House: Warmed

Well guys, it’s still crazy here at the newlywed house. We’re pretty much finished with the entire upstairs (main floor) level of the house (for now) and we are tired.

In fact, other than some small projects, we’ve decided not to do any more work until after the holidays.

Why?

Well, we think we deserve a break.

And because I want to decorate our house for the holidays…without all the distractions and clutter and mess that comes with remodeling.

And also because we want to live in our home for awhile and see what priorities we have for the next projects.

And in the meantime, we’re busy making this house our home.

Not that it isn’t already, thanks to the wonderful memories we’ve already started making here.

Wonderful memories like sweating and swearing while covered in ceiling dust and popcorn mess while Hubs and I struggle to remove the popcorn ceilings on the 4th of July since it was the only day he wouldn’t have to take off work to get it done.

And memories of yelling up and down the stairs about which lights and outlets were off so we could change all the switches and outlets from almond-colored to white.

And scuffing our knuckles on the sand paper while getting ready to paint all the trim in the entire house…all three coats of it!

Just kidding. Working on our house and “DIYing” everything we’ve done so far has been a huge blessing. Not only are we learning so much about our house and how to take care of it. We’ve making making decisions together, keeping each other accountable in sticking to our budget, learning to help each other and work better as team. We’re developing skills and finding out what we like and don’t like to do. For instance. Hubs does not like to paint. I do. (Usually.) Hubs like to build furniture. We both hate sanding by hand. (Thank goodness for hand sanders!)

And we’ve had a lot of good memories here just the two of us, like our first dinner here, our first night here, moving day, the day we got our living room all set up how we liked it, buying furniture, moving our things into the places we’ll keep them for as long as we stay here.

Plus, we’ve had two different housewarming parties now . Talk about a blessing!

Yes, Hubs built the cabinet we’re standing in front on. Yes, we realize we are matching the colors in our kitchen. Yes, I know that’s cheesy, but no, I don’t care.

It’s amazing the difference it makes to see and hear friends and family making themselves at home in your home. It’s amazing how much more like home it feels when it’s filled with so many people we love and care about.

Why?

Well, because welcoming friends and family into my home is one of my favorite things to do. I love entertaining. I love cooking for people, with people. I love sharing good food around a big table. I love sitting in the living room just talking for hours or playing games.

And yes, I love doing all those things with Hubs. Just the two of us.

But there’s something about the hustle and bustle that comes with having a full house.

It’s partly why I’m not sure I want to stop at just two kids (that’s Wyatt’s plan, for sure!)

It’s partly the reason I love to go stay with our families during the holidays even though it’s tempting to stay in and cozy up with Hubs, just the two of us in our quiet, happy home.

It’s partly the reason I so love our loud, crazy game nights with friends that always involve yelling and arguing.

I just love how happy a full house feels.

Because when a house is full of people, the right people anyway, it’s full of love.

That’s why I felt like I floating on cloud nine the night after our first house-warming party. And why I was so excited to have our friends come see out new home as soon as we could.

And now that our house has officially been warmed, we’re finally settled into this happy home. Maybe for five years, maybe for ten. Maybe forever!

What about you? What makes a house feel like home to you?

Things I’m thankful for right now…

1. There are only two of us in this household right now. Don’t get me wrong, we want kiddos. But I love only have two wardrobes that I’m in charge of washing, folding and putting away.

2. We have a beautiful brand new washer and dryer. Doing laundry has always been a chore I enjoyed (except the putting away part), until we loved to our apartment and I had to use the tiniest, slowest, least efficient washer and dryer on the planet. Thank you, in-laws, for this wonderful, wonderful gift.

3. I work from home. Yes, it was awful to go on a bunch of interviews for jobs I wasn’t really qualified for and yes, it was awful to not get them. And yes, I only work part time right now, but I am happy I am home to work on the house and do laundry and cook dinner, and I am happy that I am working, doing something I love, from a home that I love. How blessed am I?

4. Hubs and I are taking a break tonight. We worked all weekend on the house, and we got a lot done. Nothing major, but a lot of progress on small, time-consuming projects. So tonight after dinner, we’re doing nothing but chilling on the couch and planning future projects. No working, except whoever gets up to get the dessert.

