wifercize wednesday: domestic bliss

[Note: this is a post I saved in draft form on October 7th, 2009.  It was left unfinished due to a hunt for the quote at the end of the post - a hunt that took, apparently, AN ENTIRE YEAR.  Fortunately, the post is still true today as it was a full year ago.]


Perhaps it's the change in the season, and that change signaling the long months of hibernation to come. Perhaps it's reading "A Room with a View" recently, with its cozy, early 1900s colloquialisms. Perhaps it's hormones. Perhaps it's age.

I'm just so happy being a wife. Having a home. Sleeping in the same bed, next to my fabulous husband, night after night. After night.

Not ground breaking for you homebodies, but you who suffer from wanderlust? yes, you who are already plotting your next trip? you who can't seem to settle down but rather feel that what you're searching for is Out There? This is for you.

Instead of browsing more travel porn, let me give you a piece of advice. "You may need to see the world in order to find your place in it". That was God's advice to me in 2004, as I was weighing the pros and cons of spending a year in Korea teaching English. I took it as a green light (what traveler wouldn't have?), packed my bags, and spend a fabulous year in Asia.

I spent my 25th birthday on a beach on the coast of South Korea and discovered something: no matter where I was, there I was.  The same fears haunted me, the same hopes, the same dreams, the same desires, the same frustrations.  The only difference was that, on the other side of the world, I was miles away from a hug or a coffee or a kind word with anyone I knew well.  And anyone who knew me well.

It was while in Korea that I read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and discovered this quote:

How can I leave that earth?  It is not good to go far from your native village.  Then you forget who you are.

The quote stuck with me, I wrote it out in my journal, it trailed behind me like a cartoon thought bubble for the rest of my time in Korea, it comforted me when I experienced re-entry difficulties back in Toronto, and it still makes me smile today.  My native village turned out to be better than I ever thought it could be.  And I know who I am.

wifercize wednesday: five years ago

Andrew came up with the idea to watch all of Seinfeld's episodes, from the beginning, as dinner entertainment.  And we did.  All nine seasons.  One episode at a time.  I now salivate when I hear the opening theme.

When we ran out of Seinfeldseses, we switched to How I Met Your Mother.  It's a current show, but we wanted to start from the beginning.  Because we're precise like that.  SO DON'T TELL US WHAT'S CURRENTLY HAPPENING ON THE SHOW.  Ted and Robin, like, just got together so I'm really, really happy right now.

I've often occasionally fantasized about telling our kids, one day, the crazy storie(s) that lead their dad and mom together.  In my fantasy, our kids listen with rapt attention to the labyrinthine tale of romance and intrigue.  In reality, I'll probably dish them pieces of it throughout the years as anecdotal warnings of what not to do.

However, if I were to tell our kids the story of how we met I'd have to start with the story a year before the story which, conveniently, was around the same time we each started blogging.*  Although we originally met ten years ago, it was 2005 that became the year of the set up even though we were on different sides of the globe.

September 7, 2005 (click here)
Andrew was on his first trip to Italy, visiting relatives and celebrating his grandparents 50th wedding anniversary.  His post outlined 11 thoughts from his travels, including:

"I’m ok on my own but I don’t want to be ok on my own… it would be nice to have a wife here with me."

September 19, 2005 (click here)
I was teaching ESL in Pyeongchon, Korea.  My plans for further travel to Scotland had been thwarted (hence the dramatic post), essentially forcing me to return to Toronto after my contract ended in November. 

Andrew started a young adult church, finished his B.Ed, and suffered mild heartbreak and I spent six weeks in Great Britain, and joined as staff at the YWAM base in Port Credit, and suffered mild heartbreak all before we reunited at Billy & Sarah's wedding on March 10, 2006.

Looking at these pictures, I want to say to them: "Don't worry, past me.  Your plans have been foiled for a very good reason.  Don't worry, past Andrew.  Your wife will come to Italy with you one day."

How does your story begin?


*  Andrew has been blogging a full year longer than I have, and I have reason to believe he'd want you to know.  Because he's precise like that.