Another Hilarious Ashleyism

I know it probably seems weird that I'm constantly catching candid moments of Ashley and posting them to this blog. It turns out that I'm the one around here that uses the camera and she's the one whose every action and habit is unbelievably cute (maybe I'll video something else when we have kids).

So here's the next item on the list. In the morning after showering, there's a quick session of brushing hair, which everyone expects. And then she does this...



Hahaha. I can't ever watch this without cracking up. She really does this every day. Apparently it injects vitality and energy into her hair. Sound like a shampoo add? She's fit for it. You knew she didn't grow all those lustrous locks for nothing.

Sleeping Schedules

Anyone who has been looking at our facebook statuses or just knows anything about our personal lives and habits before we were married will know that we have some different approaches to sleep. That is to say, the best time of day for me is about the time Ashley starts saying it's time for bed. And she is all chatty in the mornings when either I just listen to her with my eyes closed or stare through bloodshot eyes and wonder how anyone could be cheerful during those horrible morning hours.

The other thing we have noticed is that while I am a chronic insomniac, Ashley sleeps fairly well at night, and during the day. Basically whenever she feels like it. And that has led me to notice that she sleeps with her eyes and mouth quite open. This isn't the most wide open her eyes get but you can get the idea. Sometimes I feel inclined to talk to her, although she doesn't seem exactly happy in this state, so I'm usually asking if something is bothering her.

She's so cute when she's asleep, isn't she? This is a real and bona fide picture of her sleeping.

It looks so satisfying, doesn't it? I've been trying to learn the same skill and see if it might allow me to sleep a little better, if not at times that are more convenient for the family as a whole. I'm trying to take a few lessons. Here we are not fully asleep, but we are trying.

Somehow falling asleep gazing into each other's eyes is so romantic, isn't it?

It's also rather romantic to come home to a wife in bed, although it's slightly less so when it happens every day and you realize she really is just sleeping. This napping ability will come in handy some day when we have infants who are awake every two hours or so. Namely, when they wake up, their light sleeping Dad will go get them and throw them in bed with her to fend for themselves like little piglets. And she will sleep through the whole thing.

I love Ashley when she is napping. Besides being really cute, we have some great conversations, and she never disagrees with me. It's one of the many ways in which our marriage is so strong. :)

She has a new job (part time) which requires her to be at work at 7 AM. Is that cruel or what? Anyway, I have resolved, at least tentatively, that I will be getting up at the same time as her and toughing it out. It's worth it to see her bright eyes in the morning and have her come to kiss me...just before turning away because of my morning breath. We don't kiss in the morning, but the thought is there.

Cabinet Gnomes!

This morning I got up to make Ashley breakfast. It was the first time in several years that I've used a stove, with the exception of broiling hot dogs over the open flame. Anyway, this is how the kitchen looked when I was done. See if anything looks amis to you. (Disregard the dishes because I did them shortly after the picture)



What the heck happened to those pantries? I refuse to accept the fact that I leave them open habitually because I feel like I am always carefully closing them. I spend all day closing these doors and every time I pass by they end up open. It's like that spooky scene in the sixth sense when the mom leaves the boy in the kitchen for a second. When she comes back all the pantries are open magically. Spooky.

Ashley always gets a kick out of it. At least that's the way she describes it. Quite frankly our relationship reminds me of the relationship between WALL-E and that little cleaning robot that follows him around. Only we love each other more. Thank goodness for tolerant wives.

In Every Way

I've always said about Ashley that she is practically perfect in every way. The other day she took a nap and I got a shot of her right afterwards. It's the only time you will ever find her looking anything but perfect in any way, and she still has such a pretty smile. I guess despite her practical perfection, her hair can be mussed up, only ever so slightly.

You know your wife loves you and is amazingly tolerant when she allows you to post nap-hair pictures of her on the world wide web.

Ahhh, such a wonderful marriage.