5. The internet. I love having the world at my fingertips. How awesome is it that we grew up in the digital age. It makes me wonder what sort of awesomeness our kiddos will have at their fingertips.

6. Our own little dreams come true. Hubs and I are married, happy, healthy and living in a home we own. Wow. Talk about blessed!

For more of my thankfulness, check out my list of blessings and happy things here.

 

No more tears…

No this isn’t a commercial for some sort of extra gentle baby shampoo, but yes, I am talking about tears, the things that fall from our eyes when we are hurt or upset, not to be confused with tears, or rips in paper or clothing.

The English language is confusing.

Sheesh.

But I did spend my entire college career studying it…well, that and a bunch of other stuff considering I went to a private liberal arts college.

Anyway, back to my original topic…tears.

I’ve been crying a lot less than I did the first year of our marriage.

This is just a happy picture to show you I was really, in fact, happy during our first year of marriage, even though I did cry a lot. Think of the crying as small intermissions between all the happiness, ok?

Not that the first year of our marriage was sad or unhappy. Quite the contrary. I was super happy to be married to my best friend…but I also cried a lot.

Why?

Well, I’m not sure, but I’m willing to venture some guesses.

(Check out the links to see some earlier blog posts that help explain all these little ramblings!)

1. I didn’t have a job.

This was a big one for me. I’ve never really struggled with anything as much as I struggled to find a job. We didn’t need the money, but it would have been nice while trying to maintain a budget and save as much as possible for a down payment. And it certainly hurt my pride, confidence and general self-esteem to feel like a failure for so long. I went through so many stages of dealing with it: determination, hope, peace, anger, embarrassment, hope, frustration, peace, anxiety, hope, fear, anger,  disappointment…you get the idea. And though I learned a lot about gratitude and humility and trust, it was a struggle the entire time. And even though this self-employed freelance writing thing is still hard, I’m so thankful for the opportunity to do something I love and that will contribute to our finances, even just at a part-time level.

2. I was worried about finding and affording a house we loved.

We all know that worked out well for us, and that we now have the biggest project we’ve ever taken on together as a fabulous home, but for awhile, it was hard to imagine leaving our little apartment, hard to wrap my head around how much this all would cost, hard to decide where we wanted to put down real roots and raise our kiddos, hard to figure out just how much house we needed and how much project we could take on…but finding our home was a journey, that’s for sure.

3. I was hormonal.

Let’s face it, this is still true. But maybe being on the pill for over 1 1/2 years now has finally allowed my body to calm down and stop freaking out over every tiny little change in the hormone levels.

4. I was tired.

Remember our sleeping adventures, like Hubs’ sleep talking, and figuring out our sides of the bed, and our different sleep schedules? I didn’t sleep so well for the first few months of our marriage, or the first several months. I still have nights where it’s a struggle, like last night, when I was woken up by snores and then I laid there for fifteen minutes, half-asleep and nearly incoherent, before realizing it was coming from the sleeping Hubs beside me and yes, I could in fact, wake him up and tell him to roll over. After which he got a little grumpy because I was pretty persistent after not believing his half-asleep, “okay,” with no signs of movement. Anyway, when I’m tired, I get salty, and when I’m salty, I tend to cry easily. I’m sleeping better these days, for the most part, or maybe adjusting to living on less shut-eye.

5. I was homesick.

Again, I was thrilled to be married. And I loved it for that first year of newlywed-ness…but I also missed my family. And I felt a little alienated from them because there just wasn’t much opportunity for visiting (my mom doesn’t drive in the city…at all). Moving to our new house in this new neighborhood is perfect. We’re closer. Our parents can (and do!) visit more often. And the biggest part of this? This house is now HOME. Our apartment was home, too, but never in the way I feel about our house.

And that my friends is why the last few months have held far less salty, wet kisses as Hubs attempts to cheer me up, less red, swollen eyes, and much more giggles, laughs and smiles.

Not that I wasn’t giddy and happy during our first year of marriage, but settling into this married life sure feels good.

