Domestic Living

This could be the longest half-hour of my life. Yesterday, our Computer Services department took my laptop to fix the wireless adapter and every time I call to check on it they tell me just half an hour more. Why tell you this? Because this is the perfect work sanctioned time to publish the always difficult first blog posting. For weeks now Beth Ann has said things like, "we need to write on our blog," which I think means: "Eric, start the blog now." Even if it is time theft, our blog has now begun at the expense of Tuesday morning productivity. Tuesdays are my least favorite day of the week anyway.

Our dear friends Dan & Bree came down this weekend from Fort Collins to be our first guests in our new home on Franklin Street. I think they were our first guests in our old place so that's a nice bit of continuity. Anyway, in the hours preceding their arrival something unexpected happened. I suddenly became very excited about domestication. We needed a desk for our guest bedroom, so I put it together. A man's job right? (The term "man's job" came from The Cosby Show and if it comes from The Cosby Show it is carries unilateral validation so don't even dare accuse me of sexism.) The desk assembly was just the beginning. Soon I was getting all uppity about organizing the room, cleaning the room, making it smell nice, putting the new end table and lamp (both of which I picked out) in just the right spots, and arraigning the little fake plants in the glass vase. I don't know what happened. It reminded me of the time I watched "Notting Hill" and absolutely adored it. There is no logic behind these things, no rhyme or reason. Just me delighting in domestication.

Recently Beth Ann and I have been talking with others about what we have learned in the first year of marraige. Our answer tends to lean on the ability to change and grow together. I am sloppy. I don't like to organize and I can easily be as lazy bones as they come. If we had ESPN I would no longer communicate with my wife I would just let Stuart Scott and Scott Van Pelt do all the talking for us. To get giddy about making our guest room look nice for Dan and Bree is change. They aren't the last friends who we will host and I know how Beth Ann feels about hospitality. If you've met her mom you know why, too. This is part of the adventure, even if adventure looks like putting a room together. Part of the adventure is appreciating it for when it appears on the surface a bit to be a bit dull. I'd like to think that on our journey, change and growth are an ever present lifestyle that permiates our relationship for the benefit of ourselves and maybe even for others.