Almost Four Years…some updates

 

Dear Blog,

How time flies! I can hardly believe that in two months we will have been married 4 years. So much has happened in four years. We have had endless arguments and stuck through them.  We have also had endless wonderful memories together.

I know I have neglected this blog a bit. (A LOT!) Things got hectic at work and at home. I won’t go into detail. I believe most of the excuses you’ve heard before or at least you could imagine it. “Argument with the husband”, “separation in the family”, “trust issues”, “busy at work”, etc.

A Gerry is happy in his job at the magazine. He has a flare for fashion and he is a talented writing. I was never good at writing articles o critical reviews of a product. I guess that is why I admire Gerry so much for being able to do that. He is great help when I need to write an article for my job. I am very grateful that his job had him transferred back here. I thankful that we don’t have to move. It was hard living apart for so many months and I know it was a challenging for Gerry too. I am glad we weren’t given a “choice” to move or stay. He was very happy working abroad and I know he loved his loft, but I don’t think I would have been happy in an apartment. I don’t think it would have been an upgrade in anyway; owning our own house to paying monthly rent on a loft.

I continue to teach at a private school, elementary literature. I love being a literature teacher. Nothing can describe the feeling of watching a student that didn’t love to read, suddenly pick up books and devour them. Their hunger for knowledge motivates me to want to be better.  I also continue to tutoring in the afternoon. I used to offer tutoring classes at the house, but when we started painting the kitchen I decided it would be easier for me to go to the student’s house. I get off work after 3:00, I have lunch at school and then I drive to my students home. I usually end up arriving home after 7 or 8. I take advantage of the weekends to cook different meals and then freeze them. That way if Gerard gets home before me, he can just stick a plate in the microwave or oven and dinner would be ready! 

Some days I missed the taste of a fresh cooked meal, so I’ll eat at work or go out to eat. Unfortunately I did that last month for a two weeks and gained weight.  I feel like my past 4-5 months of intensive dieting went down the tubes. I gained back what took me months to lose!!! My nutritionist is a bit expensive so I try to stick with the diet she gives me and not visit her so often. I know that’s a terrible way to approach a diet, but its what I can do for now.

Thank goodness Gerry has been sweet about the subject and won’t criticize me or make sly remarks about my weight. He has learned how sensitive I am about it. I may have developed thicker skin for his other remarks, but when it comes to my weight I will either verbally slaughter him or I will cry for days. Neither outcome has is nice for him to come home too.

For the moment, I am avoiding the long mirror behind the closet door until I feel like I’ve lost a couple pounds. Otherwise I know I will go into starvation mode and really screw myself up.

I feel like this might have taken a depressing turn. Uuppss…

Well this are some updates. I hope I am able to  catch up with the missing entries in this blog. I am going to try and update at least once a day. I won’t promise that it will be a long entry, but it will be worth reading.

Till next time! Thanks for stick with us so far!

 

xoxo

D.

The Boy Next Door…

 

Dear Blog

A big storm hit this weekend and we lost electricity and internet. I ended up having to go to a local coffee shop to get connected to the internet to check emails. I wasn’t able to write a blog entry or answer questions as much as I would have liked to. 

 

This past month a new family moved in two blocks away from us. A nice young couple that has a little 6 year old boy. His name is Lambert, but every calls him “Bert”. He is very cute, playful and an only child. (so far.) His parents, Mark and Ophelia are a very nice neighbors. A few days after they moved in they went around the whole block and introduced themselves to the neighbors.  Gerard and I were watering the front lawn when they stopped by.

Bert caught my attention at once. He has the cutest smile. He looks a lot like his mother. He has wavy redish dark brown hair, big hazel eyes and he is tanned. He isn’t shy at all, as soon as his parents introduced themselves he walked up to Gerard and I and shook our hands.

“Hi!! My name is Bert!” Then he hugged me. My heart stopped for a moment. He seemed so tiny and perfect and his little arms wrapped around my leg

For some reason unknown that kid always smells like cookies, or like sweet cookie dough. He likes hugging, so he’s always hanging onto me.

 

I’m getting used to seeing a little kid around. I’m normally very nervous around little kids that aren’t family members. (or students).

