*originally posted on Justin’s blog on 1 Sept 2013*

Boy, what a crazy few weeks it’s been.  First things first:  I’m officially a married man!  The misses and I made it official on August 10th in front of roughly 70 people.  Having planned the whole thing and executed it ourselves (and with the help of some family and friends) I can honestly say I’m glad it’s over!  The last week was nothing but pure craziness leading up to the main event.  We had her family visiting, work trying to get done around the house, me running around trying to accomplish tasks while putting out the minor fires (not literal fires FYI) all over the place, Marilyn trying to close out last minute details so I could accomplish some of the tasks.  It was a lot of build up and thankfully all the hard work paid off with some good weather and a wedding day that went off better than we could have hoped.  Even the kids and dogs were well behaved and we had no real major incidents.

One of the interesting things I did learn from the whole deal was who’s got my back if I need them.  I’m not talking about the people I can call if I need help.  I’m talking about those that don’t wait for me to call.  That can see just from looking at me that my stress level is nearing max capacity and I need a hand getting things done.  Call it pride or whatever, I’m shit at asking for help and don’t generally do it unless I’m in way over my head.  I was ever so thankful that I had some people at the wedding that didn’t wait to be asked; that noticed issues and fixed them so I didn’t even realize there had been a problem until I was informed of it later.  It was huge and I’m incredibly grateful to those people.

We also found out a couple days after the wedding that a house we’d made an offer on fell through.  Thank you Fannie Mae for being dicks.  I could get into the whole story in a seperate post but suffice it to say they don’t appear to be inclined to work with potential home buyers if they own the home and would apparently rather let an unused house sit and rot rather than make any negotiations.  It was and still is frustrating because it was the first house we’ve looked at that Marilyn and I have both really liked and didn’t need a boat load of money to fix up.  (We’re looking more for a fixer upper than move in ready because it will both give me the ability to make it ours and they also tend to be cheaper so we can get more home for our money).  Now we’re back to the drawing board and preparing for another winter at our current location.  Hopefully something will come up before the snow flies but at this point we have no choice but to prepare to be at our present location.

After that things get a bit blurry.  We’re holding off on a honeymoon both for financial (see wanting a house above) and because Jimmy began 6th grade last week.  Because of that, last week we made the four hour drive south so Marilyn could have an ambulatory EEG (description: http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/eeg_ambulatory) done over the weekend.  Basically, they hooked up her head with a bunch of electrodes and recorded what her brain did all weekend in the search for why she’s having seizures and to potentially give us some clue as to why she’s having such big issues with her legs.

Once we returned home, the next day was off to two more appointments with the “local” doctors….60 miles away!  Honestly, between the traveling to the EEG, the local docs, and the extra driving I did over the weekend to accomplish some tasks and see some people I hadn’t visited in awhile, I spent more ass time than I could have fathomed.  I was ready to be home for a few days and to get to work on some tasks left unfinished due to the hectic nature of the past few weeks.  Well, I’ve gotten what I asked for.  Laundry, dishes, house cleaning have all been getting accomplished along with getting Jimmy up and off for school and attempting to get into some sort of routine.

It’s been crazy around here and I’m not sure when it’s going to slow down.  Winter is coming whether we like it or not and I have a million things to do to prep for it.  White tale archery, duck, and partridge hunting seasons begin in a little over a month as well Jimmy’s 6 month hockey season.  Sometimes I feel like my damn head is spinning and I have so many projects I have no idea where to begin.  At the same time, after already experiencing one winter up here I fully realize that at some point things will slow down to a near crawl as the temperature gauge hits 25-30 below zero and everything in nature goes into hibernation.  I guess, all I can say at this point is, I can’t wait for short time of year I get to be sitting in a tree stand listening to the sounds of nature and the only human voice is the one in my head.  For those days are the ones where I can truly reflect on the simple things.