That's Rivet Romance

About a year and a half ago, Tim--my now husband, then boyfriend--and I had only just begun dating.  For those of you who have been searching for the one and haven't quite found him or her yet, or maybe for those of you who had long engagements, a year and a half to go from boyfriend to husband probably sounds pretty quick.  It will sound even faster when I tell you we were married 5 months, 9 days, and 22 hours after our first date.  I can't promise it will work for you, but I will tell you our secret is 'rivet romance.'

We had known each other for a few years, having met through mutual friends, although Tim and I weren't really friends ourselves.  Maybe acquaintances and friendly admirers of one another, but not really friends.  We were both in other relationships when we met, which meant we didn't seriously allow ourselves to consider each other as more than a person for whom we had respect and shared some things in common.  We also knew we were both Iowans living in Texas.  And, though I said we weren't 'friends' we were Facebook friends, and we probably learned a little more about each other through our updates.  That's one way we figured out when our other relationships ended.  When they did, we got together to 'catch up', even though we didn't exactly have a history to catch up on.  But that first date really was like catching up--with someone I had somehow always known well but hadn't talked to in this lifetime.

Things progressed quickly.  We had a lot in common.  For one, I loved cooking and Tim loved eating.  (That's become our joke-I love eating, too, which will become pretty obvious pretty quickly).

First dinner at home - chicken and pancetta ravioli--I love making pasta by hand.

I loved flowers, Tim liked to give me the ones he grew in his backyard.  We like growing things.

First flowers.

We had other things in common to: values, what it was to do good in the world, folk music, farms, and dreams, lots of dreams.  One of those dreams was to own an Airstream.  As a teenager growing up in Iowa in the 90s, wishing it were the 60s, I dreamed of living in a vintage Airstream.  My husband had taken what he likes to jokingly refer to as a brief, early retirement in his mid-20s, during which time he traveled and lived in a non-Airstream brand trailer, but he admired many-an-Airstream from the road and RV parks around the western and midwestern United States.

The Airstream dream then became an actual search.  We began emailing photos and listings of Airstreams back and forth.  We discussed the benefits of smaller or bigger, dinette or bed in front, vintage or new.  There seemed to be many more Airstreams available out west than in Texas.  Were we serious enough to fly to Oregon to tow back a trailer?  We had only been dating for 3 months. But we were pretty sure this was it.  When we found a trailer in northern Texas, and took off one afternoon from Houston in my husband's Tahoe, hitch in the back, checkbooks in hand, we were pretty darn sure.  And when saw the Airstream sitting outside a pretty little house we would love to live in...

and when the dogs seemed pretty comfortable in it even though it was pretty bare...

and then when we left north Texas to drive back to Houston with our '05, 25' Airstream International CCD in tow, we knew this was it.

Takin' 'er home

And it was, just look at the background picture for this blog.  We were married next to the Airstream during a combination Airstream and beautiful bike ride trip across the state of Iowa, RAGBRAI, July of 2010 (another thing we both had always wanted to do).  We like to refer to it as our 'Airstream Wedding.'  We've been happily married for over a year, and we are expecting our first child in January, 2012.  Our life together is a dream come true, although, of course, there  are many more dreams and, just like with the orange fabric in our trailer that we still haven't changed, there is room for improvement.   But I'm thankful for that--it keeps us going.

This blog is an exploration of those dreams and that quest for improvement, specifically the quest to scale down our lives to the level of simplicity of the Airstream, where you have the bare necessities yet abundant beauty.  That's rivet romance, and you can have it to, with or without and Airstream.  Preferably with.

All images copyright of Jamie (Rivet Romance) unless otherwise noted