No Babies!

I have wanted kids for a very long time! Ever since I started babysitting really. When Matt and I started living together, I was insanely baby crazy. When we got married, and up until about a couple of months ago I think I bugged him about having a baby at least once a day, which he found rather annoying at times.
Strangely though a couple of months ago I just decided that I don't want to have kids just yet. I want to do other things first. And they might not be important things, but they mean a great deal to me, I want to spend some time enjoying my life, have enough time to do something I enjoy and not being tied down to too much responsibility. And today I read friend's comments about her having a boy and I realized that I really don't want a kid now.

It's a strange feeling though. I know I should want to have kids, I always wanted them, my parents can't wait for grandkids, but I just don't have the urge anymore. It's weird, but I am glad that I have this before I have a kid and not after I have one, because once it's 'after' well, it's too late. And I don't want to be 30 when my first one is born, but I definitely don't want one right now. Maybe it's me not working...maybe it's something else...strange nonetheless for me to realize that. Maybe I just need to be around kids more to want them, who the heck knows. But lately I have been in "no babies" mood and Matt was sure that when I originally mentioned this phenomenon to him it will last about 2 days tops, but it's been much longer....curious.

Sleep

Most of those who keep track of what is going on in my life know that while I was at my parents house in Taganrog for a little over a month my sleep was all over the place. Most of the nights I did not sleep and if I did I slept only 4 hours. It was rather exhausting and very unusual for me, since I am a sleeping beauty :) Before my visit to Taganrog I could sleep for 14 hours straight. Anyway, now that I am in Moscow my sleep is catching up with me. I seem to have no issues falling asleep, although sometimes I might lay for an hour or so trying to drift off. And I kind of sleep through the night, I do wake up 3-4 times, but I seem to go back to sleep rather easily. I must say it’s pretty nice to be able to sleep. I am thankful that I can finally get a good night sleep, because I am much less cranky during the following day and tend to be a bit happier :) I don’t know if my sleep will stay this way as I am getting close to my interviews at the German and US embassies, and I have a feeling that once it gets closer to the actual interviews I will start getting nervous….so we will see :) But as for now I am just enjoying my non-sleepless nights!!!

Script Is Needed Indeed!

That is something that my husband actually agrees on. Whenever we talk, and that happens on a daily basis, I talk like a regular girl where I say things that I don’t really mean, but say them so Matt would disagree with such statements and say something nice instead :) Well, the trouble is that my husband is not so intuitive and he does not catch such little things, instead he falls right into the trap and agrees with my statement. I always do follow with a correction to his agreement by saying “no, you were supposed to say ….” He always laughs when I say that. But seriously, when I say things like “I feel bad for taking all your money” he really should say “But you are worth every penny and I don’t mind at all” or when I say “I needed a husband who could potentially take care of me” instead of him saying “yeah, I figured” he was supposed to say “It’s you who take care of me” ….things like that :) You would think after so much practice (we have been married for a year and a half and I was like that even when we were dating, so add 2 years to that), so after daily conversations for 3.5 years you would think Matt would figure out and foresee such traps that I set oh, once in awhile, but no, he is still pretty oblivious to them :) So, finally during our conversation last night Matt said that he really does need to get a script of what he needs to say before our actual conversation. I am thinking it is not such a bad idea. Although I must admit that I would like him to come up with nice answers on his own, and not just read them off the script. But nonetheless, I will contemplate on this whole script idea, because I must admit it’s a good one :) He won’t be stressed out about figuring out what I need him to say and I will hear what I want :) Although I must say that Matt really enjoys it when I tell him what he was supposed to say, he gets a kick out of it, I think….so that might be worth not moving forward with the script :) I will have to draw out pros and cons of the whole script idea, won’t I?

Bus Trip!

January 13 at 12:10 pm I left my hometown, Taganrog. And who knows when I will come back here again. I am thinking that someday I will come back, but it will be many years down the road, that is for sure. And what is there to come back to really? Well, my parents are still around, but that is about it. I won’t miss much, I am glad to be out of that town where nothing is happening and nothing to look forward to.
Anyway, it was a long 19 hour trip to Moscow, but I made it alive :) Although I must say I will try to not travel by bus on such long distances, but I did save quite a bit by taking the bus route, so I guess I can’t complain.
I guess that chapter of my life is closed, the one where I had to spend time in my hometown while waiting to hear back from the US embassy!

