About 365 days of marriage

I started this blog in April of 2011. At the time, Bret and I were wedding photographers and it was a way to share how marriage is more about the day to day and so much more than the wedding day itself. For about 5 years, I blogged about the joys and sorrows of the Christian walk, marriage, work, family and friends. I’ve blogged every day since a few weeks after I started. In May of 2015, we photographed our last wedding. Now, I have become passionate about simplicity, particularly in marriage, Christianity, business, travel and life. For a number of reasons, we have become minimalists. I’ve found that having simplicity makes life so much deeper, refreshing and joyful. I hope that this blog will help others see the benefits of living simply.

Day 3171 – What Would You Grab If You Had To Leave In Minutes Because Of Fire – or – Yesterday Did Not Go As Planned

Posted on March 17, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

Yesterday progressed like most days around here. Bret worked at school. I worked here. I had pretty much finished up my work list, prepared my weekend and Monday to do lists. Bret arrived home and we chatted about our days. It was a little windy, but it’s been windy the past week or so. Then the lights started to flicker. At first we thought the power was going out, so we turned off a few lights, and checked the breaker box. We were able to switch the popped breakers back when our landlord said to hit the main breaker. A minute later he was at the door to say there was a fire and we had to get out. In a few minutes, we grabbed things that were close (computers, contracts, work folders, wallets, keys, phones, my current book manuscript). There wasn’t a raging fire or any smoke, this wasn’t a “get out now” situation, so we had a few minutes to look around and ask – is there anything we have to have? Anything we wouldn’t want to lose? Because we have minimal stuff and work out of our backpacks pretty regularly, most of what we needed was ready to go. But it as a little surreal to walk around the apartment and not find much we HAD to have. In a last minute remembrance, there was a sweatshirt I had been gifted recently that I did not want to lose, so I tossed that on top.

We made our way to the sidewalk where we found out there were several houses affected. Each owner described the same experience – flickering electronics and the smell of burning. The fire departments were here really fast. Several stations showed up too.

Standing on the street, I almost started to cry. I think it was the weight of what could have been, the potential seriousness of what happened, and that sense of community when something happens. Ha ha, we were formally introduced to one of the neighbors, even though we’ve been here almost a year.

After checking all the houses, the fire department counted them as safe. They had called BGE to look at what had happened. At this point, we decided to take off. Either to get a hotel or just kill some time while things were being looked at and fixed. Turns out there was a surge and the transformer for roughly 10 houses had to be replaced.

We ended up celebrating a recent signed contract for another house with dinner and coffee. We try to celebrate in small ways for a signed contract and then big ways for a closing. Ha ha, so much can happen to extend a closing or not work out all together. So we don’t count that money until the check is in hand.

We grabbed dinner at Taco Bell (which is a big real estate investing celebration spot for us, apparently!) We had talked about going to see Black Panther, but we haven’t seen a few of the Marvel movies before that (Thor and Spiderman) so we decided to just grab coffee and then head back. We chatted for about an hour or so at Starbucks.

When we arrived home, we set up candles and read by their light for a little while, then bundled up for the night without power.

Thankfully, the power is back on and very few things were damaged by the surge (just microwaves, I think). The lesson learned is to turn off EVERYTHING if you think there’s a surge. Also, have a housewide surge protector (I didn’t know this was a thing!)

It was also a great reminder to actually have a “bug out bag” ready to go. While we got everything that we needed, we were very haphazard about it. So we plan on thinking through the things we’d HAVE to grab and have a clothes/toiletries bag all ready to go.

Here’s hoping today is a little more chill.

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Day 3170 – Nine Years Ago Today – Bret Was Taking An Epic Road Trip

Posted on March 16, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

I can’t believe it’s been nine years since Bret moved to the East Coast. It seems like a lifetime ago that we had to talk on the phone, see each other for very short times, or say goodbye at the airport.

So much has changed in our lives over the past nine years, but I am so thankful to have this guy by my side. 🙂

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Day 3169 – What It’s Like To Share A Car In Your 30’s – repost (with an update)

Posted on March 15, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

I have really enjoyed sharing a car with Bret for the past 3+ish years. Man, I can’t believe it’s been that long already! In some ways, it feels like we’ve always shared a car. I still agree with all the reasons I gave below. But the biggest thing that we’ve gained, that we didn’t know we’d need, was more money to invest in our real estate investing business. I’m grateful that God saw where we would be going a few steps down the line and set us up perfectly for where we needed to be.

