I am procrastinating

All I want to do is play with pictures. Here are some from this past summer (Family night, Walking the Land at Cooper's) and Max at Valentine's Dinner.

This is Family Night. I can't wait to live here.

This is where the wedding reception is going to be.

Finished his chicken, drank his milk, and got his dessert.

so maybe not in red feather, but this is quite the day

I am about to go to Hobby Lobby in search of some wedding crafts. I am quite proud of myself, as I don't find myself to be that crafty, I envisioned this idea of a seating chart made out of chicken wire and paper doilies. I didn't know how they would look or even how to go about putting the two together. But these two blog sites (http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2009/09/06/chicken-wire-organization-calendar-download/, http://www.papertastebuds.com/?p=2283 )helped make the vision a little clearer. I'm so excited to attempt something like this. I need to learn sometime.

And I just figured out, kinda, the guestbook!

Happy Friday!!!!

love fool

The semester is certainly underway, I have not had the time or thoughts (other than about painting, art history, spanish, or drawing) to blog.

But I'm feeling caught up finally, i think, but i thought i'd share some more thoughts on marriage today.

This past weekend, Seth and I went to the Sanker family's house for dinner. They are a lovely couple from Christ our Hope with five little boys to keep us entertained thoughout dinner and church services ;) They feel like, as a couple, they should take young engaged or soon to be marrieds into their house to nuture and help answer questions about marriage and life together. We are very thankful to have such help and encouragement all around us, I am so thankful for people who care enough to help us prepare!

Seth gave me a piece of reading that I am embarrassed to say I don't know the source of but its practical and insightful writing about marriage has inspired me.

One of the biggest problems i think, and a reason for so many failed marriages, stems from this society's obsession with ROMANCE. Love to so many involves feelings, good feelings, and even some bad (under the ruse of "passionate") feelings, and all those actions that show that a guy (or girl) cares: flowers, presents, surprises, ostentatious displays of sweet affection. What happens when they end? Does that really mean that he's stopped caring? Actually, maybe it does. Because that economy of buying affection will end--there's only so much that can be bought.

hmm. maybe that's more of my "valentine's day is meaningless" lecture. Back to romance, which is completely founded in feelings (which are temporary...much like happiness), in David Matzko McCarthy's The Good Life: Genuine Christianity for the Middle Class (i found the source!) dating and romance is described as something that can bring a couple "to the alter" something that is "face to face." While dating, "We develop a romantic relationship, just you and I, and our best moments are free from intrusion, where we are able to look deeply into each other's eyes."
But this cannot sustain a couple. It feels needless to say that after a while, reality sets in. And McCarthy suggests that couples must be "side by side" rather than the "face to face" of a "You and I" relationship.
McCarthy then writes about the sadness presented in the media over marriage:

"Modern marriage is comic in some respects, but the picture given by the typical sitcom is ultimately tragic. In the typical television program, the foibles and misfortunes of marriage are resolved by a renewal of romantic appreciation. In other words, husband and wife are renewed by a face to face moment. They are able to turn away from the dishes and dirty laundry and focus on each other--on their relationship. The message here, I think, is that romance can overcome all troubles, and that youthful love can endure. This is the tragedy: marriage endures only if we never grow up, if our love never moves beyond the immaturity of dating...Christians, in contrast, are called to a higher love of friendship with God...Romantic love makes promises ("till death do we part") that it cannot keep."

That's long but way too good to condense. but there's more in the next paragraph:

"Friendship sustains the promise...Romantically, we desire to give ourselves over to another. In friendship, we are called to live side by side, animated by a common vision and progressing toward a common goal. If romance draws individuals outside of themselves, friendship draws the pair outside of "the relationship."

I really like that last sentance especially because it is so challenging. Friendship in this chapter is what takes romance's place in a marriage, and it is what lasts. "The friendship of God draws us to a love that we cannot sustain on our own in our private moments of loving face to face. We are called to join together to increase in faithfulness." As Christians, as I've stated alot, we pray that our marriage is beyond ourselves--that because of Christ, we, as a married couple, are able to give and love fully. And we plan to do this by modeling our future home after the Church (or what the Church should be): open to neighbors and strangers, a place for hospitality, and food and drink.

I get very excited when writing that last line. Because as a soon to be wife, I want for the first time in my life, to be home, to make our home these things. I want to make it cozy and inviting, always smelling good, with the raspberry bushes blooming and that little garden plot growing veggies for our salads--I need to start those seeds right now!

