10 Year Retrospective...

10 years ago: I was dating a guy who I know would only be in town for as long as his JAG class lasted. This was the last of my string of relationships which always seemed to collapse after 3 months. Nice guy, but even if he hadn't left town the relationship wouldn't have lasted much longer - Irish-Catholic yankees and protestant southerners don't actually have that much in common. Google-stalking him recently I found he's doing exactly what he had told me he wanted to do after finishing his time in the military and it's not a life I wanted.

9.5 years ago: I met DH. His best-friend's then-wife picked me up at a social held by the local young professionals organization. I thought she was hitting on me, and DH didn't realize that we had never met before that night until a week or two later. At the same time I was semi-dating one of the younger local college professors and hoping to really date a number of men without getting serious - thanks to the professors' plane getting delayed at La Guardia I was at the social alone, and my goal of dating lots of men and having fun was soon to be short-lived.

9 years ago: I knew I was going to marry DH, and despite using 2 forms of birth control I was terrified of getting pregnant. (Ironic that, given how things have turned out.)

8.75 years ago: I got the cliche of "why buy the cow when he's getting the milk for free" from my mother who had just learned that I had "broken" a pledge to her to not have pre-marital sex. (I say if I can't remember such a thing and know I'm going to marry the guy, and despite the timing he's still my first, what's the big deal?) I also purchased my first new/used car, and changed jobs from one I tolerated to one I absolutely loved.

8 years ago: DH surprised me with a New Years Eve proposal and with a ring he had designed for me after carefully listening to my likes and dislikes (wanted something that wouldn't get caught on pockets or anything else, thus not a fan of solitares). The ring also incorporates the diamond originally purchased by his great-great-great grandfather for his wife.

7.25 years ago: I was deep in wedding plans. And freaked out by 9/11.

7 years ago: Still hip-deep in wedding plans, and writing thank you notes for the gifts that had already started to arrive at the multiple engagement parties and showers scheduled by friends and family.

6.75 years ago: DH and I got married with lots of fanfare from both sides. (Have we really been married for almost 7 years?!) Big church, big reception, and don't get me started on the confetti. Probably the first time many of my family members and their friends heard me curse. Let's just say there was so much confetti in the air, that with the photographers light, it was like being in a white-out blizzard and I couldn't see where I was in relation to the step-down I knew was coming at the end of the walkway. I left a trail of confetti from the limo to our room for the night, and then still left a good pile on the floor of our room and in my dress.

6 years ago: DH's house was sold and the contents were mostly in storage. My townhouse had been packed up and 1/2 the contents were in storage, the other half accompanied us to the first apartment I'd ever had the misfortune to live in, in a town I knew very little about as DH started a new job after finishing his Master's degree, and I tried to find a job while in the midst of depression (self-diagnosed looking back at my actions, or lack there of) and having a house built. Oh, and I also left the first job I'd ever loved behind when we moved.

6.25 years ago: I was "let-go" for the first time thanks to some office politics I still don't understand. We moved out of the apartment and into a townhouse we purchased and decided to renovate while living in, and still awaiting completion of our house.

6 years ago: Our house was almost complete and I was trying to get things like window treatments measured and ordered so we would have them for installation shortly after we moved in.

5.75 years ago: We finally moved into our new house, on our 2 year wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary, here's your present - a new home! All of our accumulated stuff was moved into the house: 3 storage units and a townhouse were emptied into two floors and a basement.

5.5 years ago: I reentered the workforce as a temp with a longer-term position for one of the (many) local time-share properties in the HR department. What a way to dispel any thoughts I had once had that HR would be right for me. Also the place where I firmed up my "people are stupid" theory. We also spent most weekends of this year working on a huge damn retaining wall project. Sure, we saved a ton of money, but it almost cost our marriage.

4 years ago: I started at my current job after realizing (a) I didn't like HR, & (b) even if I had liked my position, they weren't going to give me enough of a raise to convince me to stay there. This is the longest I've ever been with the same job. (The part-time retail job I had during school vacations doesn't count.)

3.25 years ago: DH and I decided it was time to stop my birth control at the end of the year so we could start trying to add children to the family.

2 years ago: We were officially trying! Oh, and we bought a condo as a 2nd home.

2.5 years ago: We started looking for fabric for curtains for our bedroom. The realization struck that things weren't going so well on the starting a family front. It's hard to get pregnant when you don't have a period.

1 year ago: We decided on one fabric for our bedroom. It was discontinued so the remaining amount was purchased and resided under the craft/3rd bed room bed.

.5 year ago: We decided on the 2nd fabric for our bedroom and both went to the seamstress to be made into curtains, shams and a duvet cover. We picked out a fabric & reupholsterer for our family room couch, and DH finished the bookshelves/niche cabinets that he'd been working on for a couple of years. Nesting much? We also started the first of five (to date) IUI cycles. Around this time DH also changed jobs and decided the new commute meant he needed a new car with better gas mileage, so we became a 3 car family.

Current: I painted our hall bath, our new curtains are hung, the reupholstered couch is in position, and hey, we're still not pregnant after 2 years. But hopeful given the heartburn I've had off and on since Saturday (if it's a side effect of the prometrium this is the first time I've experienced it). It's worse after meals not featuring dairy products, ergo I'm eating lots of cheese based products and drinking more milk than usual.

Whew. I can't believe it's coming up on ten years since DH and I met. And yet, we've done and gone through so much in those ten years, sometimes it's felt like a lifetime.

(I promise, the next post WILL be shorter.)