One year ago today, my life changed forever.

Okay, so officially it's 12:10 am here in England, so my first wedding anniversary as I know it is over but it is still technically May 18th back in Minnesota, so I can rationalize that. Philip and I have been married one year. It is incredible. It feels like the wedding was last month, but at the same time it feels like we've been married forever. I think it's because it is just right. We were created to complement each other in life, so now things feel like they are as they were designed to be. It's been a year of growth, surprises, challenges, and changes. It's been beautiful. Not always easy. I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with Philip.



My mom sent us a HILARIOUS anniversary card that describes us to a TEE! I laughed and laughed when I was walking out of the post office reading it. I am DEFINATELY a doer and Philip is definately a be-er. It's a perfect match (and incredibly common - you kind of need one of each to make a relationship work), but again, it's not always an easy one. To get me laugh, Philip now reminds me to "check out the iridescent bug" :)



We have been teasing each other lately about a conversation we had a couple of weeks ago. We were reflecting on the year and the question "how was it?" at the same time he answered "this was SO GRRRREAT!" and I answered "it was a very difficult year." We laughed. He's never going to let me forget it. The scale of good and bad is very different than the continum of easy - difficult. I would say that it has been a wonderful year. One of the very best of my life, however it has not always been easy. I think for most couples the first year can feel difficult because of the many transitions and adjustments they are making simultaneously. In our case when a move to another country and Philip being gone for 1/3 of the year was added into the mix, it naturally added some stress to the mix.


It's been a wild weekend. I had class all of yesterday and today. We were doing our final project presentations on our treatment plans for a historical figure. They were really interesting. Some interpersonal issues arose with some of the faculty yesterday morning that left me really drained and taxed, but they are currenly on the mend (no joke, I got into the car last night looked at Philip said "the presentation was fine I don't even want to talk about the rest of the day" because I looked like I had been hit by a bus). After class tonight I finished another paper and wrapped up my packing and am now scouring the house.


Philip and I are leaving at 4:30 am to head into London for my flight back to MN tomorrow (I'm flying Continental through San Antonio and will arrive in Mpls around 6 pm). The thing is, our house gets inspected once per quarter by our property mgmt company so it needs to be spotless before I leave as our inspection date is supposed to be tomorrow. I just scrubbed the kitchen floor and will get back on task shortly. My Northwestern cleaning skills come in handy more often that I would have ever imagined (in college we had weekly room inspections and an UNBELIEVABLE white glove inspection at the end of the year - no joke, one year I spent 4 hours cleaning the slats on one vent in our dorm with q-tips and 409, and that same year my roomate and I spent a total of 12 hours bleaching and scrubbing our blinds).