but I'm all the way fond already

Looking for silver lining about being out of town this week (marking the first time we've been away from each other for even a day since we got married, went on a honeymoon, and moved in together), Daniel offered the cliche about absence making the heart grow fonder. That might work for some people, but I don't think we could possibly grow any fonder for one another so I playfully rejected it.

So here I am all alone in our big messy house (don't get any ideas bad guys, Justin and Shane are just up the street!) trying to decide what to do with my night. I just ate a frozen burrito for dinner. Turned on the tv for some noise, only to be reminded that... oh we don't have tv. Sigh. So I turned on some country music, started a load of laundry, and decided to update my four faithful blog readers with some tidbits from our lives these last couple weeks. Mini blogs within one big blob of blog. Enjoy.

A wedding is worth a thousand pictures... Daniel and I re-lived our wedding day with delight as Jane Zarzynski walked us through all the photos from our wedding day. There are fourteen hundred, but we picked 250 and I arranged them in iMovie with some added narration. You can view this slide show masterpiece and re-live the day if you'd like at our YouTube channel: BeingTheGriffins. I think we have almost 100 views on it already! I kind of feel like a rock star, is that dumb?

Wife in the fast lane...Getting back to the daily grind after the honeymoon was rough, especially the first couple weeks, but we've been gradually settling into the routine of being a married couple in the real world. We've also been carpooling almost every day which eases the blow of the 22 mile commute from the burbs, and will save us between $1400 and $1700 a year if gas prices stay the way they are. And it means Dan gets to drive in the fast lane when otherwise he'd be with all the single-occupant suckers in the regular lanes. Best part is it also affords us less time apart between our AGONIZING goodbye every morning and our elated daily kiss every afternoon when we get to FINALLY see each other after work. We hold hands and talk cute-talk the whole way too.

Born to Run... nope, not quoting The Boss. On our Easter weekend drive to California, we started listening to the audio book of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. This fascinating nonfiction tale inspired me to buy "those weird toe shoes", which I have been sporting around the neighborhood and to volleyball practice, and Dan to order a pack of chia seeds online and start drinking them with a big glass of water every morning. You should read it. Non-runners too. It will blow your mind. We just have one chapter left and it is killing me to have to wait for Daniel to come home on Thursday night so we can finish it!

Waking up with the Joneses... the little ones that is. We got to spend a night with the Jones kids while mom and dad Jones were on vacation at la playa. Kid-friendly cool activity of the night: juicing. Each of them got to pick one fruit from Costco and we made juice with The Griffins' super duper juicing machine. Then we drank the juice (strawberry grape watermelon orange) with breakfast the next morning. The closest thing to motherhood I've felt in a very long time came at 5:30am when I awoke to a whisper at the side of my bed: "Jooohlie. Jooohlie.... Joooohlie... um can you make me breakfast now" . Four-year-old Carsyn in her pink jammies and bed head. I felt such tenderness and love towards this little being who depended on me to meet all her needs (that morning anyway), coupled with complete and utter disorientation and denial that I had to wake up that moment, an hour earlier than I had planned (which was already an hour earlier than I usually wake up, pathetic I know...). It was a good experience for Daniel and I to be pretend parents for sixteen hours. And apparently the kids had fun because they have been asking when they can come to our house ever since.

One last boom with our Dynamite ... Regionals was our last volleyball tournament with our sweet ten-year-olds in spandex, the EVJ Dynamite. They played their little hearts out. For the first time this season I felt a twinge of remorse that we (collectively) opted out of the extended season which would have taken us to a post-season tournament in July... how much more we could have taught them with another six weeks! I cried at the end. Dan didn't understand why. I guess it's a girl thing. Glad we have a team party in a couple weeks so I get to see them again!

"Death by Ikea"... as Daniel calls it. Yes, we endured our first trip to Ikea together. Items purchased: 1 hotdog, 1 slice of pizza, 3 mini trash cans, 1 4x6' rug. Time spent: 3 hours. We've been doing some pretty intense furniture research/shopping since the day we got home from our honeymoon and literally drove straight from the airport to Thomasville to look at bedroom furniture. Our current search is for the perfect kitchen table & chairs, couch, coffee table, window treatments, and custom kitchen island. Oh and did I mention we also get to landscape our entire backyard? I guess the HOA is tired of seeing the dirt and weeds that have been doning the lot for the last five years. Ikea has some pretty cool plant pots...

Vocations Class... Through a random chain of events, Daniel and I were volunteered to go to Seton Catholic Prep to talk to the senior vocations class about relationships and marriage and natural family planning. We came unsure what to expect, equipped only with two boxes of Duncan Donuts' munchkins and my NFP chart. I was thrilled at how Daniel came alive talking to these eighteen-year-olds as we together offered our life experiences and advice to them, from

our newlywed perspective. I was even more thrilled at the percentage of them that were actually listening and engaged. They were shocked that we didn't kiss for over a month after we started dating. Daniel came up with some incredible analogies too, the best one involved one's likelihood to go to the beach every day while living near the beach vs. living far away from the beach but visiting it periodically. Pretty genius I think. This scratched an itch that we both have to minister to teenagers in some small way. I hope Fr. Will will ask us back next semester.

Dan the Installah Ballah... My husband not only knows how to install cabin filters to his wife's 4Runner, he also knows how to install drawer pulls, clocks on stone fireplaces, cable boxes, and even Reverse Osmosis systems. He is so impressive! And now our drinking water tastes so good! He's my hero. Have I ever mentioned that acts of service is my love language? And Dan in a white t-shirt and jeans makes me squirm like a 1960's teenaged girl watching The Beatles on television. All this house stuff is kind of a big deal for me.

Laundry... ding!