 

What about you? What was hard for you in your early married years? Do you cry a lot? Did you used to cry a lot? How did you get over it? How did your Hubs help with drying the tears? 

From newlyweds to the rest of our lives

First of all, did you all see yesterday’s post? I’m trying to work on some new ideas for the blog and really want some input for you. Please take a minute to leave me a comment and give me some feedback on what sort of posts you like most and what is your favorite things about this blog.

Next, I wanted to focus a little bit today on how I’ve been feeling about our marriage recently, as we transition into this second year of marriage.

1. I am so blessed by this husband of mine. He is wiser than I ever thought him to be, stronger than I’d seen him be, smarter, sweeter, and sexier than I could have ever imagined when I first fell head over heels in love with him at 16 years old. I know he’s going to continue to surprise me with his goodness as we transition from our family of two to having kids, grandkids, and more.

2. I’m surprised by how little we fight about anything serious. It seems the only things we bicker about are small, silly, and totally unimportant details. When we’re really faced with a scary circumstance, difficult life choice, or major struggle, we’re truly able to be helpmates for each other, and that makes up for all the little lovers’ spats that may take place on any given normal night.

3. I don’t feel the need to be with him all the time, but I certainly feel the desire. Don’t get me wrong, he sometimes enjoys going to play poker with some guys from work, and I enjoy having a girls’ night with my friends from back home, but overall, given the choice of socializing or relaxing with or without him, I’d choose to have him near me every time. And that’s not something I think will chance in the future, as I enjoy his company more now than ever before. And yes, I can function without him, but if I don’t have to, I won’t. But this is something I realize has nothing to do with us being newlyweds. It’s about being in love, and being married to my very best friend.

4. Me not having a job where I work from 8 to 5 every day is a HUGE blessing. Yes, I’ve spent a huge amount of time belly-aching about not having a “real” job, but you know what? I’m growing used to the fact that this is my real job for this season of life. Sure, I don’t work full time doing this, but I enjoy the work and I get to do different things every day, and talk to a lot of people, and learn about lots of things I never knew about before. But mostly, I’m writing, which is what I think I’m meant to do. At least for now. And it’s given me so much time to help with stuff for the house. Someone needs to be there to let the carpet cleaning guy in and pay him after he’s finished? I can do it. Someone needs to go to the mechanic? That’s my job. The UPS store to return our equipment? Paint all the walls and trim in our house? Organize and clean everything? Yup, I can do all those things too. And how much of a blessing is it that either Hubs nor myself is having to take precious vacation time to be there for all this stuff? I’d say it’s huge. And for now, I’m content to write part- time and be a full-time wife to the man I love.

5. Sleeping together is still a challenge sometimes, but we’re totally settling into our preferred “sleeping positions” (as Hubs calls them), and snuggling positions, which I prefer we spend a few minutes in pre-sleeping time. Neither of us has suffered any major bruises because of bumps in the night, and I am learning to question with caution if I hear him saying something in the middle of the night, because he gets a little crabby when I ask questions after hearing his sleep-talking mumbles.

6. Holding hands is so important. Even just a few seconds walking into the store from the car are an opportunity to connect and share a sweet moment. I love that we both know to reach for the other at the perfect moment. It’s part of our routine now, something that hasn’t changed since we were first dating and that I know will continue into the future.

What about you? What are you learning about your spouse in your marriage? I know it’s something, so share!

 

Tears of Joy

Well guys, the big one year anniversary officially came and went without a lot of hoopla or fanfare. I had expected lots of joyous, silly celebrating, but we had none of that.

And you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re still going to celebrate again on Saturday in a combined celebration for my birthday and some other stuff.

We had some personal things that kept us from celebrating the way we would have preferred last night so we just decided to go out to a relaxing dinner, something fun and casual, and then save the real “special” stuff until the weekend.

(Although eating out on a Monday certainly is special on our budget!)

So on the one year anniversary of the day we got all dressed up and fancy and said our vows, we both went to work (or worked from the couch, in my case) and then some pretty awesome burgers that I tried to share with you via photo, but my phone internet isn’t cooperating so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

And then we went home.

We were full. We were tired. We decided to take a short nap before dessert.

