In January of 1995, our family grew by 4 feet! We got our first dog, Georgie, from our friend Cheryl. Georgie was the cutest puppy! We spoiled her rotten. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn the importance of crate training and she chewed on everything when we weren’t home. Georgie had severe separation anxiety. We tried obedience classes and medication, but a few years later we found out that getting another dog was the answer for her anxiety. Georgie loved going to the beach and to the park. We would take her to UNCW’s campus and let her run around. She would always stay close to us and we weren’t afraid of her running away. I remember one day driving down the road and suddenly hearing a horrible sound. I looked over and Georgie had stepped on the automatic window controller and rolled her head up in the car window! That scared me so much, but she was fine.
Jarrod and I were so excited to move to a triplex unit on Montclair Drive. We now had 2 bedrooms and our own washer/dryer connections. We felt like the Jeffersons….movin’ on up! We became good friends with our neighbors, Stanley and Dwanda. They were an older couple and they loved Georgie so much that they would sometimes keep her for us if we went out of town.
I was still in school at UNCW and working with Xander after school. Jarrod took EMT classes at Cape Fear Community College. He began working for MTS, which was a medical transportation company. He was also volunteering with Pender East EMS. During fall break we took a trip to Asheville to celebrate our anniversary. We visited Biltmore House and had a great time, even though the weather wasn’t great.
Unfortunately, the “honeymoon phase” was ending and we were having a hard time learning how to resolve conflicts. After growing up witnessing a lot of violent situations, I wasn’t good at disagreeing respectfully. Typically, when Jarrod and I were arguing he would shut down. That would always make me SO MAD! I wanted a reaction from him. When he would stop talking and ignore me, my temper would boil over. He would say, “Whatever” and walk away. One night, I was so angry that I picked up a softball and said, “Say goodbye to your computer.” He said, “Do it, I don’t care.” Well, that made me furious. I turned and threw the softball at him instead. He had a glass of tea in his hand and he tossed it in my face. It was all over me and all over the room. I was stunned and couldn’t believe he did that. After that, I started going to counseling to deal with anger issues and learn appropriate ways to handle conflicts. One of our pictures still has a tea stain at the bottom. I was going to replace it, but we decided to save it as a reminder of how far we’ve come and how hard we’ve fought for our marriage.
