I Smell Barbeque

BE and I are hardly ever home.

I got a second job

and he's about to hit the flight line again.

And that means hardly any "us" time.

But here are some things we have done lately:

gone to a bluegrass festival on the water

had two dozen friends over for Easter lunch

spring cleaned

spent the day on the beach

 filled out paperwork for my new reproductive endocrinologist

and tried out a new restaurant.

But these things have also happened:

BE: "You know, it's a good thing that everything you do in the kitchen turns out this good. Otherwise, I'd have to fire you."

Me: "Oh really. And who would you get to replace me?"

BE: "...Colonel Sanders."

singing Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You" in the car while parked in the garage at our house just to prove we knew all the words

As I'm bending down to plug in my rolling computer at work:

"Yeah, girl, you plug that thing in!!!"

*moment of embarrassment and shock*

BE: "hahaha did you think I was a patient? Please tell me you thought I was a patient!"

Turning on a romantic song in the car to try to set the mood...

BE: "Hey, do you smell barbeque? I swear I smell barbeque. They must have known I would be driving down this way!"

Me: "Remind me to not try so hard anymore, ok?"

BE: "huh?"

Me: "Just remind me."

So, needless to say, it's been fun lately.

And that's so important when you're busy.

You can be all the busy with life you want, but at the end of the day,

it's important to be busy having fun together too.

And I think we manage that quite well.

 

 

 

 

Brick By Brick

How good it feels to write again with a light heart.

 In short, things have gotten better.

Much better.

Both of us have come to terms with the fact that we are making a choice,

a choice to fight.

My choice to not believe him when he said he wasn't in love,

his choice to forgive things from the past,

our mutual choice to decide this wouldn't be the end.

Because you see,

it can't end.

In my moments of the whitest-hot anger,

when all I heard ringing in my ears were all the voices saying,

 "you don't deserve this, you should leave,

he says this or he says that,

you need to just give up"

it seemed easy to accept the worldview that says that it's ok to stop wanting your marriage to work,

 that it's ok to no longer pray "God, please keep us together, please restore our love"

and instead pray, "whatever happens happens".

No!

It's not "whatever happens happens."

Don't you see?

It CAN'T be.

 No matter how much you're hurt,

no matter how easily you could imagine yourself with a new life,

no matter what angry words are said,

no matter what everyone around you says,

it's your MARRIAGE.

And everywhere I looked

trying to justify myself if I gave up and stopped hoping for it to work out,

I only found scripture telling me I was wrong.

It's painful when you've blamed the other person the whole time

and then realize that you had faults too.

Me?? Have contributed to this?? No way!

Yes way.

It's painful.

But it's true.

And once I was done licking my wounds,

I realized that I had no justification to quit on my marriage.

God wasn't going to back me up later.

God wasn't going to look at me and say,

"You know, I would have done the same thing. He was being so mean to you! You were such a strong woman to go be on your own and start over like that, and just kick that jerk to the curb!"

I would get no pat on the back from my Father.

In fact,

I don't think I could have ever lived enough good deeds to justify the fact that I, a human,

had help destroy something God had put together.

"Let no man put asunder..."

And I realized, as hurt as I was,

I still love that man.

And I know he still loves me.

And I've seen so many amazing changes over the past few weeks;

I have watched our love shine through the fog,

I have seen a miracle.

We hold hands again,

we help each other around the house,

we find ourselves fighting to make the other coffee in the mornings,

even when we otherwise could have slept in.

He winks at me across the table at dinner,

I watch his stupid movies.

I write love notes in dry erase marker on his side of the sink,

and he makes me dinner on nights I work late unexpectedly.

GOD MAKES ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL.

My faith sometimes stumbles.

I am not a perfect person.

But I am working toward a perfect relationship with the One who has given me everything.

And it is restoring my soul.

Brick

By

Brick.



"Though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

A CORD OF THREE STRANDS

IS NOT QUICKLY BROKEN."

Ecclesiastes 4:12

As Time Goes By (a.k.a. I'm A Slacker)

I'm a bloggy slacker.

 So, to the blogosphere,

 I'm Sorry!

 I started my new job

 (YAY)

 and so that has been taking up a lot of time

 with orientation

 and then actually being on the floor (eek!)

 but it's nice to finally be a "Real Nurse"

 (which is what I'm convinced RN really stands for lol)

 even though a lot of days 

 I forget that I'm not a student anymore.

I had a patient who found out I was married to the Air Force,

 and from then on every time I walked into the room he would raise an eyebrow and say,

 "Oh, look. Fly Boy's wife is back"

 LOL

 Made me chuckle.

 Things with the wedding have been going well - 

 I have kind of a dilemma though.

 I have a very good friend from college,

 who I had originally asked to be in the wedding last year,

 but she disappeared off the face of the earth a few months ago,

 and I figured we were at odds over something I was unaware of.

 I tried to re-establish contact, with no luck.

 I shrugged, and moved on.

 Suddenly, she contacted me out of the blue today.

 Problem herein lies,

 that I planned the wedding in the meantime,

 and since I never expected to hear from her again,

 asked other people.

 Sigh.

 What to do?

 BE and I have been busy lately,

 celebrating our One Year anniversary a little early.

 We went to Disney World!! 

 A first time for the hubs.

 We ate SO. MUCH. FOOD.

 Oh my word.

 It was ridiculous.

 But for anyone who ever wondered,

 October is apparently the best time of the year to go to Disney,

 because we didn't wait in a single line at any park over 30 minutes.

 It was bliss,

 especially since I've experienced Disney during the summer.

 Torture?

 Doesn't even do it justice.

 It was a wonderful trip and we enjoyed being together,

 being silly,

 and remembering why we're "bestest good friends".

 I can't believe it's been a year already.

 The best year of my life :)

 Hopefully that bodes more amazing years to come.

We went to the Magic Kingdom early one morning

 to watch Mickey come in on the train and open the park for the day,

 and I started crying when they played

 "When You Wish Upon A Star"

 and welcomed everyone in.

 And my wonderful husband just grabbed my hand,

 squeezed it silently three times for "I Love You"

 and was sweet enough to not laugh at me.

 What's your favorite anniversary memory?

Do you and your significant other have any special little unspoken tokens of affection like our hand squeezes?

 I hope you have a MAGICAL day :)

 

It's Been That Long Already?!?!

So tonight BE is taking me out on a very special date :) Since he will be gone for our actual 6-month wedding anniversary, we're celebrating it just a smidgeon early and going tonight! He's taking me to see Water for Elephants (which I've been DYING to see!!) and then out to a fancy dinner somewhere in town! I'm getting really excited! Just thought I would share ;) It really doesn't feel like a whole half a year already, but that's probably because he's been gone most of it! We have really enjoyed the time he's been home though, and we're hoping that IFS goes fast! They allot them 4 weeks but technically it can take only half of that time depending on how the weather goes for their flights, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed but told him not to tell me when he's coming home so I can be surprised. It is still surreal looking back at our wedding pictures and remembering that day and feeling so proud of how far we have come as a couple since then. But that's one good aspect of the military life - learning to grow together and work as a team, and always support each other and love each other no matter what. I feel like we have such a strong marriage and one definitely based on trust, and I wish everyone could experience that. Hope everyone is having a great Thursday!!