My, oh my. Could it be that it's already one week into May? A good portion of Spring gone by?! Where has this year gone, for cryin' out loud?!?

Well, I know for us, it's been craaazy busy. We're still setting up bank accounts together, joining our car insurances, and so forth. Structural integration, as it were.

I'm getting my real estate license. I've loved all things real estate for some time now, and have wanted to learn more about the field in general in preparation for when we sell this house, buy a new one, etc. I knew taking that class was a significant commitment of time and energy; turns out, it was substantially more than I had originally calculated. But I've quite enjoyed the class; it's kind of a hobby-type interest that will probably help us in the long run.

Brian's had to work late a lot lately. I wonder how often it happens that a spouse doesn't really understand that much about what the other does? He understands much more about my work than I do about his, for sure. If he doesn't know something, I can get my meaning across in a few sentences. But for me, on the other hand... Obviously, I can tell from his tone and demeanor whether he's had a good day or bad day, but too much more than that and I get lost pretty quickly. But I think he's more looking to vent or to share something he's proud of, not give a two hour lecture on the inner-workings of his job. So I listen and try to be supportive.

We've been watching with baited breath as the primaries have unfolded, happy with the results so far, wishing things were clearer, and not envying the super-delegates, who are going to have to finish this, with one side or the other unhappy with their choice. Hopefully, in the end, people will support whatever dem takes the nomination.

I haven't got much else to memorialize here. The point of the blog is to help us remember later what's happened but honestly, things have been so busy, we've barely had a chance to hang out with anybody, do anything besides work on the house, work on my class, trying to work out more (just Saturday, I downloaded a bunch of songs to work out to onto my mp3 player that Brian gave me, filling it up with my favorite songs from the 80s that he had ripped onto his computer from his CD collection) (it's funny to me to think of how we were growing up, listening to the same songs at the same time, not knowing that years later, we'd meet, get married, and how our favorite songs would match up), working on our respective projects (I long ago conceded the lawn to nature and the dogs; Brian has taken up that mantle and is doing a good job of it. I continue to knit knit knit, as the exemplars here show, and thanks to the dogs for modeling some of the projects I've made for myself), work at our respective jobs, enjoying each other's company, as always.

Ooo. I will spend a second on that - how we enjoy each other's company. I do so love pal-ing around with Brian. We just like to hang out with each other, you know? I'm sure I've blogged about it before. We complement each other nicely, I think.

Last thing - we've discussed with both families that we're not going to go to both families for every holiday. Seriously, every single holiday was becoming a marathon, bouncing from one family event to the other. It had gotten that we weren't enjoying them anymore. The first one we missed was Easter on his side; that was de facto because he needed to pack for Canada, not the result of a strategy on inter- and intra-familial dynamics. But it went over OK. And, since the next big thing is Mother's Day, we announced we won't be hanging out with my family for that. The announcement was not met with gut-wrenching dismay or anything, although I think my mom did sniffle once or twice while we were talking. Just kidding, actually both moms have been very supportive, I just know she would have enjoyed having us over... And it's not like we're going to ignore them, we get together almost every week, so we'll celebrate the moms in my family then, we're just not going to kill ourselves this weekend to make sure we're at all the special gatherings known to mankind. Depending on how things get planned out, we may actually be able to stop in on our way there or back...

So we'll see how the new dynamics work out. I don't like that we have to miss one or the other, and we probably will try to make it to both for the big holidays. Also, once we have a kid or kids, it'll all have to change again, most likely, but at least we're finding a way to balance things in this phase. We'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there. And we'll just say ooooooommmmmmm and breathe until then, as much as we can.