Dana & Sheldon: From BBQ fountain to house fires and big changes

Name & Occupation: Dana, Librarian
Partner’s Name & Occupation: Sheldon, Librarian
Wedding date: September 18, 2010
Your Offbeat Bride profile: Dana and Sheldon’s handmade extravaganza of fun wedding

There have been some bumps in the road: Bella, our chihuahua passed away, our house got struck by lightning causing an attic fire above my craft studio and left us living in an apartment for five months while our house was repaired.

And there have been happy times: We got Dash, a rambunctious Jack Russell terrier whom we absolutely love, a new niece was born, and we’re slowly but surely making our newly improved house a perfect place for us.

Looking back all these years later, what do you remember most about your wedding?
I remember it being super hot (95 degrees and 85% humidity), but the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to. We were all sweaty and drunk by the end of the night.

Did you re-purpose any wedding decor or attire? We want to see!
I actually ended up selling most of our leftovers because we didn’t have anywhere to store it all. Just a couple of weeks ago I started working on getting the wax out of all the quilted jelly jars we used for candle holders at the wedding. That has been a really not fun task! I’m using those for vases and to store things we buy from the bulk bins at the grocery store.

What big challenges have you faced? What have you learned from them?
The biggest challenge was the fire we had last summer. Thankfully, it was a small fire that didn’t do a huge amount of damage and the dogs were okay. But everything had to get cleaned and stored and we definitely had some major rough patches having to live in an apartment with very minimal belongings for way longer than we had planned. We were both irritable and the dogs hated it, but it really made us realize (as cliche as it sounds) that home was anywhere we were together and we tried to make the best of it.

I got a young adult librarian job at a library about 40 minutes from our house last year so we went from working in the same building and spending a ton of time together to working opposite schedules most days and me spending a lot more time in the car and being exhausted when I get home.

It took a really long time for us to be okay with this big change. It helps that I’m a lot happier with this position and love the library where I work. I’ve also learned that absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I love coming home and talking to Sheldon about my day and hearing about his, compared to before where we knew everything because we were together all day and when we got home we would go in separate rooms and decompress from our days.

Another more recent challenge has been me deciding to follow a plant-strong diet for health purposes without really thinking about how it would affect my meat/dairy loving husband. I didn’t expect him to follow it with me, but he wanted to be supportive, so we only keep healthy food that I can eat in the house and he eats whatever he wants when he isn’t home. There have been some times where he hates what I’m doing because of the lack of meat in his diet, but he has actually started seeing positive changes in his own health and is now happy with the diet for the most part. He still eats meat and dairy whenever he has a chance though and it keeps us both sane!

How do you keep your romance alive?
We love traveling! Getting our parents to watch the grand-dogs for a long weekend while we get away is our favorite thing. We don’t have to have responsibility for anything and can give each other 100% of our attention. We also love cooking dinner together when we’re both off work for an evening. Having a small kitchen where we have to brush past each other a lot while cooking helps. 😉

What advice do you have for newlyweds?
We’re still learning, and having only been married for almost three years still makes us newlyweds in my mind. But my best advice is to really learn your partner’s strengths.

Sheldon is great at saving money while I’m a spender, so when we started trying ways to budget we found that the envelope method is easiest for us. I don’t over spend and he gets to put as much as he wants in savings.

We both hate housekeeping, but Sheldon is really great at cleaning the bathroom and hates it less so he will keep that room clean while I try to keep my clutterbug habits in check. We try to split our most hated chore, doing dishes, evenly.

As for arguments, we argue about really stupid things and usually realize this about mid-way through a yelling match and apologize, so I guess I would have to say don’t start an argument if you know it’s a stupid thing to fight about in the first place haha.