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originally posted 10/15/15
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I have been sharing a car with my husband for about ten months. It’s not the “normal” thing that people do these days. “Normal” people have two vehicles. We realized though, that we don’t need two vehicles.

Here’s what we’ve learned over the last ten months:
– Sharing increases our patience with each other. There have been times one or both of us have had to wait for the other.
– Sharing a car gives us more time together in the morning and afternoon on the days we both need to be somewhere.
– Sharing a car has decreased our expenses.
– We are thankful for the vehicle we DO have.
– It has shown us we don’t have to be “normal.”
– And finally, it really isn’t that big of a deal. Thankfully, my current job doesn’t require a lot of driving and when it does, it’s an easy “drop Bret off at school, drive where I need to and pick him up” situation.

What about you, have you shared a vehicle? What did you learn?

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Day 3168 – Sometimes It’s Hard To Say Goodbye….To A Plant

Posted on March 14, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

As long as I can remember there have been a few things that are true of me and flowers/living plants:
– I am allergic to pretty much all flowers
– I can’t keep a plant alive
– I once killed a cactus

About a month ago, on a lark, I picked up a hyacinth from Aldi. It was in this glass where you could see the roots. I saw this little guy for only $4 and had to get it. Look how cute he was (I guess it’s a he to me!) as a little baby!

I thought, well, I have to photograph the progress. This was the next day and already the bud was popping out.

This was only about 6 days after I got ‘im!

Then the magic started about 8 days in!

This is a photo from yesterday, after only about 2 weeks. Once it started to blossom, I thought, wait, I might be allergic to this. Every time I’d get close, I’d have that feeling again. So I told Bret we should get rid of it. I suggested giving it to our landlords, but we didn’t really have a chance to do so. I mentioned he should take it to school, at first he thought, eh, that’s kinda weird. But then I suggested that he leave it in the teacher’s lounge with a note. While he did wrote a note to go along with it, his co-worker claimed it before he could share it.

I thought his note was hilarious, so I’m sharing it here:

Up For Adoption

Name: My Little Hyacinth
Age: About 1 month
Gender: Identifies as “other”
Likes: – long walks on the beach
– sunbathing
– sitting around all day
– not having a job
– referring to itself as a “trophy hyacinth”

We’re basically bad parents and don’t know what to do with it and might be allergic, and hope it finds a loving home.

I’m glad the little guy got a good home. 🙂

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Day 3167 – No Movies With Nudity – What’s That Like Practically?

Posted on March 13, 2018 by 365 days of marriage

I’ve talked about not watching movies with nudity in the past.

When I look into a movie to see if it has nudity or not, I check out IMDb and Plugged In. Sometimes I can get a good answer on IMDb but the details are user generated, so I have to wait until after the movie is in theaters. Plugged In is very detailed in what happens, what’s shown, and what topics are covered in the movie.

A few nights ago, something popped up in my online scrollings about Ready Player One. Dude, I LOVED the book so much that I read it twice. I’ve been super excited about the movie. So I thought, let me see if anything has been posted yet about the content. Oh friends, what disappointment was I met with when I saw in the rating itself – partial nudity. Now, I have NO idea what this entails. There is some adult content in the book, and I could see nudity being present.

When I mentioned this to Bret, he mirrored my disappointment (as he read the book too on my prompting) but he said something that really struck me and reminded me why I don’t watch nudity.

Jen – ugh, it’s probably just a funny butt shot or something.
Bret – Isn’t my butt enough for you?
Jen – That THE whole reason why I don’t want to see nudity!

See, one of the bigger reasons I don’t watch nudity is because I want my mind clear for only Bret. I mean, even Jesus cautions us:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Matthew 5:27-30 ESV

I want to take Jesus at His word and cut out my eye (not watching nudity) so there is less temptation to lust after someone who isn’t my husband. My marriage is much more important to me than watching the latest movie.

We’ll see what this partial nudity turns out to be and if I’ll actually watch it, but at the end of the day it’s just not worth it.

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365daysofmarriage

Simplicity in Marriage, Christianity, Travel, Business, Life

Author Archives: 365 days of marriage

About 365 days of marriage

Day 3171 – What Would You Grab If You Had To Leave In Minutes Because Of Fire – or – Yesterday Did Not Go As Planned

Day 3170 – Nine Years Ago Today – Bret Was Taking An Epic Road Trip

Day 3168 – Sometimes It’s Hard To Say Goodbye….To A Plant

Day 3167 – No Movies With Nudity – What’s That Like Practically?