consolidating

Yay! --- my husband and I recently celebrated our 8 months of marriage and 18 months of being a couple together.  As cheesy as it is, we celebrate our monthly milestones (along with weekly date nights).  It makes life together quite fun and happy.  It's pretty much the highlight of any week that I look forward to.  My husband and I did not cohabitate before we got married, so as soon as we were married - we started "Project Consolidation".  This is what it looked like 8 months ago:

• three mortgages between the two of us: two of which were habitable by our new 2.5 person family (including dog), and only of which had a reasonable work - commute time for both of us....
  
• parents living in one of those mortgages, and another parent living on the other side of the country
• Many scattered accounts and credit cards between the two of us

We looked at Project Consolidation as a phased approach, some overlapping and parallel (can you tell we're both nerdy consulting types?):

• Home: Consolidate living spaces, mortgages into one
• Family: What are the principles that we agree to in regards to parental unit in-laws, siblings, etc....
• Church: What church shall we go to and what are the expectations of each other
  
• Money: Consolidate financial accounts and agree on overarching plan: liquid cash, long term investments, short term investments, emergency cash, spending thresholds for alerting the other about
• Roles and responsibilities: In general, who owns 80% of what responsibility, the other will be responsible for advising on the remaining 20%

Let me tell you, 8 months later, it's not been easy.  We sold one of the three homes so far, we are working on selling one other.  Once that sells, we'll rent the remaining one out and find a place of our own.  We currently are squished as efficiently as possible as can be into a small one bedroom - every wall space utilized with shelving, every nook and cranny with an organizing box in it.  I gave 6 large boxes of cloths, shoes, stuff to Good Will.  Who knew that my husband would own more pairs of jeans and shoes than I would...  He's also sporty - so all of his sporting equipment came with him (including surfing gear, swimming gear, bicycle, ...) ... and his ginormous man-sized television and stereo.  We are still deciding which of the two sofas we are going to keep - so for now, we have 2 sofas in here.  Thanks to the Arry Table (YAY!), we have enough room to dine as a family (and w friends), work, store items, .....   

My husband and I often chuckle when we are cuddled up in our little cozy home about how we've made this work.  We try to be mindful of each other's needs like social recovery time, alone and down time, TLC time, and work-at-home time.  Every day we have "checkpoints" to see how the other is doing.  Every day we end the day updating each other.  Sometimes our home is just absolutely insane with piles of papers and cloths and blankets and electronics everywhere.  Sometimes home is a wonderful haven of love and rest.  Yes, so far, even squished into a small one bedroom with my husband and dog, I am loving marriage.  [I can't wait for Project Consolidation to be complete so that we can move on to the next chapter --- hopefully with walk-in-closet, a big garage, a second bedroom/office, oh... and a pantry?]

xo,
Arry

---