The Gamer in Us

In Ashley's view, one of the really big upsides of me as a husband (or perhaps, compensating plusses) is that I am not a gamer. I haven't had any tolerance for games since I gave myself myopia and violent dreams playing doom and duke nukem as a teenager (and who knows what other symptoms were caused by that). It saves so much time and I'm so much more interested in the family and stuff. Well, ironically, one of the things Ashley and I really enjoyed doing together when we were dating was playing guitar hero. Such a great game. And it's not divisive, it's good quality family together time. Well we decided to go ahead and get ourselves a PS2 (we couldn't believe how cheap they are now that the PS3 is out) and a couple of guitar hero games.

For now we are still using her tiny little television that doesn't even have stereo sound, but that doesn't mean we don't rock out together. We have guitar hero 3, which is the best of the games because it's the "Legends of Rock" version so it only has really quality songs. We also got the "Rock the 80's" version, which is nice, although you can't technically have a career together. That is, you can play guitar and bass together on songs, but only songs that you have already beat by playing solo. That was a very annoying discovery. So I stayed up real late after Ashley had gone to bed and beat a whole bunch of songs. It's for the family, you know?

A picture for good measure...

When I made dinner earlier this week Grant decided to take a picture so that he'd never forget how wonderful it is to be married.

Aw.

Well, lucky for him I make dinner of some fashion just about every day so he won't have to wait long to have his memory jogged.

Gettin into a Grove

Well, we are pleased to report that married life is certainly treating us well.

Very, very well.

The past few weeks have been a bit of Honeymooning and a bit of trying to get into the swing of not being single. It's really quite interesting...sometimes in the evening and I realize that neither of us are going home. In fact, we are Home. It's strange but always a lovely feeling that washes over.


Settling in
We're spending the summer in the little studio apartment I had already arranged to sublet back in the Spring. It all worked out beautifully, because I'm sure Grant's roommate appreciates not living with newlyweds and we certainly appreciate having space to ourselves. I actually sublet this apartment from two men who were sharing it as college roommates. As we have made it our summer nesting grounds, this actually blows my mind. The only reason it's tolerable to us as a 2-person dwelling is that we're literally trying to have our bodies and things all occupy the same space. How they came out of this year sane is beyond me. It would have driven me crazy.

But they're both men and foreigners, so maybe it was different for them.

I think it was more the former than the the latter that impacted the fact they never knew there was a medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror until I came over to look at the apartment with less than 2 months left in their lease.


Overlap, compliments and trying new things
Grant and I always knew that we had fun together and would make a very compatible married couple. It's really quite awesome to see how many ways it's true, small and large.

As single people, we both had impressive DVD collections and as it turns out we also owned a significant percentage of the same flicks. There aren't too many that one of us would enjoy and the other wouldn't...at least on some level. He does tend to roll his eyes at my extensive selection of mindless action movies (his least favorite is The Day After Tomorrow-he says we have to hide that one from our children). I find his five versions of Pride and Prejudice quite endearing...if a little excessive. Although there are certain similarities to that story and our own.

Recently, we went to the grocery store and I took him down every aisle very carefully asking him about his tastes and pointing out mine. It was quite fun how many times our tastes overlapped both in favor and against certain things. I never knew neither of us like swiss cheese or sour cream. Those are only a couple of examples of things I can recall off the top of my head, but it was fun to see.

But there is also a large measure of complimentary connection which sweetens our marriage as well. I think our largest challenge is finding a happy medium between our natural sleeping habits.


The Good Stuff
It seems like that's where life is for us right now as we're settling into establishing our family. It's just the Good Stuff. It's waking up and laughing at morning breath, it's tenderly being attended when I don't feel well, it's being so excited for him to walk through the door when he spends the day at the office at school even though I've kept myself busy from one task to another all day long, it's his delight and appreciation for a meal of simple chicken and frozen vegetables.

I think I speak for both of us when I whole-heartedly announce that Married Life is treating both of us well. Very well indeed.

Our Family: Genesis

For those who have wondered: Yes, we are totally married. For real. And it is so...dang...awesome!


Every day since our marriage (June 26, 2008) has been bliss. More so than we had even imagined, and we imagined a lot. Since getting married we have been too busy to write on blogs. But that won't always be the case (according to accounts from other people), so don't despair if you have been anxious to read the story of our family!