Well, the day is finally here – our first anniversary! Year one is officially in the books!

Photo Credit: Love The Renauds

I’ve thought about this day many times thanks to the classic “We Had the Best Year Ever” Anniversary Facebook Posts –an expected post of course if you follow the unspoken Facebook protocol. Which is exactly why I made sure to post something special myself.

But I can’t help but think that many of the thoughts I have about this first year are a lot different than what I thought I would be thinking (that’s a lot of thoughts/thinking in one sentence…my head hurts).

Here are 7 Things about the First Year of Marriage that I didn’t Expect:

The oddest thing happened to me at church a few weeks ago. After service, I was standing in a circle talking to my friends when all of the sudden, a complete stranger grabbed my arm and announced, “Hi! I’m Karen!” I turned around to find a petite, smiling redhead, about my age that I had definitely never seen before.

Karen proceeded to tell me how her and her husband were new to the area and were wondering how they could get plugged into a community group. I told them about my group and, what do you know, they ending up coming that week! Now Karen and Kyle are regular members of our group, active participants, and new friends.

I left church that day I met Karen thinking, “Man, why didn’t I just do that in college?” Instead of grabbing a random church member and asking how to get plugged in, I spent year after year visiting churches for a while and waiting for someone to come grab MY hand and say, “Come be a part of our group!”

Growing up I was that uncoordinated, scrawny, yet somehow slightly sporty kid that every parent was afraid might break in half on the court or field. In one minute I would be shockingly athletic and the next I would trip over the half court line (I swear it had to be raised).

Not to brag too much, but I had pretty fast legs. The issue was my head was always a couple feet faster, leading to some disastrous base running and accidental head dives.

Everyone was always waiting for me to “grow into my body”. I got used to comments like, “eat a burger” and “put some meat on those bones.”

Even through college, I was encouraged to eat whatever, whenever. And I never minded the challenge.

As many of you have noticed (aka my mom and my friend’s grandmother) I haven’t blogged in a couple of weeks. The reason is because I am battling mono. I am awake for a couple hours a day and out of it when I am. BUT, I did push through to come up with a few lessons I’m learning along the way for my avid blog readers…

I feel I must admit I do not look as cute as this stock photo when I’m sick but I sort of want you to think I do.

Here are 12 Things Mono Has Taught Me:

In honor of Valentine’s Day next week I figured I would spread the love by sharing some secrets for my (unmarried) male blog readers. Here are 14 things girls say translated into what they actually mean.

By the way- I wrote this back when I was a single lady. By now realize I have to actually say what I’m thinking because married men don’t try as hard as single men.