I just want to say that I love Joe. He is great. I feel like I'm heading to bed on a high-flying kind of note tonight and that is really cool, because as days go, we actually didn't spend a whole lot of time together today. Just a couple of hours this morning watching the Tour de France (which I have to admit is actually rather interesting when you understand a little bit about what's going on... coincidentally this seems to be true for all sports) and then tonight when he stopped by after work. But it was all QUALITY TIME. A grand and wonderful thing.



I cannot wait to marry this man. Most people yawn when they read such a statement, especially people who know me, because I've always wanted to get married, and I've always talked about it, ever since high school. It's so different now, but now I'm like the girl who cried wolf or something... I'm the girl who cried "wedding!" Yeah yeah yeah everyone says, we all know, you want to get married. You have your whole wedding day planned out in your head. Something about Disney music, or somesuch crap.



But it's not like that! It's not like that at all. Okay, yes, so I do have *some* ideas regarding the actual wedding day. Actually many ideas. And I consider minute details about the wedding day more often than is probably healthy. Such as, what colors will the bridesmaids wear? What style will their dresses be? Whose dress will I wear? What song would I like to walk down the aisle to? A long list of completely-irrelevant-to-today things that randomly cross my mind when I am attempting to concentrate on other, more important things, like work. And unfortunately, just mentioning all of these things in this paragraph is completely detrimental to my argument. But I assure you that this crap is all normal for unmarried girls my age! Especially when they're headed to a wedding in 3 weeks! (And just went to one 2 weeks ago, and have another coming up in September.)



But what I'm trying to say here is, when I say, or think, or type the words "I cannot wait to marry this man", it has absolutely nothing to do with the wedding day at all. I cannot wait to marry Joe. It gives me warm fuzzy tingly feelings to think about the days when he will come home to me after work, take his shower and relax with me, when I can put him to bed and curl up beside him. Those are the kinds of little things I'm talking about. It's not like waving goodbye in the evenings crushes me or anything like that. It's not like I need him around me every second in order to be happy. Nah. I've had a lot of time to myself today and quite frankly it's been very nice. Relaxing and peaceful. And I'm not pining for him right at the moment. But I like the thought that someday when I'm up writing in this thing and he's tucked into bed after a long day, maybe that bed will be in the next room. I really like that idea, I can't help it. Not mention some of the other things that come along with being married, which I really can't talk about in here. ;)



I think the bulk of it actually comes down to family. I think people need family, and I think I'm starting to see Joe as my family in some ways. Probably a lot of that has to do with my blood family being so far away. It's an interesting thing. Family becomes the group of people you spend the most time with, whether or not you happen to be related by blood or marriage or anything. Nuclear family, loosely, being the people you actually live with. Everything else is extended family. At college your friends become your family, and that continues to evolve, until you have a more "formal" family again. I live on my own right now. I still have parents and a sister, and they are still my family, but they're "extended" family now. I see them every few months or so. I love them very much and I try to talk to them regularly, but I'm not surrounded by them anymore. At the moment I don't have a nuclear family. I have a cat, but he is a pet and not a family. And I have Joe, who is the closest thing to nuclear family in my life. And I LIKE that idea, of Joe being my family. And I think that will be cool, being a family together. I look forward to having a nuclear family again. Maybe I'm hard-wired that way. I don't know. I am rambling. The point is, I can't wait to marry Joe. And I think the secondary point is, one of the reasons I can't wait to marry him is because in some ways I already feel like he is becoming my family, and I think having that as the reality will be very very cool.



If you made any sense of that, God bless you. ;)



Sometimes I think I am so cut out for this wife-and-mother thing. Bring it on baby. Marriage is my vocation. Housewife, soccer mom, minivan, yeah. Umm... hopefully with my own quirky twists to that image. I don't want to be cookie-cutter stereotypical. But the more that I think about it, the more I think it might actually be meant for me. Or I for it. However that works. I could mention that aside from all the pointless wedding daydreaming I do, I also engage at least as often in pointless child-rearing daydreaming. Like the feasibility of cloth diapering. And how to keep your nipples from cracking when you're breastfeeding. And being involved in your child's education. And what books I want to read to them when they're old enough. Yes I really do think about this stuff. Yes I am insane.



What do you want to be when you grow up?

Joe's wife, and the mother of his absolutely adorable genius children.



Umm... honey... I hope I didn't just scare you away. ;)

I love you. No matter what happens, thanks for being exactly who you are. You are wonderful.

I'm a lucky girl. :)