Spoiler alert: We never made it to dessert.

We were both so tired that we ended up sleeping longer than we’d planned, and by the time we got up, we were still feeling full and weren’t in the mood for any more celebrating.

I’ll admit it, I was bummed.

I felt we’d wasted our anniversary. It was the only first anniversary we’ll get and we’d slept part of it away!

But then, as Hubs hugged me and I could see the hurt in his eyes because he thought he’d let me down, I realized it didn’t matter at all how or when we celebrated. Having each other for a whole year already and a lifetime to come is what we should be celebrating every day, not just today. That’s where the joy should be coming from. Not from a fancy dress or an expensive dinner…

So I cried a little bit and apologized. I hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. What a humbling blessing to be able to ask for forgiveness from the one I love on the day we celebrate the promises that we made to always fight fair and seek out resolution to our conflicts and struggles.

And then we settled into the couch to read our “Love Story” book that we started on our wedding day.

Putting the photos of our parents and grandparents on their wedding days into our love story book.

And we looked though our photo album. And we both got a little emotional as we relived those memories.

Such a special moment I never want to forget.

And then, you know what we did?

We read our promises to each other.

Wyatt reading his promises to me. I’m crying here. He is, too.

The ones we read during our wedding after we recited our vows. The ones that made pretty much the entire church cry, including ourselves, with how sweet and personal and perfect for us that they were.

My turn with this very emotional task of reading our personalized promises to each other.

And you know what?

We both cried again. More than a few tears on our cheeks. In fact, there were several, many even, tears running down our cheeks as we relived how passionate we were as we wrote and recited those words to each other last year and remembered just how much love and devotion and history and hope those words carried for us then, and how much they still mean to us know.

And you know what else?

It was exactly what I would have wanted our “actual” anniversary to be. It was real. It was honest. It was tender and sweet and private. We’ll save the silly celebrations for later. Those special moments were all about taking time to quietly reflect on just how amazingly blessed we are to call each other best friends…lovers… teammates… family…husband and wife.

And that was all the joy I could have ever dreamed of wanting for such a very special day.

 

How we’re doing on “happily-ever-after:” The Anniversary Post

I can’t believe it.

Really, I can’t.

But it’s true.

Hubs and I have been married for a whole year.

Crazy, isn’t it?

I mean, considering the fact that we dated for 6 1/2 years before we got married, so much more has happened in the past 366 days. (It was a leap year, after all, so we got an extra day in our first year of marriage.)

Anyway, a year ago, we stood in front of friends and family and promised some really beautiful things to each other. They were promises we wrote specifically for the each other, in addition to the more traditional vows that our minister personalized for us.

I just read through them again, as I’ve done several times over the past year, and my eyes filled up with tears of overwhelming joy and humility as I realize how amazingly blessed we are to have found each other so young… how extraordinarily happy I am that I got to marry my best friend.

For some more wedding-related memories, read this post here and this other one here.

And for what I’d learned at the 6-month mark, read this one.

Last year, we promised to figure out our own way to happily-ever-after as we write our love story each day. Here’s how I think we’re doing and what we’ve learned:

1. Being together is so much better than being apart. After doing the distance thing for nearly our entire season of dating, we are so thankful that we are now committed to the “Where you go, I will go,” attitude toward marriage that we’ve chosen. Sure, there will be short periods of time when we have to be apart, and it will be awful, but we’re committed to making a decision together if ever there is a circumstance that would require longer-term time away. Maybe that would be a job change, or something, but if one of us goes, the other goes. No questions. We know that every relationship is different and that what’s right for us doesn’t make sense for everyone, but it’s something we decided before we were married and we continue to be passionate about this decision.

2. I struggle with housework because I’m still learning to balance my time as I work from home. Right now, I’m blogging while Hubs does the dishes. Yes, it’s our anniversary and we’re working towards getting ready to go out to celebrate tonight, but there’s still dishes that need to be done as we enter this busy week. Should I have done them already since I was home all day? Maybe. But did I skip my much-desired workout today because I was so busy with work stuff? Yes. It’s not that I don’t do anything house-related during the day (I did 2 loads of laundry), it’s just that I feel guilty when I come home and there’s so much messiness around me after being here all day. It’s something to work on for next year for sure.

