{Guest Post} Cassie Baldwin from Life in Technicolor

Another guest blogger! I’m very excited about this one, not only because she’s just generally an awesome person/woman of faith, with an abundance of talent, but I’ve also known this little lady since we were nuggets in high school. She’s really great, trust me on this one. Enjoy!:

Hello friends! I'm Cassie from over at life in technicolor and I’m thrilled to be featured on Tales for Karina Marie!

I’ve known Emily for a very long time in the real world, so it’s fun to be friends in the blogosphere as well! I initially started blogging as a way to document my travels and keep in touch (as a strong Facebook rebel) before I ventured on a four month stay to the land down under. It was such a blast to write about my life abroad, because everything seemed so exciting and fun! Sun, surf, Aussies? Talk about prime inspiration for a budding travel writer.

But when I returned to our fair US of A, I decided to keep the blog going. Even though I long to be writing as I venture the globe, I now write about whatever tickles my fancy – whether it’s fashion, design, recipes, or my dreams for upcoming adventures, you’ll find me telling stories and sharing sights. Today, Em asked me to share on some things I’ve noticed since getting hitched. But first, a shameless plug:

There are the brand new Baldwins! So happy. Moving forward.

5 things that are different on this side of the wedding day:

1. living arrangements: It’s true, we’re old school. We didn’t start living together until after we were married, so now we finally share a roof and bed. Can I get an “amen?” It’s awesome. A lot of people have a really tough time adjusting to the whole living together thing, but we had been together long enough to know the other person’s tendencies and what we could expect. Some things that we didn’t know? I didn’t know that my husband Will is as particular as he is. I knew that he was a neat and tidy person, but he definitely whoops my butt when it comes to orderliness. Along those lines, he learned that I’m a “piler.” When I don’t know where something goes, it becomes part of a pile. Mail I don’t want to read yet? Pile. Socks to fold? Pile. Sorry babe, should have warned you. And we also didn’t know that we are both such major droppers. I can’t tell you how many dishes we’ve broken in four months. It’s embarrassing and I want us to be friends.

2. money spending: I know this is another one that you’ve probably heard before, but it’s tough to be held accountable when spending other peoples’ money! Ok, it’s our money, but I shouldn’t spend $130 on shoes in a three week span (woops) or get a manicure as we’re cutting our budgets back (I didn’t do that second one, I promise – caught myself before it happened). If I were on my own, my expenses would be less and no one would hold me accountable for these things. It’s definitely a good learning opportunity for both of us, Mr. We-can-never-have-too-much-rock-climbing-gear. We’re growing :)

3. personal time: People might think, “You need more time with your husband? You live together for crying out loud. You’re together every day!” But we’ve learned that we really need to be diligent about making time for each other and for our marriage. If we’re both gone all day, we got home at 5, are exhausted, need to make dinner, clean up from dinner, and then we’re usually too wiped out to enjoy our evenings! We are really trying to carve out time for each other and prioritize our time together. It might sound crazy, but for now, we don’t make any plans on week nights that aren’t shared plans.

4. toothbrushes: Some people think it’s no big deal to share them occasionally because it’s the same as kissing. Some people are a little more disturbed by it and need some time to come around. I won’t name names.

5. the underwear thing: Some people also think it’s a race to see who can take their pants off first when we get home from work. I understand the undying need to change into sweats as soon as I’m home for the night (I’m not the biggest fan of dressing nice every day), but it’s astounding and hysterical to watch the pants fly off as soon as the door closes behind us. And some people don’t put sweats on.

5 things that are exactly the same:

1. the way we miscommunicate: Marriage doesn’t “fix” things. We still need to work hard at resolving are conflicts, and doing everything in our power to communicate clearly to try and preemptively ward conflict off. We clarify things with each other, once, twice, and sometimes three times to make sure we’re on the same page. Don’t you hate those silly annoying fights you get in over things that really don’t matter at all just because you miscommunicated? You’re right. We really should have clarified that fourth time. Just to be safe.

2. my sin of sloth: Just kidding, it’s not that bad. But I still can not get out of bed in the morning on time even with some right there next to me threatening to drag me out by my ankles.

3. his servant nature: Good news! He wasn’t just trying to con me into loving him and coercing me into marriage! He’s just as loving, selfless, caring and servant-hearted as he was before.

4. surprises: Will surprises me all the time. I don’t even like surprises, but he is constantly doing little things to catch me off guard and brighten my day. Whether it’s cleaning something that I was dreading or bringing me home a cute potted succulent from a morning grocery run (sometimes you don’t want flowers, you know?), he frequently does things and then stands back with his big, “ta-da!” grin waiting to see how happy he’s made me. And it’s always very very happy :)

5. fun: We often joke about being the old married couple now because we’ve been battling mono, fatigue and various other plagues. But the truth is, we’re still fun people. We’re not a bunch of duds who just sit at home and watch LOST (only sometimes). People who get married do still have friends and do still love spending time with them. Cut your married friends some slack as they adjust. You’ll be back to having the same old fun in no time.

Oh wait…

How’d that sneak in there? Yikes.

Well thanks for reading my saga of early marriage (four months today, by the way!). And stop by my slice of blog-world sometime! Would love to have ya.

xo. Cas