Lonely. . .

So today I dropped Natasha off at the train station so she can go to the Moscow embassy for her visa interview to come to the 2008 Judy Family Reunion, and coming home from church the first thing I noticed (actually second, the first thing was, "Dang, Natasha snagged my keys so I'm totally locked out of my apartment. I'll have to walk all the way over to her parents and then wait around outside until someone gets home and hope they have a spare.") was that I really miss Natasha not being around. I like being with her. No wonder I moved here.

I can honestly say that the last few weeks have been some of the most enjoyable of our marriage. The only downsides have been poor sleep quality and muddy weather. We started studying Spanish together(Que es esto? Esto es un loco.), starting an exercise routine for expecting women (I read, she does them), starting our blogging and just enjoying each other's company. Yesterday was especially good. There was nice weather(like Prescott late October)so we went for a walk and took care of come errands, then at home I appeased her steak craving while we watched Guardemariny vpered--a Soviet mini-series clone of The Three Musketeers. Enjoy this ultra-cheesy opening clip. I also found out that when Natasha was 16 she had a crush on the blond with a Maria Carey beauty mark who's always dressing in drag. So yeah, she didn't get out of that without some teasing. As for the day, we really didn't do anything that special, just spending time together doing things we enjoy, but it's such a contrast from the way Saturdays were last spring, where we were both under so much stress to get things done and have a good time that even if we had done the exact same things, it wouldn't have been so enjoyable, since the impending doom of Monday befowleth all. Then wasn't bad, don't get me wrong, way better than a year ago when I was in America, and even then had its moments. But now is awesome. Natasha isn't working and she's come a long way in being realistic with her expectations and giving me her trust. I'm making a decent Russian salary for light hours, and now she accepts it and even views my extra time as a benefit instead of just me being idle or irresponsible since I'm doing nothing (where "nothing" means anything that doesn't fit her conception of what I ought to do). It's so nice not feeling that in our relationship anymore, and I give Natasha loads of credit, because changing paradigms is hard to do. The cd's Grandma gave us at our sealing helped. I've also come a long way, and I think that's helped Natasha make her changes as well. Tomorrow, however, is a Monday with some impending doom since Natasha won't be with me, and I have to worry about how she's doing. I hope she's handling the travels, and that she has some decent car mates. At least for what's in my power, it will be a good chance to try applying some principles that I've been interested in the last month or so.


A while ago I heard about Tim Ferriss' book, 4-Hour Workweek, and checked out his blog, which had some food for thought. It also brought some satisfaction seeing that someone else shares (a)much of my world views and (b)has been very successful with it. I don't want to turn this post into a description of a person I've never met or a summary of a book I haven't read, so if you're interested you should have no trouble finding him with google. What I got from it is that I really need to master my use of time, learn that sufficient is often better than perfect, refocus my planning to freeing my day rather than filling it, take good notes, and define and reevaluate my expectations and commitments. I've come to realize more just how rich I am. I also checked up on Josh Waitzkin, the chess prodigy from Searching for Bobby Fischer. He's retired from chess now and practicing competitive martial arts, studying the art of learning, and writing. I've always liked him since I was homeschooling and listened to his annotated chess games on the Chessmaster chess program, but now he seems more interesting and focused as he's matured. From what I read about his learning techniques, I need to stop splitting my focus from many things at once to one thing at a time.

also, make sure you didn't let Natasha's Our Story post slip past you: she started it before, but posted it after my last post, so it popped up in the background, easy to miss.

So... I have my week cut out. I'll look forward to the weekend:)