3. Hubs is awesome at being handy. I’ve learned to trust his judgement about things like cars and house repairs. He’s also awesome at Excel and everything else job-related. I so respect him so much as he settles into work and provides for our family. Sure, I’m working, but as a freelancer, my pay is unsteady and usually weeks or months after I spend the time researching and writing. Not so great at helping pay the bills each month. It’s amazing to watch him become a man that I’m even more in love with every day.

4. Our families have been so supportive as we’re settling into marriage. We are constantly blessed by their help, advice, encouragement, and testimonies of what it means to make a marriage work over time. We are blessed with parents and grandparents who truly love one another and whose stories inspired us and shaped the way we view love. As a celebration of that, we made this video to be played before the start of our wedding. It’s just as special now, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

And finally, the biggest lesson or reflection I’ve had thinking back over our year together:

5. This is life. It isn’t something we’re going to ever “Get.” It’s not something we’ll ever fully learn to be good at. We’re going to mess up and lot, laugh a lot, and keep on waking up together every morning by opening our eyes to see the one we love.

Sure, we’re getting better at specific things like fighting fair and sharing the bed, but we’re still just going to have to keep working though every day, no matter how fun or frustrating it may be. We’re blessed to have been given this relationship to share our struggles and joys, and I’m blessed to share it with you. But no matter how hard I try, some days, or weeks, or months, there just isn’t going to be an major “lesson” or achievement in our relationship. Sometimes, life is more about making it together than what where we’re actually going.

However, I can tell you one thing about where we’re going. It’ll be our own little version of paradise, wherever and whatever that means, because we’ll be going there together.

Congratulations to all the newlyweds who read my blog. Whenever your day is, I hope you take some time to think about things you’ve learned or come to realize in your marriage so far. Maybe it’s a communication technique you’ve finally “mastered.” Maybe it’s something to work on for next year. Maybe it’s something you never realized about your hubs that you just adore. Tell me. I’d love to hear!

One year ago

One year ago, right now, we were struggling to load up everything we’d DIY’d and gathered up for our reception decorations. I think I was arguing with my dad a little bit about having some sort of plan for everyone to follow.

We were packing up everything into the big horse trailer my dad has for the farm to get ready to take a big load out to the fairgrounds where our reception was being held.

Then we were off to enjoy donuts as everyone of our helpers rushed to get everything just so. It was a great day, and everything went so well as we worked to make the building look lovely.

We had things like this:

The guest book where people wrote us advice and best wishes and notes from the heart…

On this table:

So many little note cards, all designed by me, and printed by my mom’s wonderful co-worker, for people to choose to write their notes on.

And this:

The cake table full of cupcakes! And the little signs I made telling what kinds they were. We had 6 kinds and they were awesome. YUM. Also, the handmade confetti was fun. I’d be a professional wedding DIY-er if I could.

And a table that ended up being decorated like this:

The “menu table.” The menu was also printed on the placemats we’d made for every person to have at their seats, complete with a customized crossword puzzle, all about Wyatt and I.

With a photo backdrop like this:

So fun!

And so so so many of these, which I love:

And these, which we’d picked and assembled the day before:

So lovely and simple.

And this:

Our favors in the wagon. A mix “tape” of “his, hers, and ours” favorite songs.

And this:

Photo board of us while we were dating…for 7 years…

And of course this:

This was my pride and joy of DIY. I LOVED making this.

More memories to come tomorrow, guys. Thanks for celebrating with me as we remember our happy, beautiful day!

A season for change…

There’s big stuff happening in our newlywed lives.

This day was almost a year ago! Holy cow wow!

For one, we’ve now been married for more than 11 months! Almost a year! According to some, we’re almost out of the newlywed stages! Wow!

On that note, I’m planning for some changes coming up for the blog. If we’re no longer newlyweds, we’ll have to think of a way to transition that to the next few years, right? (Let me know if you have an idea!)

Anyway, the changes.

First of all, I’m now back down to one job. Which is both good and bad. Good because I’m able to stay home, saving gas money and getting ready for the summer ahead of us. Bad because it means a gap in income, at a sort of unfortunate time.

