Schedule Summary and Studying Woes

School and work have kept Stephen and me busy. We've been married for two and a half weeks now and are starting to find a routine. Mostly, we both get up early in the morning and I leave first for work or school. He and I work hard all day be it in our jobs or in class. We return home in the evening—on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday, I get off of work at 2:30, so I have some time in the afternoon that I've been using to run errands or sleep. Stephen gets home from work around 6. When we have class, he's done at 4 and I'm done at 5. So while we both have full days, our evenings are spent together. I'm grateful for this. After a long day, it's nice to come home to my husband who greets me with a smile rather than returning to my apartment with my roommate's dishes in the sink (perks of being married--Stephen surprises me sometimes and does my dishes).

Once we are home, we spent most of our time doing homework. I make dinner while Stephen studies, and then he cleans up while I study. I have about 100 pages of reading assigned for each day of class, and with three programming classes, Stephen also has plenty to do. We both then study for the rest of the evening, taking breaks to play games, do chores, or talk. Because we get up early, we try to go to bed by ten, but lately, homework has been keeping us up. Stephen still surprises me while we're studying to just get up and come to where I am and hug me for a minute before going back to work. He just wants to make sure I feel loved, even when we're distracted. I really appreciate how Stephen goes out of his way to make me happy. He brought me flowers last week just to make my day better.

Our schedules won't be changing much for the rest of the year, so I'm assuming our daily routine won't have much variance from what it's like now. I'm not complaining though. It's hard to have such full days, but it's nice to look back and see what I've accomplished. My body is adjusting to the new demands. I bike to work and school, and work consists of physical labor for six or seven hours a day. I'm sore a lot, but I have hope that I'll get stronger as I get used to it. Stephen is very understanding and helps me as much as he can. Last week, I came home from work after I stayed late to find him doing the dishes because he figured I had done enough cleaning that day.

It's harder to pinpoint the things I do for Stephen. That's been something we've tried to do since we started dating. But we know how happy I make him. I can make him laugh very easily. I'm just so darn funny! I support him in his efforts too, and he'll talk out his problems with me in order to understand them better. Sometimes I give him ideas and solutions he hadn't thought of before. So while I don't buy Stephen flowers when he's had a long day, I'm coming to understand how I make his life better. I guess that's what marriage is about—making the other person's life better by being in it.

I like my job. Today, my morning coworker, Ayden, had the day off, so it was just me for the first five hours. Surprising, it was kind of nice to clean everything. I vacuumed every foot of the Cannon Center today; it took me several hours on that alone, but there's a sense of pride by doing it all myself. I also managed to clean all five bathrooms in two hours. The record is 1:45, and I want to beat that; I know as I get more familiar and better, I'll totally be able to get the bathrooms clean in an hour and a half. This afternoon, someone made a disaster in the men's bathroom. I will spare you the details unless you press hard enough, but trust me that little can be more disgusting. Luckily, in the afternoon, my other coworker, Cadedra, was there, and she handled the mess along with my boss, Tina, while I finished vacuuming. Calling work eventful today would be an understatement.

One of my favorite things about my job is I can listen to music while I work nearly undisturbed for hours. However, along with listening to music, I've been listening to conference talks. Today, I got through the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions of April 2013 conference. There are some great talks from that day. For my scripture study, I find that reading or listening to talks is helpful for me—especially when I can listen during work. I recommend it. I'm looking forward to conference next month. It's so nice to hear from prophets and leaders of the Church.

Well, Stephen should be walking in the door any minute. I'm going to make baked potatoes and chili because it rained today. He and I want to get a lot of homework done so we can play games tomorrow night on campus. Marrying Stephen will do wonders for my grades. He's far too diligent sometimes. It's probably an admirable quality worth emulating. But if you know me well enough, being social is a priority over studying. This is why I'm hosting a party on Saturday while Stephen attends a study group all day. We balance each other well in this, don't get me wrong. I get my homework done eventually and he enjoys activities too. But initially, last summer, when I wanted to “hang out” with him, he was studying too diligently. This is why we didn't date last summer. But now that we both have class, we can study together and be both diligent and social (to some degree).

Stephen is home now and I'm starting to get hungry. It's time to bake some potatoes! Also, comment below with your definition of what it means to be married. I'm curious.