A Married Woman's Blog

A Married Woman's Blog

Yes, the wedding is over, but the marriage has only just begun. Other things are beginning too, but I'll save some things for later.

So how's being married you ask? It's a lot more fun than I thought. The Honeymoon was lots of fun because we were always together. We spent almost the entire week talking and talking and talking because suddenly we felt so much more free to. Now we get to watch whole movies together too, I don't have to leave and go home because I'm already home. Plus, our apartment doesn't have a couch yet (We have a futon frame but no mattress yet.) and now that we're married we can sit in bed together and watch movies. (I know, so risqué!)

Being married to the Captain has it's interesting sides too. Like, I asked him to start the dishwasher the other day while I was at work. There's this little cup thing for dish soap in the dishwasher that I usually put one or two drops of soap into. He filled it to the top.

Apparently he was carting foam out by the bucketful.

Also, no one warned me about his sleeping habits before the wedding. (I have received a full apology from his brother already.)

So, we're on the honeymoon and one night at about 3 am he sits up and starts saying something. (I wish I could remember what it was, it was probably hilarious) He had mentioned shortly after the wedding that sometimes he talks in his sleep so I asked him

“Are you talking in your sleep?”

“What! No! No I'm not! I'm wide awake!”

“Ok, well, can you go back to sleep?”

I didn't understand just yet. But after the honeymoon we came home and started settling into our apartment. One night about 3 am when I was deep in sleep he woke up, and started shaking me.

“Hey, hey, wake up.”

“huuuuuh?”

“Are you hungry? Lets go get food!”

“Whuut? What time is it?”

“Three in the morning! It's always three in the morning when we wake up and we're hungry! Lets go get food!”

“I don't wanna go get food, I wanna go back to sleep!”

Then, about a week ago, I was sleeping peacefully when he suddenly sat upright and started drawing with his finger on the blanket.

“Sweety?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm making an unbreakable fuel tank!”

“Oh... can you lay back down?”

“In a minute!”

So the moral of the story is ask important questions before you get married like “What do they do in their sleep?”, “Do they call scrapers 'spatulas' and really confuse you in the kitchen?”, and “Is there anything weird I should know?”

Because there is, just, nobody really thinks about it until you're finding it out at three in the morning when he wants to sleepwalk up to the Lido deck for brunch and there is no Lido deck because you're already home from your cruise.

But seriously, being married is a lot of fun. I like taking care of our apartment. I like getting to see the Captain all the time. I like getting dragged off into his crazy schemes. I like showing him off to everybody... ^_^

One more thing though. I was getting dressed for church a week or so ago and yanked a pair of black pants out of the closet. When I went to put my phone in my pocket I recall thinking “These pockets seem a lot deeper than the pockets on my black pants...” but I ended up wearing them out of the house. We were halfway across the state before I thought “I'm not sure these are my pants. Are these really my pants?”

Ask the important questions people, they were not my pants.

The Tale of the Cyst

Why would a bride have surgery a month before her wedding? Not plastic surgery. Though, I might need that to put my bellybutton back the way it was...

The tale of the cyst begins almost four months ago when the stress of wedding planning and switching Phunny Pharm's was only beginning. I started complaining about odd pains in my hip. About a month later I couldn't even come in to work unless I had filled myself with over the counter pain medicine.

One night at work I convinced myself I was having a side effect from the drugs I was taking and my dad took me to the Emergency Room. I felt ridiculous since I wasn't actively in pain, but I didn't know where the pain was coming from. They did a CAT scan and left dad and I in a room while the Captain changed his tire. (He was amazing through this whole entire thing.) The Captain came in just before the doctor did and the doctor informed me that I had an “Ovarian Cyst.”

My response was something like this face O.o

Nice sterile picture of the HORRORS going on inside my body. Seriously, do not image search ovarian cyst.

The Captain went home because it was nearly eleven o'clock and he had been working all day, and my dad did some research on his phone.

“They say that if it's more than five centimeters across it has to be surgically removed immediately.”

“Ok, well, the doctor doesn't seem worried so I guess mine must be pretty small.”

I went to my doctor the next week. The doctor wasn't in, but I was asked if I wanted to be seen by her nurse.

“I don't care, I just want someone to look at this.”

“The CAT scan shows it's about four centimeters across. These things rupture on their own, but it will really really hurt when it does.”

“Alright, then what do I do?”

“Oh, just wait for it to rupture, but just to let you know it will really REALLY hurt when it does.”

“...”

“See you in six weeks!”

