Getting to know the Gang

..Bit by bit. There are quite a few of us, and it can be a wee bit overwhelming, so first let me introduce you to the main three.


Yep, I said three.



You might be asking yourself, "wait a second. You guys aren't one of those mormon families where one guy marries 8 women, right?" (not that there's anything wrong with that, per se). Let me assure you, we're not. The thing is, I am a very, very lucky lady. I live with my two best friends in the entire world. In the picture, you see (from left to right) my fiance Mikey, my best buddy Samantha, and myself. That's our deer in the headlights look.



"Right, ok," you're beginning to understand, "So you live with you fiance and your friend. But your friend, the girl in the picture there, she's moving out after you two get married, right?"


Wrong again, hypothetical, confused reader!


See, the thing is, this works. This works SO well for us.


First off, I get to live with the girl I've known for 7+ years, lived with for 3 of those years, and worked at 6 different jobs with. We've got some serious history. Very few of my stories that I have and tell don't start off with the lines, "This one time, my friend Sam and I..." Let me tell you a little bit about her.


She's working on becoming a photographer, and at the same time trying to teach me how to take pcitures (I did a boudoir shoots for her the other night and I LOVE babies! Whether I'm good at it or not is a sliiiightly different story...). She graduated this past spring with a degree in French. She actually is the one who took our engagement photos, but that's for another post. Her lease happened to be up at the same time as my and my fiance's, and so we had some casual discussions about her moving into the house we're renting from Mikey's dad (who just got married this past summer) . Come September, BAM! It just kind of happened :) She's often found behind the lens of her camera (and isn't it a beaut?) or the pages of a non-fiction book.

We met during our senior year in high school. I was a transfer student, and we were both heavy into theatre. We worked on a few shows together, hung out occassionally, had a few sleepovers, but we had only known each other for a year. Once graduation came, I don't know that either of us ever really thought of one another.

We re-met one day as I was walking into the comumunity college that we both attended (and didn't know the other one went there) and she was walking out. She thought her class had been cancelled, and I had absolutely no desire to go to mine, so we
decided to go grab food. From there on out, as they say, the rest is history. Her class wasn't actually cancelled, by the way- she had been going at the wrong time, and then I just ended up dropping mine. I'm not a big math fan.
So that, in a nutshell, is a tiny fraction of the incredible person that is Sam.

Here, I'm teaching Sam how to waltz in Italy (in Epcot :P). As you can see (if you can) on the looks of the face of every other woman in the little plaza, it was not appreciated.

Just look at all those judgey McJudgersons!

"Ok," you say, eyebrow slightly raised, "good for you. You live with your best friend. But doesn't that put extra strain on your relationship? Do your best friend and fiance even get along? Isn't it hard to split your attention between the two?? Are you insane???"

Oh, you cynical little reader, you. To answer your questions, nope, yep, nope, and maybe.

First of all, it doesn't put any sort of strain on the relationship. To the contrary, it actually kind of helps. Sam is wonderful at letting Mikey and I work out any of the big things, and also many of the little things. Even if we're arguing in front of her (which we don't make a habit of doing) she has the tact to sit back and let us do our thing without getting in the middle.

However, every once in a while, if we're arguing and one of us is out of line, Sam will voice her opinion- if it's a serious argument, she'll talk to which of us is in the wrong in private. Which, coming from someone not directly involved, is a nice sort of wake up call. If we're arguing in front of her, than it's usually more of a playful argument, and she'll chirp in right then and there if one of us is horrible incorrect (usually Mikey) or horribly emotional (usually me). It's like a checks and balances system, in a way. I know this wouldn't work for everyone, but it works swimmingly for us. There's no extra strain on the relationship- we have three people to split the chores, cooking duties, and if one of us is at work, the other two have an automatic hang out buddy.

Which only works if they like one another, right?

Thank the good spaghetti monster in the sky, they do.

It's not like that wasn't a concern of mine, either.

Sam has disliked her fair share of my boyfriends. To be fair, I've dated my fair share of douchebags, and been too stubborn to realize what she could see from the beginning. Lesson learned? Ladies, listen to your girlfriends. They know what they are talking about.

Which brings me to the next person, Mikey, the first boyfriend I've had that Sam actually liked and thought was a good fit.

Here he is, all shirtless and looking fine.

(If I'm being honest with myself, I *may* be a bit biased).

Mikey is the nicest, happiest guy I've ever met. Seriously, someone has to really piss in his cereal for him to become angry. He's nearly constantly smiling, and has a laugh that can burst your eardrum if you're standing too close when he finds something amusing. He's also incredibly easy going. He has only truly disliked three people in his entire life, and for good reason, too. Not to say that he's always happy. I have this very nice talent of figuring out just what buttons to push to make him annoyed. More often, though, he just finds my attempts amusing, which works for me.

Mikey and I met on campus at our school, during one of the biggest snowfalls of '07, in a completely coincidental way. But, just as with the engagement photos, that's for another post.

So, those are my two roommates. They are fantastic, and I love both of them dearly. Since we're getting married at the house we're currently living in, all three of us are going to be working on bits of the wedding until then: getting the house prepared, making a faux-to booth, all of the invites and place cards and all of that good stuff. Which makes me so happy I have Sam, because she did half of the stuff for the greek party, and you saw how amazing that looked! All three of use have backgrounds in theatre, and so we know how to a)improvise when needed, and b)make more or less anything we want. If we don't know how to make something, we figure it out, plain and simple.

((Cheese alert- if you don't like corny, stop reading now!))

The next 8 months are going to be a bit insane, but I know that with these two by my side, we'll get through it, laughing the entire way.

Did you ever have an unusual living situation, or continue to live with someone after you were married?