Opening Day

Today is Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. In my previous life (aka: life before Stephen) I would wear an Astros hat and Astros shirt. I would bake a round cake, frost it in white icing and put red stitches on it. I would walk around with a smile on my face and a hop in my step. I would read all the MLB websites. And I would most definitely go to the game tonight. But times change. Priorities change. Husbands happen.

 

Husbands change everything. I’ve heard the saying, “If you want to see a woman gain weight and stop shaving her legs, watch her get married.” Yeah yeah. Okay maybe that is partially true, but give us a chance to defend ourselves. Hear me out!

 

I don’t think it’s necessarily true that we don’t shave our legs anymore. Or that we quit wearing make up. Or that we “let ourselves go.” I think that there are just more eyes on us now. Back in college if I woke up and didn’t feel like getting ready, I could throw on some track pants, a t-shirt, throw my hair up and go. Nobody would think twice. There wouldn’t be any judgment. If I played my cards right and sat by that guy, I could even look dressed up compared to his torn flannel PJs and matted hair. But not now. Now I’m expected to dress like I care. Like I’m a mature adult who cares about what all of the other grocery store patrons think. But I am a grocery store patron myself. And I don’t notice. The only thing I care about when I’m at the grocery store is if the avocados are ripe and the yogurt is on sale. I don’t stop to notice what other customers are wearing. Unless of course they are dressed up… in which case I wonder who the heck they are trying to impress.

 

But stereotypes are out there for a reason. So obviously someone somewhere thinks that married women let themselves go. Yes we wear ponytails, yes we skip make up occasionally, of course we don’t shave as often in the winter… but we did all of this before marriage. It’s not our fault that you didn’t analyze our appearance back then. And to you, Stacy London, I love you… but it is okay to own sweatpants, it is okay to own t-shirts, it is okay to have multiple pairs of jeans and tennis shoes. I don’t live in LA. If I want to sit around my house with my husband, I don’t need to wear a wrap-around dress that flatters my shape. My husband knows my shape, I’m not going to fool him!

 

As far as gaining weight, okay, I’ll give you that. The second we get back from our honeymoon, we start swelling up. For this, I blame the husband. In my former life, it was acceptable to skip dinner. It was perfectly normal to have a bowl of Ramen and call it a night. Grilled cheese and tomato soup was my dinner of choice. Not anymore. Apparently, dinner is not dinner without some sort of meat. This was a big shock for me when we got married. My dad was never like this. Maybe it’s because of his frugality (is that a word? it is now…) and how he’d never waste a morsel of food. He puffs with pride when he can eat a meal and only spend $1.76. He would never assume that every dinner should have some sort of meat. My brother ate anything. His only request was that it be dead. And not fungus. Otherwise, he didn’t care if it was meat or not. But I have found that they are the exception, not the rule. So many men have this meat mentality. Consequently, us new wives have to please our men. We have to make actual meals each night. So we gain weight. This is not our fault.

 

I’ve copied my friend Sarah and created a little way to help out all of you newlyweds! (Or those practicing for newlywedism.) If we have to cook and gain weight, we may as well do it with great recipes! Today is the opening day of my new recipe blog. (<– click there) Don’t expect a new post everyday, that’s just ridiculous! But I’ll post as I cook new recipes that I feel are worth passing along.

 

In honor of Opening Day and the Astros taking on those pesky Cubs, maybe we’ll order a Chicago style pizza. The button on my jeans popped just thinking about that…