Two Years

Chris and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary 10 days ago. I should've blogged then. But for some reason, I find myself intimidated by blogging now. I don't know why! I don't have to record every breathing, living moment I have....but I think that since I was away for so long, I'm finding it hard to find the balance of catching up and moving on at the same time.

But for the moment - catch up. 2 years. Phew.

This past year of our marriage was probably the toughest year of my life. Major mistakes on my end, major hurt on Chris' end, major fights, arguments, yelling and ugliness on both sides. It wasn't a pretty year. And through no fault of Chris'. I disappointed a lot of people, whether or not they know the whole story, and that's almost as hard as what I put my 8-year relationship/ 2-year marriage with Chris through. Fortunately, though, the good thing about something so life-altering is that it shows you who matters in your life, and who doesn't. My family has absolutely blown me away with their support; friends, too. A lot has changed since 8/30/08, but I think I now can (cautiously) say that our relationship is back on track, moving forward, moving together, moving BETTER.

So our 2-year anniversary came and went without a lot of pomp and circumstance. I got Chris my usual 2 cards (one funny, one serious....plus a letter)....Chris got me a very pretty card and even wrote me a poem inside. We went out for Outback on the day of, and this past weekend, we just enjoyed being together and relaxing over the Labor Day holiday. We are planning on going down to Hocking Hills later in the fall to have a little more time to celebrate.

We did sign on for another year at our current apartment, and we did some things around the place over the weekend to make it feel more home-y. I'm really bad at creative type things, but always love going to friends' and families' houses that are well-decorated but still well-lived-in. So I'm trying.

So, moving forward. It has been a crazy and hectic couple of days. I love holidays, but the work just sits on my desk for the next work day. We are having a landline and new DSL installed on Friday in preparation for our DIRECTV to be installed next Wednesday (NFL Ticket!) and that has taken WAY too much of my time to get figured out, but it'll be worth it when I can throw things in my own house instead of in public during non-primetime Cowboys' games!

Money always creates some havoc or another in our lives, and I don't think that that will ever change. Frustrating nonetheless. Fortunately, my background in banking makes it to where no one can ever talk over my head about money, and that's a good thing.

Work is busy as ever. When final numbers came out for our maintenance season, my branch grew over 37% since this time last year. Any growth is good, but growth that large has been hard to manage. 37% growth means more staff and more equipment and more trucks, but still only 1 me, and it's tough. Fortunately, I still enjoy my job (96% of the time) and still learn something new everyday....and I enjoy being a part of one of the top performing branches in the company. Everyday presents new challenges, and it's FAR from an 8-5, Monday to Friday job (no smoke breaks, no recess breaks, if I even eat lunch it's at my desk while answering emails, the phone and doing the million things that come across my desk daily....in early, out late, in some weekends (more during snow)), but I can definitely say that I'm never bored! The account managers are well into renewals for 2011 and snow contracts are coming in by the truckload (ugh - that dirty word).

I've started "training" (via nikeplus.com) for a mini-marathon. It's hard for me to just go out and just RUN. I need to know how far I'm going. I need to have a plan. So this "coach" tells me how to far to run everyday, gives me exercises to do to complement the running I am doing, and lets me compete against myself, and set goals. I'm really glad that I have started to find running enjoyable. It gets my head cleared, and gets my body good and tired. My legs are stronger, my endurance is the highest its ever been, and I am feeling better in general. From March 7 to July 30 (when we left for vacation), I lost 25 pounds, and felt GREAT. Its been hard to get back into it, and I've gained about 3 pounds back. But I'm determined to get that 3 pounds off, plus about an extra 15 to get down to a weight I haven't been since the end of high school. It's a healthy weight for my height, and I've already started to see results - my cholesterol went down by about 30 points from March last year (yay!), and I may be able to go onto a lower dose antidepressant here soon.

Times are tough everywhere, for everyone it seems, STILL. But my aunt posted a great quote today: "God didn't bring me this far to just drop me off!" Something to remember when I can't quite take a step back to get a good look at the big picture.