Last month, Mike and I made it through a rather rocky couple of weeks. You see, while our garbage pick-up day is every Monday, our recyclable pick-up is only every OTHER Monday which is rather confusing. Well, add a holiday to that Monday and who knows what is going on! So Presidents’ Day rolls around and Mike checks our area’s website and it says there will be no pick-up on Presidents’ Day. Well we were lied to because it was picked up! We were devastated. For weeks the anxiety of how full our recyclable can was getting CONSUMED us. Would we make it to the next recyclable pick-up day? Would we run out of room in our recyclables can? The two of us drink lots of fluids-Propel, Body Armor, Diet Coke, Sprite, Coors Lite, Twisted Tea, etc. Our recyclables add up quickly! Every night at dinner one of us would bring up how we couldn’t wait until the recyclables can was picked up. We also discussed what we might do if we ran out of room in the recyclables can. Our plan was to of course just throw our recyclables in the regular garbage, which I didn’t feel great about, but we are also lazy so it wasn’t like we were going to make any extra effort doing anything else. I asked Mike if it came to that if he’d “take care of it” because I “didn’t want to know if what I was recycling was actually ending up in the trash” and he promised he would. “Don’t worry Kath,” Mike said “I’ll take this one on so your place in Heaven is still safe.” “Thanks, Mike,” I said. “I appreciate it because you know I’ll be so busy trying to talk St. Peter into letting you in with me at the gates of Heaven that I really don’t think I’ll have time to address this.” Well, I really don’t know how it worked out but all I know is that Mike put out a very full recyclables can AND garbage can on Recyclables/garbage Monday. It was a difficult few weeks for both of us, we almost had to cut back on our drinking habits, but like we always do, we leaned on each other for support and together we made it through. Since then we have NEVER taken a recyclables day for granted ever again.

Before our wedding day(s) people often asked us, “How are wedding plans going?” Now that we are newlyweds, the question we always get asked is: “How’s married life?” Well, Old Man Montag may give a different answer but so far I am really enjoying married life. NO PARENTS, NO RULES!! YEAHHH! Just kidding we have rules. Like Sundays are our day we ALWAYS get fries. So far the first year of marriage has been an eventful one. Well, honestly we’ve watched a lot of TV, but we’ve also done a bit of traveling…

We’ve completed a lot of home projects, babysat a few times for my nieces and nephews, dog-sat and even fish-sat. I mean we had so many animals at our house I was beginning to feel like Saint Francis of Assisi. And add in the dog and fish and the place is a petting zoo!

Married life has been filled with a lot of firsts. We had our first Christmas as a married couple:

We finally started acting like real adults and started using our nice dishes for the first time ever:

Married life has been filled with lots of learning:

And a lot of “adjustments” or compromising…

But I think it’s the day to day small things that I have enjoyed the most. One thing Mike and I usually do together each morning is watch the news before we leave for our day. Usually since I am up WAY before Mike, I get to the remote first to turn the news on. But a few weeks ago, on this particular day, Mike somehow got the remote before me. I walked into the TV room to see him at his spot on the couch, drinking his smoothie with the CBS morning news on, NOT NBC which I usually have on. “Oh… You have the CBS News on today, huh?” I said, not even trying to hide my clear distaste. “What’s wrong with CBS?” Mike asked. “Nothing,” I said. “I just prefer to watch ‘The Today Show’ in the morning. It gives me the news but with a little more pizzaz! I get my facts but I also get my pop culture and my morning boost with Hoda, which I appreciate. CBS is too boring, it’s just like, ‘Here’s your depressing, boring news America. Womp, Womp.’ And that’s it.” “Hey! I LIKE CBS news in the morning exactly for that reason! I just want the news and no other stupid stuff!” Mike said defensively. “Yes, Mike” I replied softly, “You like it because CBS morning news is the OLD MAN NEWS. So this is why you are drawn to it. I’ll watch it with you for a bit but we are going to have to take turns with our news in the morning because I feel like I am watching an excel spreadsheet.” As I watched the morning old man news I decided to grab a banana and bit into it. Which led into one of me and Mike’s typical produce conversations:

Me: Oh sick! There are so many strings on this banana! Have you noticed how stringy these bananas are? I feel like I am eating the peel with the banana there are legit so many strings on these bananas we recently got!
Mike: Honestly I only eat them in my smoothies so I haven’t noticed the amount of strings on them.
Me: I had one the other day and it was SUPER stringy but I thought maybe it was just one bad banana and I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but I think they are all like this! Ugh gross! I can’t stand the texture! I don’t think I can eat these! Shoot do you think we accidentally bought organic? You know how I feel about organic things!
Mike: Oh, yup. I know!

Mike knows I do not believe in buying organic. Give me the pesticides is my motto! I am not paying extra for organic. Once I was done having a break down over the bananas, we moved on to talking about apples. I recently tried buying a new apple called a Cosmic Crisp type apple and both of us were blown away! Honestly it was a happy accident-I wanted to buy Honey Crisp but when I saw the price of them I wasn’t ready to take out a second mortgage on our house just yet so my fall back was coming home with the Cosmic Crisp apples, which were on sale, and wow were they delicious.

