married life as we know it.

ah, the joys of marriage...

we've been married for 4 weeks today and we think this whole married thing is something we'll do for a while...say the rest of our lives? yes, that sounds great.

we knew it was going to be a big change, but we had no idea what to expect, of course. so we just wandered into married life with plenty of varied advice and information from plenty of varied resources. we knew we'd ultimately have to wander blindly through most of it, despite our efforts to soak in as much of the above referenced advice and information.

here are the stats of the newly formed "Team Alsbury" after four weeks of training:

• we fight about once a week & we're great at fighting. : ) actually, i do mean that in the best sense and rather what i mean to say is that we consistently resolve our conflict quickly and gently. bryan is really the force behind our "great fights." even as most of our fights are caused by me and my sin (ex. i'm usually assuming he's done something he hasn't, or expecting him to do something that he's not. i'm stretched daily to be relieved of this sin in my heart), he is still so gentle and so eager to make things right. and if you know bryan its not really hard to believe that he has NEVER raised his voice, even in the most heated discussions. while neither one of us like fighting or arguing, it is currently the most efficient means of growth in our marriage and in our opinions, once a week really isn't bad!
  
• living together has been remarkably, extremely natural for the both of us. that is a huge blessing. we've both lived with many different roommates and living with each other has been so much better then every good roommate combined! for me, i think it's the fact that we can brush our teeth at the same time without it being weird and also that if i don't like the way bryan folds the towel in half as opposed to the tri-fold of my choice, i can just tell him i don't like it or refold the towel myself. seriously though, bryan an i were just talking last night about how we love having each other as roommates. it's great.
  
• we decided that as soon as we pay off our debt, we're giving ourselves a huge date night fund. i am so excited about this. and we only have to wait about 6 more months to work this into our budget. i realized that even though we see each other everyday and go to sleep together every night that i really miss just sitting down, staring him in the face and talking to him. when i told him this, he agreed and we decided to reward ourselves with $100 a month just for dates when we pay off our debt.
  
• we've been so blessed, we're really trying to be wise with all of God's blessing and we're rapidly paying off every single piece of debt as well as saving enough to pay cash for college. and let me tell you, it is so exciting! we are working hard to pay off my car first as that is the only loan collecting interest. we are so blessed to be able to live really comfortably and still be able to pay off my car by august-21 months early! we expect to, if all goes according to plan, be able to pay off the rest of our debt by november of this year! heck yes! i am so excited to feel so free and to not have any "payments." in december, we'll give ourselves a tiny bit of wiggle room (bryan laughs everytime i say that) in our budget, bryan will be able to work around 15 hours a week instead of 25-30 and we will begin putting away around $600 each month for tuition. (if you did the math, that's $7,200.00 a year which is the maximum we'll pay at ISU but we are hoping for a little financial aid and possible scholarships!)
• i'm really enjoying being an economic homemaker. it brings me so much joy to spend less then what we have to spend on groceries, clothes, and standard household items. and for some reason, even though i had begun practicing all of the tricks of the trade before we got married, i became a wizard at it after a week of marriage. i'll chalk it up to my newly acquired wifely-super-powers.
  
• NEVER AGAIN WILL I EVER BUY A WHOLE CHICKEN. seriously, ugh. i never thought it would happen, but i almost became a vegetarian that fateful day. i'll spare you the details but have you ever bought a whole chicken before? it's neck, it's wings, it nubs...they still haunt me. i wasted most of the $2.59 that i spent on it. i did manage to de-bone the breast and that will make one nice meal so it's not a total loss. i am going to try my hand at buying bone-in chicken breast too so i'm not totally scarred. i'll let you know how it goes. we'll either continue our strict beef diet from this month or i'll spend a lot of our food money on boneless, skinless chicken breasts. yum.
• in other news...bryan's car reached 120,000 miles this week!

WOOHOO!!!

well, that's all for now, folks!