After about three weeks I had to start taking the pain medicine the ER doctor gave me, and two weeks after that I could barely stand up at work. To make it more interesting, the pain killers were running out.

The doctor wrote me a new prescription and I made it through the last week to my next appointment. The Ultra Sound tech looked around for about a minute before I saw a huge black mass on the screen above her.

“It's about six centimeters across now.”

YIPE!

“You're not scheduled to see the doctor today, would you like to?”

“Yes please.” o.o

“I'll go see if she can fit you in.”

About twenty minutes later I got to see the doctor. She said it was still likely that the cyst would pop on it's own, in six or seven weeks. My mom pointed out that the wedding was seven weeks away.

“Well, now we could start to consider surgery.”

She held up a chart showing two little metal sticks pointing at an ovarian cyst. It looked fine. One goes in and pops the cyst, the other sucks all the mess out, they close me up and I go home cyst free. Sign me up!

The day before the surgery I was elated. In my life I think I have only ever been more excited about my wedding. Why was I excited? I had no clue what was about to happen.

The Captain came over the morning off and he and my mom drove me to the hospital. I sat down with them in a waiting area for about a minute before a nurse came and walked me to another room with a cot.

My doctor came in and went over the plan again. This time with more detail than when I had been in her office. “We're going to put air in your abdomen so when you wake up your shoulders might hurt, it seems strange but I don't want you to be frightened.”

Okay...

“And I don't plan on taking your ovary out but in case I do I don't want to have to wake you up to ask your permission so please sign this.”

Okay...

“And in no time you'll be all healed. Are you going somewhere warm on your honeymoon?”

“Yeah a cruise to the Bahamas.”

“You'll be able to wear your bikini and show off your belly, it will look fine.”

Cool. I don't have a bikini, but cool.

Then the doctor left and the nurse came back. The first thing she asked of me was a urine sample. I forgot to mention that every time I went near this place they would find a reason to draw blood and give them a urine sample.

“It's for a routine pregnancy test. I just need four drops.”

I don't like to be trouble but I had to say something. What came out was “Oh, I... um... I'm not. I'm... ... a virgin.”

“It's just policy.”

Okay...

I hand off another sample and in no time at all I'm laying on the bed in a hospital gown covered with about six pre warmed blankets. I could get used to this surgery stuff.

I forgot about the IV.

I hate needles. I cannot stress my fear and loathing of them enough. My arms were already bruised from all the times in the last few weeks that I had been really really good and let them draw blood. My poor little arms had had it.

I had a plan though. I was going to think about the Captain and I wading through the creek shortly after we had first started courting. I was going to think about how happy and calm I was then, about picking shells out of the water, about watching the Captain pick up little critters in the water. This nurse had other ideas.

“It just won't advance.”

ADVANCE!

My hands and feet went numb and I started to squirm. Even thinking about it almost a week later I'm still starting to squirm and my breathing is getting short. (Doesn't help that I'm still all bruised up both arms.)

“Don't pass out on me.”

No, it would have been easier for both of us if I had just passed out. But I tried to calm down, tried to go back to that nice autumn day in the creek.

“So when is your wedding?”

She was trying to help I know, but I had decided I didn't like her so much then.

When she finally got the stupid needle in my arm she let mom and the Captain in. They started chatting with me and I was fine until I felt something in my arm and remembered the needle. I started squirming and crying and panicking and my fingers and toes got numb again. But then the Captain was there. He stood up next to me and kissed me on the top of the head. By the time they came to get me I had calmed down to my mostly reasonable self again.

Mom took my glasses and I remember them wheeling me through the halls into a big cold room where I could see big blurry metal things. They moved me into another bed, one that wasn't very wide. I was afraid of the IV pulling and my arm wouldn't quite fit on the table. I voiced my concerns and a nurse made more room for my arm.

“My elbow feels cold.”

“That's the doctor putting you to sleep. Don't worry, in no time we'll have you back out and you can see your mom.”

I remember saying “The Captain is here too.”

An hour and four incisions later I woke up to them moving me back onto the cot. They moved me into another room and I slowly became aware of where I was. And pain.

“How do you feel?” a nurse asked.

My entire middle hurt, my throat was dry and ached, my legs hurt, and both of my shoulders felt like I had been carrying boulders on sticks for a week.

“... ow...”

I wasn't much better when mom and the Captain came in. Before I even really knew what was happening the nurse and my mom had me sitting up trying to dress me. The Captain had fled because the nurse had started uncovering me in front of him.

