Then Mr. Cheddar made the decision to move us back home with our respective parents, despite the fact that we were engaged, so he could pay his way through night school to get his police certification. It was only temporary, he said, and we would be out of our parents' houses as soon as he graduated from the 11-month course.
But five months into that course, his mother was admitted to the hospital for anemia. A month and a half later, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and hers was a particularly aggressive form. Our whole world changed around that, and our lives became about taking care of a grief-stricken family. Amidst the daily trips to the hospital, we were planning a wedding and his parents were going through the process of trying to find a new house. When she got sent to Houston (M.D. Anderson) for a bone marrow transplant, we tasked ourselves with the monumental project of moving Mr. Cheddar's packrat parents from their house of 13 years into a rental home. We found the perfect place, faxed the lease to Houston, rented a moving truck, and got it done over a weekend with help from friends and family.
It's the house Mr. Cheddar's mother came home to once she found out the bone marrow transplant was unsuccessful and she was terminally ill. She passed on the 23rd of December, a week after Mr. Cheddar and I had gotten married at her bedside. I know, this introduction is SO SAD, right? But it explains why we are newlyweds still living in the house we rented for his parents. His dad went and found himself a new girlfriend by the end of January 2012. She lives 30 minutes away, so he never comes home to see his sons, thus we have this house to ourselves. It's this weird, warped living situation that we sort of hate, but we are trying to make the best of it.
Anyway, Mr. Cheddar and I are blessed with a great group of friends, some of whom are big fans of the TV show "Community" just like us. My favorite character, Shirley, was called "Big Cheddar" when she was a child, so I jokingly called myself that for a while. When we got married, our friends started calling Hubs "Mr. Cheddar" and it stuck. I think it's only fair--I took his last name according to the law, he can take my last name according to the internet. It works, too, because Mr. Cheddar is one of the cheesiest men I've ever met, plus he's a big advocate of melting cheese on things as "drunk food."
This blog will contain our adventures in improving this gorgeous but badly-maintained rental home, our adventures in gardening, and our attempts to move on into a place of our own. Fingers crossed.
