Almost Finished — Foto Friday
Posted on | March 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
Oh, we’re close now, y’all!
For Better — Wedded Wednesday
Posted on | March 24, 2010 | 3 Comments
The card that was with my Valentine’s flowers: Johanna, Thank you for being such a wonderful wife. In the chili of life, you are my Fritos and cheese—the perfect addition. You are a truly giving and loving person. I am very lucky to have you!
The other day I read a blog post by a single, Christian woman asking if she was “missing something” about marriage. That so many of her married Christian friends just talked about how HARD marriage was—how much work, sacrifice, etc. it was. “Am I missing something?” she asked. “Isn’t marriage supposed to be a picture of Christ and the church. . .? Shouldn’t it be, you know, sort of great?”
It was a “duh” moment for me.
Maybe in my attempt to paint a true picture, to be sensitive to my single friends, I’ve actually done a disservice.
So let me just set the record straight—marriage is great. It’s pretty awesome, actually. To be partnered with someone who is FOR you, is a gift, a balm, a solace, a wonder. Getting to spend time with your favorite person—doing life with someone who knows you and loves you anyway—it doesn’t get better.
This past weekend Aaron and I ran a bunch of errands (moving in two weeks!) and did chores and packed boxes and argued over how many DVDs to keep, and we had a fantastic time doing it. I remember that Teri once told me that it’s important to find someone you can just have fun going to Home Depot with, because that’s a lot of what marriage is—the day to day, mundane stuff. If you can have fun doing all the chores of life with your spouse, you’re going to have a happier life, an easier marriage.
So yes, it’s work. Yes, it can be hard. But yes, it’s worth it. Yes, it’s great. Yes, it’s a miracle.
House Update IV
Posted on | March 21, 2010 | 2 Comments
Things are moving right along! This week the entire interior was painted, and all of the non-carpet flooring was put down. The hardwoods downstairs . . .
The flooring in both the laundry room and the mudroom is vinyl composite tile (VCT). It’s pretty much exactly what they put in the model, and I liked it so much that I picked the same thing for us! (The hallway bathroom floor is also VCT, only just the buff-colored tiles instead of the checkered.)
The lighting fixtures are mostly all in too.
The bathroom cabinets are stained/painted and the hardware is installed. The counters and sinks were installed this week too. Just need fixtures now!
All that’s left now is to finish the tile in the bathroom and around the fireplace, put in the remaining light fixtures and bathroom fixtures and lay the carpet! Oh, and a few other exterior things like the steps off the porch and the stone work. They’ll paint the exterior and pour our driveway and sidewalk after we close. (Probably in May sometime.)
We move in two weeks from today! I can’t believe it got here so fast. Everyone said that building a house would be stressful and crazy, but I have to say, so far (SO.FAR), it’s been pretty great. It’s such a trip to see it go up, from a hole in the ground to the framing to the drywalling to the a real actual house. It’s awesome.
I Must Confess
Posted on | March 18, 2010 | 6 Comments
I have a confession to make. I realized on my drive home tonight that it’s time. It’s time I just say it out loud.
I really like living in Minnesota. In fact, it may be my favorite place of residence to date.
I know.
Despite its dearth of good Mexican food and the four to five months of winter, it’s a pretty nice place to live. The people are nice. Having four distinct seasons is nice. (There is no better summer than summer in Minnesota.) The downtown is clean and there are parks and theatres and things like CHEESE CURDS. I mean, we have a lake in our backyard. It’s pretty great.
I loved Atlanta. I love it still. I grew up there, in a way. God drew me there to draw me back to him. I felt at home there. But not because of the city or the location, but because I was connected. It was the best place for me at the best time of my life. But it wasn’t my forever city. And while there was a time that I thought that it was, I realize now that it was never meant to be.
Also, it could be a frustrating place to live. The traffic. The smog. (The traffic.) The city infrastructure is falling apart. There are failing sewers and horrible schools. I mean, it’s no peach, really.
