A Portrait of My Family

This is a picture from March 2014, when Jeff and I were dating in Topeka, KS. If you can't tell, we're totally in the St. Patrick's Day parade! Jeff is wearing his kilt; I'm wearing his plaid sash and plenty of green for the day! 

Jeff and I met in 2013 on CatholicMatch.com, an online dating site for Catholics. We had both experienced very recent heartbreak, but while Jeff had already dated a bunch of different girls, I was getting over a breakup from a 6-year relationship with my first boyfriend. Jeff and I had a lot in common: favorite authors; a love of nature; an interest in Renaissance fairs; our Catholic faith; and a shared amusement for fart jokes. Jeff made me laugh all the time and loved introducing me to new things like Skyrim, Pink Floyd, Dungeons&Dragons, and Doctor Who. Being a couple of nerds, it only took two dates for us to go steady. I consider Jeff to be the puzzle piece I cannot live without; he completes me as much as I complete him. 

We married in January 2015. Was our whirlwind courtship something I regret? Nope and never! Sometimes, when you meet your other half, there is no need to wait. With God's grace, it was His will that we became man and wife. 

Our life, at first, was far from easy. We lived in Topeka, KS, in apartments that were poorly managed and filled with people who smoked in the hallways and threw their liquor bottles in the stairwell. Jeff was miserable in his job, which offered him no benefits despite being full-time and used him as a delivery boy despite Jeff's numerous talents and certification for building technology. I hesitated to get a job because Jeff and I talked often of moving to Hays, KS, where he was born and had grown up. The monkey wrench in the complicated gears was my pregnancy, of which we became aware of a month after our honeymoon. 

Elliot playing peek-a-boo!

Ugh, pregnancy in that apartment was horrible! I was sick every day until mid-April, and the smells harassed me endlessly. In April, Jeff lost his job - as he put it, he and his employer "parted ways." We had no income, no health insurance, and we were miles and miles away from close friends and relatives. Our Lord had answered our prayers! Without anything to hold us back, we took the lemons in our life and added sugar, water, and a lot of smiles! 

Meaning, that is, that we moved our butts to Hays, KS, where Jeff immediately found a job (with benefits!) and I found an awesome OB. We found a lovely apartment with fantastic management. I started blogging, and I became a tea consultant! My body was growing round with my precious bundle and we had friends and family to help us get settled in our new home. 

My first Steeped Tea party!

And then, as you know, Elliot was born in September...and we just celebrated our first anniversary this past January! Is our marriage easy? No way! Finances, of course, were our worst nightmare, and sometimes they still are. We totally fight about petty things I never imagined we'd have fights about - like what side of the sink to wash dishes in. Weird, right? But our fights prove to me that we have our differences and our opinions and our independent selves that still need working on - believe me, it isn't easy to be single one moment and then married the next! I find that the biggest obstacle I face is my own selfishness, and when I work on improving that, I automatically improve our marriage. He finds that by trusting me and communicating with me, we both learn more about each other, our problems, and our ideas for solutions.

Also, my husband was right about which side of the sink is easier to wash in.

Our Halloween picture. Jeff looks done. Elliot at 2 months! Me trying (and failing) to look gothic.