Happy New Year

© Epic Image Photography

Happy New Year, everyone! The new year's holiday is my favorite, but this year, Big Spoon and I decided to have a quiet night at home. We've been incredibly busy since our wedding with family events, our honeymoon, business travel and work deadlines. This was our third New Year's eve together, but 2011 will be our first full year of married life. We're really looking forward to seeing what it holds for us.

We were so lucky in that our family, friends and co-workers surrounded us with love and support last year as we took those last steps through the engagement journey and into our marriage. It's difficult to believe, but Big Spoon and I have not yet been married 3 months! 

I'm hoping that the coming weeks offer me additional time to blog about our rehearsal, wedding day and vendor reviews, but I'm making no promises. My priorities currently include organizing our home, selling off some of the wedding stuff and integrating our gifts. I'll be hosting a garage sale in the spring to help us purge unwanted items. I'm also working on setting up an Etsy store for Little Spoon Designs.

All things in good time. I hope you all had a wonderful start to the new year!

For Better or Worse

This has been a particularly bad week at the Spoon house; not necessarily for me but for everyone around me. I've been struggling all week to pull myself out of a funk while simultaneously being supportive of my ever patient and loving fiancé, who actually had a very big week (some good, some bad). I don't feel like I've been "there" enough for him amidst a ton of family situations and a week-long headache. And I'm wrecked with guilt and conflicting priorities.

Wedding plans are going fine, but in the course of two weeks, I have found myself stressed to the max. Work is stressful, Big Spoon's work is ten times more stressful and I'm still learning ways to help him and be a good daughter and friend, too. These are the things people don't tell you about before you get married ... How hard it is to go from single to fiancée to wife; that learning how to take care of yourself and still be a support system for someone else has many challenges and many rewards. I guess people don't tell you because everyone figures it out for themselves.

I'm still learning.

When things are good and easy, we’re really happy and I love those times. I've never known a more supportive, loving and understanding person than Big Spoon. Our relationship has made my life better in so many varied ways and I can't ever thank him enough for being so good to me. During tough times, it’s normal for one of us to lean on the other and to pick up the slack, but this week, we’ve both needed to lean and those are some of the hardest days. Sometimes, it takes a series of bad days to help you really appreciate what you have and see where you are falling short. I’m madly in love with Big Spoon and I hope that I continue down this path of self-discovery of learning how to love him (and me!) better, to be a good wife and a better friend.

I've been thinking a lot about him and our upcoming nuptials as well as priorities this morning, obviously. I understand now how those old vows have stood the test of time: they are just as valid today as they have ever been.

... to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health for as long as we both shall live.

I haven’t said them yet, but I already mean them with all my heart.

Music Monday: If I didn't have you...

...somebody else would do. Or so says Tim Minchin.


Blasphemy! you might say. Surely, there's something special about the person with whom you're destined to be. Your (future) spouse is unique, irreplaceable, and somehow specifically fated to be with you and only you. Or so says the myth of the soulmate.

One of the most harmful myths ever to crop up in romantic lore.

I view the notion of "soulmate" as tremendously harmful to relationships because it perpetuates the notion that somehow, there's only one person who's perfect for you. And when even minor problems crop up, it becomes clear that the relationship (and hence your theoretical soulmate) isn't perfect, so your "true" soulmate must be somewhere else. Relationship after broken relationship is left in the pursuit of the perfect person. Unfortunately, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

In reality, there are a number of people with whom you could be successfully married. Now, the vagaries of circumstance severely limit that pool of available people, and the process of dating is largely about encountering someone with whom you share compatible values, goals, and coping mechanisms.

However, the thing that makes married love feel so unique is the particular series of trials and tribulations you face together and surmount, along with the joys and triumphs you achieve. As you build a life together, you weave a story that marks your lives together, incorporating the high and low points into a narrative tapestry that (in hindsight) looks like it was fated to be constructed that way.

However, this process happens in any long-term relationship. As long as you've got someone compatible enough who you'll enjoy through the long haul and who is a good support for you, you'll eventually make your own story that feels as if it was written between soulmates.

I Love Big Spoon's Surprises

I got a dozen beautiful hot pink roses last night! I sooo love flowers ... Big Spoon has always been very cute about bringing them to me. Last night was no exception; he made up an excuse to go back to work, which was completely believable because his work schedule has been really demanding and stressful of late. While he was having dinner, I told him that I should go with him (I forgot to pick up a prescription. Whoops) and he exclaims "No! You can't go with me!" followed shortly by "it was just an excuse to go and buy you flowers!"

Of course, I felt bad about ruining the surprise, but the ruse was precious. I ran out to the pharmacy and when I got home, he followed me in with roses. 

The first time Big Spoon sent me flowers, he asked me beforehand if I would like that sort of thing. I'm not sure why, but I think he wanted to make sure that it wouldn't somehow embarrass me to get them at work (which he hand delivered the next morning). I love my Big Spoon. He is certainly a keeper.

Thankful

photo via {Agricultural Law}

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

What a short year it has been for me since last Thanksgiving! Big Spoon and I had been dating for only ONE MONTH last turkey day and it was the first time he met my family - and it was quite an overwhelming experience for him (as he is an only child).

 Among those I have to be thankful for, my immediate family includes two wonderful, loving parents, my mother's parents, an older sister, brother-in-law and their two children, my younger brother, and my younger sister and brother-in-law. That's thirteen people (including myself), folks, in one house for the holidays. Big Spoon makes fourteen. For my family and for Big Spoon, I am grateful, lucky and humbled by their love. I am especially thankful this year for my fiance and the great in-laws I will receive by the next Thanksgiving.

This might sound strange, but I am really thankful for my job; for the customers, vendors and co-workers that keep our company afloat. It is certainly not what I imagined doing after graduating design school, but there is a great deal for me to be thankful for here. My Dad lost his job in 2008 and since that time, I have been more keenly aware of the extent that the bad economy has impacted our friends and neighbors. This might be the toughest thanksgiving that many families have ever faced.

Lastly, I am thankful that we have my brother-in-law safely home from his year-long tour in Iraq. Please remember all the troops serving overseas during the holidays. They give us a great deal to be thankful for as well.