My Dirty Little Secret

I have a dirty little secret: My house is a mess. Not like "Oh glory me, I haven't dusted the baseboards in days!" kind of mess, but a real mess. I mean, you've probably seen dirtier. It's not like an ecological disaster zone quite yet, but it's pretty darn filthy.

In addition to the dirt, my house is cluttered. Part of this is not my fault; my husband has a bunch of bins of old stuff that he has no time to go through, including reams of paper, and he tends to leave his clothes in a heap but wants to do his own laundry. Part of the clutter is due to the fact that I was in graduate school and working for a while, and the paper just piled up. I can make a bunch of excuses for it, but there is just clutter all over.

Part of the problem is that I kind of, sort of, maybe hate my house. I'm thankful for it, of course. Shelter is good, and we're fortunate to have a house in a crazy market. However, I hate my house because it's a constant reminder of what should have been. It was to be our forever home, with three bedrooms, so we could fill them with kiddos. Instead, I fill those rooms with stuff so that I don't have to think about the what ifs. 

The worst part about my nasty house is that it shames me. Or rather, it adds to the shame that I already feel, and that becomes a cycle. My mind tells me all the time that I'm a failure. I'm a terrible wife and a terrible woman. I can't have a baby and I'm not a great cook, so what kind of wife am I? The logical part of my brain says that it isn't true, that my husband loves me for who I am and doesn't think less of me for my struggles, but it's hard to believe that. That same logical brain tells me to cut myself slack, that I've been dealing with depression and acing school and volunteering as well as working, and it's okay to focus on surviving some days. Then I look at my messy house and the words just ring through my head: "Failure. Failure. Failure." And instead of cleaning and decluttering, my instinct is to hide under the blankets and cry, because I can't face the reality that once I clear it all out, I'll have to come to grips with the emptiness of those empty rooms that will never belong to a child.

On January 1, I woke up as a woman on a mission. I wanted to clean out this house from top to bottom. I wanted to sweep out all the things that had built up and that were overwhelming me, to stop being embarrassed to have someone drop in. Maybe it was getting past the difficult holiday season or hitting roughly six months since our last set of infertility treatments failed, but suddenly I needed change. Since that day, I've been taking it one day at a time. I bought a filing cabinet to attempt to fix the paper problem. I went through boxes of old paper and tossed most of the sheets that I no longer need for school. I scrubbed floors and I dusted. It's a long-term project, and I may never have that pristine house from the magazine, but I'm getting a little bit proud of my progress. Maybe one day I will graduate to being a real adult with a proper home.

Why am I sharing this story? It's embarrassing, right? I don't want people to know how messy I am. I guess I'm sharing it because maybe there are other people who are stuck in shame and loss and grief and need to know that they aren't the only ones who haven't scrubbed the kitchen floor in a long time. I needed you all to know that this grief I'm in is real and painful and nasty and all-encompassing, but I'm ready to be very real about it and not live in shame. I also want to advocate for us hurting people. It's easy to watch an episode of Hoarders and feel sorry for those poor people in their mess. It's not as easy to walk across the street and hug the hurting person who is in front of you. People like me are everywhere. We are in your Bible studies and in your book groups and at your workplace. We are embarrassed and ashamed of the mess inside our homes and inside our minds. I've had people - even my own mother - chastize me for the messy state of my house, and it didn't help. Instead it just told me, "Keep hiding." What I needed was love. I needed to be told that despite the mess, I was worth loving. So readers, if you aren't in the mess right now, keep your eyes open, because it might be your turn to tell someone that they are enough.

Medical Monday: We Need A Break

It's another Medical Monday.  I missed out last month, so this time I'm jumping back in.  This month's link-up is hosted by Jane at From a Doctor's Wife, Emma at Your Doctor's Wife, and MJ at MD School Mrs.

It's been cold and snowy here in Toronto, so I'm looking forward to warmer days.  February has never been a favourite month of mine.  Until I met Gil, Valentine's Day was pretty much a downer, and winter is long here, so it still feels like ages until the spring thaw.  This year has been kicking my butt so far.  We've had more snow that I can remember.  My husband worked overnight on new year's eve, came home sick, and spent the first 10 days of January with the flu (which he lovingly passed on to me).  Then yesterday, Gil was feeling sick AGAIN.  It feels like it's just been one thing after another since before Christmas.

