The most frequent decision (and is growing old quickly) is, what do you want for dinner?  Everyday, around 4:30pm, I’m messaging or texting Jon this  question.  It doesn’t even matter what the answer is, I just need to know what to do!  Before getting married, I never remember this being a big deal.  If there wasn’t anything in the fridge I really wanted to make, I would eat odd things here and there until I was full.  But now that I have a hungry husband coming home from work everyday, I want to feed him well! (Good wife tip #1)  :P  Dinner has become kind of a big deal.

But of course, other than dinner, we have made several good decisions as well as bad decisions over the course of a year.  We’ve made some good and bad choices with money management (Bad: we got sucked into a timeshare vaca… run from those people!  Good: We’ve downsized and are watching our spending and focusing on paying off debt), choices about vacations (if any), work, time management… everything affects the other and becomes a “decision” to make, which when you were single, it didn’t seem to matter.

Decisions as a couple takes a lot of sacrifice, patience and flexibility from both parties.  There is no room for stubbornness or selfishness.  By overcoming your natural desire for “me first”, you are not only being a better spouse, but you are becoming a better you.  That’s truly one of the best parts of being married.  Your other half will bring out the better you if you let him/her.

I hope I’m not the same person as I am now in 20 years.  Not that I’m bad now (though Jon might disagree!), I hope to never stay stagnate in my personal and spiritual growth.  Having to make decisions together is a good thing.  This first year is only the beginning of becoming a better me!

Almost everyday after getting married, Jon and I got into a delightfully bad habit.  We began baking cookies every night after dinner (not a whole batch, but 2 each).  This has become an evening tradition, and in the times we run out of cookie dough, it’s either an evening of searching for something sweet in the pantry, or running to Target to get more of the Pillsbury Simply… Cookies (made with all natural ingredients… healthier right?)  :P

Unfortunately, as fall and winter have approached us, jean weather is back… and these jeans aren’t quite fitting like they used to.  During the summer, you can get away with wearing skirts, dresses, knit shorts… anything besides jeans.  But now that it’s cold, I’m finding myself digging through all my jeans finding over half of them are too small.  Now, before jumping to conclusions, I remembered doing a jean wash last winter, and accidentally dried several pairs in the dryer on HOT… not on warm like I usually do.  But to my horror a few days ago, I noticed… I have… a roll.  Like, you sit down and without jeans on and you still have a roll, type of roll (which obviously I didn’t have before)  It’s definitely time to cut down on the cookies, and head back to the gym.

The whole situation made me realize that, after getting married, my desire to work out has dramatically dropped.  Why is that?  I love the way I feel after a good work out, and I definitely miss the definition in my legs and arms that I used to have, so why has marriage changed that?

And then it hit me.  95% of my motivation to go to the gym as a single person… was to find Mr. Right. (that’s not desperation, is it?)  It was fun to see the same cute guy at the gym, and in my mind, some day we could strike up a conversation and we realize how much in common we have, go to dinner, and get married someday!  This also goes for my going out to Starbucks to read and drink tea in the evenings.  (Apparently, I’m not as sophisticated as I once thought, I was just hoping to get picked up.)

Was I alone in this mentality? I was super curious to see if my husband is experiencing the same thing (since he isn’t working out as much either) and, yes!  Most of his motivation to go the gym in his single days was the excitement of possibly meeting a girl.

So what do we do now?  With little motivation to work out, and our love for chocolate chip cookies, we are officially in a dilemma.   Is this what they mean when they say you gain weight once your married?  I’m happy with my life, and I’m no longer on the search for Mr. Right, and thus I have no desire to go out anymore?

You know, it’s kinda true.  Spending time with Jon fills my need for quality time (from Five Love Languages, if you haven’t read it you should!)  And since he fills that for me, I have no need to go search for it elsewhere.

As I continue in this new world of “married life,” my goal is to become more balanced once again… with working out, reading at starbucks… the things I did when I was single.  But this time it will be for different reasons, more for staying healthy, staying active … and so I can feel like me again.  :)

When we got engaged, we were both living on the south side of Atlanta, both in transition and we weren’t sure where to find this counselor/pastoral figure.  Our officiant was a close friend of ours, so there was nothing formally planned with him in regards to counseling (the way some pastors do if they agree to marry you).