But, I’m still writing from home, and I’ve actually picked up several freelancing projects from the company where I served my internship these past few months. So I’m actually finding myself pretty busy while I’m at home lately.

There’s other changes coming our way soon as well, but you’ll have to stay tuned to hear all about those.

But the main change I’ve noticed is that we’ve been staying home more. We no longer play volleyball on Tuesdays since the league ended. We haven’t been going to visit friends and family back home every weekend. We haven’t been running around crazy for errands and other stuff at night. It’s just been us, living up here in the city, being a married couple.

And I’ll admit that I’ve been surprised by how nice it feels.

How calming and relaxing our weekends really are when we aren’t running around all over the place.

How comforting it is to just be us as we really settle into our life together as husband and wife.

How proud I am of the way we are content to find fun, easy, and usually free things to do when we find our schedule free and clear.

How awesome it is that we don’t have to find anything at all to do if we don’t want to.

Is this what married life feels like? Does this mean we really are no longer newlyweds?

I think maybe it does.

Which makes me a little sad. But a whole lot happy.

 

Self-soothing – “Breathe”

Hubs and I don’t have kids yet, but when we do, we’re planning to teach them to self-soothe. (After they are old enough for that, obviously. We’re not sure what age that is yet, but we’ll figure that out when we get there.)

Anyway, self-soothing kids isn’t really what I wanted to talk about.

I’m learning to self-soothe myself.

I’ve realized in the past 10 months, (Yup, 10 months married today!) that I get upset more often than I used to. I’m not really upset with Hubs, but he’s usually involved because he’s here and we’re married now, so he’s always involved. I blame the hormone pills, because, let’s face it, those things can cause some trouble in the emotions department. But I also understand that we’re around each other more, we share more, talk more, interact more, and disagree more.

All of those are great reasons for me to be upset more.

Ok, not great reasons to be upset, but rather, realistic causes for me to be upset.

(You understood what I mean, right?)

Anyway, while those are all true, and whether or not is seems like it from reading about all the ways we fight, I’m getting better at forgetting the little things and not overreacting about minor disagreements or troubles. I think the main reason I sometimes find myself overwhelmed and ready to cry is because we have huge decisions facing us right now that we have no idea of how to plan for. And I’m a planner. Planning is my thing. I planned my way into graduating college in three years with a double major and an honors degree. With a 4.0. I’m an excellent planner.

But there’s no way to plan for the sort of decisions we’re making now. Decisions that will affect us for a long time in a lot of different ways… financially, spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally…

Big stuff.

It isn’t like I didn’t know we’d have to decide this stuff, it’s just that I thought it would be easier.

(I know, right? I was young and in love, or young and dumb, your pick…)

And I get overwhelmed when I think about all the things we have no way of knowing or deciding.

And when I get overwhelmed, I can’t sleep.

And when I can’t sleep, Hubs gets upset because I’m keeping him up.

And when Hubs gets upset, he’s not always that great at calming me down and cheering me up.

(That’s something I’ve learned from other great marriage blogs (like this one!): Don’t try to discuss important things when you’re tired. It won’t work!)

So, I’m learning to self-soothe.

I’m hoping this will help him not have to worry about what to say (that I already know) or solve (when there’s no solution) when he’s already too tired to think clearly or communicate effectively and let him focus on simple things that will make me feel better.

Things like pulling me in for a tight hug and rubbing my back or neck, massaging my head, holding my hand and squeezing every few seconds so I know he’s awake and that he cares that I’m upset.

And for my part, I’ll repeat the things he’s said so many times before in my head. I’ll silently pray for peace and the ability to rely on God’s sovereignty in our lives. (Sometimes I pray out loud, too, but that often makes me cry for some reason, so I can’t always get the words out.) And I breathe.

Breathing is what Hubs does best when he needs to calm me down.

It’s a special, sweet way of showing me, with love, that he cares that I’m upset but that I need to calm down. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a very big deal to me.

I actually already wrote about this last year on the blog I wrote as a happy journal, so I wanted to share it here with you guys.

