happy four months!

today is our four month-iversary. i had completely forgotten it, until nat ran in and gave me a hug this morning. :)

there have been ups and downs in our marriage, but it's been great overall. :)

i think the biggest challenge (and will continue to be a challenge) is learning to communicate. i've had to learn to be open and honest with nat. i've had to learn to work through times when i've been hurt or upset. i've had to learn to apologize, even when it's been hard. i've had to learn that nat likes to talk things out with me. i've had to learn how nat communicates with me. i've learned how to voice my expectations and that nat can't read my mind all the time. and i've learned how to ask about how nat's doing and what's he going through.

it would be pretty scary to me to end up just having days where nat and i just go through the routine of daily life without really talking with one another.

anyways, there has been lots of joys too! i think it's true that you fall more in love with your spouse the longer you've been married. when i was going to bed a few nights ago, i just prayed over nat and spent some time praising God for who he is. it brought tears to my eyes as i was saying all these things that i love about nat. i couldn't believe that i was married to such a wonderful man. it's been such a joy to just laugh together, eat together, spend time together, spend time with others together, go to church together, and all these things. i'm so blessed by my husband.

i love you so much nat!

hibernatin'

i think winter resorts to me wanting to hibernate like some animals. friday and saturday night, i got about 9 hours of sleep. i took about a 2 hour nap yesterday, and i slept about 9 hours again last night. i still had trouble getting up saturday-monday. bleh.

extreme generousity

i don't usually associate generousity with people in the service industry. i've seen nice, great customer service, and helpful (i suppose they are being pretty generous with their time and effort when they treat others like this), but not generous in the sense of giving things for free.

but today, nat and i experienced the extreme generousity of our plumber john. our pipes had freezed (but not busted, praise the Lord!), and we thought we unfroze them last night (with a dryer and space heater being used on the pipes). despite fixing that, we were having really low water pressure coming out of our kitchen faucet--it was just trickling.

well john, our most favorite plumber ever, came over today and took a look at it. it turned out the faucet was clogged, so he took it apart and cleaned it. the charge? NOTHING. he did it for free! he spent time driving to our house, taking his time to look at things, providing a service, and he asked for no money. i was shocked and blessed by his generosity. i guess i still can't wrap it around my head how he could do that, especially since that's his job and how he gets paid.

and as another side story about john. he did our plumbing when the kitchen was being remodeled. he had trouble getting our faucet to run, and he admitted that he was supposed to check a pipe or something first. so, he came in the next day and worked free of charge. so he's honest too! :)

well, here's john's information if you need a plumber (i can't guarantee he'll do things for free, but he's definitely patient with any questions you have, filled with integrity, personable, and an all-around nice guy): VIP plumbing, 217-202-2421, VIPPlumbing@insightbb.com.

"It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead."

ah, i love princess bride. so this "friend" actually turns out to be the teaching degree that i was looking into. i had basically given up on the idea b/c the deadline was six days ago and i needed to have the Illinois Basic Skills Assessment Test before the deadline (which i hadn't).

so what did miracle max do for me? well, miracle max was really tony from my rapid prototyping and evaluation class. he informed me about this program called RECRUIT--Recruiting, Educating, Certifying, and Retaining Underrepresented Populations In Teaching Science and Mathematics. i'm excited about applying, but i think that the slots might be limited. another thing that's exciting is that my CS degrees can be used to help me get into the program, so i feel like it's less of a "i'm throwing away my education" type feeling.

and my mostly dead friend, motivation-for-my-thesis, is coming back alive. i'm going to just push forth and stop being a scaredy cat. if i fall, i fall. i'll just have to pick myself up and keep trucking.

insane in the membrane

whew, 90% done with my final project for children's literature. i did a paper looking at how child development is reflected in the Ramona series.

i didn't think that i could get it done. i've been struggling with my confidence in writing with this class, so i was really unmotivated to get it done. it even manifested itself with physical ailments--headaches, feeling like i wanted to puke. uh. but i got it done.

i thought that it wasn't organized very well, but nat and tanya were very encouraging with their comments. hopefully my professor thinks it's ok.

wow, look at the time, it's getting late. off to bed!