To Texas and back

Last week, BJ and I traveled to Texas for BJ to attend the ACU Summit. As always, Texas delivered with a wonderful time. Here is our trip in pictures.

We started the trip in Alton because we had to fly out from St. Louis. I got BJ's mom to take a picture of I because I haven't really had pictures taken in the past three years. Here we are before taking off:

The dogs stayed with BJ's mom in Alton. This meant I had to say goodbye to Gus *sniffle*. But I had to get one good picture of Gus before I left to show the man at Nugent who gave him to us. Sienna, as is often her habit, snuck into the picture. She's a ham.

Upon arrival in Abilene, Josh and Allie picked us up and took us on a whirlwind trip to Lubbock to see there new house. While there, we played games. This is Josh reading the instructions while the rest of us daydream about gumdrops and jelly beans. Why gumdrops and jelly beans? Lets just say this game had really, really long instructions.

We took a quick group picture before we left. The guys were surprisingly cooperative about this picture. Maybe they're maturing? No, that can't be it.

Monday, my parents came up and took me to Waco. This is me a Bro walking around Waco. Actually, it is a totally staged photo we were forced to do for Mom's scrapbooking purposes.

This is the four of us taking a photo in his tiny, miniscule, walk-in closet size apartment. Maybe it wasn't that small, but it was really small. I like it.

When I finally settled in Abilene on Tuesday (two days before it was time to leave), I had a game night with the Gensics. I'm not sure what everyone is laughing about in this photo, but knowing the Gensics, it probably has something to do with bodily function.

And then, perhaps most importanty, I got to meet Emerald's precious daughter, Lily Vienne. She let me hold her for a solid 3 hours. Her fingernails are extremely small. I know that there are probably more significant things I could say about meeting her, but I really couldn't get over how small the fingernails are.

Lastly, here is a photo of the luggage the airport managed to ruined. They broke this zipper. Gotta love traveling!

Composing life

Stories matter. I'm twenty-four years old and rapidly approaching twenty-five. That has given me a quarter of a century to form my own stories, to collect moments that compose my life.

I started this blog over three years ago because my brother kept nagging me about it. There weren't any noble reasons behind it or a clear purpose. I was simply writing about life, about how I was learning to be a wife, how Sienna and Tony and then Gus were salting our life with countless moments of humor (or disgust), about mourning the loss of Grandma and struggling through the uncertainties of financial problems and employment, and during the good times, about laughing with my family and friends and growing into BJ's family. All of these stories and more are chronicled in my archives, my own virtual life-library.

I've been drudging through a rough patch here lately. Six months ago, I lost a pregnancy after only a few days of knowing. I thought the disappointment would pass quickly, but it keeps creeping up on me. Even though I've always wanted to be candid on my blog, I didn't post about this incident when it happened. I could think of no words at the time. But now I'm writing it down so that I have the story recorded.

Although I'm six-ish years into adulthood, I still catch myself gawking at just how hard and unpredictable this story keeps proving to be. Some days, when things are moving slowly, I shuffle through my blog archives. There are a lot of happy, funny stories there. They are good to read when life is heavy. There are also many times of difficulty. Those are also good to read. I am reminded that those times passed, and BJ and I stayed in motion, and as cliche as it sounds, we grew through those trials.

A constant theme in BJ's sermons is the role of story in Christianity. For me, stories in books, poems, television shows, movies, my blog, other peoples blogs, and in conversations with friends and family are all part of my faith just as the stories of the Bible ground that faith. They are all instructing me and accompanying me through life, and for that reason, I know that my current slump is not without hope and that God's mercy is active in moments even like these.

Random thoughts

I'm currently wearing a skirt that I bought in either late junior high or early high school. I'm wondering, does that make it old enough for me to call it 'vintage'?

We took communion to shut-ins Sunday after church. One of the older gentlemen we visited asked me where I live, and I said that I live with BJ down the road. At first he was shocked, but then he figured out that I was BJ's wife. His reaction: "I thought you were just 15 or something." Gotta love those freckles.

One week and one day until we head out to Texas!!!!!!!!!!! And some more exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got accepted to a creative writing program last week, but I couldn't decide if I should do it or not. So I made my friend, Kayla, decide. We've decided to postpone it until I feel more certain. All indecisive people should make at least one friend who is good at planning life.

I just spent the past hour reviewing BJ's sermon for the coming Sunday. I had worked on it earlier today for an hour, and it was one of those times when he was saying good things, but they were coming out border-line heretical. We got it fixed, I think.

BJ cut Gus's torso hair last week, but his leg hair, tail, and head remain uncut. He looks ridiculous.

Sienna's hips are getting really bad. It breaks my heart seeing that dog cripple around. I know I'm not supposed to like her, but I still love her. It just can't be helped. She's too pretty not to love.

Tony is still evil. BJ still hates him.

That's all for now.

What's up

Nothing has really been happening that merits a full blog post, but here is what's been going on in my life:

-This week I am wearing white shoes or clothing in mourning of the approaching Labor Day. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have a Monday off of work, but Labor Day means summer is ending and the destruction of winter cometh. And it suddenly becomes taboo to wear my white wedge sandals and white pant, which makes me sad.

-One of my best friends from college is having a baby this week. She is my first close friend to get pregnant, and I really wish I could have been nearer during the past nine months. This is making Texas seem even farther away.

-BJ has recently started wearing his Sunday dress shirt, blue jeans, a belt, and dress shoes for Sunday night church. He came up with the new look all on his own, and I am really liking it. In fact, I'm liking it enough that I can't remember for the life of me what his sermon was on last Sunday night.

-Even though I usually look down on people freaking out when celebrities they never actually knew die, I found myself feeling really sad over Ted Kennedy's passing. For me, the Democrat party has a familial element to it. My dad raised me on the teachings of FDR and the New Deal and the Great Society. So yeah, I shed a few tears for the fierce advocate of those ideals.

-We had the youth group over to our house Sunday night. During a game where BJ and I had to go hide and the kids had to look for us, a few of our youth-groupers tried to manipulate our dogs into tracking us down with pleas of "Gus and Sienna, go find mommy." It didn't work. For once, our dogs' general denseness worked in our favor.

-I bought fresh mozzarella last night for our eggplant-parmesan dinner. It was expensive, but let me say, fresh mozzarella is so worth the extra few bucks. So worth it.

That's all for now. I know. It's pretty boring, but I do live in the middle of nowhere, so be forgiving.