Emily's Anniversary Guest Post

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Today, July 19th 2016 is the anniversary of two equally important historical landmarks. The first is the second anniversary of my marriage to my wife Emily, who at this point has yet to either file for divorce or drop a bowling ball on my head in my sleep, exceeding all expectations of how much stupidity a person is expected to tolerate. The second and perhaps more momentous being the one year anniversary of the launching of a stupid blog full of crappy illustrations and third grade humor that plays fast and loose with the rules of civilized grammar and the proper use of a semicolon on a regular basis; this being one of those times.

About a month ago Emily suggested that she write a guest post for the site. Seeing as it was close to our anniversary, and always being down for content that I don't have to create I told her she should write something that I'd use on our anniversary.

For the record, I had no influence or prior knowledge of what she was going to write, so this could really just be like six paragraphs about what a huge sack of crap I am or an overview on the migratory patterns of the eastern migratory earthworm or something. With no further waffling about, here is Emily's post as it was given to me with no editing or review on my part. Maybe she'll use a semicolon.

As Matthew and I are about to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary, I've been contemplating on the last two years and how things have changed for us and our relationship in that time. As a proud wife, I am so happy for him for starting this blog in honor of our lives together. And, any free time spent off of his Xbox is a win for me in my mind. When he said I could do a guest post on Adventures in Husbanding, I thought of the perfect idea to post on for our anniversary.
As we were preparing for our perfect wedding two years ago, Matt, not being a very religious person, still agreed upon a Catholic wedding for us. Growing up in a Catholic church, it was important to me to walk down a long aisle escorted by my father and sitting through the hour and a half of Catholic traditions, even if it meant that all of our guests wanted to fall asleep during the ceremony. 
However, part of having a Catholic wedding ceremony though is that you can't get creative with your wedding vows. You have to follow a set of vows that they provide for you. We were kind of fine with that though because then it's one less thing to remember or screw up on the day of your wedding. Afterall, I had watched the TV show, Friends. I didn't want to have a Ross moment where Matt or I said our ex's name up at the alter instead of each other's. Although, Matt's ex is also Emily, so he could have said the wrong person's name and would we never know in the end…
Anywho, two years into marriage I realize how bland those vows kind of were. Not that I wouldn't vow to love Matt in good times and in bad, in sickness and health, etc., etc. However, with time, your relationship progresses, you live together, and you really learn about your partner's flaws and your own flaws too. So, if I had the chance to go back to our wedding day and write vows more representative of our relationship, here's an idea of what mine might have looked like:
  • I vow to only wake you up by setting the dogs loose on your head when I feel you are sleeping in too late, especially on Saturdays when I'm working and you have off.
  • I vow to scream in a life-threatening manner to alert you of the presence of a bug in our house and demand immediate capture of said bug, forcing you to drop whatever it is that you are doing that second, even if you're "on the pot" as they say, to come and rescue me.
  • I vow to only have life dreams that put us in a quarter of a million dollars in debt for us to have to pay off until we are like, a billion years old.
  • I vow to always keep us financially aware. Afterall, I am the one with the quarter million dollar dream. But, you will have a really awesome present coming your way when we get all of the debt paid off when we are a billion years old and I can finally afford to get you a really awesome present. 
  • I vow to always freak out when the dogs do something cute (which is pretty much all the time!) and make you take pictures of them on your phone because my phone doesn't take pictures anymore because it's so filled up with pictures of the dogs doing something cute.
  • I vow to always make my baked goods with reduced fat, whether or not the recipes calls for it, and then get offended when you call everything "dense".
  • I vow to always worry about your health. You can expect to be looked at with partially judging and partially worried eyes when you eat things like hot dogs and bacon cheeseburgers.
  • Other the other hand, I vow to never make lentil sloppy joes, EVER again. It’s just not worth it that much.
  • Lastly, I vow to be in a state of constant noise by singing and whistling, in practically a professional manner if you ask me, at home and then, be super quiet and sweet when we are out in public so that all of your friends think you married the most innocent and sweet person on the face of the planet. Then, when you try to convince them otherwise, I put on my bashful doe eyes so they think you are crazy,
I also took it upon myself to write a few of Matt's vows for him too. (I guess I should have put a vow in there about needing to have at least a little control over everything we do.) They would look a little something like this:
  • When asked simple questions by you, I vow to always respond with in a stupid and/or sarcastic manner. For example, if you ask what I am doing, I will always respond, "Beeswax None of Yours, Inc."
  • I vow to always make us late for events by using up all of my time I should spend getting ready complaining about all the time you will take to get ready. And then start getting ready five minutes before you want to leave, underestimating how much time I will really need. 
  • Then, when we finally do leave, I vow to get angry when you call me out for us being late but still blame it on you because of how much more total time it took for you to get ready in the end. 
  • I vow to constantly play with the tuft of hair on my beard that hangs off of my chin as a nervous habit. Then when it grosses you out and you finally can't take it anymore and say something about it, I roll my eyes and begin playing with my eyebrows instead.
While these vows wouldn't be considered very traditional, they are real. I wouldn't take back my fairly fancy, Catholic wedding, and the proper vows I made to Matthew on that day. They were appropriate at the time, and still are, but now that Matt and I have been married for two years, we have had a lot more real-life experiences than what we had pre-wedding. There have been many broken sinks, talks about what Star Wars should have been, and so, so, so many dog farts. These are the things that shape the marriage and change the relationship. So much has obviously changed in two years. I can't wait to see what our vows will look like in many more!

Well, I mean sure that was a real and touching representation of our love and life together, showcasing how we interact and react to one another as a married couple. But not a single semicolon to be found. I'm a little bit let down.

Also, since I only got four vows to Emily's nine up there, I've taken it upon myself to round off my list with a few additional ones of my own.

  • I vow to offset your anxiety driven frugality by forcing us to purchase the occasional frivolous thing, go out to dinner or partake in some other such money spending activity that serves no other purpose but to be enjoyable. I also vow to round the cost of everything we have to spend money on down by at least 50 dollars so that you don't constantly have a stroke about our finances. 
  • I vow to tell you you are having a skinny day and that your butt looks good a minimum of twice a week in perpetuity so that you don't constantly complain of being fat when you weigh 100 lbs.
  • I vow to tolerate the fact that for some reason you call the TV remote control "The Box" and that your term for underwear is "squares" like some sort of complete animal maniac who just decides to come up with names for stuff that have no sensible correlation to their form or function.
  • I vow to be cool about it when you burp like a swamp demon any time you drink milk even though you act like it doesn't happen in public.
  • Finally, I vow to support you in the pursuit of your dreams even if they plunge us into a nearly bottomless pit of debt from which we may never fully claw our way out of. I vow this because I believe it is so rare for a person to truly find the thing in life that calls to them, and the fact that you have found yours is worth the untold years of eating shitty ramen packets for dinner that are ahead of us.

Happy Anniversary Emily, Happy first year Idiot Tantrum, and thank those of you who have been here reading the utter tripe that I have been plaguing the internet with for the past twelve months. My unhealthy need for your attention and approval is what gets me up in the morning.