Thoughts on Marriage...so far

Everyone's first question when they see us these days is, "how's married life?" Now that we're past our first month, the Chris and Amy Marriage tour is over with, and we're more or less settled into our place, there's not a whole to say to most people.

Marriage is great. Great great great. My wife is as sweet as can be. We have lots of down time now, which is actually kind of weird. Even before we got engaged it always felt like our weeks were packed, and we always had plans, but these days it seems like we have a lot of evenings where we're just kind of hanging out.

Being married has alerted me to a few things:

• After several years of not having a room-roommate, I'm being reminded that I'm a pretty active sleeper. Dave has lots of stories about things I would say and do in my sleep. Last night before going to bed, Amy asked me, "so do you remember at all sitting straight up in middle of the night and saying, 'do I need to make some hot chocolate??? It is freezing in here!'" That is pretty much par for the course for me. I guess I used to laugh in my sleep a lot. I'm sure there will be lots more of those kind of stories.
• Marriage has an interesting way of really forcing you outside of yourself. When you're single, and even when you're dating, it's easy to just do your own thing. Now that I'm married, if Amy starts making dinner or doing our laundry - and I realize that she's flitting about doing stuff for us while I'm just watching ESPN or dinking around on the internet for me - then I feel dumb. I still have a ways to go in this department, but I just hope she's not feeling like she's alone.
• It's really fun trying to establish our marriage/family habits. It's nice to read scriptures, pray, have family home evening, and go to the temple together. As we're getting better at carrying these things out, it really does help me to feel closer to Amy. It's funny that at the same time, even though I recognize all of the benefits, sometimes it still feels like a chore. I've got such a stubborn natural man.

That's all I've got. We hit our one month mark just over a week ago, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll make it to two, but I think we're on our way.