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In August, Chris and I celebrated one year — we were so worn out, we took time off work and did much the same thing we did the 36 hours or so after we married: We slept. Seriously! After getting up late, doing lunch and then relaxing a bit, we fell asleep before we figured out what to do for dinner.

We did get to celebrate over the weekend, and I couldn’t be happier to be married to Chris. It doesn’t at all feel like it’s been a year, yet I can’t sleep when he’s not here. An older couple wrote in our wedding card that the correct answer to “how long have you been married?” is always “not long enough.” :)

It’s been quite the year, and I have the double wish of hoping that the day-to-day stuff slows down while we cram more living in. There’s no one I’d have rather shared it with, though.

So on top of all the Astara antics and daily life, here’s the past year in brief.

We married and moved into this place,

and I started unpacking everything only to realize about 1,649 book boxes later that I should probably start packing again :)

My best friend got married. We met at 15 and 16 at FSU’s piano camp, lived between three and eight hours apart, lost touch, ran into each other at a Subway, went through some crazy life situations, and now live 20 minutes apart.

And my husband’s co-workers welcome back another co-worker by foiling the guy’s cube

… right down to last piece of candy.

I can’t remember if this was when the guy was out for the birth of his newborn, but he was indeed out at some point to welcome the long, long awaited arrival.

It’s amazing how God gives hope in the middle of sadness. We went to a couple of weddings and a couple of truly heartbreaking memorials. Just five years out of high school, too many of the boys from Chris’ soccer team are gone.

Two women in my life lost babies, one at two months along and the other at nine months. We’re praying one of them, a dear friend to me though we’ve been far apart and in and out of touch, through her current pregnancy. Chris’ sister delivered this little one hours before he was rushed to another hospital for heart surgery.

When I first got to hold him several weeks, two heart surgeries later and a lot of prayers later, I got a real, albeit shortlived, smile out of Jayson, a rarity as he was coming off the morphine and dealing with post-op stomach upsets.

I was relieved when another friend of mine, another God-friendship, this time with someone I once tutored in college, delivered beautiful baby girl, Amena, whom I got to meet the same day.

Somewhere in there, Chris and I started our new jobs, after which I helped my old company with a major project and through which Chris has been working to finish the last bit of his degree — he’s got just a couple of weeks left, and I’ll be throwing him quite the party!

We looked at houses nearer to my job (which I absolutely love and worry only about if I’ve adjusted to it well with all of the craziness) just to rule the possibility out before apartment hunting … and God completely blew us away with this.

We’d have never made it to that point if it weren’t for our incredible — and fun! — Realtor, Beth, who found much more than we’d expected in our price range, all narrowed down to exactly what we’d described to her, then walked us through every snag we encountered … and I think we found them all. As ecstatic as we were over the possibility of a house, we got to the point where we honestly didn’t care if we got the house or had to check in to an extended-stay hotel: We were just tired of dealing with it all.

Now that we’re in, it’s worth it — I’m just dying to paint so that we can unpack so that we can settle in … but I’m waiting so I don’t distract Chris from his school :) Poor guy’s already got washer/dryer shopping on the mind, as well as replacing the car that died the week we were moving (oh, that’s another story for sure), as well as trimming the lawn that looks not exactly as in the picture above, as well as … :)

But as with everything this year, it came down to: We have God, and we have each other; we’ve got everything that matters, and we’ll make through everything else one way or another.

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