month 1

I moved to Wheaton a month ago yesterday. Would you like to know how my life has changed? Of course you would. Why else would you read this blog.

I now sit only on black leather. My (almost) husband can't get enough of black leather and he outfits most of his seating arrangements in the stuff. Couch, car seats, office chairs. It's all black leather. And it also happens to be summer right now, so I have grown quite used to peeling myself off of every surface in which I sit.

This leads me to the other thing that's my new thing, because I wouldn't need to do any peeling if I weren't wearing shorts. I have been a shorts-hater since high school in Florida. Shorts were practically my only option for surviving life and I loathed baring my short stubby legs which I inherited from my mother which she inherited from her grandmother. I wanted the legs my sister proudly walked on because her growth spurted by more than a foot in less than a year during her unforgivably un-awkward awkward stage. I just knew I would get a growth spurt too someday and have beautifully long legs, but then when I was 14 the orthodontist smacked my x-rays on the lightbox and happily announced that I had finished growing. I wanted to cry. And since then, I have never worn shorts.
Tim had a problem with this. He would start sympathy sweating the moment I arrived at his house wearing jeans on a 90+ degree day and cry "ENOUGH! WITH! THE! PANTS! It's summer!!" I would then inform him that there was a reason I moved away from Florida to the snow-packed midwest one January many moons ago, and that reason had much to do with my hate for shorts. And bathing suits. We all know what happens to me with the bathing suits.
But even I had to admit that I was really uncomfortable, and one day when I went on a post-office run I noticed that Old Navy lived across the parking lot. So I went. And I bought shorts. And Tim assures me all the time that he is not ashamed to be seen with my legs like I am and he actually likes them. The angel. So now I own two pairs of shorts and do laundry every other day so I can keep wearing them all the time. That was a lie. Of course I don't do laundry that often. You don't either.

Thing # 3: I'm drinking soda again. Goshdarnit, Tim, why'd you have to do this to me? One tiny sip of his Dr. Pepper one day and I was hooked again. I've been drinking diet...but still. I have to kill that one.

And this one is only temporary I PROMISE because the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch is almost gone. I will not keep eating it. I can't keep eating it because I just have to eat it all until it's totally gone and then I won't ever eat sugary cereal again, Mom, because it won't exist in Tim's house. His guest from last month bought it and left nearly the whole box and it just calls my name from the pantry every day. It even uses my middle name. Bethany Lennnnnn...I'm waiting for you...please come pick me up! Like a sad little baby or something. One more bowl and it will all be over. Really.

Also, Tim and I are farting around each other now. So there's some great news. At first I was only farting the non-smelly farts around him, you know, because I'm a lady and I don't poop either, but last night he caught a whiff of a really bad one and cried "Oh, babe! Gross!", which was quickly followed by: "Praise God she's human! It finally happened!"
And really, that's just love.

In other news: I have easily grown accustomed to seeings beautiful pictures every day as Tim edits on his gargantuan 24-inch computer screen right next to me. My eyes are no longer amused by sub-average photography. I am a now a picture brat.

Side note: I also really enjoy it when Tim hollers at grooms on his screen who kiss with their eyes open (the brides never do this). But if you're a client reading this, he doesn't do that to you. Promise.

Speaking of which, I've been going with Tim to shoot weddings. After he uploads the memory cards and wanders away to do something else, I sneak onto his computer and delete all of my bad pictures so he won't ever see them and think I'm a bad photographer and I hope that then he'll decide that this whole working together thing is really wonderful for his business right from the start. I had great confidence in this secret system of mine until he told me that he found a bunch of terrible pictures in his trash and went through all of them before he realized what I had been doing. Oh, the humility. Why did I not think to empty the trash too?

In the general sense of life, I am learning that I am not right all the time. I spill things and break things and fart and take bad pictures and make spelling mistake and now there is always someone with me to notice and look the other way after I've noticed that he's noticed but is pretending like he didn't because he's sweet like that.

In short: it's going unbelievably well. We are definitely catching up on lost time by spending a minimum of 13 hours together daily. We are loving each other more all the time, and we've heard that's what it's all about. So that's great.