Hello, my name is...

I’ve thought it over a bit and probably the best way to start this is by introducing myself.  Now how to do this without being formulaic and boring…

Here is how I envisioned my life at 23…
I always wanted to get married young, partially because my parents got married young (and yes, they are still married - 30 years!).  However, I think in part, I have always seen my “career” as wife and mother.  I used to imagine I would be married around 20 and have kids by 23, but that was when I was much younger and rather naive. When I was 20, I though marriage was years away and children even farther, but I never doubted I would get married.  I thought I would have a stable job as a high school history teacher.  I would be actively dating in hopes of finding a husband, and when I did so, I would settle down close to my parents, enjoy a few years as newlyweds, then have children.  We would be a very average middle class family.  The end.

This is how my real life compares (in case you didn’t get it, I am currently 23 years old)…
I have been married for three months to my husband, David.  We are living several states away from my family and friends while David finishes his Ph.D.  I graduated from college in May with two bachelors degrees and a teaching certification, however I augment my husband’s meager grad student stipend by supplying America’s coffee addiction at Starbucks.  The recession hasn’t been kind to education, so despite having two degrees, there wasn’t a job in sight.  Although I am sometimes angry that I am working a minimum wage job after graduating college, I am so grateful to have a job when there are many people unemployed.  While David and I constantly discussed waiting to have children until he finished school (approx. two more years), we find ourselves questioning our reasons for postponing pregnancy (more on this later, I’m sure — it has been a constant thought alternately in the back and front of my mind).  Life is different than expected.  I’m having a hard time adjusting to my new husband, my new state, city, and home, my new job, my new life.  But I feel blessed as well.

Why start this blog???
I tried to answer this questions in my last (ironically, my first—“and the last shall be first”) post.  While I have wonderful friends, I don’t have many friends that are faithful Catholics or many friends that are married.  Since I had trouble finding Catholic women in similar life situations as me, I thought that maybe other people might also, so I am using this as a way to connect with other Catholic women, simultaneously hoping that I can be a resource and support for other and that others will reach out to me as support and guidance.