I love love

Sweater & Jewelry: F21 // Skinnies: H&M // Wedges: Target // Glasses: My eye doctor (because I really do wear prescription lenses unlike all the other posers.)

I took these pictures in hopes that maybe some day soon I can actually comfortably wear a sweater. Have you read my about page? "Every day that I can wear a sweater is a good day in my book." I actually meant that. We are getting some strange weather here right now and sweaters have not been in my daily wear. It has been deceivingly hot out for the past while. Deceiving because I wake up to wondrous clouds that trick me into thinking I can wear a jacket out on my walks and lay around in sweaters all day, when in reality it is 99 degrees and as humid as ever. Ok it is no wear near 99, but it is hot and that is my point.

Anyways, I'm not sure how this post ended up being about the weather. Let's talk about jeans shall we? Does anyone else have a nearly impossible time finding good skinny jeans? They are either too stretchy,  I buy them a size too small they shrink in the dryer, they aren't the right color, etc... Insert these jeans. I'm not all about the light wash, but I love the color on these ones. Other than being about a million inches too long, they are great. I love the way they fit. I wore them to a buffet this weekend and I didn't leave feeling like I needed to change the instant I got home. I could probably lay around the house all day in them and be comfy. As a bonus they were actually less than 20 bucks! H&M was having a by one get one half off sale, so I also got them in black for 10 bucks.

Now if only fall would come...

My first vlog, and three years of marriage

Hey everyone! Here I am with the first vlog of my life. Not sure how I feel about this, but I'm posting it anyways. I feel like my face is a little weird looking, but whatever. Maybe I will have to start learning how to be more videogenic too? Also, I hate how my voice sounds completely different when I hear it recorded than it does in my head. You guys know what I'm talking about, right?

Anyways, this does not have any answers to questions about marriage. We left our camera and tripod at home on accident, which is what we were going to do the vlog with, so I decided that I will do that vlog later. I will try to post it on monday so you guys can keep sending us questions if you have anything you would like us to answer. I got some good ones already so I'm excited! They don't have to be advice about marriage or dating, you can just ask us stuff about anything you are curious about our relationship or our life in general.


Now you enjoy this video, while I start working on some homework in the most comfortable bed of my life! Then we can start celebrating our three amazing years of marriage!! Yay!

first vlog from Tanya on Vimeo.

Time flies when you're having fun!

Photo's by Zach Grasley

Tomorrow is mine and Alex's 3 year wedding anniversary!

Wow, I can't believe it's been three years!

I feel like after three years you are officially no longer newlyweds.

You've already been through a lot of ups and downs of life.

You've had time to figure each other out and learn a bit about your roles as a husband and wife.

Do we know everything and are perfect because we have been married for three years?

Not a chance.

Do we know a lot more than we did three years ago?

Absolutely!

Do we still need to work on having a healthy relationship?
Every. single. day.

As a little treat for you guys, I've decided to do my first vlog!

And an extra little treat is that Alex will be joining me for this first vlog of mine.

I'm excited!

We will be answering some FAQ's about married life and some things we have focused on to maintain a healthy relationship, as well as some of our life long goals to make sure we can continue to thrive as a couple.

If you have any specific questions you'd like us to answer leave a comment or email me! 

Just remember that we aren't perfect! We do not at all have all the answers, we are just learning as we go, and thought it would be fun to share some of the experiences we have had with other people.

Hopefully we will have this little vlog up for you tomorrow, but forgive me if it doesn't get posted until monday. After all it is our anniversary, and we will be out celebrating! 

Photo's by Zach Grasley

The finale, Our {love} story, part 6!

I can't believe this has been a 6 part series, but like I said, everything took awhile to lead up to the actual date. If you missed any of the first 5 stories, here they are! {part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5}.


So yesterday I left of with Alex considering asking me out early.


When I got wind of this, I was so excited! I thought for sure that my long wait was over and I was finally going to be able to be with the guy that I had been waiting for. I had another meeting with my mentor (which we usually did about once a month or every other week, depending on what was going on) and she informed me all about what was going on.