It’s different here. There’s so much beauty—rivers, lakes, green spaces, big open sky. Wide sidewalks and open fields. It speaks to the farmer’s granddaughter in me. And now that we have a church, I’m in a job that I love and I’m slowly making friends of my own here, well, I feel like Whitney Houston who can finally exhale.
And in two weeks when we move into the house that we built from the ground up (not literally, obvs), I’ll really, truly, finally, be home.
Like a Casserole — Wedded Wednesday
Posted on | March 17, 2010 | 3 Comments
They say marriage is like a casserole—only the person making it knows what’s in it. So in that vein, I thought it would be fun to invite some other married folk to share their wisdom and stories for Wedded Wednesday.
Joanne is a former Easter Coaster come Midwesterner who married in her mid-30s and had kids in quick succession. Joanne is mom to 3. Wife to 1. Friend to many. (You can follow Joanne at one of her kids’ blogs [she maintains one for each of them!] Her eldest’s is anthonyjoseph2005.blogspot.com.
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My husband and I will be married six years in July, but we always joke that it “feels like 60″! We have three kids under five and sometimes our days are long, filled with many laughs, but also many cries and whines and dramatic, tearful recriminations. Many days in the last six years, I have thought, “Really, God? THIS is my calling? My destiny?” But it is my destiny, and it is my calling. I don’t think you get to choose your vocation. When I was a single person, and my friends were getting married around me, I’d think the same thing “THIS is my calling?” I’m supposed to be single, to never have kids?” I always thought I wanted to be a wife and mother, and now that I am, I am ashamed of the amount of time I waste still questioning if I am in the right place.
My sister and I were talking the other day about how we felt about our lives. She was staying with me while my husband was away for the weekend, as I needed some help with the kids, especially around bedtime. I think she was surprised at how hard it all was, how frustrated one can get when a two year old tells you NO! for the 100th time that day, when the baby cries and cries when she is overtired, and how heartbreaking it can be when the four year old who has autism cries and cries, because he can’t tell you what he needs or wants. I told her, I am often unhappy, but I am never unsatisfied. Then later I thought I am worried, but I am not hopeless. I am tired, but I am never defeated.
I really feel like God chose my husband for me. I feel like I am married to the right person. I never doubt that I am where I am supposed to be, with him. It’s such a comfort to me, as everything else around me might be blowing up (or feeling like that, anyway), that I will always be married to him.
I know it can sound silly in the secular world, but I am really trying to have my marriage be a reflection of the Holy Family. I try and think about Mary and Joseph and how many doubts they must have had, before Jesus was born and after. I wonder, did Mary get annoyed by Joseph not turning his socks right side out before he put them in the laundry? ( I don’t think so, and not just because they didn’t have socks or washing machines.) When I am annoyed with whatever transgression I think my husband has committed (usually it’s of the laundry persuasion), I try and think about my wedding vows. I think that I promised to love and cherish FOREVER. I didn’t promise to love and cherish when times were good, or when I wasn’t so tired, I promised to love and cherish FOREVER.
Our son Anthony has autism, and although we have had some dark moments, like when he was first diagnosed, and right before he was first diagnosed, our life with him is happy. Some quote the rate of divorce among parents of children with autism as being as high as 80 percent, which I just. . .I can’t believe it. This article quotes Jenny McCarthy, the mother of an (allegedly) autistic son, from an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2007. She says:
“I felt very alone in my marriage.” Jenny says her husband dealt with his pain by staying away, even when Evan was in the hospital. “He never sat down and said, ‘What did you find out on Google?’” she says. “There was never that connection of wanting to know and being there.”
With his child? He never wanted to know or be there? I think that Jenny McCarthy and her husband may have had bigger problems than just the fact that their son had autism.
I remember a few years ago, someone asked me for advice about marriage. “Pick someone good”, I told her, and I meant it. Of course you should be kind, and say please and thank you and don’t go to bed mad, and all of that. But really, the best advice you can get is to pick someone good. And if you are a person who believes in God, and who believes that God loves you and wants the best for you, let God pick someone good for you.
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