And so introduces yet another juxtaposition of my Green Acres situation since I've been married. I am "working from home" today, playing on my new MacBook Bobby got me for Christmas and while sitting in my living room, I hear gunshots. Now, to most this would instill a quiver of fear and a frantic call to the police but as long as the bullets aren't coming through the window again (yes, again) I am perfectly comfortable to sit and play. My brief experience with country life is the more shots the better. That means they are probably duck hunting or skeet shooting which means the bullets are shot upwards and not in my direction. Now if you know me, you may ask yourself, "Since when is Haley the expert on gunshots and hunting? That seems...odd." While I wouldn't go so far as "expert" but I have definitely become "more informed" since I got married in June and moved to my hubby's 40 acre farm twenty miles northeast of my beloved Highway 280. I probably would've never called 280 "beloved" before I moved. Nigh, I cursed the busy causeway daily, if not more often. But it is definitely a big adjustment when the closest sushi joint is a solid three zip codes away. I mean, come on. Super crunch roll, anybody? Spicy mayonnaise? -Sigh- I digress.
The positives far outweigh the negatives though and not only do I get to spend time with the sweetest farmer this side of the Mississip (Southern slang for Mississippi River) but we grow a mean sunset out here in Odenville. The slower pace helps me in a lot of ways. Calm is probably not a word many people would use to describe me but I'm getting there. Sometimes when we are sitting in the living room on a weeknight and I look around I can't really believe this is my life. Not because I didn't listen when we were growing up that life would eventually be about husbands, dogs, family, work, dishes, laundry, talking about when's a good time to have a baby, doing budgets, doing more laundry (good googley the freaking laundry). People had painted that picture for me since birth. Where the surprise comes in is that I am completely content to live the outlined life that I have always heard about. More than content, ecstatic, to follow in the human experience footsteps of having a completely cliched life. Husband, house, kids. It all sounds perfectly blissful.
The good thing about our cliche is that it's a little left of normal. After all, I'm a career girl with fancy shoes and expensive taste in serum (Isbell inside joke) and my husband finds pure joy in scoping out deer with his game camera and planning Big Mossy Oak's ultimate demise (another IIJ). So we are definitely different enough to keep it interesting but interestingly enough, we both enjoy each oddities enough to be supportive of our differences. For example, I bought Bobby a shotgun for Christmas and he bought me a Tory Burch gold metallic cross-body bag. See? Getting along already!
Our second big adventure (the first being our amazingly perfect dog Raleigh Chancellor) is building our family home. Hence me sitting here watching HGTv listening to gunshots echo in the distance. I am consumed. One track mind. Everything revolves around this project. Is there anything bigger than building a house? I will answer for you. No. There's not. So I'm jumping in both feet to the budgeting, designing, researching that goes into building our dream home. (Side note--building a house is a great excuse for not having kids yet. "When are y'all having kids?" Answer, "Well you know we have to build the house first...") I am beyond excited to do this for our future family but I am determined to be patient and enjoy every second of our married life. That's unrealistic. I'm determined to enjoy almost every second of our married life. That dang pile of laundry doesn't make me happy.
Hopefully the process will be a comedy of errors. Which is pretty much our everyday life. Comedically to the left of cliche. Roll the Green Acres theme music. Back to budgeting.
