checking account. When living with my parents, making a decent salary and having almost no expenses, I did enjoy opening Quicken and seeing how much I was saving. It felt a bit like playing a video game and I was leveling up. Of course, I was saving this money for when we got married and moved to Portland -- the very thing that would make me dread my formerly beloved hobby of opening Quicken on a daily basis.

When you're married, re-evaluating a budget feels like telling your spouse you don't want them to have any happiness, ever. Phrases like "if you want to play soccer this fall, we probably shouldn't see your favorite band this month" start to come up. You feel like the Auschwitz doctor who made Sophie choose between her children. Not that your spouse is telling you that you should feel that way, it's just an entirely different thing to ask the one you love to give something up.

So, we just finished outlining our monthly budget. There's a good chance it will completely change on Tuesday as we hope for a positive outcome from Mike's job interview, but in the meantime we have a plan for the rest of the month. We're doing fine, but this stuff is never fun.