Friday, February 1, 2013

The long awaited return of Conversations with the Widow Fike


I’m wading back into the blog. Yup, I’ve not added to the conversations in over a year. It has been a crazy whirlwind of a year. I had every good intention of posting the story of the Phoenix run of January 2012, but shortly after getting home from the race, my boyfriend, EW asked me to move in with him.

My prayers were finally answered; I would be living with EW. But, with those prayers being answered came all the cluster of moving and settling into a new lifestyle. The cats didn’t settle in as quickly as I did, or was it me that didn’t settle so quickly. Suddenly, I had a shorter distance to drive to work, but because of the horrific Northern Virginia traffic, I picked up an additional 30 minutes of drive time. For the friends that listened to me bitch about that for weeks, thank you and God bless you.

As anyone knows who has lived alone for any extended period of time, the adjustment to partnership living is not always a smooth transition. I work bizarre hours, so the romantic notion of dinners together with a lingering glass of wine was far from a reality. Plus, I still had tons of races on my calendar which required weekends away, leaving EW alone when he thought we’d have idyllic romantic weekends.

We did manage a long vacation to Maui and two wonderful weekends out of town to celebrate our birthdays. We had delightful bed and breakfast experiences revolving around some of our favorite restaurants. We were able to spend one weekend at The Inn at Little Washington and then another at the Greenbrier. Needless to say, we pampered and spoiled ourselves and felt it was all quite necessary.

Life continued to roll along and at times it felt as though it snowballed out of control. In the late spring we began to discuss an engagement and wedding. No dates were set, and though we had discussed it over the years of dating, the event was drawing near and we needed to make decisions about finally marrying. I was thrilled and as most of my friends will tell you, I was waiting for the ring on the finger and had been waiting for a long time.

EW and I had discussed what I desired in a ring and we seemed to be at odds about his likes and mine. Insert laugh track here, then why ask me what I want???? After hiccups, bad starts, web searches, and jewelry visits, EW made a decision on a purchase totally different than what I wanted. Again, those that know me well know how funny and fractious the entire ring purchase was. In the end, EW outdid himself and presented me with a ring far beyond my wishes. For that, thank you, thank you, and thank you. It is stunning.

So, then it was time to decide a wedding date. Holy running blisters. I wanted to get married on 12-12-12 and EW wanted to wait until we had been living together a year. We had been dating for well over 2 years and by then, living together for well over 6 months, so in my mind 60 days made no difference. And, damn it, I wanted the cool anniversary of 12-12-12.

Ultimately, I won out and we did marry on 12-12-12. It was a simple civil ceremony in Annapolis in the company of 6 good friends. It was sentimental, funny, and stamped with both personalities. EW’s romantic and serious nature was imprinted all over his wedding vows, and my self- deprecating sense of humor was peppered throughout mine. 

So to complete the marital bliss, we adopted a beautiful little girl, a chocolate lab puppy named Gumbo. She is a true joy, though a wild child at times. The cats are still trying to figure out what happened to their quiet bucolic life in the big house. And to add to the excitement of married life, we have purchased a home and will soon move out of the rented house we currently occupy.

Did I say life has snowballed? It indeed has. I will say that there have been absolutely hilarious moments over the past year. There have been adjustments with some terse words, tears, a stamped foot or two. But all in all, we have loved the wild ride that our lives have been on since the day we met.

I would not change one single moment of the crazy past year. For the first time, I have been able to spend all of my holidays with EW. We did not split holidays with our family members. We cooked for friends and entertained them in our home; all the while basking in the warmth of solid friendships.

I’m overjoyed that when I say goodnight to EW, it is now whispered in his ear, next to him in a cozy bedroom, rather than over the phone while he is off on business. I’m also thrilled that his trips to Alaska have wound down a bit and we are not apart as often. I love being home with EW.

Simply put, I love EW, aka Nanook, Voldemort, or MWNN. I feel truly complete and I have not felt so in a long, long time.

So, now that I have started writing the blog again; the crazy stories wrapped around idiotic headlines and life in general will continue. I have missed poking fun at myself, and believe me, there have been plenty of incidents that I should have written about. Perhaps I’ll reflect back on some of those crazy times and share them. Lord knows I can twist the humor out of anything.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned!

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