By the way, I know that this was a little unconventional, having mentors help us with our decisions and all. We just felt that they were older and wiser and could give us a good outside perspective. Alex and I were completely caught up in our emotions, and had we been left to our own devices we could have made a lot of rash decisions. We chose to go to them for their guidance, not because we were forced to, just because we thought they would know a smart decision better than we would. This was extremely helpful for us, and Jason and Cassandra were a perfect match for us and our life style.

 So there I was, extremely excited because I thought maybe Alex and I would start dating an extra two months early. When I talked to Cassandra, I found out that Alex had been talking with Jason (the director of the school and Cassandra's husband) to help him decide if he should just forget about our 9 month commitment and just ask me out early. Cassandra told me that Alex had gone to Jason and was in complete agony from waiting so long. His feelings had grown ten fold since we had made our initial decision. He told Jason that this was the real deal, he wanted to date me because he knew that he wanted to marry me.

When Cassandra told me all this I was completely floored. I knew how I felt about him, but I had no idea that he felt the same way! I was so shocked, and again, this was just a confirmation for me. I was supposed to be with this man. This was the guy I was going to marry. People tried to reason with me, "You haven't even dated yet, you don't know if this is going to work out, how can you know that you are going to marry him? You guys don't even talk about your feelings!" I can't explain how I knew, I just did. I felt complete confirmation in my heart and in my spirit.

You can call me crazy all you want, but the truth is that I did end up marrying this guy.


After Alex told Jason how strongly he was feeling for me, they left that meeting without any decisions being made one way or the other. They both decided that they would pray about it and meet again to see what they felt was the right thing to do. Then Cassandra told me that Alex had gone back to meet with Jason early with a decision of his own.

All on his own, Alex decided that he was going to keep our commitment. As much as he wanted to date now he decided that he wanted to wait. Although, instead of our first date being on January 1st, he changed it to December 31st, so he could take me out on New Year's Eve.

When Cassandra told me all this, I had a wide range of emotions. I was a bit disappointed for sure. Because I was tired of waiting. I just wanted to be with him. But at the same time, I completely respected the decision he had made. I felt like this was the very first time a guy had shown me complete and utter respect and made a real mature decision to put me first.

I know this all sounds a little crazy, why would I care so much when I had never really dated this guy? The truth is I don't really know why I felt so strongly. I guess you can only really understand if you are in the situation.

You know the feeling that you have when you first start seeing someone? You don't really know if they are interested because you haven't had the talk but you know that you are definitely interested in them. You wait patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) for them to make a move, to pursue you, to show that you are the one that they want to be with. That is what it was like. Only that didn't last a few weeks, or even a few months. That lasted an entire year and a half. There was constant suspense and mystery. And had it been any other guy I probably would have lost interest, but it was Alex.

We have a connection that I have never had with anyone else. Even in the very beginning he made me laugh hysterically. I've had boyfriends that I could be silly with and have fun and make stupid jokes, but not until I felt secure in a relationship with them. With Alex, we were silly together immediately. We were always doing stupid things, like trying to do ice skating lifts in the middle of our church hallway, or pretend to be boxing. I'm pretty sure every person around us was tired of our incessant flirting, if you can call it flirting. When school started the next year we were closer than ever. We really had become best friends. And we were so weird. We would make animal noises at each other from across the room. We would talk for hours and hours whenever we could steal some time together. No matter how often, or how little we spent time together, the connection we had made was deep and long lasting.

He truly had become my best friend.

That following Halloween Alex and I ended up working a shift together at my store with one of my other co-workers/friends. We all decided to dress up together. We tried to figure out a good costume for three people and came up with some crazy idea of dressing up as "Stop, drop, and roll" like the saying, but we took the words literally.

I know that Alex's costume probably doesn't make much sense to the outside world, but he was dressed as a giant tip drop bag. Which at Starbucks was what we "dropped" our tips in at the end of the night to put them in the safe. If you have ever worked at Starbucks, I'm sure you will catch the reference. Also, I was a "roll", as in a dinner roll!

Anyways, we just had a ton of fun together. Whether it was just the two of us or we were with a crowd of people, we were always drawn to each other and we were always being crazy and having a good time.

