Mommy and Daddy!

I'm not a two-year-old. Since the age of about 12 I have called my parents "Mom and Dad." But seeing my parents for the first time in four months was reminiscent of the anxiety separation I experienced as a toddler: intensely anticipating the arrival of Mommy and Daddy.

My parents visited us Sunday through Thursday of this week. I had no idea how much I had missed them until about a week before their arrival, when my phone calls with Mom started to end with "see you soon." The days leading up to Sunday were filled with anxious hours of cleaning the apartment (even dusting the blades on the ceiling fan), scoping out restaurants and tourist sites to visit, plotting our route to the airport, sending Mom last-minute emails about what clothes she should pack and how she must remember not to pump her own gas or use the cell phone while driving in Oregon. Everything we could think of to make their visit an enjoyable one and, most importantly, to leave them with a positive impression of Portland.

But the second we saw them passing the security checkpoint in PDX, my nerves started to dissipate and everything felt natural again with them. Mom and I were giggling, Dad almost fell over at the end of the moving walkway ... everything was normal. We spent the week together sightseeing around town, trying new restaurants and old favorites like VooDoo Donut. While I was at work and Mike was studying for a midterm, they did some exploring of their own and have now seen more of Oregon than Mike and I have!

At Portland Meadows, the local racetrack, we caught a fabulous glimpse of Mount Hood. Although it didn't come out in any of my pictures, it would have been just to the right of the sign in the one below. Nevertheless, it's a cute picture.

Of course, the week ended much too soon. But we get to see them again in about three weeks for Thanksgiving! I can't believe the holidays are almost here, but I say that every year.

'til next time!

Say what now?

Thursday evening, I returned from what felt like a week-long absence from home. After surviving Reunion Weekend, I had immediately flown to Chicago for 5 days to attend the aforementioned conference and spend time with my wonderful in-laws.

Returning home to my husband after a long and tiring absence was an amazing feeling: reminiscent of our airport reunions in college, when we would see each other once every 60 days... yet also an infinitely happier feeling.

Returning to Portland was a decidedly different feeling. Relieved to be back to the comforts of home, to be back to a city that I'm far more familiar with than Chicago. Mike and I rode the train out to Clackamas yesterday for an interview and to see Clackamas for the first time. It's wonderfully easy to get there, and it's a nice feeling to master the public transit system and travel with confidence. But just when you think you know how everything works out, a guy reeking of acetone (or some other alcohol-smelling chemical not meant to be imbibed) steps on the train and tells you that you look like Sonny and Cher, King and Queen, and Elvis all in one breath.

Yup. Sonny and Cher.

=

?

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.