Day 304: “Breathe”

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No one, and I mean, no one, knows me the way Wyatt does. I mean, yes, I’m close to my parents and my sister and my closest friends and other family members, but really, it’s not the same. I know that’s how it is supposed to be, I am marrying him after all. I just enjoy when something touches me in a certain way and I realize the awesome way that God blessed us with each other.

Tonight, I was pretty upset about something and I was crying, quite a bit (as odd as that is to admit on this very public forum, but we’re all friends here, right?  So I can if I want to). Anyway, whenever I’m crying, I’m usually trying to stop crying, so I tend to hold my breath in hopes that it will get better and the crying will just…I don’t know…go away?

At this point, I need to describe the kind of crying we’re dealing with. This is the quiet, lots of tears running down my cheeks, but I’m not making a sound, kind of crying. Not sobbing and gasping for air, but also not a single glistening tear down my cheek (as much as my attempts to hold my breath try to make it that kind of crying). It’s a very quiet, very upset, very painful, and honestly, a very unproductive way to cry, but I can’t help it, when I’m upset and don’t want to cry but can’t hold it in, that’s how it comes out.

Well, recently, I guess more than recently, but recently I’ve noticed, Wyatt has gotten into the habit of saying “breathe” whenever he can tell I’m holding my breath when I’m crying or about to cry or some combination of both. It never fails that I suddenly realize, “hey, I haven’t inhaled in a long time.” So I do, and slowly, as he reminds me to breathe in and out, deeply, he calms me down and I stop crying.

As I write this, I think my dad used to do this too, when I was MUCH younger, and it was different. That was when it used to be the sobbing, can’t catch my breath because I’m gasping for air and choking on my sobs kind of crying. You know…crying. Anyway, he used to tell me to breathe too, and it helped then, too, I know, though I can’t really remember. I think he was a bit firmer, probably because he was more trying to ensure I didn’t make myself hurl because I was crying so hard, which isn’t really an issue now.

But this is different. Maybe it’s the way Wyatt says it to me softly, as if he’s holding me (sometimes he actually is holding me, other times, like tonight, it’s on the phone) and he just whispers it in my ear, and then he breathes for me. Not literally by blowing air into my lungs, but he breathes in and out, slowly, loudly, clearly, so I can follow him. And then the two of us are breathing together, just in and out, quietly, (usually, there are still a few louder, quicker breaths from me as I slowly get adjusted back to regular breaths), by allowing my body to melt into his (whether together or apart), the tears just seem to stop.

I hope that wasn’t sharing too much with you all. I guess it was pretty personal, but it was on my heart and on my mind as I sit here in bed waiting for the sleepiness to come. It’s amazing to me how I’m reminded of the little ways in which Wyatt’s love for me is so pure, so honest, so perfect, so…us.

It really is a beautiful picture of Love, capital “L” Love, you know, the kind that we can only know through our Father? The kind of love that reaches down to us when we are so unlovable (with our gasping breaths and puffy, red eyes) and says, “Yes, I love you and don’t want you to hurt. Now, “Breathe.”

“And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life…” Genesis 2:7

Your turn! I’d love to know what you think about this sweet way Hubs blesses me, and I’d love to hear what works for you when you’re upset and need to self-soothe.

“X”anthippe

Well, guys, I’m a bit late posting, but it was a busy weekend so I hope you’ll forgive me.

My friend, Elizabeth got married on Saturday and celebrating with them took most of our time this weekend,

but, I want to finish up the A to Z blogging challenge today so I end on schedule.

For X, I’m going to (probably) introduce you to a word.

An Xanthippe is a woman who is ill-tempered and often scolding.

We have the word today because of Socrates’  proverbially scolding and quarrelsome wife.

As I thought about this, it struck me how terrible it would be to leave that sort of legacy on your marriage.

When people look at our relationship, I want to make sure that they see a loving, generous, and supportive woman standing beside her loving, generous, and supportive husband. I want to be remembered as a couple that played often, fought fair, and made wise decisions together. And most of all, I want people to see that we love with a love than can only be inspired by the way our Father loves us.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7

What about you? What sort of legacy do you want to leave with your marriage?