He loves me anyway

There has been a LOT going on in the past month. While Bob and I had wanted to get moved into an apartment before Thanksgiving (or have me moved in and gradually truck his stuff up here) to avoid Christmas traffic around 280, we did not expect to be signing a lease on Halloween. It was a surprise, but a good surprise, and for the past 26 days there have been a lot of revelations.
1. People try to be honest, but they make mistakes, and sometimes you have to pay for their mistakes. We ended up having to pay an additional $100 deposit AFTER signing the lease because our leasing agent made a mistake. Now, I normally would have been extremely upset about this but he had told us in previous conversations that he worked 2 jobs and had a newborn at home, so I understand that brains don't always work at full capacity. But it was still an aggravating situation, and I still don't think it was fair.
2. When you make $8.50 an hour, you can practically feel your money crawling out of your pockets on an hourly basis. As Bob and I still have separate checking accounts, mine is going to take a BIG hit on Dec. 1 due to rent payment. Every time I go to the grocery store or check the mail, I feel the pain of my bank account. However, while I have not been able to contribute much to my savings account lately (and by "much" I mean "any") I have also not taken anything out, and that feels good.
3. If you have warm pajamas and a coffee-maker, you can be perfectly comfortable with the thermostat set on 65.
4. Having a couch makes a huge difference in the comfort level and completeness of your living room. Sitting on a pillow in front of the coffee table makes you look like a broke college student--which is fine when that's what you are, and you're the only person who lives there.
5. If you work 9-6 with two-year-olds, no matter what, you will NOT come home and say to yourself, "I think I'll spend the next 45 minutes fixing dinner from multiple raw ingredients." You're going to say, "What's the fastest, easiest-to-clean thing I can fix?" even if that thing is bagel bites or oatmeal, and you had the same thing for breakfast.

And the revelations just keep coming. I have eaten a LOT of noodles with butter, Kraft macaroni and cheese, sandwiches, oatmeal, and chips for meals lately. Part of the exhaustion may come from the stress of wedding planning, which has gotten better now that I've almost finished my thank-you notes and I finally downloaded the music for the ceremony and reception. We have just three weeks until the wedding and I'm so ready to be done with it all. Bob has been sick, which has not made it easier, but he's getting better and that has helped. He's been able to spend some time at the apartment the past couple of weekends, which brings me to the reason I titled this post "He loves me anyway."

Bob came over Wednesday evening as I was preparing the sweet potato casserole for our Thanksgiving meal with my grandparents in St. Clair county. I had to start with ACTUAL SWEET POTATOES, NOT canned ones, which is a big thing for my family. So I had a lot more to do that I am used to, even though I like to cook and bake. I will typically turn some music on when I'm in the kitchen, and because I'm usually alone, I have no problem dancing and singing along when I'm working. But I've never let Bob see me at this because I didn't want to scare him away. Well, Wednesday night, "Circle of Life" comes on my Pandora station and he looked at me, shook his head, said something to the effect of "You're special." And he left at that.

This is one of the very, VERY few things I have kept from him in the years leading to our marriage (like my blanket. It's still here, just inside my pillowcase.) But the gloves are coming off, and apparently he still wants to hold my hand. This is good.