I've been seriously in need of a pick me up and here it is:
We're going to Punta Cana!  Miracle of miracles, after a month of putting off discussion, my husband actually worked out the dates and we booked a trip for the end of the month.

This coming vacation is indicative of one major change in me since getting married.  When I was single, my travels always involved doing stuff:  Museums, bike trips, renting cars and driving around Oahu, I wanted to be make the very most of my travels.

Since I've married into this crazy thing called medicine, I just want to slow down.  All I want is a beach, a good book, a fruity drink, and my husband.  I see him wearing himself down day after day, and I just want him to have a rest.  Do any of you feel the same way?  How has marriage changed your habits and preferences?

Happy February, everyone!  Hope you are all staying warm and dry!

Medical Mondays: "You mean he works weekends?"

Yesterday was our monthly Medical Monday link-up, and I'm very late, but joining in to the fun a day late.  This month's link up is hosted by by Jane at From a  Doctor's Wife, Emma at Your Doctor's Wife, and Heather at Pretty Strong Medicine.

Today's post is inspired by one of the phrases I hear frequently.  For example, on Friday a colleague asked me about our weekend plans.  I said it would be a quiet weekend because Gil was on-call and he looked at me incredulously:  "Wait?  He has to work weekends?"  It surprises me how many people ask this, as though it is a huge shock and imposition.  I mean, people have heart attacks on weekends and holidays too.  Hospitals never close, so why would doctors work 9-5?

The funny part is that the guy who asked me often works weekends.  Maybe when we have demanding hours, we automatically assume everyone else has it better, even the cardiologists among us?  Who knows.  It's easy to forget how many people work odd hours:  Nurses, police, firefighters, military, customer service, etc.  On top of that, lots of people work from home on their own schedules, and then there are stay-at-home parents who work all the time.  So why does it seem so shocking for a person to have to work over Labour Day?

At any rate, nearly two years in to this Mrs. Doctor gig, I'm pretty used to on-call weekends.  Thankfully I'm an introvert who has lived alone in the past, so I am used to amusing myself.  It's a bit disappointing when the on-call schedule falls over a long weekend, but I can deal with it.  These past few days, I went to the gym, did a lot of reading and treated myself to a marathon viewing of the BBC's Sherlock.  I still feel sad not to have had the chance to enjoy my day off together with my husband, but that's the way it goes with this life.

So friends, how was your long weekend?  Did you do anything fun and exciting?

Productivity at Home

This weekend has been a pretty productive one.  I was able to:

1) Cook a great meal for us on Friday.  Okay, so I ate it alone because Gil was on-call and delayed, but he did agree it was delicious. (Oh, and we had a great meal on Saturday, but we made it together.)
2)  Garden.
3)  Do a few loads of laundry and fold them.
4)  Do lots of errands.
5)  Put together two Ikea shelves and FINALLY shelve most of my books.
6)  Plan out the week ahead.
7)  Go to Body Pump (all muscles in my chest still hurt...) and take a 30 minute walk.

Why is this all so exciting?  I mean, it's generic weekend stuff, and as my husband was working, I had to keep myself occupied.  I am just happy that I've had a push towards homemaking lately.  I've been reading the book Creative Counterpoint by Linda Dillow.  (Thanks for the recommendation, Jayme!)  In the book, Dillow talks about setting goals and then setting your priorities around those goals.  So if you want to be a godly woman, you need to consciously prioritize your relationship with God.  She suggested having one's home as a fourth priority, after 1) God; 2) husband; 3) children.  It seems a bit crazy to a working woman, but even if you work outside the home, the truth is that you're unlikely to miss work or to get behind on work because you're cleaning, whereas you ARE likely to use work/exhaustion/other commitments as an excuse not to take care of your house.   I realized that I'd let my home slip into priority, oh, 347 or so...