Many people tell me that we were already dating. Which depending on your definition of dating, I suppose you can choose to see it that way. We did like each other, and by our actions it was pretty obvious, but we still hadn't talked about it. In every way I wanted him to be my "boyfriend" but I knew I had to wait for him to make the first move.

As time went on we started to do some of the more obvious and normal things that people do before they date. For instance, Alex texted me later one night after I had gone out dancing with some friends and told me how beautiful I looked. I remember other times where I would be at work, checking my phone every few minutes to see if I had received any text messages from him because we would be having long texting conversations, that sometimes hinted at our feelings for each other.

It was amazing.

Then December rolled around. I was so full of emotions that I'm surprised I didn't burst into tears every five minutes. I was absolutely giddy! I only had a month left to go.

Then one day there were rumors of a huge snow storm that was coming. We never really know if we should believe that there is actually going to be a snow storm. Because, we pretty much only get them like once every 4 years, but the weather forecasters probably predict about 5 a year. So we never know what to believe.

Anyways, on this one particular day, while there was absolutely no snow on the ground but tons of rumors that we were supposed to have a foot of snow on the ground by the end of the day, Alex started to "get worried" about me driving myself to work. He told me that he wanted to take me to work that day, just incase anything happened. I thought he was pretty crazy, since there literally was not even a hint that snow was coming, but I let him take me anyways. How could I pass up an opportunity to spend more time with him? Sure enough, I ended up having to close down our store early because there was a decent foot of snow on the ground! Which honestly never happens here. The worst part is that no one knows how to drive in the snow here in Oregon, because it snows so little.

So there I was, stuck at work, waiting for Alex to come rescue me. He came with some other girls that lived in the apartment next to him, that were also going to Life School. All of our houses were on top of huge hills and none of us could get home, so we all ended up staying the night in Alex's parent's house. There was about five of us there. It was pretty fun, his mom brought out lots of baby pictures of Alex, and I found out that he was probably the chubbiest baby that I have ever seen! We drank hot chocolate, ate freshly baked bread, and we all had a fun time.

Over that next week the snow stayed on the ground, which again is abnormal for these parts of Oregon. Alex and I used this as an excuse to stay together as much as possible. I ended up staying several nights in the apartment next door to his with some of my friends. When I had to work, Alex would take me, and when we both had the day off we would spend the whole day together, which was something that we had never allowed ourselves to do before. One day we spent the entire day at his apartment watching old Tom Cruise movies and hanging out.

There were no moves being made during that time, we just hung out.

It wasn't until a few days later, on December 20th, that all of our feelings and time that we had spent together caught up with us. Him and his friends planned an all day Star Wars marathon, that I was invited to (I have told you guys before, that we are nerds). Everything went down hill from there.

While we were watching the first movie, Alex was sitting on the floor, while I sat on the couch next to him. He moved closer and closer so his arm ended up touching my leg... so scandalous! (Side note: we pretty much never touched before, not even to give each other hugs or anything.) Eventually his hand made it's way closer and closer to my foot, and soon enough he was rubbing my foot with his hand, and then eventually, he was just holding my foot. Cheesy, I know.

It was all over from there.

While this marathon was going on, it had started to snow again and it was really starting to pile up. Halfway through we went from Alex's parents house (where we were having the marathon) to another person's parents house. 

We drove over to that house, not saying a word to each other. We didn't talk about what had happened, though we both were wondering what it had meant. We weren't supposed to start dating for another 11 days! What did all this foot holding mean? Should we start dating sooner? Neither of us knew.

As soon as we sat down on the couch at the other house, we were holding hands. It was like a magnet. I'm pretty sure we both sat there for a few minutes with our eyes open wide staring at the TV. Millions and millions of questions running through our heads.

After another 1 and a half movie we decided that we should probably talk. So we went on a walk. By this time the snow had piled up again, and it was raining... freezing rain. We don't always get snow in these parts, but we do get lots of ice. And this year was no exception. On top of the nearing foot of snow that was on the ground, we got a nice thick layer of ice. And this is what we had chosen to go for a walk in.

