the bright side of the economy

Lately, my posts have been mostly based on things I like, places I've gone and shows I watch, and notsomuch based on nesting, cooking, and decorating. The reason for this is simple: my husband is still a victim of the economy — ie., unemployed — and, for the most part, he's been the one taking care of our apartment and doing the cooking while I have been working and picking up some extra projects to make a little extra moola.

While our situation is certainly not ideal, and we're both frustrated at times after 7+ months of fruitless job searching and networking, it also has its benefits. When Nick was at his last job, he'd leave for work before I even woke up. Pretty much the only conversation we'd have in the morning would be him saying "I love you," giving me a kiss on the forehead, and me mumbling something that might have sounded like "I love you, too" in my slumbery state. We'd chat a few times a day over email, but mostly both be engrossed in our work all day. On a good day, we'd both be home by 6:00. On a more typical day, we'd be at work late or at the gym, getting home between 7:30 and 8:00, leaving very little time to spend together before Nick would ultimately head to bed (being that he would awake so early the following day).

Now, we wake up around the same time and go for a run together (I use the term "run" loosely as I am NOT a runner... we do a walk/run sequence dictated by the Trainer Lite app on our iPhones). We chitchat during our run, and then while I'm getting ready for work he does the dishes from the day before. We kiss goodbye as I head out to work and he gets started looking for jobs. After there are no more jobs to apply for, he goes fishing, maybe goes food shopping, does some cleaning or laundry, or runs miscellaneous errands that need to be taken care of. Sometimes, he'll come to my office to have lunch with me.

When I get home from work, dinner is usually on the table or almost ready; we eat together and talk about our days, and then pretty much spend the rest of the night together until it's time to go to bed. I'm often working on freelance work or blogging but we still spend that time mostly together.

I have to say — although Nick's unemployment has not been a walk in the park, it has allowed us to spend a lot more time together in this first year of our marriage. While I sometimes feel far removed from the nesting that some newlywed wives thrive on, I'm also grateful that Nick doesn't mind handling more responsibilities around our apartment while I focus on my job. I have a lot less to worry about, knowing that he's handling things at home.

We are both still hoping that a great job comes along for him very soon, but part of me will miss how much time we've been able to spend together when he goes back to work. Regardless, we'll certainly have come away from the experience stronger and smarter than before. The lessons we've learned in how to manage our money have been invaluable; the fact that any home-buying was put on hold was probably a blessing in disguise, as that may have been a stressful situation that we didn't need as newlyweds. Our relationship has been tested during this difficult time and we're pretty sure that we've passed with flying colors.

Eventually, when the day comes for Nick to go back to work, I'll be posting more about cooking and baking projects and decorating our home, but until then, you'll have to tolerate my other random ramblings!

Have you dealt with unemployment in your family or marriage? Do you feel that the lessons learned through the experience have resulted in a lot of positives, despite the negatives?

PS - anyone in the home construction industry (or any industry, really) need a smart, talented, hard-working (and good-looking!) project manager? ;-)