The thing is, I like my home; I just hate housework.  When I lived alone, I could get away with very little housework because it was just me and the cats, and after work, church commitments, friends, and a boyfriend in Toronto, I was never home.  Now, however, I'm around more often and my husband is.... not the neatest person.  But since Gil doesn't really care how clean the house is, I let it slip.  I prioritize myself, my hobbies, my work, etc.  Then I feel badly, because the house is messy and I'm embarrassed to have people over.  (Just to clarify, I DON'T think that housework is "women's work" or that wives have to do all the cooking and cleaning.  It's great if you can share the load, but in our marriage, my husband works way more hours than your average person while I work part-time; I prefer to make the most of our time together rather than spend it watching him vacuum the living room.)

Dillow actually recommends using a kind of weekly chart to plan out the week and write out your daily and weekly priorities.  I've got myself a white board, and am looking forward to doing this in the coming weeks.  (Right after I prioritize buying white board markers....)  I'm hoping this is the motivator I need, because truthfully housework really isn't that time-consuming, at least not when you don't have kids, but somehow making the time has been my struggle.  I'll let you know how it goes when I post my response to Creative Counterpart for my marriage reading series.

Do you find it hard to prioritize housework?  What has helped you get things done?

Sick :-(

This weekend I came down with a nasty cold, probably the worst I've had in a long time.  It was so bad that I had to skip out on a family dinner last night to lounge on the couch.  At least Gil was a sweetheart and made us dinner after a grueling day on call.

Back when I lived in Ottawa, I secretly enjoyed getting sick.  (Except for that time I had mono -- yikes!)  I had a stressful job and a busy life on top of that.  Getting a cold every couple of months gave me the chance to spend a day on the couch, cuddling with my cats and watching movies.  Note:  If you ever find yourself wishing you'd catch a bad cold in order to get a break, this is a sign that your lifestyle is not healthy!

Now that I am doing shift work, I can't really take time off unless I really can't function, and right now we are short-staffed so a day off is not an option.  I'm hoping that an easy morning in bed will convince my body that it's on the mend and can bear to work this afternoon.

So a question for you, readers:  What do you like to do when you're sick?  What are your favourite guilty pleasures to indulge in, or your favourite foods?  It's a bit embarrassing to admit this, but my preferred movies for a sick day are Freaky Friday (the remake with Lindsay Lohan), The Parent Trap (the original Hayley Mills version), and The Cutting Edge ("Toepick!").

My morning companion

Locked Out!

Yesterday morning my husband forgot his keys. He was up early and I slept in, but was suddenly awakened when he phoned and asked me to let him in. We laughed, he grabbed his key ring, and we forgot about the incident.  Oh foreshadowing! Only a half a day later and I found myself in the same predicament, only worse because I had no one at home to let me in.

Late that afternoon, I threw on my workout clothes before heading out to ladies fitness at the church. I marveled at the warm spring weather, thinking how great it was not to have to pull on long pants over my workout capris. I grabbed my water bottle, pulled on my rubber boots because of all the puddles, locked the front door from the inside and stepped onto the porch... without my keys!

What to do now? I couldn't get into my car to drive anywhere. Even if I had time to walk to the church, I couldn't go to fitness in my rubber boots, and of course, Gil is on call this week and likely to be home late. I considered taking the bus to my mom's house, but that's a bit far for Gil to come pick me up. In the end I chose my favourite vestige of security: the public library.

Unfortunately, our closest library is in a mall. This is the kind of mall that is so wannabe posh that its posters describe it as "haute". There are chandeliers in the lobby and most of the clientele are my mom's age. This is where I found myself, wearing workout capris with rubber boots. Good thing I try to keep things classy!

My attractive ensemble

Thankfully, I have a sense of humor and don't panic easily. I spent some time getting caught up in my Thomas Friedman, and eventually made it home safe and sound. And hopefully I have learned not to be so hasty in locking the front door.


Update:  When I wrote this post, I was still at the mall, anticipating a quick rescue. That didn't happen.  My husband and I obviously had our lines crossed and some communication mishaps ensured that it ended up being a rough evening for both of us.  I decided to keep the lighthearted tone of my original writing, but want to be honest here and let you know that my life isn't a sit-com and by the end of the evening, I wasn't laughing my way through this experience.  I'd appreciate your prayers as Gil and I try to debrief our way through this and find ways to avoid such miscommunication in the future!

