How Time Flies

Time passes absurdly quickly sometimes. Or maybe David and I just cram more into a given chunk of time than people might generally choose to do.

In February, he proposed (I truly thought he was never going to ask…).

One week later, we set the wedding date for June 8^th.

But then we found the perfect reception place, only their only opening was for May 11^th.

So we moved the wedding up.

Then we planned a wedding. In about 12 weeks. Don’t ever do that to yourself.

Of course, the reception spot was too good to be true, and it ended up being moved to an entirely different location after a lot of frustrated conversations. That’s okay. The second spot was even more perfect.

On May 4^th, we graduated. One week later, we got married.

David  repeated after the preacher…
“For better or for worse,

For richer or… well, probably for poorer…”

Preacher Len told David to stick to the script.

I tried to keep my eyes open really wide for all of the wedding pictures, because I was very tired and emotional and hormonal and had cried for a good bit of the morning, so I was afraid they were puffy…

The next morning we had Mother’s Day lunch with David’s family before jetting off to Massachusetts for a week long escape/honeymoon. We weren’t watching the time and nearly missed the plane. No worries. We flew United—they delayed every single flight that we even looked at. We made it in plenty of time.

We landed in New England very late that night. Have you ever rented a car in the dark when you’re exhausted? Don’t. Also don’t ever drive a rented car for 3 hours through mountain roads after your phone (which is also your GPS…) dies, because all you will be able to hear is the car-rental guy’s warnings about how much insurance you should have bought from them. It was so dark and impossible to see.

But if you do, and if you get pulled over for making a U-turn in the process, DEFINITELY act lost and Southern and mention that it’s your honeymoon. Anyway, the cop probably only pulled you over because you had turned on only your parking lights instead of headlights.

It was a little less difficult to see after that.

We finally made it to our little mountain ski lodge and slept for an exceptionally long amount of time. At the end of a week of tennis and hiking and too much eating out, we drove to Yale Children’s Hospital to hang out with Abner’s family. Guess what?! None of the restaurants in New Haven have Spanish menus! And I have no idea how to say most sea foods in Spanish!

We eventually wandered back to Nashville, moved in together, and worked our way through the summer. A couple of months later, we found out that sometime next February the two of us would become the three of us.

It’s a girl! Teresa Leone. We’re pretty excited. I hope Africa is preparing itself for the Suell invasion.

I took the NCLEX and passed it in 75 questions (that’s a good thing), which was nice.

I applied for about three million jobs and finally found three part-time positions that melted into full-time employment.

David folded a lot of shirts at Brooks Brothers.

I applied for and received an RN license in TN, which was really easy and took about 10 days total.

Then I applied for and (eventually) received an RN license in IL, which was absurdly complicated and took about 3 months.

Then life got boring so we moved to Chicago. David’s grad school program might have had something to do with it too. Have you ever lived in a studio apartment? With another human? And a tiny human on the way?

We like adventures.

Although I would be okay if some of the more… ahem… “exciting” parts of our adventure would resolve, like our current unemployment…

Our toilet was clogged up when we moved in. And the carpet would be much easier to look at if we could put an area rug over it so we wouldn’t have to look at it. We got a new fridge! But only after our other one quit working. At 10pm. The day we bought $200 of groceries. Our maintenance worker is on a first name basis with us. He’s a lovely man.

Now, we’re sitting at Cafe53 just down the road from our humble abode. They sell gelato here. I highly recommend the turkey Panini and the iced chai. David spent the morning in a class about African colonialism and post-colonialism, which has us both pretty excited. The weather is wonderful and fall and crisp. I filled out so many job applications today that I now have a series of otherwise useless facts memorized—like the phone numbers of every employer I’ve had for the past 6 years, and the address of my high school… Lorna mailed me some baby yarn so I can make more baby booties, and it should be in tomorrow.  I made some baby bunny slippers. They’re incredibly cute. Hopefully we’ll have internet at the apartment by early next week. We found a church (wasn’t hard… it’s three doors down from home…) that we adore and will definitely keep attending.

AND a new grocery store just opened up RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET, so we don’t have to walk a mile to buy milk from CVS anymore.

Let me tell you, folks: This is the good life, right here. And we’re loving every second of it.