Baby It's Snowy Outside, One Small Leap

Chester was busy digging us out of the remnants of yesterday's snowstorm this morning. About six inches of solid, wet snow. Practically slush. It was almost impossible to use the snowblower. The thrower tube kept clogging.

Yesterday, we put an offer in on the Climbing Tree house. They have until Wednesday to accept or reject the offer. Of course I hope they accept. It's for five thousand under the listing price, appliances included.

After that business, we dropped Ben back off at daycare and went on a little date. Can you believe we had never been to a movie together before? We saw The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith. It was a very nice movie. It made me cry. Both with pity and joy at different times.

It reminded us about how lucky we are. We have a roof over our heads. Warm beds. Plenty of food. Secure jobs. And each other. Our life is so easy, so blessed. Though most times we're living paycheck to paycheck, and we don't have any savings in the bank, we don't have to worry about having a place to sleep or food to eat.

And not only that, we're in pursuit of our own happiness by buying a house. It's all coming together. We took a huge leap and got married, even though we didn't really know that much about each other. It was pure instinct. Our hearts said "Yes, this is the one for you." And we trusted that. Then, even though it took Chester five months to get a job after he moved here, we still started planning a family right away. I was already pregnant before he finally found a job.

Now, we're leaping again. We're buying a house together.

I can't help but privately think about what my life would be like if I had remained with my ex-fiance Scott. He was an actor, brilliantly intelligent, but emotionally troubled and insecure. Definitely not financially solvent. Didn't have a car. But he was the only one I had met who could match me at Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. He kept putting off moving up here from Milwaukee and getting married.

Thank God he did. The weekend before he was to make the plunge and move in with me, he left a message on my voice mail while I was at the gym. He had just talked to me before I left for the gym. I was blindsided. He said that I was a wonderful person, but it didn't feel right.

I started all my leaps after that. I screamed and hollered for a few hours, but it didn't last long. I moved into a new apartment the week after. And I started going online to personals sites. Including Eharmony. I had a few dates with some local guys. A few months after the voicemail, I finished the eharmony communication levels with a guy from Tucson. And we talked on the phone for the first time on a Saturday morning.

I had gone into work to play online. I gave him my phone number at work, and he called me. That first phone call was magical. We started finishing each other's sentences. It was such an easy conversation, even though we talked about some difficult issues. Right away, we dug all the skeletons out of our closets. We dragged out all of our baggage and laid it all out. We went into the relationship with open eyes.

Within a few days, we knew we would go ahead and get married. I did a background check on him (I'm not a complete idiot or romantic). A few weeks later I flew down to Phoenix to spend the weekend with him.

Leap. I was so nervous walking down the terminal to where he was waiting past the security gates. I was on my cell phone, and he was coaxing me further. It took about half an hour. I kept stopping to sit down and cry and freak out a little. Eventually, we stood face to face. The rest is history. Our history together. A history of leaps and risks and courage and blind faith. And a whole bunch of foolish sentimentality.

It's worked for us. We have Ben. We still get along. We still feel like we're honeymooning.

And we're buying a house!!!!! Yay!!