The Joys of Home Ownership: Water Meters

When we moved into our house, I swore that after over a year of house-hunting, I would never ever complain about it.  And for the most part, I haven't, but sometimes it does have its challenges.

First off, the water meter.  I remember when I was a kid, sometimes a friendly man would knock on our door to read the meter.  This seemed to happen with regularity in the "old days".  Now, however, it seems that since moving in, we have regularly received mail telling us to read our OWN meter.  I called several times to explain that I didn't know where the meter is, only to have someone explain that it's SO easy to find.  So I searched and searched, with no luck.  Finally in November, I phoned and after waiting on hold for half an hour, explained that I absolutely needed to have a meter reader come by.  Isn't that what we pay taxes for?  When he finally came a week or so later, what was the result?
...
...
He couldn't find the meter! 

Actually, after combing through the furnace room and glancing over most of our basement, we discovered that it's at about shin-level in our laundry room.  The only problem is that because of renovations by the previous owner, the meter is accessible from a square opening in the wall that is considerably lower than the meter.  The only way to read it is to use a camera and contort your arm so that you can take a photo of the meter from above.  Except you need to have the flash on, since it's so dark inside the wall.

I thought this chapter was closed, since I mailed in the little slip with the meter reading on it.  Alas, no.  Yesterday we received another letter, saying that our reading was out of date.  Did the slip get lost in the mail?  I tried in vain to figure out how to get a photo of the reading, then I turned to Plan B)  Call the utilities company and complain about how they lost our slip.  After sitting on hold for over 10 minutes, all the while googling photos of water meters, I decided to have another go at it.  This time I  was successful and decided to enter the reading online instead of chancing the postal system again.  And after 17 minutes on hold, I never did speak to a customer service agent.  Sigh... The end result is good though, as we are way under their estimate and will probably have a few months free.  I took a long hot shower to celebrate.  :-)

These are the things no one tells you about when you buy a house!  Good thing it's so worth it.

PS  I'm off to a winter retreat with our church youth group this weekend, which will likely involve lots of fun, but not lots of sleeping.  Please pray for us!

On Anticipation

I've been feeling the February blahs lately.  It just seems like life is bland lately.  Am I the only one?  Maybe it's the long wait until spring, or the weird weather we've been having...

I realized something strange the other day.  When I worked in an office, my life was often hectic and stressful, but I always had something to look forward to.  I worked 8 hours a day and looked forward to the weekends.  Additionally, there was always a long weekend some time off, or a vacation in the works, or Gil's next visit, and I would set my eye on that.  "Just two weeks until Victoria Day."  "Only a month until I go to Florida."  It wasn't just me; everyone did it.  I wondered sometimes whether it wasn't somewhat unhealthy, to spend a lot of your time waiting for the future.  Now that I have a less stressful lifestyle, however, I actually *miss* having those dates in the future to anticipate.  I don't normally work Mondays, so most long weekends are not a big deal, and since Gil works so many weekends, I often find them boring.  It's so hard to get my husband into the mode of vacation planning, so we don't have anything like that upcoming either. 

Is it weird that I feel this way, like a more stressful life with anticipation may be preferable to a calmer life with less anticipation?  Is it Biblical?  The Bible does tell us not to worry about tomorrow, but it also says to look forward to our life in Heaven.  Hmmm...  What do you think?  And what are you looking forward to, these days?

Going Natural

For the past year or so, I've been trying out ways to use more natural and homemade products around our home. I wouldn't exactly call myself a hippie, but I am growing concerned about the amount of chemicals in our houses, and often using homemade products is more cost-effective too.  I know there are people who make nearly everything, and I've seen recipes online for homemade laundry detergent, shampoo, hairspray, etc.  Personally, I don't make anything that's really time-intensive.  I could try making laundry detergent, but with only two of us around, I'm okay buying more expensive natural products as it takes ages to go through a package.  On the other hand, if a product is fairly easy to make at home, why not do that and save ourselves a little exposure to toxins?