I was freezing the entire way home. Everything hurt and I was shivering, which shook all the things that hurt. I ended up throwing up all the water they had given me in the hospital and shooting it all over the car, and myself. When we got home mom helped me in and got me cleaned up. While she did that the Captain cleaned up the vomit in the car. Then he sat with me the rest of the day, making sure I was warm and had water.

So now it's a week later and I'm healing. I found out that the cyst was caused by endometrial tissue that crawled up into my ovary and my ovary went "AAAAAHHHH! MUST GET RID OF!" and tried to get rid of it by turning it into a cyst. However, if that had popped it would have been bad and surgery was about the only way to go. Oh, and I got to keep the poor abused ovary.

 The wedding is coming up and now I'll be cyst free and able to enjoy all the festivities. The best part of it all (besides knowing that God is in control) is knowing that I'm going to be marrying the most wonderful man in the entire world. He cleaned up my puke! Guys don't just do that! Besides, he's been amazingly caring and concerned. Other than nearly tearing me apart at the seams by making me laugh.

Also, surgery is not fun. Do not be fooled! O_O

Plans

I stopped at my old high school the other day. I was there to pick up some papers from one of the teachers, but I ended up stopping and chatting too. They asked me how things are going, where I'm working, how my plans are going.

While I was there a bunch of students came into the room and started to sit down, and I remembered coming in to class every day. I chiefly remembered all the things I was concerned with during my senior year there. I had to do really well in class to get really good grades, had to get a really good score on the ACT, had to look for scholarship opportunities, had to apply for colleges, had to figure out the rest of my life then and there and not do anything that could mess it up.

My plan back then was that I would go to college for four years and study something I liked, then get a job I could tolerate and wait for the Captain to notice me.

My plan before that had been to be a singer and an actress or fight pirates.

Neither of those plans worked out, thankfully. But back when I was the one sitting there in my plaid skirt, trying to figure out the rest of my life, I didn't know what was really going to happen. In 2009 I wouldn't have been able to imagine that I'd be getting married in 2012, that I'd have a full time job at a pharmacy that I (for the most part) enjoy. I couldn't have begun to guess that I'd end up right here right now. I'm right where I want to be, and right where God knew I needed to be.

With that said, I still have plans. My plans right now are to get married, continue working at the phunny pharm until the Captain finishes school, then have kids, stop working, and homeschool all the kids. God could have any number of other plans for us though. At the moment I'm concerned about a health issue that could potentially make it difficult for me to have kids, and that's only one of very many things that could change our plans.

God is still in control. He was in control when I was finishing up High School and worrying about drama. He was still in control when I was miserable at college, and when I was miserable at my last job. He was in control when He gave me the job at the Phunny Pharm, and then switching to a nicer, safer, Phunny Pharm with more hours. He's in control now when I'm worried about wedding planning and about my health.

The same goes for all the kids trying to sort out exactly what will happen the rest of their lives. You don't know what's coming. You have great plans and hopes and dreams, and there's nothing wrong with any of it. I want you to know that God has plans too, and that His are better. We aren't capable of dreaming up the great things God can do, but that doesn't mean He can't make them happen. Try not to be too upset when your plans fall through, I promise it's not the end of the world. As long as you move forward with Him, He'll get you where He wants you to be.

Brother

I've been freaking out about wedding planning. Almost every week I have one or two wedding related nightmares. I was driving my brother around today and telling him about it.

I had a dream where someone had picked out my dress for me and it was purple instead of white. I had another one where The Captain was marrying me and some other girl, or somehow had another wife. There was one where I didn't have any bridesmaids or anyone to help me dress or do my hair. In a more recent one everyone was angry with me and I was all alone just wishing that someone would be happy.

I explained my frustrations and my worries right until we got in the driveway. We got out of the car and I was feeling overwhelmed and miserable when my brother stopped me by standing in my path. I was ready to be frustrated with him but he put his arms around me and said,

"I'm happy for you."

He's a good brother.

I really wish I could take back making him wear that tutu when he was five....

Frequently Asked Questions

**DISCLAIMER** I was told I should probably put some kind of warning on here to let everyone know that I talk about sex in this blog entry. I didn't put anything explicit, but there it is.

Over the past several years I've heard a lot of questions about Courting from friends, family members, random people at school, almost everyone I've ever spoken to. I was thinking about them recently and thought I'd respond to them at last. Just a note, these are all real things that real people have said to me.

“You're never gonna date anyone? How are you ever going to get married?”

