Life lately...

...has been crazy busy. Hence no blog posts for almost two months. Lest you believe I've fallen off the face of the earth, I will regale you with some glimpses into the past two months over here.

At the end of September, we moved. That's right. We bought a house. The whole process from start to finish took less than two months. So in Marie time, that's like two seconds passed between Andy and me casually agreeing one night, "Let's start to look for a house" and then being almost entirely moved in (thanks to the help of friends and family).

Flash forward a week later (that's right...A WEEK!), and I flew to Omaha to begin my training to become a FertilityCare Practitioner. I spent a grueling 8 days there, studying with people from all over the country, and the world (12 countries were represented). It was awesome, but exhausting, to be honest.

The day after I got back was Andy's birthday (yay, 27!). Sidenote: Before I left for Omaha, I joked with Andy that he'd have the whole house completely remodeled by the time I got back. Well, he may not have had it completely remodeled, but he did an incredible amount of work, anyway. He found two additional cabinets that look identical to the existing ones at Habitat for Humanity's warehouse and installed them in the kitchen. He moved the refrigerator from its awkward position in the corner to a place where you can actually open the doors all the way. He installed an additional cabinet in the bathroom. Plus, he got rid of these incredibly creepy black hand towel rack and toilet paper holders, and replaced them with normal metal ones. (Why the former owner would ever have installed these, I have no idea. The idea of hands coming out of the wall is just creepy.) He also got rid of some carpet in one of our upstairs closets that must have been original to the house in the 1960s. It reeked of smoke, and frankly made the whole room smell like an ashtray. Andy replaced it with some wood laminate. Since I've been home, he's done a lot more, but that's for another post.

Then we hosted a Halloween Party for some of our friends. We live in a neighborhood with lots of kids, so we figured we should be prepared for trick-or-treaters. Andy and I dressed up as the two main characters from the Dick van Dyke Show, Rob and Laura Petrie, respectively. I have played the part of a 50s housewife at Halloween before, so being a 60s housewife wasn't a huge stretch. Andy tried to comb over his hair to a side part, but his hair is just too short. But he definitely can pull off the tall and lanky look that Dick Van Dyke is known for. Our friends from church, Adam and Caitlin, dressed up as Charlie Brown and Lucy from the Peanuts cartoon, and brought their two little girls: Claire as Snoopy, and their 10-day-old baby Maggie, as Woodstock. One of our traditions is to watch the Peanuts holiday movies, and so it was perfect to watch "The Great Pumpkin" with the characters present! Claire particularly was entranced with the cartoon...and the candy corn on the coffee table. She also liked to go down the stairs, to check out the trick-or-treaters who came to the door.

Last weekend, Andy and I celebrated our first anniversary in Gig Harbor. Neither of us had been there before, so it was a real treat to be touristy together in the quaint fishing community. We stayed in an inn right on the water...our doors led out to a private dock. We ate dinner at the Anthony's there (of course!), which was just a block down from our hotel. The weather turned overnight, and Saturday was blustery and cold. That was our day out and about, but we made the best of it. While we were in the local history museum, the power went out. We were in the middle of watching footage of "Galloping Gertie," the first bridge across the Tacoma Narrows, as it twisted out of control and collapsed. Fortunately the electricity came on a few minutes later, and we were able to resume the film. Afterwards we went to the Heritage Distilling Company, where we tasted several different kinds of whiskey, and then got to take a tour and learn about the distilling process. That evening we ate sushi and drank sake at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that had been recommended on tripadvisor. It was delicious. :) It was a beautiful weekend, and it was so great to get away from the craziness of life lately.

This week I have been preparing for my first Introductory Session, which is scheduled for November 12 at our church. I will be providing an overview of the Creighton Model FertilityCare System to people interested in natural family planning methods. I have no idea how many people (if any) are coming. I just hope I will be able to say what I need to say...no more and no less!

Well, that's been life lately for us. How are things going for you?