October 30th, 2009

10 Years of Wedded Bliss

A decade ago I married the wonderful love of my life, my handsome husband. We were both 24 years old, and it was a cold crisp autumn day. So cold that it snowed the next day and a couple of our poor little flower girls were just freezing during the outdoor photos, so they wore sweaters over their pretty little dresses. Thankfully I was no bridezilla, and I didn’t worry about that!

Our ceremony was perfect. I put the whole thing together myself, as we had a marriage commissioner perform the ceremony. Actually, the marriage commissioner was one of the best parts of the whole ceremony – my mom got a special one day license and performed it for us!

We actually had thought about eloping in Vegas or Mexico. A beach wedding was my idea of heaven, but circumstances dictated that might not be the wisest path (aka MIL drama). I am so glad actually though that we had a more traditional event, as sharing the day with our family and friends was wonderful.

And now, ten years have passed. We’ve gone from being a young couple in love with 3 dogs to being a slightly older couple still very much in love with 3 kids. And apparently we now suck at getting good family shots, because this is the best I could find laying around, from a family reunion this summer. We so need to get some proper ones done soon!

How do you reflect on ten years of marriage exactly? And there were four years of dating before the wedding, so together I’ve spent close to half my life with my husband (okay, I’m 34, not 28 – close enough!)  There have been amazing times and some pretty awful times.  Marriage is definitely like a roller coaster in my opinion – ups and downs, twists and turns. In the time we’ve been married we’ve seen friends meet people, get married and divorced. We’ve had our three boys and lived through a miscarriage. We’ve taken trips and buried our dogs. Ups and downs for sure.

You know what I can say with certainty after all these years? Marriage is work. It’s a lifelong commitment and you have to really work at appreciating one another, understanding one another and telling each other what you need. I wonder what new lessons I’ll learn when another ten years have gone by?!

And handsome, if you read this, Happy Anniversary!!

October 25th, 2009

Scary Stuff

It’s almost Halloween Week – time for scary stuff! Well, ok, really my scary stuff this week is doing some real thinking about my business and considering a suggestion made by a client. It’s something I’ve considered on my own anyway, but I feel like I need to maybe move ahead sooner than I had ever thought to.

You see, right now my business is still growing, and not that quickly in general. But if I go in a certain direction a client may be able to direct some more business my way. So I have to start deciding if I want to have a team working with me and how exactly that would all work. It’s kind of exciting and kind of daunting – as it’s fairly different from where I am now – able to still fit my business in pretty much around my personal life. Even one or two more of my regular (and lovely!) type of clients will mean I have to really start buckling down and being in my home office a lot more than I am now. Good thing my amazing hubby just bought me a netbook – I can access my work while still being on the go, at least somewhat!

It’s crazy how much thinking about my work has consumed me this weekend – and of course nothing may come of it all anyway! Still, it’s important to start planning and preparing I think. Despite some rough days where I wonder what on earth I am doing trying to be an entrepreneur, I love my little business and I want to keep growing it.

Okay – now time for the other type of scary stuff – getting ready for Halloween! There is another pumpkin to carve, treat bags to assemble and parties to attend. Fun, fun, fun! Oh and I think I’m going to write a post over at Type A Mom about the costs of Halloween this year-one more item on my to-do list.

October 19th, 2009

Book Review: After You by Julie Buxbaum

After You by Julie Buxbaum

It’s interesting to me that my synopsis of this lovely book by Julie Buxbaum doesn’t really match what is on her own website! Does that mean I’m “wrong” or just that we all see things so differently and get different things from books? Well, that is how I see it anyway!

To me, After You is about loss and the incredible journey one must undertake to move past a particularly significant or tragic loss. Loss can be a very hard topic to read about – if you are particularly sensitive right now in your life I don’t actually know if I’d recommend the book, although otherwise I absolutely do. It is a really wonderful book with a compelling main character in Ellie.

Loss is so personal. We all experience it at some point and we all hurt. But there is so much expectation around losses – you should feel this way, for this long and then you should be ready to “move on”. Of course it doesn’t work that way for so many of us. Maybe I’ll need two years to recover from something that you adjusted to in only six months. Maybe I’ll cry and rant and rage and maybe you’ll turn inwards and quiet.

In After You, Ellie has been trying to move on from her own personal loss for awhile, when another tragedy strikes in her life. Her best friend Lucy loses her life in a public murder, right in front of Lucy’s young daughter, Sophie. Sophie has a very difficult road ahead of her coping with losing her mother so violently and Ellie temporarily moves from the US to the UK to help Sophie.

Other than a slightly predictable ending, I really enjoyed the whole story in After You and I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Hope you enjoy it too!