Other people´s marriages

My parents have been separated for about 2 years. Today, I got an email from my dad saying that they are starting divorce proceedings. I wasn´t expecting them to get back together or anything like that, but it still feels kind of weird. I guess that when they got separated, I was still living with them, it meant that my dad didn´t live there anymore... now I don´t really know what their divorce means to me...

It´s funny that lately I had been feeling sort of ¨sadder¨ about my parents and what happened to them. I can´t help but to think that I was ¨sensing¨ that something was going on...

I told my husband and he said that he was sorry that my family was so ugly. I said that my family is not ugly, because HE is not ugly :) (I swear this makes sense in Spanish!.. kinda :) ).

Know when to shut up

This is something I need to learn to do...
There´s a fine line between being honest and being hurtful, and I can sometimes get way too close to it...
Patience is good too... specially for those who are married to me! :)

Work work work

Like in any other relationship, in a long distance one, different schedules means a lot of coping and compromising.

When we first started the long distance thing, it was kind of the opposite... When I moved here he didn´t have Internet in his house and was looking for a job.

Those first months were hard for both of us, but mostly for him. He spend a lot of time by himself at home, reading and doing housework and went through a pretty hard depression. I couldn´t give him all the attention he needed because I was pretty busy with classes during the
first semester and I couldn´t afford to call him anymore than about 15-20 minutes per day.

Nowadays, my schedule is pretty flexible, while he works about 10 hours a day, 6 days a week and on his ¨day off´ he goes to class all day long. Many, many times, when we are together online, he is actually doing homework or something from work that needs to be done.

I sometimes get impatient for his attention during our Skype sessions but I have become used to watching TV, or doing crafts while we talk, as a way to keep myself busy.

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BTW, this is what I did today. I got some white chains and sew some flowers to them. I think they turned up pretty nice :D

Granny shoes + studs :P

I like to go to crafts stores and get buttons, trims and other pretty stuff, even if I don´t have a particular project in mind. I started to do the same thing on eBay and got a little bag full of studs. I really liked them because they are all black, so they are a little more ¨discrete¨ than the silver ones, for example, which in my head makes them more ¨office-appropriate¨ :)

I placed some studs in the buckle of a plain black belt I have, and some along the straps of some very boring granny shoes I have. I think they all seem a bit more interesting now. I may add some more studs to the shoes, but I´m not sure yet. I´m a big chicken and I didn´t want to
make any holes in them, but if I get some courage I may do it... Suggestions, anyone?

Trust and Jealousy

Trust is important in any relationship. More so in a long distance one: You have to trust your partner, and you also have to trust yourself.

I´m not talking about ¨temptation¨ or anything like that. Let me explain a bit:
There´s the trust that you have that your partner will not cheat on you, but there is also the trust that you need to have on yourself to keep trusting your partner. I think this part is the most crucial to a succesful long distance relationship.

Of course I think that not cheating is important, but the truth is, you cannot control whether your partner cheats on you or not. You can only control wheather you cheat on your partner or not, and whether you keep trusting your partner or not.

Now, I have never cheated on my husband, and I´m pretty sure he has never cheated on me, but that doesn´t mean that I don´t get jealous every once in a while. The key is recognizing what may be "real danger" and what may be just insecurities, and that takes a great deal of self-knowledge!

Wedding :D

My husband and I have a little scrapbook with pictures of us from my visits and a couple of screen-prints and picture files he has sent me. It started a while ago as a way to keep our photos all together in our place but I hadn´t added any pictures from the last couple of trips, including the ones from our wedding!
So today I finally went through the pictures and ordered some prints. yay!

Seeing all the pictures at once made me a little sad, but at the same time incredibly happy of having such a great man as my husband :) I guess the pics are not that great for anyone other than us, mostly because our wedding was very much "us".

We wanted to have a wedding just for the two of us... legally, we also needed a lawyer and two witnesses but we were sure we didn´t want a party or anything like that. His cousin´s wife who is alawyer married us at her beautiful house (She even decorated and made lunch for us !), but it was only her family (who live there), two of our friends as witnesses and us.

We spent some time at his mom´s house and at my mom´s house on the wedding day. It was our way to keep our families involved while having a wedding ¨just for us¨.
My parents eloped, so I was more concerned about his family being offended or something, but they completely understood us and were very supportive of our decisions.

I actually had a tiny little harder time from a friend, who was not too happy about not being there. It was an akward situation, she had already had her wedding and I had been there, but as someone else pointed out, that was HER wedding, and she had had her dream wedding... now it was my turn... In any case, aside from a couple of comments and remarks it didn´t became a big deal and our friendship is the same now. I guess that at some point she took it personally and that was definitely NOT the idea.

Anyway...

After the ceremony and visits, we went to a very nice hotel to stay for the night and had a very romantic dinner :) . The we stayed at a lake cabin for a week for our honeymoon (The same cabin where we got engaged :) )

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I guess seing the pictures just made me realize how special our wedding was for us, and what a great start for our marriage it was :D

Home Alone 2

Today I had a nice dinner with my husband... over Skype!

I stopped by the grocery store and spent way too much money on nice food! I made myself some garlic butter shrimp with nice french bread and grapes, and a glass of wine. My husband had chinese and a beer, hehe.

I guess that´s one advantage of a long distance marriage, we can each eat whatever kind of food we want and still have dinner together... and I can have all the garlic I want! :P

Home alone

This week, both my roommates are gone. One is house-sitting for a friend, while the other is with her BF at a conference.

I enjoy spending time by myself. I can watch TV as late and loud as I want, eat like a pig without feeling judged or making my other roommates feel bad (they´re both watching their weight...while me... not so much) and I can be as messy as I want to!!

It does get a bit lonely sometimes, but that only lasts until my husband gets online and we can chat.

Since ¨being by myself¨ is a big part of having a long distance marriage, I guess it´s not a bad thing to be good at.


Today I went to the mall and did some shopping. Now, when I say shopping, I mean bargain shopping - remember that I´m a grad student!

I was actually pretty lucky today and I scored a 3x2 on sale items at Banana Republic. I got a sweater for my husband and another for me, plus a pair of earrings, all for $35!! (instead of $140!!!) :D

Bonus: a pretty fashionable lady asked where I got my cardigan (JC Penney) and then asked me if I was into Fashion or Design :P I know it´s silly, but it was a pretty nice self-esteem booster!