Nine years ago, on December 16, 1994, Christine Nielsen and myself were wed. Nine years later... we’re still married, amazingly.

I say “amazingly” because during that time we’ve witnessed the disintegration of so many marriages around us. It seems like most of my good friends from college ended up going through divorce. Both my brother and then my sister have been divorced in the last nine years.

Before I was married, I thought my family was immune from the “disease“ of divorce. I didn’t know anyone in my family who had been divorced. It seemed to me if someone in your family had been divorced, especially your parents, there was a much higher liklihood your marriage would end up in divorce as well. It sounds like some kind of inherited weakness or something.

So, yeah, I thought the Barton family was immune to it. My parents were still happily married, no grandparents had been divorced. Aunts and uncles were all happily married too.

Then, a couple months before Christine and I got married, my parents split up. It was just a temporary thing, thankfully, but it scared me to death. I was petrified thinking it meant inescapable doom to any relationships I wanted to forge in my life.

It took a couple weeks, but my parents mended their differences and my dad moved back in.

Since then, my brother divorced his wife, my sister divorced her husband of 18 years and is now married to another man. I’m the only one of my parents’ kids not to do it. Am I doomed? Am I destined to someday give in to some invisible hand that attempts to push marriages into divorce?

Well, I hope not. I’m not really that worried about it. Christine and I get along well these days.

And today was our nine year anniversary.

We didn’t really do anything fancy-pantsy because we’ve both been mentally and emotionally exhausted from moving and fixing up our house. Plus, it’s enough of a anniversary present to have this house to live in.

Maya insisted on celebrating our anniversary with us, so we took Maya and Lucy to the dollar store in Herriman and let them each pick out a gift for us. Of course, they wanted to buy toys like squeaky frogs that we could “share” with them. It was fun and it was a good opportunity to challenge them to think about the wants and likes of the recipient of a gift rather than what they themselves want.

Then, I wanted to take the family to a nice restaurant. Christine said she really just wanted to go to Dennys. I was confused by that, but that’s what we did. Moons Over My Hammy is good! That’s what I always get at Dennys.

In addition to our anniversary, today marks the midnight showing of Lord Of The Rings - Return Of The King. Had it not been our anniversary, we probably would have gone. *shrugs*

On Smoochy* & Jennie

Jennie told me today that Smoochy* moved back in this weekend. I asked her if that was cool with her. She told me what happened: Smoochy* visited her last Thursday or Friday at work and had lunch with her. Things had been going well between them and they had been going on dates and having a pleasant time in each others’ company. Jennie says she mentioned to Smoochy* that they should have some discussion about him possibly moving back into the house.

From what Jennie says, that’s as far as it got. They did not discuss it at that time. She only expressed an interest in discussing it. When she got home from work, Smoochy* had already moved all his belongings back into the house.

Jennie decided to go with it, but told him if things got out of hand again, he’d have to leave again. His response was that if things got bad again, Jennie would be the one to leave, not him.

To an outside observer, it seems Smoochy* is just taking advantage of Jennie now that she no longer has Christine and I living there and intimidating Smoochy*.

Jennie also said Smoochy*’s attitude has been showing signs of returning back to “normal“ (that is, normal for Smoochy*). She says he complains a lot about a lot of things and while he agreed to go to a family Christmas party with Jennie (and her family), he relegated himself to sitting alone in a back room because he, “doesn’t like parties.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I don’t know what to think. I hope Smoochy* has learned something. I hope he can not mess this up... for his sake and for Jennie’s, but it’s not looking good so far. I’m concerned about his attitude that Jennie would have to move out if they can’t get along. That’s just a bad sign all by itself.

Christmas? It’s Christmas time?!

Christine and I are scrambling to get gifts bought for family and friends. We’ve been so busy with the house, moving, and all, we haven’t really spent any time shopping or even thinking about Christmas. We finally got our tree up on Saturday after I brought it to the house from my parents’ storage garage. I hope we’re able to make it all happen.