Sara: Lately, I’ve taken to feeling like an old married lady in a lot of different ways. Everyone talks about how having your first baby totally changes your life. Well, I didn’t realize how much being married would change my life.

For instance, instead of going to bed at 10:30 or 11 pm (or sometimes later if I was feeling particularly irresponsible) on a weeknight, we now go to bed at 9:30 pm. I kid you not. I have to get up earlier than before to make my 45 minute commute to work (used to be a 5 minute commute), and we have two people that need to eat breakfast, get through the shower and bathroom, and prepare for the day.

So, when we see our single friends on the weekends, by the time the party is getting into full swing about 10:30 or 11 pm, we are more than ready for bed, as it’s already a few hours after our bedtime. It’s fun to joke about being the “old married couple” as several of them will be soon married as well.

The “old” part was further provided to me during a recent trip to our local amusement park. Since I’d been begging Justin to go with me to this amusement park ever since we met, when we got free tickets from a friend, Justin agreed to go.

I have always said that I have an iron stomach. In fact, I remember when I worked at the same amusement park five years ago, I rode a rollercoaster for a photo shoot 25 times in a three hour period. This time, after riding several of the rollercoasters, I began to feel nauseous. In addition, while I enjoyed showing the amusement park I once worked at to Justin, I was disappointed that the amusement park was no longer as much fun as it was five years ago. I suppose it’s just another symptom of getting “old.”

However, I think it’s good for me to realize that my life will no longer be the same as it was before Justin and I got married. We need to have different priorities than either of us had as single people. We need to continue to place value on what’s important for us as a couple and as a family, not just what’s important for us as individuals. Right now, this means fewer meals out, more two dollar movies, and date night at Justin’s university football games (where we get in for free). We are thinking about and beginning to budget for buying a house in the next couple of years, so we are trying to save our pennies. We’ll talk more about that in a future post.