Regarding comments.

I was told that people were having problems commenting on the blog. Does it work now?

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to everyone. Thank a veteran.

I took Robbie out to eat and we're going to see a movie later. Today we honored "the people who didn't get to be veterans," as he put it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you've done for this country.

Playing with the new camera...

Well we played with the camera for awhile and these are the only ones (out of 74 pictures) that were even remotely passable. And I realize that they aren't all that great. Please keep in mind that I really have NO idea what I'm doing.

I LOVE this picture.

This raccoon was Rob's "good luck charm" while he was in Iraq. She means a lot to both of us :)

My darling beast.

I am the proud new owner...

of a NIKON D60!

I told Robbie that I was interested in pursuing photography as a hobby, and for my birthday (which is actually next Wednesday) he went ahead and bought me a crazy nice amateur camera.

I was expressing my concern to Lala about my ability to "live up" to this camera. I'm going to try my damndest and I will try to share them on here, if you're interested.

So, happy early birthday to me!

Interesting.

I decided to get a new blog. Hopefully I keep it up better than my previous blogs, and hopefully it’s at least marginally more interesting. I have my doubts. When you don’t live an interesting life it’s hard to write interesting material for a family Christmas newsletter let alone a daily/weekly blog entry.

Anyway.

I’m looking around for jobs. I can hold my current position until October, but I am keeping my options open by applying for a myriad of other positions.

My darling fiancé and I are moving. We found an apartment in a duplex that is much more “us” and I think will be much easier to live in than our current apartment. Our co-tenants in the apartment we live in now have a, shall we say “interesting,” view of how apartment life should be. Essentially, they believe that everyone should be silent all the time. No walking, friends, fun, happiness, laughter, music, etc. Just quiet. They complained to us when my sister came to visit and brought her 25-lb puppy who happened to run around the house a bit. No barking or whining, just moving. They came upstairs and complained (rather rudely, I might add), and we realized that for the past year we’ve been literally tiptoeing around trying to make them happy. Though we are quiet 98.999% of the time, we did not gain a modicum of understanding during the one evening that happened to be a little louder than usual. As a result of this confrontation, I had to drive my sister to her house (an hour and a half away) at 11:00 at night. Needless to say we were NOT pleased.

So, within the next 3-4 weeks we are moving and I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be happier if the new apartment wasn’t just a little more expensive than the current place, but hey, you have to take what you can get, right? R is quite excited to move, as am I. I think I’m going to throw some crap in my car later today and drive it over, just because I can. I’m trying to make the moving process as painless as possible. I figure if I do a little at a time I won’t go totally insane the week before we’re set to move in.

Well, I’m just as boring as before. But, regardless, welcome to my new blog.

We're singing about blogs.

I don't currently have a sponsorship program on my blog, but if you'd like to discuss possibilities please feel free to email me at tomakelovestay{at}gmail{dot}com! Thank you!

{photo credit}

Rob and I met in high school. We're from a really small area, and had tons of connections that we had never realized.  For example, his stepmother was my sister's kindergarten teacher, and his father, a physician, at one point worked with my mother, a nurse. 

Rob was in a band and was madly in love with a girl. Nobody knew who she was because he was very tight-lipped about it. He would write her these beautiful songs and sang them with his band (at this point people always think it was me--it wasn't.  We hadn't formally met yet). One day I went to go see the band play.  I met the band and long story short, I started dating the bassist. We were together for 2 months, but throughout that entire time Rob and I would talk for hours online, and would frequently talk about how we wanted to hang out without my bassist boyfriend around. He even confessed to me who "mystery girl" was after about 2 weeks of knowing each other. He was not an overly trusting person but knew that he could trust me.

One night in December we were talking online and he told me that though he could tell me everything, he had one secret he could not share. I kept asking what it was, and told him that I had a “secret” too. Eventually we played rock-paper-scissors over instant message (yes, this is was as goofy as it sounds). I lost and confessed my feelings, which he clearly reciprocated. I broke up with my boyfriend the next day, talked to Rob for literally hours, and he told me that he loved me. The first time we ever held hands we cried together and I could literally see his heart beating through his shirt (whoaa teenagers).

A few weeks later was our first Valentine's Day. As a surprise Rob sang me a song he had written for me in front of our entire high school cafeteria. If you know Rob you know that he is extremely shy, and this was huge for him.  Of course I collapsed into dramatic tears amongst the jealous sighs of my classmates, and all I could see or hear was him.  It was lovely. 

We spent the next year and a half in young-love-bliss until he left for the Army, which I had known was his dream since childhood. I skipped school on April 13, 2004 and we had our last full, non-Army day together. On April 14, he went to Basic Training, and from then until July we only communicated through letters and two 3-minute phone calls. On the weekend of July 4, I traveled to Georgia to visit him for a 30 hour pass. 30 hours seemed like forever after being apart so long, but was gone in an instant. After Basic and Airborne School, he was then stationed in Anchorage, AK while I went to college in Wisconsin. 

As we were too young to get married, we stayed together without tying the knot for the next four years. I was in college so we only saw each other every 2-3 months or so. I think the longest amount of consecutive time we spent together at a time was 2 weeks. This went on until 2006, when he left for Iraq. He was there during one of the bloodiest times in the war, and he was on the front lines (MOS 11B - Infantry for you military folk) which did him no favors. He was shot and was involved in several IED explosions, but miraculously survived. Rob was in quite a few dangerous situations but always made it out relatively unscathed, a fact that he owes to the existence of a tiny stuffed raccoon that I had given him early in the relationship. I had been given the raccoon when I was 4 and in the hospital with a tumor in my kidney. He carried her with him always and to this day swears that he'd be dead if he didn't have her (and, by proxy, me) with him always. He even got a tattoo of the raccoon, named Elizabeth.

I didn't see him for 8 months and we communicated infrequently by phone, at one point going 3 weeks without any communication whatsoever. His unit experienced numerous casualties, one of the occupational hazards of being an infantry unit, so he was not allowed a cell phone or personal internet use.  In January of 2007 I flew to Russia for a 4-month study abroad experience (read my Moscow blog here). Thankfully, Rob and I were able to talk about as much as we did previously and we were finally in the same time zone. I left Russia in May and he returned to Maine for two weeks in June. After that two weeks ended, we said the most horrific goodbye in our short history, and I didn't see him for another six months. I entered my senior year of college, trying to hold it together and get my degree. Though we often went weeks without talking, our love/communication/trust never wavered, and never did we even consider that we should not be together.

In May 2008 I graduated college and he got out of the army (hopefully) forever. We have lived together in happiness and love since. Rob began his postsecondary education, only a few years late, and is studying Environmental Science. He will graduate in May 2012.  On Valentine's Day 2009 he sang me a song in our living room (reminiscent of our first Valentine's Day) and proposed to me. Very clearly I said yes, and we had the wedding of our dreams on July 10, 2010. 

{photo credit}

I feel so extremely fortunate to have met and married my best friend. For Rob and I, staying together was never a question or a doubt. My relationship with my husband has always just come easily to me, the only thing I'm totally sure of in my life aside from my family. When I look back on what we've gone through and how it has strengthened us, I am filled with pride, love, and happiness.

I hope you have enjoyed reading our story as much as I enjoyed writing it!