Marriage Mondays: Little Joy

Hi there! I'm trying to find out what works best here on Not the Marrying Kind, and I'd really like your help. I've created a short survey in order to get some feedback on what goes on with my wee small blog. I have a lot of lurkers that visit, seemingly consistently, but are silent observers. I respect silence on blogs, but if you could please break your silence in a completely anonymous way and let me know what you think of some stuff around this, here stretch of the internet, that would be oh, so wonderful! You can access the survey here and it will be up until July 15th. I will probably remind you about this on a daily basis, so please don't get mad at me, k? (PS. A.P. told me that nobody would fill out my survey. Help me prove him, and all men, wrong by sticking it to him. Seriously. Go here.) And thank you to those that have already filled it out! Your feedback is very helpful!

For our first dance, we were going to rock out to M. Ward's "To Go Home," a song A.P. put on a mixtape he made me between our first and second dates. In those early months of our relationship, I associated that song with how I felt about A.P. To me, he was steadfastly becoming my home, where I went when things were tough. And, the chorus was exactly how I felt about my commitment to him: "I'll be true to you. Oh yeah, you know I will. I'll be true to you forever or until...I go home."

So when it came time for our wedding, we started practicing dancing...but not to our chosen dance song. A.P. was not a confident dancer, so we started dancing together at home to whatever dance music I could get him to dance to (that's where Friday dances came from...did you know that?). We were so worried about his general dance skills, that we sort of forgot about the most important dance we'd do that night. The one where everyone stares at you and takes pictures! Eek!

About a month before the wedding, we tried to do a dance to "our song." Ummm...yeah. It was freaking hard! That song is really fun to listen to and be silly to, but not so easy to choreograph a dance to! We got really busy with the wedding, and sort of forgot. So, about a week before the wedding, my friend, the Half-breed Swede, came into town and among many other awesome things, she helped us put together a new dance to our new song, "Brand New Start" by Little Joy.

In so many ways, that song actually defines our relationship. I mean, I could rattle on forever, people, which is what made it a great second choice. But the band's name is perhaps my favorite thing. In our house, it's all about the little joys. We don't go out all the time or have big, expensive moments. We do that sometimes, and those are nice, but we're homebodies. We like to spend our free time with one another, at home with our animals, making stupid jokes.

I know I said that this post would relate to Sex and the City, but it doesn't. That post I decided to save for another day because today is all about how I can't wait for A.P. to come home so we can watch The Bachelorette and make fun of everyone and be silly. These are the little joys, the things that kill me. These are the stolen moments that are inexplicable to the outer world. These are the little knots that keep a marriage strong. The ability to be still with someone, to have stupid, little jokes that no one else gets or thinks are funny. I feel like a lot of what A.P. and I do is laugh, and that's because he makes me laugh. But if you asked me to recall a single joke he made, I couldn't. Ironically, last week, a coworker and I had this conversation:

Coworker: You're funny. I bet your husband is funny, too.
Me: Did you say my husband is funny?
Coworker: Yeah, he'd have to be to be married to you.

I paused, trying to remember a funny story to tell her to prove A.P.'s hilariousness, but couldn't think of a specific thing that would be funny to her. So instead, I said..

Me: Yeah, he is funny. But not as funny as me! [Insert shit-eating grin here.]

And sadly, though this is 90% of our life, I have no pictures of this. I did scrounge up these few photos, though. Here are some little joys around these here parts, enjoy!

Styling the dog's hair.

Putting sunglasses on the dog.

Discovering the cat in your clothes drawer.

Taking dog walks/skateboard breaks.

Napping with the dog.

What are the little joys in your relationship?

(Photos by me)