I could draw out this story much longer, but I will just say that on that walk, covered in ice, we decided to start officially dating. After a year and a half of liking each other, we were finally able to be together. We walked for nearly an hour, and by the time we were done, our jackets were sheets of ice and Alex's beard had icicles hanging down it. It was fun, and even romantic.

Ever since that day we have been inseparable. 

We still talk for hours. We are still unbelievably silly together. We still make animal noises and goggly eyes at each other from across the room. We are still crazy about each other. And as much as I thought that my feelings for him couldn't get any stronger, they have only grown a million times over since that first "date" of ours.

On New Year's Eve Alex planned a very special date for us. I was sent on a little scavenger hunt where I ended up in a park where he met me and took me to a little green room where dinner and a movie waited for me. And for the first time he told me that he loved me.

Six months after we started dating, we got engaged, and about 4 and a half months after that we were married. 

People thought it happened really fast, but the truth was, we already knew we were going to marry each other long before we ever started dating. If we were already certain that was the direction of our relationship, why wait?

Like I've said in a previous post, I don't regret marrying him as quickly as I did. My only wish is that people could have been more accepting of it, and realized that a lot happened between the time we met and the day we got married. We were ready to be fully committed to each other.

Ultimately, marriage is not about being perfect for each other, it is about being fully committed to each other. It is about working out your differences at any cost, because you value your marriage far more than you value being right or getting your own way.

If you actually stuck it out and read all of this story, thanks for reading! I know it was long, but it is our story.

As if this story wasn't long enough, Our {love} story part 5

Incase you missed the first four, here they are! {part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4}.

Alright, where did I leave off?

Right, we had just decided to wait 9 months until we started dating, or at least until we would revisit the issue and see if we still had feelings for each other.

I would say that the beginning was the hardest part, but I really don't think that any period of that nine months was harder than any other. It was all a continuous struggle. I wish it had been as simple as just being friends and not dating. But it wasn't.

There were real feelings that had developed. Feelings that I didn't even realize existed until we stopped talking. Every day I fought my urge to text him or call him or just talk to him in the hall. At first we were very rigid about all of our "no talking" rules that we had imposed upon ourselves. We would only talk while we were in groups of people. Which lead to people feeling awkward talking around us and walking away, which led to us staring at each other awkwardly and then walking away ourselves. It's kind of funny to think about now, but at the time it was probably the worst thing I could think of.

The first two months of our waiting were during school. This wasn't just your ordinary school either. We were basically stuck in the same classroom with about 5-9 other people Monday through Thursday for about 5 hours a day. It wasn't like I could just pretend he didn't exist (which I didn't even want to do) I had to be around him nearly every day! And to top it off we both were working at Starbucks and had a lot of the same friends outside of school. Just to clarify we both worked at different locations so we pretty much only saw each other when I would cover shifts at his store.

Over the summer we loosened up on our "no talking" rule a little and would hang out with mutual friends as often as we could. There was the very occasional text to invite each other places.

On my 21st birthday

At the drive-in with some friends

At a BBQ, my friend Carmel is in the middle

Hanging out at a BBQ

Playing badmitten with some of our friends, with my Friend Sara

Playing against Alex and Jason. BTW, I loved that flannel shirt!

During this time I went through a lot of personal struggles. I didn't realize how much validation I thought I needed from guys. There was never once during that 9 months that Alex told me how he was feeling about me. The only thing I had to go off of were things that people told me, my own feelings for him, and the few unrelated things he would say to me here and there. It was so hard to trust in his feelings for me while I was so unsure that they still existed.

And then I messed up.

I wish I could say, it was perfect. I was an angel and I fully trusted his feelings for me and knew that everything was going to work out perfectly. But I didn't. Every day I doubted that I was still what he wanted. I didn't know how to feel, because I couldn't talk with him about it, I had made a promise to wait until January.

I struggled a lot with my own self worth. At one point I started getting attention from other guys, and it started to make me feel better about myself. I had some "validation" that I was pretty enough, or whatever us girls feel like we need validation for.

I ended up kissing another guy.