I heard this one before the Captain and I were courting. I thought the obvious answer was that I'd meet a guy who also didn't want to date, who met my requirements for a good husband (my requirements were that he had to love God, had to want to homeschool our kids, and be mentally and financially stable), and we'd get to know each other before gettin' hitched. Oh look! That's what happened.

“You only want to marry him for his money.”

What money? If there was money it wouldn't have taken us this long to get engaged.

Oh right, the whole “I don't want to work, I want to stay home with the kids” thing. There's a big difference between sitting on the couch eating bon bons and spending all my husbands money, and spending the entire day washing dishes and telling kids they need to get their school work done before they can go play.

“Is he really into all that old stuff too?”

You mean old stuff like when I dress up in Medieval dresses and run around at the Renfest? Actually, he's not, I think he's afraid I'll try to make him wear tights. If you mean “Did you drag this courting thing up because you're trying to live in a fantasy version of olden times?” the answer is no. We both hated the idea of dating and decided that we wanted to use the more old fashioned term “Courting” because it doesn't have the connotation of “Hey! We're sleeping together!”

“You're sleeping together right?”

No.

“Are you ever going to?” “Don't worry, I'll explain it to you before the wedding.”

Whoa! We both have parents to explain it to us, and it seems like a pretty simple concept to me. Also, if a couple of middle schoolers can figure it out in the locker room I think the Captain and I will be just fine without your help thanks.

“Why don't you just do it?”

If it was just about sex we wouldn't be courting, or probably planning on getting married. The point is really to please God. I believe He would be disappointed in us if we were just like “Well, we're almost married let's not wait anymore.” And frankly, knowing that God was disappointed in me is the worst thing I can imagine doing. I would die first.

Also, it's proving our commitment to each other and that our relationship is based on more than sex. Because the Captain has been working so hard to get to a point where we can get married instead of just doing whatever, has really shown my family (mainly my dad) what an amazing guy he really is.

“I wish I had waited like you.”

Cool, then can we stop talking about how stupid it is to wait?

“Do your parents approve?”

Why wouldn't they?

“Do you like his family?”

His sister is my best friend and his mom and other sister are probably the closest other friends I have. I love his family.

“You don't kiss?! Do you hug? Do you hold hands?” “You're gonna look stupid at your wedding if you've never kissed before.” “What if he's a bad kisser?”

It's hard for me to not get really passionate about this one. I've been holding back calling the girl who told me we'd look stupid all kinds of names ever since she said it. Luckily I haven't seen her in years. Still, at least I won't look like a slut at my wedding.

UPDATE: We did look silly at our wedding. It totally didn't matter, and we've had lots of practice since ;)

And what if he is a bad kisser? I've never kissed anyone either, what if I'm a bad kisser? Should we call off the whole wedding just in case? It's about more than kissing just like it's about more than sex. More on that later though...

“You're never alone together?”

For the whole not having sex thing to work you have to draw lines somewhere. If you're kissing and hugging and cuddled up together alone in your bedroom under the blankets, you're not about to go “Oh but we have to stop now and not have sex.”
Mom made it clear my whole life that boys were not allowed in my room and I wasn't allowed in a boy's room. I also decided when I got my purity ring that I wanted my first kiss to be at my wedding. I felt that it makes that kiss much more special, it's not just “Mwah we're getting married” it's the first kiss ever, but also as man and wife.

“What if you get married and find out he has an STD?” “What if he's secretly a girl?” “What if...”

If the Captain had some big awful secret he was keeping from me his sisters probably would have told me, if not his mother. And, if he had an STD he'd be dead cuz his mother would have killed him. My mom would have done the same to me.

Also, if he was a girl his mother wouldn't have named him Gabriel. She probably would have named him Susie and I would be a lot less interested.

“You two are never going to have a fulfilling sex life if you don't have sex before you're married.”

Selfishness abounds! Since when did promiscuity become equal to fulfillment? If all you care about is really good sex, and you're willing to toss people aside like trash when you get bored with them, do you really feel fulfilled when you look back on it? And similarly, if you have been cast aside, (ladies especially) didn't that hurt? Even just watching kids at school date around while not necessarily sleeping together, I saw so many broken hearts. That's why I determined when I was young that I would never have my heart broken. I gave my heart only to the Captain, and he has been taking very good care of it.