When it comes to doing the grocery shopping, Mike and I try to take turns, depending on what our schedule is for the week. Mike is actually pretty good about volunteering to go to the store, which I very much appreciate, but I also think he does this to prevent me from buying in bulk. When I shop, I buy the LARGEST container of something I can find. Mike HATES this. I absolutely love going to COSTCO and Sam’s club to stock up on things. I could spend my whole day at those amazing places. I am not sure why I get such pure joy out of buying in bulk. Is it the savings? I often ask myself. The fact that I won’t have to buy ketchup for the next three years? Whatever it is, it makes me happy, so I keep doing it. On my recent Sam’s club shop last week, I bought both a large canister of Folger’s coffee and a large canister of Dunkin coffee. As we were carrying items in, Mike was confused by all the coffee, seeing as I am the only coffee drinker in our household. “Why did you buy two things of coffee, Kath? He asked, “Are we hosting a brunch or something?” I smiled excitedly and said, “Oh, no, no, no! I needed more of my daily Folgers coffee but I also got myself some Dunkin ‘treat yourself coffee’ as well!” I stood there smiling, clearly very pleased. Mike was still confused. “But I thought your ‘treat yourself coffee’ was when you go get yourself a Dunkin coffee, at Dunkin?” he said. “Oh, no. That’s a ‘treat-treat’ coffee.” I replied. “This coffee is just a ‘treat’ coffee to make my mornings a little brighter.” I was still smiling. Mike laughed “Well that makes a lot of sense,” he said sarcastically. “Hey!” I replied, “Treat yourself coffee makes me happy and I think I deserve to be happy!”

Mike and I both try to prep dinners too. Mike is great about cooking when he can, but if you ask me, I do feel like since being married I have spent A LOT more of my time doing things like cleaning chicken, freezing chicken, then unfreezing it, chopping up vegetables etc. Two things I hate the most: Cooking…and putting pillows in pillowcases. I just don’t think you get your return on investment when it comes to cooking. You spend HOURS making something and then it’s eaten in about 30 seconds. I’d rather spend my day doing something else. Like buying bulk items or something, I don’t know. And putting pillows in pillowcases, not sure why I have such trouble doing this but I feel like I have to wrestle the pillow into the pillowcase every single time. I don’t know what I am doing wrong but it’s exhausting and I hate it.

Before our wedding day, Mike and I mostly talked about and did things relating to our wedding. Now that our wedding day is over, I’d say most of our daily conversations revolve around two main things: The dishwasher and the lawn. Our dishwasher’s schedule is really the big topic of conversation between the two of us. You see, Mike and I are still learning to blend our dishwasher morals and beliefs at this stage of our marriage. Mike is big on hand washing dishes, he also likes to pack the dishwasher to the brim, only running it when absolutely necessary. He doesn’t really rinse his dishes either but leaves food particles on them and just sticks it right in that dishwasher. I, on the other hand, try to avoid hand washing dishes AT ALL COSTS. I don’t care if I need to run that dishwasher five times in a day-I believe anything is dishwasher safe if you set your mind to it. BUT I rinse off my dishes before putting them in, I’m not an animal. I put no thought into to how I put dishes in the dishwasher, I just shove them in there, unlike Mike, who is very methodical about it. It’s like a game of Tetris for him. The only thing I am particular about is I like the silverware to be placed up in the silverware basket. I just feel it gets cleaner this way. Since being married Mike has adjusted his utensil dishwasher placement to this for me which I appreciate. The other day he was in the kitchen (where he belongs am I right ladies? Just kidding) and I suddenly heard him yell out “Ouch!” “Are you ok?!” I said as I went into the kitchen to see what the commotion was about. “What happened?” “Yea,” he said. “I was loading the dishes and I poked myself on one of the knives that’s facing upright in the basket!” I looked at him like he was crazy. “Well why are you putting the knives up like that in the dishwasher?! Sheesh! That’s so dangerous!” I said in disbelief. “I thought that’s how you wanted the dishwasher loaded!” He said back, “Silverware up!” I laughed and said back, “Well obvi I meant spoons and forks but not knives, silly! I’m not a psychopath, I don’t want anyone to get hurt here!” Mike rolled his eyes. “How was I supposed to know!” He said back defensively. “I mean, Mike, I am a little worried that you didn’t know. One of us could have gotten hurt the way you’ve been loading those sharp knives in the dishwasher!” I said. “I JUST DID GET HURT!” Mike replied. But both of us can agree, that there is no worse feeling than meaning to start the dishwasher before going to bed and waking up and realizing we forgot. So many mornings we will wake up and one of us will open the dishwasher and say “OH MY GOD! NO! WE FORGOT TO START THE DISHWASHER LAST NIGHT!” It is an awful way to start the day. Which is EXACTLY why I buy myself ‘treat yourself coffee’ to have on hand for myself for sad times like these.

When it comes to our second main topic, the lawn, I take on more of the role of “the listener” for this one while Mike does the talking about the lawn. Mike’s likes to talk about all different aspects of caring for the lawn with me, to which I just nod along. In the summer he likes to let me know about his watering schedule for the lawn and where and when he plans to move the sprinkler. In the fall he lets out his frustrations to me about how he just raked and now there are new leaves all over the lawn because “they just won’t stop coming down.” “Mike, I’m sorry,” I say sympathetically, “But we live across the street from a forest. We are going to have leaves on our lawn.” In the winter he tells me about his future plans to seed the lawn when the weather gets warmer. And in the Spring when we go on walks together we admire other people’s nice lawns and wonder what they are doing that we aren’t.

When it came to making various decisions for our wedding, it wasn’t always easy. Mike and I sometimes have differences in tastes and opinions. But for some reason picking our first dance song was a quick and easy one for us. We both wanted the song “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison. It’s our favorite. Not sure exactly what Van meant in the song but I always interpreted “into the mystic” as kind of “going into life” or starting life. One of the last lines of the song is “And together we will float into the mystic.” So, I guess to sum up and answer the question, “how’s married life?” It’s been great. We are learning, laughing and really just enjoying together floating on into the mystic.