It was someone that I met while on vacation, I don't even know why I did it. The details of the situation are not important, but what was important was that I was devastated. I'm not sure I have ever been more disappointed in myself. I thought I had ruined everything! I was sure that I was going to have to tell Alex and that he was going to say that everything was over. I remember emailing my friend telling her what a terrible mistake I had made and trying to explain that I thought I was going to marry this guy, and now everything was ruined. [Which may have been the first time that I thoughtpo, what if I am supposed to marry this guy?]

I had a chance at a fairy tale love story and I ruined everything.

After I got back from vacation I told my mentor and she assured me that it was ok and to wait to tell Alex. She brought me back to my senses and kind of helped me see why all this had happened in the first place. I realized how much I had focused just simply on getting attention from guys. During this time of not getting any of that from Alex I sought it out elsewhere. To try to find answers. To know that I was good enough. To know that I was even worth him investing his time in.

As my mentor had suggested I didn't tell Alex, because the fact of the matter was that we were not together. He wasn't my boyfriend, and as guilty as I felt I really was free to date or kiss anyone I wanted... if that is what I actually wanted. Just as he was free to do the same. This was hard for me to accept. Sometimes I still feel guilty about what I did. It was stupid and impulsive, and I wasn't thinking about the long term consequences of my actions. I was only thinking of the immediate. Luckily I was able to see past my mistake and know that in the end it would all work out.

Towards the end of summer Alex and I, little by little, started to talk more. We would actually have conversations over text messages! There was some make up work that we had to do for one of the classes that we had taken the year before and towards the end of the summer we started to work on it. We used it as an excuse to go out to coffee shops together to "work on homework". Which we did do, but we also just wanted to be around each other.

You would think that after all this time that maybe our feelings for each other would wane a bit, but they didn't. Not even a little bit. The closer January came, the stronger my feelings grew. Every time I saw him it killed me not to be able to hold his hand, or tell him how handsome I thought he looked. It killed me that the majority of our time together was spent with other people, who usually didn't understand our joking/flirting. I was just hoping and praying that maybe Alex would decide that he didn't want to wait until January. That he would decide that he wanted to date sooner. As much as I wanted to tell him that this was something that I wanted, I decided not to. I really felt like God was telling me just to wait. To allow Alex to be the one to make the decision of when we were going to start dating.

Towards the end of August, I started to get word that Alex was considering asking me out early!

As opposed to waiting until January, he was thinking of asking me sometime in October, which was only 2 months away! I was exstatic! I heard that he was going to have a meeting with Jason, the director of the school, to help him decide if he should ask me out before January 1st, or what he should do. For the first time I realized that Alex and I were completely on the same page. I knew that we were feeling the same way. Just weeks before I had prayed about this exact issue, and then I heard through people that Alex had been praying about the same thing. Even though we had never mentioned this to each other.

I knew that this was not going to be an ordinary relationship. I knew without a doubt that if this relationship happened, that it was going to be the real deal. It was going to be a true, long term relationship.

As crazy as everyone thought I was, I knew that this was going to be the man that I married.

Other people started catching on as well. Some of my friends started making bets about when we were going to get married. All of which were way too soon!

Or so I thought.

Did we end up dating early?

Check back tomorrow for the final part of our love story!

Let's try this again, Our {love} story, part 4

Ok I'm such a bad blogger. Seriously.
Back in May I tried to start telling you guys our love story.

I got about halfway through, and then I never finished it!! Incase you never caught the first three, be sure to catch up! {part 1, part 2, part 3}

It is such a long and drawn out story that it was a little daunting to tell! But I'm going to try this again!
We are going to be on vacation starting tomorrow so I'm gonna get these all ready to post while we are gone! Look at me being proactive!

Let's review:

• Alex and I first met at "Life School" which was a small discipleship program through a local church that Alex had grown up in. I had never set foot in this church until I applied for this school.
• We instantly had some sort of connection, though it was more in the form of gazing into each others eyes from across the room.
• At a Christmas party, a few months after we met, we got the "marriage bears" in a white elephant gift exchange.
• After that party Alex asked me if I liked him, and I told him that, "I really loved hanging out with him, but I wasn't ready for a relationship yet". He agreed (although secretly wished I had answered differently.
• We decided to be friends.