The idea that having lots of sex with lots of people will somehow help you have better sex is ridiculous to me. Treating people like they don't matter at all, and being used by people who don't think you matter at all doesn't make good sex.
My Senior year in High school we walked into Marriage Family and Finance class (A required Senior class at my school) one day, and the teacher had written on the board “The Best Sex Ever.” The point she made was the exact opposite of “I'm gonna run around and sleep with everyone in sight because that will give me fulfillment!” Her point was what I believe, that faithfulness and only having sex with your spouse, saving it for marriage as part of your covenant to them that you made before God, is the best sex. (And in a perfect world would be the only sex.)

I don't understand how anyone got the idea that sleeping around would lead to a good marriage. Maybe that's why there are so many divorces, because people are so focused on themselves that they can't work together, or even love each other, the way God intended. If you've trained yourself to throw people aside for more interesting sex, how long are you going to stay with one person because you married them? You might looooooove them, but do you care about them enough to keep all of your marriage vows so long as you both shall live?

It's what I started to say about kissing. Who cares if we're good at kissing? Who cares if we're good at sex? You shouldn't, it's private. Plus, sex isn't really what's important,what matters to me is being completely faithful to my husband, and being secure in the knowledge that he is (will be) completely faithful to me.


“What does your wedding dress look like?”

White.

Respect

Our church college age group has become the engaged group. I think the Captain started a trend because a month or so after he proposed at least four more couples were engaged. A few months before that when we were looking for a new subject for us to go over when we meet we didn't know that we'd all be planning on getting married soon, and we picked the Love and Respect marriage conference series. We've mostly gone through the part about women, the love part.

To be honest, I don't remember much about that part. I do remember the guy saying to men to use the word “love” when they speak to their wives. I also remember driving home with the Captain and he said a sentence that had the word love in it five times, and that he was talking about me, but I cannot remember what he actually said. So that was lots of fun, and now we're on the Respect part.

The speaker said that he has asked women to write a note to their husbands signing it “with all my respect” and that most women have trouble with that. While we were sitting there I was thinking “I could do that, I don't understand why some women have a problem with that!” Until I started thinking about actually writing the word “Respect.”

It isn't that I don't have respect for the Captain, I have no trouble telling him that I will be obedient to him, or that I'll submit to him like it says in Ephesians 5:22-24. It's something about the word Respect.

When I was in Junior High School we had a Vice Principal who I had absolutely no respect for, and oddly enough, his two favorite words were Reiterate and Respect. “I just want to reiterate that we need to have respect for each other in this school!” He said practically the same sentence over about six times every morning and afternoon in the announcements, and I think everyone in the school got sick of it after he had been there for about a week.

More recently I went with my family to an urban ministry to kids in our city. The kids were roughhousing and picking fights with each other. My mom finally asked one of the boys why he kept yelling at the other children and he said that he wanted them to respect him.

I'm afraid that, to me, and potentially to a lot of other people, the word Respect has absolutely no meaning. Telling the Captain that I respect him to me seems like walking up and spouting nonsense, or not saying anything at all.

But the way the Captain described it, he made it have a little bit of meaning again. If someone tells him that he has their respect it means that he has earned it, is what I remember him saying. That they think he means something. So, even though the word sounded strange coming out of my mouth I wanted to say it to him because the Captain has done so much that deserves recognition in some way.

I think just saying “Respect” was too small though, it doesn't show how completely blown away I am when it hits me just how much he loves me. Or how impressive it is that he not only finished a book, but agonized over perfecting it and publishing it. Or how hard he's worked at college and jobs he didn't like because he knew he had to get through it. Or how he went back to my dad after being told no, fully expecting to hear “no” again. Or how he always does what is honorable and right to serve God.

I like Wonderful better. I think the Captain is wonderful.

Phunny Pharm Customers

To the customers at the Phunny Pharm,
To all the customers who know what drugs they're taking by name, and why they're taking them. To the customers who pick up their prescriptions when they say they will. To the customers who call their own doctors and insurance companies. To the customers who bring in their insurance cards, and their prescriptions before they expire.
To you good people who spell your names and don't give us nicknames, and who tell us when a name has been changed. To you people who don't act like copayments are our fault, and don't ask other people to pay them for you. To you who say those sweet words "I'll pick it up tomorrow."
To everyone who always takes their medications as directed. To everyone who doesn't loose or "break" bottles. To everyone who has never pharmacy shopped to get early controlled substances.
To everyone who chooses not to use the drive thru, and to you who don't smoke, eat, talk on the phone, or yell at your children in the drive thru or at the counter.
To all the men who don't flirt with us, or act like we're attracted to you.
To the people who don't curse at us, the people who don't defecate on the floor, don't steal, and wash regularly.

You're allowed to come in more often!