The benefit of no one I know in my every day life reading my blog...

... is that I can share exciting stuff here that I do not want to share in my daily life for reasons that will make sense later.

The first thing is that I got a gig offer that I actually turned down. It was to do an editorial letter after reading a work of literary fiction. It would have been a respectable amount of money, but I'm afraid that my personal bias against "overly" (to me) artistic prose would be difficult to get around, plus I'm not 100% confident that I have the time to dedicate to such an in-depth reading, notes, and writing everything... plus my second-guessing about having been told my feedback is "harsh." Shrug.

All of that to say that none of that is what this post is about. It's about something else, but in case my younger child happened to take a peek (he has done this before), I wanted to bore him so he'd stop reading.

What this IS about is that picture up there: budget stuff. But FUN budget stuff.

As you know, if you know my family, my younger kid LOVES cruising and wants to cruise all of the time. His friend went on a cruise the week before we went to Mexico, and I was glad he wasn't going to see her much before we left, because he would definitely have had FOMO and maybe not enjoyed our trip as much.

We're definitely putting the kibosh on extensive travel like our trips to Canada, California, and Mexico. We won't be flying for a long time. James can't take that much time off from his newish job. 

However.

I found a great deal on a ship with a line we haven't tried yet, and it leaves shortly after Christmas, so we decided to get this for Mal's gift (and ours!).

I have some money-saving plans, too! That is what's exciting to me at the moment.

First of all, when I booked, we got $100 on-board credit. Second, yesterday I got approved for a credit card that will allow me $300 in on-board credit when I spend a proscribed amount (which will be no problem). This will take care of our gratuities!

Third, there is a website where I can buy gift cards for a percentage off, so I'll finish paying in the fall with those. It will save us a couple hundred dollars.

Finally (for now), there is a place we like in Galveston where we just haven't gotten around to staying yet, and they have free parking for the entire cruise! This will save us over two-hundred dollars, as well!

One last thing I will mention is that I noticed in some online menus that the main dining room seems to have a cold fruit soup every night! No pavlova, as that seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs (our most recent cruise was the only time I've been on a ship and not had pavlova; alas, that is the trend). But I adore fruit soup! Don't tell me it's just a smoothie, either, or I'll have to start throwing hands.

Okay, so keep this secret, will you? Thanks!

The Second 13th

At the beginning of the month, James and I celebrated our 13th anniversary (by going to see the Super Mario Galaxy movie).

Top: Mexico City, 2026; bottom: Austin, 2013

You might be aware that this is my third marriage.

My first marriage lasted about 5 years and some change. The second one, we got to 13 years but I remember knowing it was over even as my mom posted "congratulations" to us on Facebook on our anniversary (I called her and asked her to take it down, which she did; I think that offended my husband at the time, but he knew; everyone knew). 

All of this to say that when we celebrate our anniversary next year, it will be my first 14th. 

Just today, someone disparaged someone who was on their third marriage. I have some extended family (by marriage) who spread my wedding video shortly after we got married and who said, "I thought these people were supposed to be Christians, but this is how unseriously they take marriage??!" 

What's kind of interesting is that I take marriage a lot less seriously now than I did then, but that's a whole other digression.* 

However, I didn't get divorced twice because I didn't take marriage seriously. I got divorced twice because I got tired of being neglected, ignored, bullied, and diminished. And I tried especially hard to hold out during the second marriage because 1) I'd already been divorced once, and 2) we had a kid. 

A lot has changed since James and I got married. And THAT is its own digression, as well. But what I will say is that I think we stand a pretty good chance of going the distance, for several reasons. The first and most important is that we genuinely like and enjoy each other's company and that we want to stay together enough to actually work through issues, annoyances, and problems in good faith instead of just bickering and arguing to assert dominance or control or to be "right."

Plus, I figure that we made it through that 7th year and then nearly two years of unemployment intact. We'll figure the rest of it out okay, right?

*book rec: Stepping Off of the Relationship Escalator