Again, this is something I would STRONGLY recommend for every couple… just like I would STRONGLY recommend not meeting a complete stranger you met online, by yourself at midnight at your apartment… ehem, the way Jon and I met.  Apparently I don’t take my own advise well.  :P

I think the main reason we didn’t seek pre-marital counseling is because for one, we are both open to and seeking the will of God… which for the most part, keeps us on the same page in regards to priorities and decisions we make on a daily basis.

But secondly, we both have a strong grasp on personality types… the four different types, how they interact/clash with each other, and also what makes them happy.

So just a quick lesson, the four personality types are:
- Choleric: a dominant, passionate person, self initiates him/herself as a leader and decision maker, but has a tendency to be insensitive to other people’s feelings and hot headed (hot headed = mad and passionate)
- Phlegmatic: a laid back person, has trouble getting excited over anything (whether good or bad), and happily goes with the flow, but has a tendancy to let people walk all over him/her
- Melancholy: a very organized, artistic person, a perfectionist, but has a tendency to be over critical of themselves and others,
- Sanguine: a highly social, energetic person, is energized by being around people, but has a tendency to be flaky and noncommittal  (not in marriage, but plans for the night)

So Jon is a phlegmatic and I am a choleric/melancholy (self diagnosed as both).  Anytime we have differences or find ourselves in a tif, we just take a step back and analyze, “ok, why is he/she acting this way” and 99% of the time, their behavior is in line with their personality type.  It’s quite fascinating.  You can’t be mad at someone for long if you understand why they are acting a certain way.  I highly recommend couples discovering what personality types they are and how that affects them in their relationship!

There is so much more to this than what I have time to write about, or that you’d be willing to read, but there are plenty of free online tests out there and wikipedia does a pretty good job at explaining the personality types.

Even though we didn’t get counseling, we feel like this is holding us over pretty well.  After 7 months of being married, things are great!  Of course, I don’t want to wait till things ARE NOT great to go to counseling.  So we are both still open and willing to go to “pre-marital/marital counseling” before we feel like we actually need it, just don’t know when or where.

So the latest excitement in the Snyder house hold is that for the past month or so, we’ve been house hunting.  yay!

the first house instantly seemed like it was meant to be, with it’s beautiful foyer, the random open space that would make an awesome office, the beautiful kitchen with a center island and best of all, it was marked $100,000 less than it’s neighboring houses!!!  is this too good to be TRUE???  yes.  apparently the seller was trying to start a bidding war, and the fact that his “low ball” asking price was the max of our house budget didn’t help.

so on we go with our realtor, from one house to the next, to the next, then some more… nothing compared to the house that captured our hearts at the very beginning!  so we started looking outside of our budget (not recommended).  not only did we find an amazing place right down the street, but it had everything, i mean EVERYTHING that we could want.  it has a huge area for my dream office (which would fit in one or two interns/co-workers nicely), a beautiful upgraded kitchen, huge master bedroom, right next to the greenway (huge plus!) and walking distance from our favorite restaurant.  this could be it!  so we went home to crunch some numbers and re-figure our budget.  no freakin’ way, we can afford this?  let’s do it!  so we call our loan officer to get approved for the new amount and we got approved!  we just have to put $12k down as a downpayment + closing costs… ehem, excuse me?  there is no way we can scrape up that much in a short amount of time.  we had no idea this was expected at closing.  shot down.

now, feeling somewhat defeated, we’ve decided to stay in our apartment for another year, and save aggressively to get our butts out of here!  It’s a great complex, but let’s face it… right now it’s cheaper to pay a mortgage than it is to rent.  unfortunately, it takes LOTS of cash to get into a house.  so in my despair, I had to do something that would keep me happy in this apartment.  i had to nest.

after we got married, and I moved in, i didn’t nest (for those who don’t know, it’s absolutely mandatory for a woman to nest!)  we didn’t paint, we didn’t put up any wall decor, we only invested in Ikea furniture… it was a “temporary” housing situation.   we still have boxes that haven’t been unpacked in my office closet.  we moved in with the idea of moving out.

but since we’ve gotta stay here for another year or so, i decided to start nesting.  i mounted and hung up wedding pictures, we bought a new mattress (much needed!) and i totally reorganized the office.  gotta say, i love the new arrangement.  now i’m thinking about the other rooms and what we could do, paint or hang.  i want this apartment to feel like home, though deep down i know it will never be. (how can it, it’s a rental?)

even though this isn’t the most ideal situation, we’re still in our first year of marriage.  it’s easy to want to be in my dream scenario with the perfect man in the perfect house… but it will come.  now isn’t the right time, but once we’re ready, our dream house will be waiting.  hopefully…