“What are you doing?”

This phrase has exited my mouth several 100 times in the last few weeks. When moving in with someone, there are some growing pains. Lots of growing pains. There are a lot of things you don’t know about someone until you share a roof with them. Albeit, we have lived together before, but when you do it so sporadically, there are still things to uncover or re-uncover. It’s like we are newly-weds all over again.

It is like that episode of Boy Meets World where Cory and Topanga spend the night together for the first time. Girl in face mask and guy clipping toe nails-classic.

Now add that the person you are moving in with is an infantryman.

My husband lived in the wilderness for 6 months, then lived in a practically empty house for almost 2 months.

This is what happens when you leave an infantryman unsupervised…

I do not claim his poor beer choices…

So on top of dealing with clothes/towels on the floor and dishes everywhere, I have to deal with Tom licking his plates after every meal and playing with knifes like he is a ninja.

And every reason resorts back to “I’m an infantryman.” (which inevitably leads to my eye roll)

Let’s just say, it has been interesting trying to get to know each other’s little quirks again. I would be lying if I said that the past month has been all rainbows and sunshines. We may have been together for the last 6 years, but there are still issues that we have to deal with. And honestly, I would be a little afraid if we didn’t have a disagreement here and there.

I may call Tom out with his primitive living, but I will admit that I have not been a perfect angel either. I am pretty set on my routines and everything having a place. As an introvert, I need my “me” time to get away from everything, so having someone around all the time has not been the easiest for me. I have had to redefine what that means for me and grab those moments when I can. Just this morning I got aggravated with him because he messed up my set aside “alone” time while I got ready for work. Really he was just trying to chat, and I was being rude and upset that I couldn’t be alone. This explains what transition I have had to go through as an introvert:  http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/how-to-love-an-introvert/ And I have had struggles with everything that this post mentioned, which in turn makes me drink the haterade towards Tom.

As every couple before us, we have had some rough patches learning how to read each other and effectively communicate. And we both have been so used to being on our own, so we have had to work on sharing a space and not feeling invaded by the other. Compromise has been the motto of our house or we just claim do-overs and start the conversation over. Although, I am not sure I will ever lovingly look over at Tom as he leaves army/survival gadgets everywhere (and I mean they are EVERYwhere). Just as he may not look at me with adoring eyes when I have filled the DVR with all of my TV shows once they start up again in the fall-the line up does get a little ridiculous.

But this is part of growing together.  We will probably spend the rest of our lives trying to “tame” each other. I hope that every day we are able to learn more about each other. And who knows what habits of each other’s we may pick up on…only time will tell!

There have been a lot of good things too in this taming process:

• Decorating the house
• Making/fixing furniture-I couldn’t do this without Tom
• Tom finally caving in and wanting to watch “The Bachelorette” with me
•  Grocery shopping together
• Tom teaching me how to climb a rope (Yes like the rope you climb in Gym class. I have never been able to get off the ground, and these ropes are everywhere on base for me to practice on. And we’ve stopped on our way to the Commissary to practice.)
•  Eating dinner together every night
•  Deciding that we are becoming Red and Kitty from “That 70’s Show”
• Playing outside with the dog
•  BBQ on the patio
• Singing rap and pop songs in formal A Cappella voices (Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “I Like Big Butts” is my favorite.)

So for those of you who are about to move in with someone (significant other or not), understand that there WILL be an adjustment period. But there are a lot of laughs that can come with it if you can move past the unruliness.

***Anyone have any good stories to share after moving in with someone?***

Also with moving in to a new space there are a lot of new expenses. Since we had lived on campus, we did not have very much because most of it was provided. Luckily my parents are downsizing right now, so we inherited a kitchen table and set of chairs. You can see that they look like they were from the 80s or early 90s (the chairs, not my parents.)

We had to strip these chairs first. This meant taking off the couple decade old cloth and cushions that were starting to disintegrate. Then I had to pull out all the staples to make it easier for the new layer to be attached.  Nasty job, but so worth it!

After we did that, Tom put on the padding and cloth that we had gotten from Hobby Lobby.

Grace was making it difficult for Tom to do anything because she wanted the padding to be her new bed.

We had planned to do this part together, but we weren’t able to get it all done in one night like we had planned. The stripping took a lot longer than we thought. But, Tom surprised me one night when I came home from work and had them all completely covered. Love him!

Basically a new chair!

Now we just need to update the table to match.

Soon we will be ready to entertain!