Monday, December 9, 2013

December 9th: Megan: Honeymooners


It’s been a year and a half since I got married to my best friend, so the past year has been our “honeymoon phase.” And while I couldn’t love my husband or my marriage more, life doesn’t really allow for honeymoon phases if we’re being honest.

My husband (we’ll call him Mark…because that’s his name) and I decided long before we were married that we were not having kids until we’d been married for years. No way. We really wanted the freedom to travel at a moment’s notice, have the time and money to go out to eat whenever we wanted and just focus on each other. And then one year ago, about six months after we got married, Mark and I got a dog.  


Not only did we get a dog, we got a six-week-old puppy. Everything we wanted to avoid by having kids was now happening. If you’ve never had a puppy, let me briefly fill you in. They poop, they pee and they eat your shoes (they apparently really enjoy the taste of expensive shoes too).
The first few weeks were brutal. I’m talking sleepless nights brutal. And while having a puppy isn’t even half as hard as having a baby (or so I’ve been told), it’s still tough. But over time, as our little guy grew older, things got easier. Before I knew it, this pup had become my best friend. (No I’m not crazy, I promise.) There are few people I know that are as genuinely happy to see me every day and who never judge me, ever.
When we got our puppy, Mark and I were living in a 700-square-foot apartment. The bigger the dog got, the smaller our apartment seemed to get. As soon as we realized there was no way we could stay in the apartment for another lease signing, we started saving everything we could for a down payment on a house. While we were saving, we budgeted ourselves tightly. For us, that meant only eating out once a week and cutting back on all of our extra expenditures. When our lease ran up six months later, we had saved enough for a down payment on our first home.

If there’s anything I’ve learned this past year, it’s that ‘this too shall pass.’ I know that sounds cliché, but it’s true. Every “hard” time we’ve had this year has resulted in something so amazing. Since we’ve moved into our new house, we have added one more member to the family: a shelter dog named Mia. We’ve been blessed beyond belief the past year; I can’t wait to see what next year holds!

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