It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Posts tagged Bryan
Fifteen Years
5April 13, 2011
by Abby
in I have a husband
Happy anniversary to us! No adorable pictures because our first born babies aren’t awake yet to help me undo whatever muck-up I did to our scanner the last time I used it. The kids these days say, “Pics or it didn’t happen!” but I know for sure these last 15 years did happen. They happened and they rocked so hard! So hard that my body and soul are pretty much ruined. But we both still have our sense of humor! Good damn thing. The next 15 years are going to be even more rockin’, in part because our kids can wipe their own butts now and we can sit around and reminisce about butt-wiping and pretend that we miss those days. And then we can laugh and laugh because, while those days are lovely to think about, we both know that those were some deep trenches we were in and we’re lucky we got out alive. I’m glad to share those memories with you. I’m glad to have this family we created together. I’m glad the five of us can sit on the couch and watch Conan together. I’m glad you’re my best friend. I’m glad I’m the mother of most of your children. I’m just plain glad to have you in my life as my husband and father of most of my children.
The next 15 years are going to fly by, I know. And there will be brand-new trenches as we watch our kids navigate adulthood and we’ll mournfully wish, for their sake, that they were babies again. For now, though, I know how lucky we are to be in this moment right here. We have the best of everything in this little family.
We Thought it Would be Worth it
15July 12, 2010
by Abby
in I do stuff to my house
Yes, it’s a great house. Yes, it’s in a perfect location. Yes, we knew it would be tight for a while. We thought it would be worth it.
Turns out, it’s just a house.
We find this American Dream to be bullshit.
Bryan and I have a different American Dream. We felt it for the 4 years we spent renting when we moved to Columbus, and we thought something was wrong with us because we enjoyed renting so much. We figured we had PTSD from our first home-ownership and renovation experience, but now we are embracing our renter nature.
We don’t want to pay this kind of money (or any kind of money) for just a house. We want disposable income. We want to visit our family in Michigan and take a real family vacation. We want to take the kids wherever they want to go. Right now, this means Comic-Con and The American Girl store and to little cabins on Lake Michigan and Tawas Bay. We want to take them wherever else they want to go. We want to go away for the weekend, just us two. We want to be tourists in our own city and anywhere else we feel like it. We don’t want to buy mulch. We don’t want to buy carpet. We don’t want to put in another new bathroom. We don’t want to spend the weekend in the yard. We don’t want to pull weeds. We don’t want to plant flowers. We don’t want to fix doorknobs. We don’t want to buy prettier doors. We don’t want to seal the asphalt. We don’t want to buy paint. We don’t want to go to the hardware store. We don’t want to buy more stuff to fill up this house. We don’t want to spend any mental or physical or financial energy on just a house. We don’t want to be in debt. We don’t want to keep up with the Joneses. And anyway, we suspect that the Joneses have at least 1 credit card that they will never be able to pay off. We don’t want that.
We want to do stuff, not buy stuff.
Except for consumables. I love to buy consumables. I want to go out to eat so much that I get sick of it. Also? I like to buy beer WHENEVER I WANT. I’m out of beer much more often than I care to be and that is not cool. And I think it’s extra important to have an unlimited beer supply when you have a mortgage that prevents you from doing the things you want to do with your life. You can see how owning this house is a lose-lose situation.
We’re not house people anymore and I blame HGTV for making us think we’re supposed to be house people. I’m totally deleting that channel off of my tv and I’m only ever going to watch the Food Network and the Travel Channel when I’m in the mood for reality tv. And then we’re going to follow Man V. Food around just for fun because that dude’s life looks AWESOME.
Yes, moving sucks b@lls, but owning a house sucks b@lls dipped in poop, and we are just not into that.