Here are some of the homemade products I currently use:

Cleaning:  I am in love with baking soda.  I use it to scrub the bathtub and the stove top and deodorize the basement carpets.  I also pour some into the toilet tank to clean.  It is super-easy and so cheap.  Honestly, I tried a million times to clean the scuff marks in our old condo tub... When I finally tried baking soda, it was a snap.  I also use a mixture of vinegar and water in a spray bottle to clean the toilet and the kitchen counters.

Conditioner:  I've been out of conditioner for ages, so last week, I finally tried a home-made alternative.  I have a spray bottle with apple cider vinegar and water (1 part vinegar; 4 parts water).  I spray it on my hair after washing, then rinse it out.  One week in, and my hair feels softer than ever.  I'm loving this and will never go back to overpriced store-bought conditioners!

Deodorant:  Occasionally, I get freaked out about aluminum in deodorant, but I don't particularly like most of the natural products sold in stores.  Last year I tried out this recipe and I love it.  It only takes a few minutes to whip up, and it smells great and works well.  The only issue I've found is that the deodorant gets a bit melty in hot weather, so I keep it in the fridge and have a natural alternative for when we're traveling in the summer or to hot places.

Here's a couple of other blog posts with some great natural alternatives.

What about you?  Is going natural a priority for you?  Do you have any tips?  Or, on the other hand, have you tried any homemade products that just did NOT work?

All By My Lonesome

This week I'm all on my own, friends, while Gil is off to Newfoundland again.  He does this fairly regularly, traveling over there to visit friends as well as to see some patients in the community where he used to live.  I knew before we married that this was a priority for him, and I'm proud that he keeps it up, even though it pains me a little to have him gone so long.

This week I'm trying to make some plans to make this week count.  I'd like to use the time well, but also to do some little things to make our house more home-y.  I know I could do this while he's here (seeing as I am at home a lot while he works), but it's a bit more fun to do it while he's gone so I can surprise him.

So far, my big plans for the next five days are:
1)  Have a mini-spiritual retreat.  I'm trying to "fast" from television and secular music for a few days and get back in the habit of journaling during my quiet time. 
2) Study Chinese.  Like, a lot.  My teacher wants me to write another big exam in 5 weeks, so I need to get myself in gear ASAP.
3)  Hang pictures up around the house.  There are some that will have to wait until we get a new couch, but there are other areas that I've been meaning to decorate,
4)  Organize my closets and my clothes.  I'd like to get my fall and winter stuff ready, as well as giving away clothes that I no longer need.  I realized last winter that my years in Ottawa have left me with way more hats/toques/mitts than I will need in Toronto, especially as I no longer have to wait for a bus in the early morning hours!
5)  Potentially set up some autumn decor.  I'm thinking a wreath may be in order...

One thing I have noticed in our 11 months of marriage is that when Gil is away, my sleep habits change.  I've become used to going to bed around 10:30-11:00 and getting up when he does most mornings.  As soon as he's gone, my body shifts into my "natural" pattern of bedtime around midnight.  When I was on my own and working, I found that during vacations, I would gravitate towards a midnight bedtime.  Isn't it weird how our bodies have these natural tendencies?  Even years of getting up at 6 a.m. for work couldn't shake the night owl out of me!

Do you do anything fun while your spouse is away?  Do your habits change at all?  I'm curious, so let me know!

Handywoman

Today has been a day of home-making.  Perhaps it is a touch of nesting/panic because my parents will be staying with us for a couple of days next week, but I have finally been motivated to set up our guest room.  This morning, I vacuumed and put together some used side tables to use for bedside tables.  This afternoon, I hung up pictures.  In the meantime, I have been busy using backing soda to deodorize the carpet in our basement rec room, and disconnecting our not-so-functional washing machine in anticipation of a new one arriving this evening.

All of this makes me feel a little proud and powerful.  I've said before that I have never felt very qualified to be a home maker.  I don't have a lot of skills in that department, and to be honest, I never cared that much to learn them.  Obviously, I had sufficient cooking and laundry skills to keep me alive and dressed over the past decade, and that sufficed.  One thing I've learned, however, is that no matter what you learned growing up, running your own home will always be a learning curve; even if your parents taught you everything they knew, you will someday find there are gaps in your knowledge or skills you'd never considered mastering.  The nice thing is knowing that it's never too late to learn a new skill. Trust me, if I can learn to be reasonably handy, anyone can!

