Work hard, play hard.

If there's one thing my parents instilled in me, it was a good work ethic.  I've always tried to be a hard worker.  I don't believe in receiving something, without working hard for it. 

Sean and I work our butts off.  I have worked almost every single Saturday since Christmas.  Sean has been working 60+ hour work weeks since starting his new job.  Sometimes the most time we spend together is when we are sleeping next to each other at night. 

I'm not complaining, I promise I'm not.  Sean and I have a good life.  Sean and I have a great life.  We both have good jobs, a beautiful home, great families, nice cars, amazing friends, we're healthy, we're best friends, completely in love...the list of our blessings could go on and on.  We're not lucky, we're truly blessed.  I (like everyone) complain about my/our "problems", but I realize we are blessed.  However, those blessings don't come without sacrifices.  Sean and I have never gotten anything handed to us.  Everything that we have, we work really hard for.  That's why I think it's so "interesting"when people call us spoiled.  Spoiled?  By who?  I would love to meet them!  Oh, I'm sorry...did I say interesting?  I meant completely absurd and erroneous. 

Our parents didn't pay for our school...trust me we're still paying it off!  We don't live off the government, if we can't afford health insurance, we don't go to the doctor.  Our first three years of marriage we didn't set foot in a doctor's office, and guess what?  When Sean dislocated his shoulder and had to go to the emergency room, we paid it off...by ourselves, imagine that. If we don't have money for groceries, we don't buy them...we don't get the government to pick up the tab.  We don't live with our parents for years on end, they've never bought/given us any of our cars, they don't co-sign with us on our mortgage or cars, or give us down payments, we pay our own way.  If we can't afford to have kids, we don't expect other people/the government to pay for them.  Our parents don't pay for our vacations, we do!  And you know what, that's okay.  So, I think it's funny, downright comical, when people tell us that we're so "lucky" and so "spoiled".  It's not luck, it's called hard work.

I think it's awesome that people have really generous parents, they're really lucky.  I've come to accept that is something that's just not in the cards for us.  We're both from big families, and we both realize that would be really difficult to do 8 or 5 times over.  Sometimes I'm envious of people that have families that help them out so much, I mean honestly...if someone was offering me free stuff/money, I realize it would be hard to turn down.  But I also believe there is something to be said for working hard for what you have, and being a grown up.

My Dad always said, "work hard, play harder." I definitely think we have adopted that phrase into our marriage.  We don't live to work, we work to live.  I've traveled my entire life, and now I'm able to travel with my best friend.  Sean seems to like it just as much as I do, and so that's what we seem to  spend most of our "disposable"income on.  Obviously, we don't have kids yet.  I feel like this is our time to get out and be able to leave for two weeks, or three, or a month without feeling guilty about leaving a kid behind.  Most of our friends and families tell us that we won't even want to leave for that long, because we would miss them too much.

  Everyone makes decisions, some good...some not so good.  But in the end, it's that individual's/couple's decision, and everyone else just has to deal with it.  Not everyone has to approve of their decisions, but they do need to respect it.  My Dad always counseled us when we were engaged/first married to enjoy our time with just the two of us.  He would tell us frequently how excited he was to one day be a Grandpa, but made sure we realized that this was the ONLY time it would ever just be the two of us.  Even if you have kids young, and they move away, you'll always have them (and then he would make a joke about some of my little brothers who would literally never move out).  But I think there is some truth to that statement, once you become a parent your life obviously changes-for the better.  From that point on, your life revolves around those wonderful children, even after they move out, grow up, and have families of their own.  They're still your children, and your life very much still is focused around them.

So, this is our situation right now, we work hard, play even harder, and get to do it with just ourselves.  And I love it, it's a great life...it's hard, but good.  Instead of saying things like we're spoiled, and making derogatory/envious remarks...It would be nice if people could just be genuinely happy for us.  And know that we work SO HARD for everything we have, make lots of sacrifices, spend every penny of our OWN money, and have come such a long way since we first got married.   I know not everyone says comments to be mean, they're mostly just ignorant....so I guess that's my point of blogging about this.  Ignorance isn't always bliss.