 

Gerard saw me playing a clapping game with Bert and for a moment I wondered if he wants kids with me. We haven’t spoken about it in awhile.

 

till next time,

Desirae Valdespino

One Year Ago…

Time  flies by so fast.

365 days ago I started writing this marriage blog.

365 days ago there were only 75 days till the wedding.

365 days ago we’d been engaged for 358 days. (We got engaged on December 22nd)

82 days before the wedding we had our biggest fight and the wedding was almost called off.

34 days before the wedding I lost the first engagement ring. (I wore it for 324 days before it disappeared.)

30 days before the wedding we finished paying off the house. It was a relief to know that 1 month before the wedding we had a home to come back to after the honeymoon.

22 days before the wedding Gerard got me the second engagement ring. ( In one month and 23 days it will be a year since I got the second ring.)

11 days before the wedding I presented my thesis and graduated from college as a Literature major.


Time goes by so fast. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I first started writing about my life with Gerard.

Once again the count down begins.

75 days until Our Anniversary.


Thanks for sticking around. This One year blog anniversary is something that could only be celebrated with you. In the following days I hope there continues to be excitement for the first year wedding anniversary. It will be a huge thing to celebrate with you all and I look forward to sharing it with you.



xoxo
Desirae Valdespino

LiveJournal Tags: love,marriage,one year,Gerard,Desirae,remembering,updates,countdown,wedding,ring,lost,husband,fight,anniversary,one,thinking,of,the,past,time,goes,by,so,fast,its,been,a,fun,year,thanks,to,readers

FAQ Part I

 
1. How did you meet? 
We met in college during first semester, but we didn’t become good friends until third semester. One day I was sitting on a couch in the library finishing an assignment when he plopped down next to me and began talk to me. We shared some small talk for awhile and since then we hit it off.


2. How old were you when you got engaged? How old are you and Gerard?

That winter of 2009 when I got engaged I was 22 years old. I turned 23 that spring (2010), so that following winter when I got married I was 23 years old. I just turned 24 years old this past spring (2011). Gerard is a year older than me. (now in retrospect I feel like we got engaged sooo young!)

3. What has been the most challenging change you’ve faced since you got married? 
The biggest challenge I’ve dealt with is living with a man!! I grew up as an only child and even though I had male cousins, nothing compare to actually living with a guy. Heterosexual or gay, when they walk around the house in a towel or boxers it makes me feel like I’m a hysterical teenager again. Lol. Also the typical guy stuff of finding their cloths thrown around the room…ugh! I think in general the most challenging thing for me was learning to live with someone else and learning to be independent. In Gerard’s case I think the most challenging change he’s had to face is coming home to someone who’s always worried about where he is and what he’s been up to. He wasn’t ever used to having someone always waiting for him “at home”. He came and went as he wished. Now he has the responsibility of checking-in.


4. Hi! You never told us about the rest of the furnishing in your home. Are there still unfurnished parts in your house? 
We haven’t finished furnishing the house. We put together different areas of the house as best as we can. Right now we are saving up for a nice dining room table, and nicer sofas for the TV room. I think the only rooms which are about 90% done are the bedrooms, office and the garage. (the garage wasn’t too hard to get done. We just painted the walls and installed shelves to put all the junk we didn’t want in the house!)


5. Is there any habit you can’t stand about each other?
His burping. I can never stand his spontaneous burps. He burps after drinking soda or after a meal. I’m also having a hard time dealing with his habit of caring plates of snacks around the house and leave the plates and cups randomly spread out around the house. The one habit that Gerard can’t stand about me is my neurotic control-freak self. He says I get too intense and I’m dramatic about little things. He’s spontaneous and I prefer to have e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g planed! So he hates when I freak out when things don’t turn out as planned.


6. Any plans for children?
Gosh, no! Not yet and probably not anytime soon. Work keeps us busy and truthfully we haven’t even discussed that possibility. We both want children at some point in our life, just not right now.


7. You both seem to be pretty successful, Is there any power struggle in our marriage? 
Sometimes we argue over money issues. We both try and do the best in our jobs and sometimes our ego gets in the way of wanting to be the person that makes the most money. But most of the time we are ok with the amount each other brings in. I like saving, while Gerry likes getting the money and spending it. So we argue a lot in that aspect.