It's almost three months away. what what what what what! sometimes I lay in bed and try to think of the moment that Dave will say "husband and wife." It overcomes me. Then the other day I found this picture of the reception site :) I took it right after a storm on 4th of July last year. We are praying for no rain, but if it happens to rain on the wedding day, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, because if it'd clear, it could look like this:

A VERY happy tuesday to everyone. I wish everyone could see how beautiful Fort Collins is today. The sun's out! (After four days with no sun, I am baffled as to how I lasted through two Michigan winters, I didn't see the sun for month(s?). Wait, i know, tanning beds, julian, and some friends helped ;)

Ash Wednesday

Valentine's Day was Sunday and it was the best one I've ever had. I don't care that I keep saying that.

I've grown up thinking (and still think) the day is kind of pointless. Shouldn't we show love towards our partners everyday? And isn't romance just...well...pointless? And also the day is just so blatantly consumer oriented, so that's dumb.

So this year Seth and I decided to make dinner for some of our favorite friends, rather than having a dinner all to ourselves. And it was sooo much fun.

I was completely sick and stressed out with the two tests I had to study for while steaming the artichokes, breading the chicken, and making sauce, but with Seth's help and his kind kind words, I was able to focus not on the things that are meaningless (getting an A on a test should not overshadow more important things), but on making something good to gather people together.

Maybe the Spanish Test didn't go the greatest the next day (I will blame it on the cold, for I did spend days studying for that thing), but I did get to laugh alot at Seth's video game instructions, flying Spaghetti, and pictures.

I hope we'll have "valentine" dinners all the time when we are married.

Happy Wednesday!

And here starts the Lent season......

Preview of Valentines Day

The family, and valentine's dinner. It couldn't have been better.

more later

Too.much. art history. II

I have been studying all morning, all day, and am rewarding myself with a blog entry.

While studying Byzantine, Islamic, and Medieval European art, "Say Yes to the Dress" episodes played as my background noise (I've been finding that I need to be in the middle of the house, not stuck up in my room, on my bed, if I want to get any homework done).

It's weird how a show focused so heavily on bride worship and consumerism can both anger me and move me...perhaps that's the danger and why i should not be watching it. But I like seeing the dresses (which can be works of art) and marveling at the disgusting price tags.

But it's when they show the brides actually getting married that I lose it. And then Kelsey and Larissa came home from their old housemate, Brooke's (I'm new Brooke), wedding, and Kelsey started talking about the details and crying during it and I started welling up again.

But after watching a couple more episodes, (there must have been a marathon?), I'm just amazed at how people act around weddings and preparations...

It's hilarious, mothers and sisters and cousins of the bride who act terribly. I kind of think there is no room for a person to tell another person how to look.

I'm lucky that my mom is really good about not saying really anything, aside from encouraging words, about the dress or the way things look. Actually, both my parents have been great about both maintaining a balance of 1. accepting my personal style, (i don't know if i like that phrase, but i will go with it just because it seems to make sense) 2. letting us know what's acceptable. And when I say "what's acceptable" I think I mainly mean that they kept me and my sister's feet on the ground. I don't really ever remember being told, "don't wear that" and I certainly have NEVER been told "that's not flattering" or "that doesn't look good." At least not until I've admitted it first.

But they have both maintained a sense of humor that I feel my sister and I both have towards clothes, appearance, etc. From Dad's term: "bun head" (a big knotted bun on the top of the head) to Mom's "okay" and "it doesn't really even matter" attitude, I feel we've (Lacey and I) been raised around a really grounded pair of adults.

So it baffles me, like so many things in this wedding industry, when advice (advice that hasn't been asked for) is given. Advice like, "that looks terrible, that's not you, i don't like it." These comments are coming from somewhere that is insecure, jealous, or controlling (which is so often only a manifestation of insecurity, and self-doubt).

So this goes to Momma, thank you for just sitting back in that chair and saying "yes" "yes" "yes" to every gown I tried on. Lacey and I always say how good you guys are. You've made things pretty good for us :)

Last night, Seth and I went to Catalyst for a couple beers (mmmm stout) and we were pleasantly surprised by the nights' band; they were this bluegrass group that was amazing. I want to book them for our reception. The other night at prayer group, Eddie suggested we have a barn dance...which i have no problem with, just as long as there's time for Michael Jackson, Daft Punk, and MGMT.

I kind of doubt that there will be a live band, but it'd be nice, right?

The other night I had a dream that showed me pictures of what our wedding will look like. I remember seeing my cute nieces in sweet dresses.

Ashley's coming to town

As I wait for my friend Ashley to arrive, I watch the light and swirling snow. It's pretty but it's cold and the branches are all bare and I wish the sun was out.

So, here's a poem just for today: (another Jane Kenyon)

"February: Thinking of Flowers"

Now wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound.

Nothing but white- the air, the light;
only one brown milkweed pod
bobbing in the gully, smallest
brown boat on the immense tide.

A single green sprouting thing
would restore me....

Then think of the tall delphinium,
swaying, or the bee when it comes
to the tongue of the burgundy lily.