One Year...where has the time gone

Yesterday we celebrated our one year anniversary. It feels like we JUST said our vows and at the same time like we've been married for years.

I had great plans to update this blog with all the behind scenes of our wedding planning shortly after our honeymoon and then life got in the way. I would still like to do that, just a matter of motivation at this point. During my wedding writing block I've been blogging about everything else on my other blog which had originally started as a 'mother-to-be' one but almost as soon as that started it was put on hold when life slammed me in the face with a one in ten experience that no one wants, a miscarriage.

Being married for a year now we've experienced a lot:

• Had an extremely close friendship end based on our lives moving in different directions
• Dealt with the stresses of trying to conceive, loss and the aftermath
• Buying a larger and newer home
• Entering into the home rental arena as we chose to keep our other house
• Struggled with a wonderful 20lb weight gain, only to find out recently that was helped along by the fact that my body doesn't want to acknowledge the insulin it makes. Still working on letting go of my much loved carbs.
• Waiting for my first nephew to arrive
• Helping to plan my future SIL's wedding
• Finishing year one of my CMA designation
• And although we've lived together since 2008, still learning to adjust to each others annoying habits and practicing compromise so we don't resort to violence.

All and all I think its been a very "productive" first year.

One of the things I have yet to do, though, is legally change my name (everywhere). I've said it many times to people and will now vent here, I do not think men realize how easy they have it when they get married. Taking your husbands name after marriage is A LOT OF WORK. Currently vital statistics knows I've married and because my driver's license happened to come up for renewal right after our marriage I managed to remember to have my marriage license with me so that one is updated but because our provincial and federal governments lack an effective and secure way to communicate with each other I personal have to notify every department individually which means they still think I'm single. Why did I think I should take a new name!? I like my last name...oh well I'll get around to it, for no other reason then I told our financial advisor I had changed my last name and now I'm a little concerned how that will affect my income taxes when I get around to filing them. I suppose this is a whole post on its own so I'll get into this on a future entry.

Another responsible thing couples (or even individuals) should do is draw up their wills...I know morbid but necessary. Tomorrow we are FINALLY sitting down with our lawyer to create ours. We've been dragging our feet. Mainly because we DO plan to have children and will have to change it once that happens but since difficulties have been put in our path, a year has past with no baby and no will which leaves us vulnerable if one or both of us has something terrible happen to us. No will means that the government gets involved with settling the estate even though it should be clear that everything should go to the spouse. Our biggest challenge was deciding what do we'll do with our estate if we both pass away and DON'T have children to pass it to.

How did your first year of marriage go? Did you do all of responsible things or are you like me who's been putting it off, hoping that they will be magically completed by their selves?