Theater

Jan. 10 at 17:00 my mom and I are going to be busy sitting in a local theater and watching a play. Don't ask me what the play is, it's written by some famous Russian guy and I haven't heard of it, which is not surprising seeing as I wasn't all that much into Russian literature EVER :) Anyway, so I am pretty excited. We have a pretty small and cute theater in my hometown, and I used to go there about once a year or so when I was little, usually with my mom. My dad refuses to go to a theater :)

The funny part though is when I asked mom if she wanted to go to a theater with me, she said yes, and then she added that it's a bit expensive. So, I went to the box office and found out that THE most expensive ticket was 300 rubles, that is slightly over $10. I had to laugh, considering that last summer Matt and I spent about $80 per ticket to see a ballet in Moscow, theater tickets are no cheaper there, so after being used to Moscow prices, and the ones in the states I was pleasantly surprised that I had to pay a total of about $23 for 2 tickets for the play tomorrow :)

That said, I am very excited to go tomorrow, it will be a good outting for me and mom, and I think we will have a great time. Maybe we will even stop at the coffee shop on the way back home :) I like doing things like that with my folks (although this time it's just mom since dad still refuses to go to theater :)), these are memories that I get to keep forever!!!

New Year 2009

Well, this year has been a bit different from the previous ones. First of all, I was kind of single...well, my husband was thousands of miles away, and let me tell you it is no fun to be alone on New Years, especially when around you everybody is with their significant others. So, it felt a bit lonely, even though Matt did call me exactly at 12:01 am Russian time and wished me Happy New Year (although, I think it was like 3pm his time :)) We talked for probably 15 minutes, but still, after that I had to go back to the party realizing that I was without my husband :( But besides that, this New Year was great because I got to spend it with my dear friends in Russia. One of my best girlfriends invited me to celebrate NY with them, and it was so special!!! It's been about 10 years since I celebrated New Years with my friends, so that part was spectacular, and it was so much fun! I spent the night at my friend's house and then we continued our celebration on January 1st. It's kind of weird to see that my friend is married and with a kid, but our friendship is still strong :) Anyway, it was great to spend time with friends. I was a bit torn though, because I think my parents were a bit disappointed that I did not spend the day with them...but I hope they forgave me for bailing on them to have fun with my friend.

Anyway, even though this year was special because of reuniting with my old friends, next year will be better because I will have somebody to kiss on the actual NY and I will be surrounded by my American friends. Too bad I have to wait a whole year for that...although I am sure I will kiss my hubby plenty before next NY and I am pretty certain that we will have a party when I get home, so I can see all my friends :)

Oh, and even though I went to bed at 5 am on Jan 1, I made sure that I wake up at 9 am and tell my hubby Happy New Year when it was 12am his time :) I am sure he was a bit lonely as well!

Hobbies....

I never really had hobbies in the past. When I was little, I was never involved in sports. I had many tutors: math, English, Russian, French. But never really got into sports. My parents were convinced that it's more important that I was educated than athletic. I am thankful that my parents paid such close attention to my school work, because they trained me to pay close attention to my grades and work hard at excelling at school. It paid off great times in the long run, as I was able to finish college with very decent GPA and on top of that with no school loans... However, I do feel like I missed out on the fun stuff. So, now that I am older and have a wonderful husband who doesn't want me to miss out on anything in life, I finally decided that I am going to take up some hobbies. I am going to do some things that I wished I could have done when I was little. But it's never too late, right? So, I am patiently waiting until I get back to the states, but as soon as I get back, I am going to take up some classes, among those will be: ballroom dancing, swimming, skating, skiing, possibly tennis. I have taken some dancing classes before and skating, but I have never knew how to skii and even thought I am a decent swimmer, I want to be a good swimmer and faster :) Tennis....well, I always dreamed of being able to play tennis. I am also planning on joining running club...never was much of a runner, but I want to run at least 5K before I kick the bucket, so I figured running club will be a good place to start training for that :)
Of course, I won't be able to do all those activities at the same time. I am figuring different activities for different seasons :) And Matt thinks that once I start a job I won't be able to follow the list of activities much, but I bet I will stick to it. I might drop some, like if I figure out that learning tennis is just meant to be...well, then obviously I will drop it, but I am still going to try and stay active and do things that keep me happy :) And being involved keeps me happy. Besides I love dancing, skating and swimming, so I can't imagine why I would stop doing that....
So, I am pretty excited about my new hobbies :) I just hope that Matt can afford all those classes for me :) But he seems to be wanting to join me for some of them :) That would be super sweet :) Anyway, I am excited for my new year and many hobbies that will be keeping me busy...I already found all the classes and studios and stuff, so all I have to do is move to the states and all Matt has to do is give me money for all the classes :)