I've hesitated to put up pictures of the new house because I'm not much of a photographer and my decorating talents are decidedly limited, but over the coming months as the home comes together, I'll try to post a few to keep y'all in the loop.

These Days

These days life has gotten pretty hectic, or at least more so than before.  Even though I am only working three or four days a week, fitting that into my schedule alongside my Chinese classes has meant some adjustments.  In addition to that, my brother's wedding is looming on the horizon so showers, bachelorette parties, and other family events have been thrown into the mix, so our life has been busy and will be getting busier:  Coming up in September we have weddings on three consecutive weekends.  Thank God for the invention of coffee!

The craziness lately has put blogging on the back burner, but I am aiming to keep things current on here.  Here are a few snippets of what has been going on 'round here:

1)  Work:  I have really enjoyed getting back into the working world.  My colleagues are very nice, and I am learning so much about the workings of our church.  We have some big things coming up (new staff, new ministries starting up) and I am beginning to feel like a part of the church rather than someone who just shows up on Sunday mornings.  The position has also been teaching me so much about listening.  While the bulk of my work is just forwarding messages and transferring calls, we do get people who call the church just to request prayer or just to talk to someone.  This has been very humbling, as I tend to be a "do-er"; sitting and listening is not my forte.  It's also been humbling as I learn that I really don't have answers to a lot of questions.  I am convinced that I know the One who has all answers, that is not always comforting to someone who is going through great trials.  I am learning day by day to lean on God more and to speak less.

2)  Travel:  Last weekend I went to Kingston for a girls' weekend with some friends.  We all lived and studied in Kingston together, so thought it would be fun to revisit some of our old haunts.  (White Mountain ice cream was pretty much first on our agenda.  If you've never been, you should go...)  It was lovely getting caught up with each other, but I was a bit exhausted by the end of the weekend and happy to get home to my hubby.  It was also a reminder of how much I have changed in the past ten years since becoming a Christian.  As much as I try to be sensitive and not preachy, there are definitely times when my old friends think I'm a bit odd.  Oh well!

3)  Cats:  My poor kitty has been through the ringer lately.  I had a few concerns about her health before her recent escape, but they seem to have gotten worse and the vet thinks she has colitis.  If you've never had to give pills to an angry tabby twice a day, thank the Good Lord/your lucky stars/anything else you can think of and pray you never have to!  There is a scratch on my leg that I swear is two inches long and I fear it won't be the last...

Learning to be Slow

Once upon a time, there was a lady who never slowed down. She felt the need to be busy all the time. Between work, church, friendships, and exercise, she fell exhausted into bed most nights, and slept just enough hours to give her the energy to do it all again. One day, she married her Prince Charming who moved her to a new place where her life slowed down... and now she is learning to love the slow.

Of course, this lady is me. When I think about my life over the last few years (okay, probably more like 15 years...), I feel tired. During my time in Ottawa, it was not unusual for me to be busy every evening of the week, and that is after waking up at 6:00am and working a full day. My life was full of Bible studies, youth group, ladies missionary fellowship, girls' nights, etc. Meeting Gil made things even crazier: Now I was up even later talking on the phone with my long distance boyfriend, and going to Toronto on weekends to see him. (We're not even going to talk about how my housework suffered....) And yet, I didn't hesitate to add new things to the mix, like running a half-marathon or taking night-school Mandarin. Many evenings, I prayed to God to “please multiply these few hours of sleep ahead so that they are enough to get me through tomorrow.”

