The Celebration Continues: 121 Months

 

We've had people ask if we plan to continue the monthiversary tradition into this second decade of marriage. Yes! Absolutely! It has been one of our favorite things, and we see no need to discontinue it just because we probably can't claim newlywed status any longer. 

This week marked 121 months of marriage, and I was so excited to see it fall on a holiday for us. (Since New Year's Day landed on Sunday, both of us had Monday off work, and that was our monthiversary!)

Ryan had a handful of projects to work on at the lake house, so he went over there for the bulk of the day, and I stayed home to knock out a separate handful of projects while I had the freedom to do so. (I'm still adjusting to being back to work full time!)

One of the things Ryan and I are working to institute together is a daily workout. We are still completely off track from months of losing control of our schedule. It feels one hundred kinds of cliche to declare a workout resolution on January 1, but we did, and we are. (Of course, January 1 was a Sabbath, so our first day was January 2!) So the moment Ryan got home from the lake house, we both changed into workout clothes and got busy on week one, day one. We look less than thrilled to begin, but we wanted to get through it and have dinner!

Why do workouts always start with leg day?

Thirty minutes later, we were done in ALL the ways, and I declared to Ryan that he would need to plant me in my work chair Tuesday morning, because I knew I wouldn't be able to move.

We made our way into the kitchen to have dinner. I'd made a taco skillet with rice, and it was so very colorful and delicious!

Our initial plan had been to watch a movie and drink our first ever hot cocoa bombs, but alas, we couldn't find a good movie. It had been a heavy-hearted sort of day for both of us, so we wanted to watch something funny, and we just couldn't find anything that looked good. We finally gave up and had a heart-to-heart talk instead. I told Ryan it reminded me of our dating days when we would turn on a movie at one of our houses and then proceed to talk all the way through the movie instead.

We decided later that a good talk was better than a movie anyway. The whole point of a date or a monthiversary is to continue strengthening our relationship. We did that so much better through sharing our words and hearts than we ever could have giggling over a movie.

We did have the hot cocoa bombs, and they were as much fun as I imagined they might be. (Even better? They were gifts! I had already planned to purchase some for this date night, but some friends of ours gifted these to us, and that made them taste even better, I'm convinced!) We sipped on those while we watched an episode of Mad About You, and it provided just the perfect amount of comedy for us.

After that, Ryan switched to football, and we came upon the heartbreaking happenings in the Bills/Bengals game. I couldn't even wrap my mind around what I saw. I don't have words to further elaborate on that. So very, very hard to see.

At the end of the day, we concluded that while it may not have been the best representation of either of us individually, it was still a good monthiversary. (And how is it that only one month ago, we were in Florida enjoying a sunset cruise?) I was thankful for the time we did get to spend together on this dreary January day, and I was thankful for the good heart-talks we shared!

(And hot cocoa bombs may be my new favorite thing. I want to try them all now.)