Farm wife in the making

How I became a farm wife is a long journey. I was in my late 20’s, not married, when the idea of online dating was suggested to me. Back then, online dating was very new and something to be extremely cautious towards. (I would still be cautious about it today, but it’s much more common.) I had always dreamed and prayed I’d meet someone a more common way, like at church or in school. Not online. But, I decided to give it a try.

Third times a charm

The most common online dating site I knew of at the time was eHarmony. I subscribed to it for a while and when nothing happened, I got bored with it and quit. A few years later I tried ChristianMingle. It didn’t work for me either after a few months of looking. (For the record, there are a lot of men out there who need guidance on how to take a decent selfie of themselves. Good gravy…) Once again, I got bored with it and quit. I let my subscription lapse, but I kept the profile up. It wasn’t until 2017 that for some reason I decided to get back on there and give it a whirl. It was the third time and I figured if there was no connection made, then God wanted me to be single the rest of my life. I pulled up my profile, updated the info and some pics, but didn’t subscribe yet.

I don’t recall exactly how much time went by between updating my account and receiving messages, but I don’t think it was too long. However, I couldn’t read any of them until I actually paid money to subscribe. So, I decided that if I received 10 messages, I would subscribe and see what those messages said. On October 14, 2017, I received my 10th message. So, I bit the bullet, paid for a one month subscription and started reading the emails.

The day my life changed forever

I read through those emails and gradually felt sick to my stomach. I paid to read these?!? The messages I had received were dumb and not heartfelt at all. I thought for sure I had just wasted my money, until I got to the 10th message from a guy named Ryan. His message wasn’t very long, but I could tell he had put more thought into it than all the other guys combined had in theirs. He mentioned being a farmer and since I was in the crop insurance business at the time, I knew it was Harvest time and could ask him farming-related questions. So, I replied to his email on October 15th. Little did I know, those questions about farming impressed him and he replied to my email on October 16th. We’ve been talking every day since then, whether through email, phone, text or in person. I really enjoyed talking with him and getting to know him, but there was just one slight hiccup: we lived five hours from each other.

First date

I lived in Central Illinois (near Springfield) and Ryan is from North Central Iowa, not too terribly far from the border of Minnesota. Since I have family who live in Cedar Rapids, I thought it’d be easier to drive up there to meet him so that I could spend the weekend at my cousin’s house. Our first date was at Biaggi’s on December 2nd and it was most beautiful December day.

At the end of the night, we both knew we wanted to see each other again and began making plans for our next date. We continued dating, driving back and forth between Illinois and Iowa in the following months. I was pretty sure that at some point Iowa was going to be my home. It was the end of June when Ryan brought up the idea of getting married. Could we throw together a wedding before the end of the year? Before the holidays? I looked at him and said “oh yeah, we can do it” and we started the ball rolling.

Ryan came down to Illinois during July 4th week, asked my parents permission to marry me and a date was set: November 16, 2018. The next several months were a whirlwind of making plans and getting ready for the big day.

Planning the wedding in five short months was a little rough, but we got it done. I think the most nerve-wracking part was that it snowed eight inches two nights before the wedding. The wonderful part was that it didn’t stop a lot of our family and friends from joining us on our big day.

The following week was Thanksgiving and we didn’t move me up to Iowa until the following Saturday. I had a feeling at some point everything would be overwhelming about moving five hours away, but I didn’t realize it would hit me the very first night. My first Winter in Iowa on the farm was a brutal one. It was so cold and we had a blizzard in February. I didn’t have a job outside the home until the middle of March, so I was cooped up for a while. To say the first few months of our marriage were a little rough would be an understatement. My emotions were all over the place. We’ve been married now for a little over 20 months and I’m finally feeling more at home and established here in Iowa. I think the cows are even getting more comfortable around me now!