Why did I do it? In truth, I've always liked to be busy. Even in high school, my parents warned me about over-extending myself. In university, I ended up with bronchitis after a particularly difficult semester in which I took an extra class and was involved in marching band, German theatre, and a dance show; when I came down with a bad cold, I refused to take time to rest and just got sicker and sicker. There are probably lots of reasons for the chronic busyness: I have always liked to make the most out of things, so if it comes down to German theatre group or more sleep, I'll choose the theatre, because who knows when I'll get the former opportunity again. (The answer would be never, unfortunately!) In Ottawa, I often kept busy because I hated being home alone in the evenings. I value deep relationships and I wasn't content to have my main personal interactions be in a work context. Of course, then the church dynamic comes into play: If you are a person who serves at church, you will almost certainly be asked to serve in other areas. If you are unmarried and childless, as I was, you often feel like you can't say no to these requests, because it's not like you need “family time”, right? Once in a while, I had glimpses of the insanity of my lifestyle when I would get sick and actually be thankful for the time to rest. After recuperating for a day or two, however, I was ready to jump back into the craziness with no intention to slow down.

Until I got married, I had no idea how exhausted I was from this busy cycle. For the first few weeks, I was sleeping for hours after Gil had left for work. My body needed to catch up on years of bad sleeping habits. At first, I didn't know how I would cope with the slower pace of not working, but it started to come naturally: I could do things that I'd always enjoyed doing, like working out mid-day and studying Mandarin, without feeling guilty. I could enjoy my coffee in the morning without feeling rushed. I could clean the house before it started looking like a disaster area.

Last weekend, I found myself choosing the slow, and not taking on the guilt of being idle. On Sunday, I was supposed to go to a barbecue organized by my Chinese school. My plan was to wake up earlier than usual, attend the first service at my church, and go straight to the park to meet my teacher and co. All the plans went to naught, however, because I woke up way too late to make it to church for 9:15. I was about to give way to guilt, to skip church and head to the barbecue because I had told my teacher I would be there but then it hit me: I have a choice. I can choose to act out of duty, or I can choose to prioritize church and time with my husband. Okay, so I felt a bit bad because I had RSVPed yes, but in the end, choosing the slow day of a late sushi lunch after church and watching Olympics with my husband was the best choice. I'm realizing that these first months/years together will fly by, and one day babies will come and add a new craziness to our lives, so we had best enjoy the slow while we can.

Settling In

Hi friends!  After a few heavier posts, I thought it might be time for a brief update on how our lives are going and how we are getting settled.  I'll post some photos of the new house at some point, but for now there are a few areas that need to be organized, so that'll have to wait.

First of all, we LOVE the new place.  Or at least, I love it and Gil seems happy here (he is generally a mellow personality and probably wouldn't use the word love unless referring to me or perhaps to the Liverpool Football Club).  While my husband works so much that he doesn't have much time to enjoy having a yard thus far, I am loving the fact that I can sit out on the porch to read. 

I'd have to say, though, that living in a house has been a humbling experience for me.  Gil and I are realizing how much we don't know.  We've both been grown-ups for a long time, but have lived primarily in apartments and condos, so are just beginning to realize we need help.  We do not know how to operate our gas lawn mower.  I don't know how to take care of a garden or even how to start one.  It's pretty embarrassing to have someone say, "You do know that you have to water your grass, right?"  (Except that today it is pouring, so nature's taking care of that for us!) 

It is also humbling to have to take things slowly.  I have moved many times, and I generally like to get everything set up ASAP.  With this home, I'm realizing that I need to take my time and be sure about where things will look, rather than just jumping in.  I am setting up a home, rather than a temporary lodging.  Fortunately, we like the paint colours that the vendors used, because we don't know much about painting either!

In sum, we are thankful to God for providing this home, and thankful for the learning opportunities that have come with it.  And even though the house isn't photo-ready, here's one picture of our peonies that bloomed last week:

Weekends

...Or a lack thereof. Strangely enough, weekends have been one of the biggest adjustments in the transition to married life. I anticipated the on-call weekends being busy, and barely having the chance to see Gil, but I figured the “off” ones would be more, well, weekend-y. You see, as a bureaucrat working in Ottawa, my weeks generally went like this:

Monday – Go to work doped up on coffee, grumbling about the work week starting.

Tuesday to Thursday – Trek through the reeds, all the while counting down the days 'til the weekend.

Friday – Hot dog! Happy times are here again! Get through 8 hours of work and then the time is all mine!  (Okay, technically I know that it is God's time, but I still acted as though it was mine.)