Oh, and the children? I was worried about telling the children because, after all, children are usually the reason people buy awesome houses in great locations, so I thought this house meant something more to them, but when they heard the plan, Liberty said, “Good, I’m bored of this house anyway!” and Lena and Maya agreed. One of the things HGTV told me was that kids need their own space to decorate however they want. They didn’t tell me that once the space is decorated, the kid will want to change it within a month, which is exactly what happened here. I laughed and laughed and laughed when first Liberty, then Lena asked me to re-paint her room. Now I know better. And all of the kids know exactly what they’ve given up in order to live in this house. It’s not worth it to them, either.
Fourteen Years
16April 13, 2010
by Abby
in I have a husband
Well of course we were in love back then, look how bright and shiny we were! That’s actually a prom picture from 17 years ago, but you get the idea.
Over the years, we’ve grown considerably less bright and shiny:
Lena's first morning at home
Liberty wearing me out
First peek at Maya
Bryan, you’re awesome and I love you, and you’ll always be bright and shiny to me. Happy 14th!
Spring is Stupid
5April 12, 2010
April is busy for me what with pondering spring with its new beginnings, and staring at a giant bunny in my yard. This bunny leaves the most gigantic piles of bunny turds out there, right where she’s eating. My yard must be extremely high in fiber because I just can’t believe it. I’m going to take a picture. Then you’ll be sorry.
Our anniversary is tomorrow. Fourteen years, suckas! And you thought it wouldn’t last. I don’t know what it means that every year around this time Bryan asks, “How long were your parents married?” I hope I don’t find out that he had a secret bet with my dad and after our 19th anniversary, he’s going to call my dad and be like, “HA! I stayed married to one longer than you did. Pay up.” That would suck.
And Lena and Liberty turn 11 on Saturday. I haven’t even ruined them yet. Probably. April does sometimes kick me in the gut with the years-old fear that I had when things started to go downhill in my pregnancy and then Liberty’s surgery and recovery. I really have to tell myself that everything is fine and they’re both healthy and I’m not trapped inside a hospital while spring happens outside. I can eat whatever I want, not hospital food. And Liberty can breathe right on her very own. And I can see them both every single day instead of being too out of it and hemorrhage-y. I feel like I should get over it already, but it’s like body memory and when I look out the window at the sunshine and new leaves, I’m right back in that hospital looking out the window, watching spring happen, worrying, praying, crying, worrying, praying, crying.
Anyway, spring is stupid. Give me summer. Everything turned awesome that summer. Cute little onesies and babies who lived with me instead of at the hospital. And we’d put them in their little matching outfits and make them hug each other. And they liked it!
It’s March
12March 1, 2010
by Abby
in I have a husband
I’m so glad it’s March. I’m not even bothered by the huge piles of melty, dirty snow out there. I’m not, because it’s March! And spring is almost here! And I get to go grocery shopping tomorrow! And I get to use Bryan’s fancy pants Excel spreadsheet with a pivot table or something like that so my inputted (is that a word?) recipes spit out an accurate grocery list, unlike the inaccurate grocery lists I usually take to the store.
This new grocery list thing is a big deal because I plan my menu for the whole month and shop for the whole month in one shot, only going back to the store for a quick weekly trip for produce and other perishables. When the grocery list is long enough to include the fixin’s for a month’s worth of meals, some things get left out, which drives me insane. When multiple recipes share certain ingredients, I used to have to tally them up very carefully, which took forever. Tallying and I don’t get along. I get bored with it and then I make mistakes and double tally one thing while forgetting to tally another and it’s just a huge headache and makes me want to write, “pizza, Chinese, pizza, fish fry, pizza…” on the month’s menu.
Enter my husband, the Overlord of Organization, the Sultan of Symmetry, the Rajah of Regulation, the King of Configuration and all-around great guy, Bryan “The Spreadsheet Whisperer” Aldrich! (And the crowd goes wild!) I told him what drove me crazy about the stupid grocery list and he made the crazy go away, just like Thorazine. And then I asked him to marry me all over again. He’s thinking about it.