8. You married your best friend for the wrong reasons and yet you think you are in a successful marriage? It’s blasphemy and sacrilegious what you have done.
Ok, so this wasn’t a question, but I get comments like this a-l-o-t! At first those comments bothered me and made me feel horrible. However, I don’t completely believe we got married for the ‘wrong’ reasons or that we don’t have a good marriage (so far). I’ll quote what http://marriage.lifetips.com once wrote: “Research suggests that successful marriages have the following six components: appreciation and affection, commitment, positive communication, time together, spiritual well-being, and the ability to cope with the stress and crisis.” Indeed no marriage is 100% perfect. Or at least I haven’t seen any marriage like that. I’d like to believe that what Gerard and I have is a positive thing. We are close and honest with one another.


9. Do you and Gerry really always agree on stuff? 
No! In fact I think there is a lot we don’t always agree on. I don’t write everything we agree or disagree on. We have learned to pick our battles and let some things slide. We’re still learning. We may have been close friends for 3 years, but once we started living together we learned A LOT more about each other. (skeleton in the closets and all…)


10. Do you have time out in your marriage?
Errr… I guess? We argue and try and fix it in that moment. If we do have time-outs, it’s not done consciously. Lol. I’ve never understood the concept of “honey, I’m really angry at you and I can see you are angry at me. Let’s take a break and come back to this argument later.” I think Gerard and I prefer to talk it out immediately instead of prolonging the argument. Time-outs might work with certain arguments, but not all of them.


11. Is there anything your in-laws do that bug you? 
Up until now….no, not really. This year they have kind of let us be on our own and not intervene too much. I’ll probably come back to this question later because I was thinking of something my mother-in-law does that bugs me! But now I can’t what it was…





TOP 10 FAQ! I’ll have a part II later. I get a lot of questions I couldn't upload them all here at the same time! :)  But I think it will be fun to have them in Parts. 


Hope you enjoyed!


Xoxo
Desirae

LiveJournal Tags: frequently,asked,questions,question,doubts,marriage,real,fake,challenges,love,Gerard,Desirae,tips,children,house,how,did,we,meet,short,answers,part,one

Business and Gardening

Dear Blog
Gerard just told me that he has to go on another business trip this weekend. Things at his job are working out very well for him. I couldn’t be prouder. I had his suite sent off to the dry cleaners so it would be ready for his trip this weekend.
I probably should iron some of his shirts as well…

My mother-in-law stopped by the house this morning. She promised to help me with the garden out back. It felt weird having her teach me about gardening…I always imagined that when I started gardening in my own house that My mother would be the one teaching me. I guess I’m also adapting to the idea of having a mother-in-law.
It’s very true what they say about getting married… you don’t just marry the person you love, but you marry their family as well.
I have to say that in the last year, Gerard’s mother has proven to be a better mother-in-law than I would ever imagine.

Till Next time
xoxo
Desirae

LiveJournal Tags: mother in law,friend,best gay friend,marriage,love,job,traveling,gardening,jealousy,work,mother,mom,home,house,new,update

Valentine’s Day!!---30th Day As a Wife.

 

 

Dear Blog

Today is Valentine’s day!! Yey!!

Gerard and I have some special plans. We are not celebrating the most-commercial-romantic day of the year by ourselves. We invited our parents out to dinner.

This morning Gerry left a pastel colored rose on the kitchen table and a little note that said “Happy Valentine’s Wifey”.

 

I’ll have to write about the rest of the day later!! I’ll better get ready because we are meeting our parents at the restaurant in half an hour! ah!! :D

 

Desirae

Sick..ugh!

no updates for a couple days, as you can see...

I'm sick. I think I got a stomach flu... something.

I feel horrible...

Morning sickness. (NO! I'm not pregnant! Not a chance of that! hahaha)

My head feels heavy and I have a slight fever...

I will be update soon again...

I just don't feel well. I haven't been feeling well these past couple of days, but I kept pushing it aside. Ignorning it.
However today it got worse and I have to take medicine and lay in bed.. >_<

take care ya'll!!

xoxo

Desirae