Saturday to Sunday – Don't work. Ever.*

I don't think I realized until just now how much that cycle of building up to a weekend, then being disappointed at its brevity had made an imprint on me over five or so years. While I did like my job, I hung on to the guarantee that my weekends were for my own enjoyment, and also for getting all the stuff done that is put off when you are working full-time and busy with ministry and social activities during the week.

Even in the best of times, Gil has a tenuous grasp on weekends. He tends to spend a lot of Saturday catching up on sleep (something I am incapable of doing), and even when he's NOT on call, like last Saturday, he often goes in to check on patients. Even on Sundays, people call him to ask all kind of questions, and sometimes he is called in for urgent issues. To be honest, this was starting to bother me. Where was my weekend? I thought we were supposed to use these early months of our marriage to build memories and such. Now you're napping and I'm making Mandarin flashcards! Argh!

What I'm realizing more and more is that this is a problem of expectations. Namely, it is one thing for me to ask Gil to spend some time with me when he has days off, but it is another to ask him to ignore his needs to catch up on sleep as well as his work responsibilities. I certainly cannot expect him to know what I want to do and magically provide fun times just because he is not at work. If I continue to expect him to awake early-ish on Saturdays feeling well-rested and delighted to to go hit up museums or go furniture shopping, I will continue to be disappointed. Marriage is often about adjusting expectations to what God realistically has for us, so if weekends packed with crazy adventures are an idol based on a Hollywood movie, perhaps it is time to love the new normal and to settle in for the quieter joys of a Godly marriage.

Postlude: Interestingly, when this post was half-finished, I read this article, which really convicted me to examine my unrealistic expectations. I encourage you to go check it out!

*Okay, I'm slightly exaggerating. In truth, on many occasions I was on-call to go into work should a situation arise, but I never actually had to work.

Some Things I'm Excited About

Since my last post was a little negative, I thought I would brighten things up today.  That is especially needed since it's COLD!  We were mega-spoiled by 20+ degree weather earlier this month, so now anything close to zero seems unbearable.  (It doesn't help that our building cranked up the fans during the warm weather, and has not bothered turning them off.) 

I am a book hoarder, and any efforts to counter this seem to be in vain.  This past summer, I tried to make a serious attempt to get rid of books that I was unlikely to ever read again.  I forced myself to actually read the books I had bought on sale ages ago, so that I could decide whether I really wanted them.  Shortly thereafter, my best friends threw me a bridal shower and instructed all my guests to give me a book!  So, I guess all that purging was to make room for the new books, right?  Anyway, here are some more new books that I am really excited about, and why:

1)  I am excited for my new kitchen  It actually allows for more than one person to stand in it.  It has more than one cupboard, and space in the drawers for our cutlery.  I really looking forward to baking there, so I bought the Joy the Baker Cookbook.  If you don't know about Joy, you should.  This is her blog.  Every recipe that I've tried has been fantastic.

2)  I am excited for summer vacation!  We are just in the process of finalizing details to go to Gdansk, Poland this summer.  I have a lifelong interest in Central and Eastern European culture and history, so I am so looking forward to this trip.  I also thought I could use some basic Polish skills, so I bought this book.  Now to tackle the pronunciation of words like "wszystko" (everything) and "przepraszam" (excuse me).  Really, this is just feeding into the obsessions with a) books; and b) language learning aids.

3)  I am excited about my Chinese lessons!  For the first couple of months, we were focused on pronunciation and vocabulary, but now I've started learning to read and write.  It's hard... but it's worth it.  Last week at Bible study, I noticed one woman had a dual-language English-Chinese Bible, so I asked her where she bought it.  This week, she brought a new Bible for me!  She said she had some extras at home and was happy to hear I was learning Chinese.  I find it easiest to practice reading when I'm already familiar with the text.

4)  I am excited to spend some time with Gil this weekend!  After the craziness of the last few weeks, I told him that we have to go out and have some fun this weekend.  We are not sure yet what we'll do, but we really need some time to build into our marriage.

5)  I am excited for road tripping with a good friend next week!  But more on that later.  :-)

So now it's your turn:  What are you excited about??