On Scary Snow, Growing Up, and Defining Newlywed-ness.

1. Christmas and the family gatherings have been fabulous, and I’ll tell you more about them when I have some time.

‘Time’ is a funny thing on vacation, isn’t it? Technically I have lots of time, but when it’s spent with family, you feel a little silly taking time to document your life – ahem, blog – when you’re hanging out with cousins you haven’t seen in months and sisters who live far away.

2. I will tell you, however, that it has hardly snowed here this winter until last night. Snow is happy for some people (those kind of people are sad when it’s not a White Christmas), but it’s mostly scary for me. Because driving in the snow is the WORST EVER. I’m generally pretty nervous about being a passenger in a car – mostly because I’m convinced I will die in a car accident. (I blame it on one of those stupid quizzes about how you will die. Car accident seems likely, right?)

So I tend to grab the door handle, inhale sharply, squeak a bit, or even close my eyes if someone is making me particularly anxious with their driving. (You can guess how much Mike just loves this.)

Imagine how well I reacted today when we slid in the snow to completely FACE BACKWARDS on the exit ramp of the highway. (Thankfully, everyone avoided us, and I only squealed anxiously to Mike for a few minutes. He thinks driving in the snow is fun. FUN!)

Holy heaven. My 40-mile commute is going to be just delightful when I go back to work next week.

(The good part? We’re going to walk to a Chinese restaurant down the street for dinner. Yesss.)

3. This website is officially www.ourlittleapartment.com. Woo! I am my own domain. (It’s about time, I know.) I’m not sure how this works, but I’m pretty certain my feed will update for you. (It’s here, by the way.)

4. Secrets are excruciating. Amen.

5. I have a whole lot of thoughts about being a grown up and Christmas. Like, am I a grown up yet if I still spend ten days of Christmas break at my parents house? When do you choose to just visit for a few days? Do you have to choose that?

6. Someone called me a newlywed last weekend and I proudly pointed out that we’ve been married two years and four months. Surely that isn’t newlywed status, right? He told me that you’re a newlywed until you have kids.

I disagree mostly I tend to want people to take me seriously – so when I’m labeled a ‘newlywed’ or ‘young’ – I take that at ‘naive,’ ‘inexperienced,’ or ‘in for a rude awakening.’ But also because I don’t think that you don’t need to have kids to experience challenges with your spouse. I can’t judge what it’s like to take care of an infant with Mike and how much kids will change our marriage – but we have also been through things that other couples have not and have come out much stronger. What do you think?