And that brings us to today's post!

After that conversation in the coffee shop, Alex and I didn't bring up the whole "do we like each other" conversation for awhile. We just focused on being friends. I was constantly being asked what was going on with us, because it was blatantly obvious that we liked each other (at least according to our friends).

But the answer was always, "Yes, of course I like him, but we are just friends for now," and, "No, I'm definitely not ready to date yet!"

And then there was the, 

Random friend: "So, I was talking to Alex about you the other day!" 

Me: "Really??!!? What did he say???"
Random Friend: "I said that you looked really cute in your dress yesterday, and he did this [...makes some sort of face that shows that he is in agreement...]"
Me: "Seriously??? OMG!!"

Even though we had talked and Alex had told me that he did like me, I still didn't believe it. As time passed I was just waiting for him to be interested in some other girl, or just completely forget that I existed. Which is why I had told him I wasn't ready to date. Because I was afraid that as soon as we did, his feelings for me would disappear. Or he would figure out that maybe I wasn't the kind of person he wanted to be with after all.

I've been that girl that guys go crazy over... and then get bored with. One second they're saying how they couldn't live a single second without me, and the next second they were breaking my heart. I didn't want to go through that again. I was determined to wait it out with Alex, eventually all his feelings would fade and this way we could at least be friends for a long time. Or that's what I thought was going to happen.

For a long while, there were never any girls for me to be worried about... until one day this new girl started going to our church. Her name was Kayla. She was super friendly and beautiful and everyone was talking about how cool she was.

Everyone but me.

Sure, she seemed nice, funny, pretty, and all that, but she decided to make friends with the guy that I had a huge crush on. I distinctly remember one night after church Alex ended up leaving some church event early, with this girl. How dare he hang out with another girl while he is supposed to be sitting around waiting to date me! The nerve of this guy!

I was so pissed. And very hurt, and extremely jealous. I was sure this girl was just going to swoop right in and steal him from me. And worst of all, it would be all my fault because I was the one that told him that I wasn't ready to date.

To make matters worse, we all went out the next night for his and another girls birthday, and him and Kayla rode together! I was beyond jealous and basically ignored him all night even though he kept trying to talk to me. I knew I had no right to be jealous because he wasn't my boyfriend, but I couldn't help it. I really thought that he had liked me and then he started hanging out with this other girl.

I went home from that dinner and cried to my roommate at the time. I didn't understand what was going on. One of the worst parts was that I did like Kayla. I thought she was really nice and cool, and she was a couple years older than me so she was really mature. How could he not like her? It had been months since he had told me he liked me, his feelings must have faded by now. And in my eyes this whole situation was proof of that.

I couldn't give up that easily though. So the next morning I texted him and asked if we could talk.

[On a side note, this girl actually became one of my really good friends. Kayla actually has a blog of her own and she was basically my inspiration for starting my blog to begin with! I later found out that neither of them had any interest in each other, Kayla was just new to our church and was just trying to make some friends!]

We met up at his apartment and the conversation basically went like this,
Me: "I'm tired of all this dancing around the issue, do you like me or not?"
Alex: [after some hesitation] "Yes, I do, I like you a lot!"
Me: Well, then what do you want to do about it?

We talked for a long time about our options. Do we date? Do we just be friends? Should we just wait until school is out? Should we wait longer? If we do date, is this something we could see being long term? Would we be dating just to date or is there a real possibility of marriage after this?

We didn't know what to do.

With as much as I was crazy about this guy, I was so scared. What if this isn't the real thing? What if he breaks my heart? What if we ruin this amazing friendship we have made? We left that night and said that we would pray about it and see how we felt in the morning. I also made arrangements to talk with my mentor that had been assigned to me by our school to help me figure out what to do.

But when the morning came, I knew what I needed to do. I still wasn't ready.

I knew that God was asking me to wait. There was still something left unsettled in my heart. Something that I needed to heal before I could be in a healthy relationship. I had so many past hurts and had we started dating I knew that I was going to carry all of those things into this relationship too.

So I told him I couldn't do it. I needed to wait.

Alex kept saying, "we should just think about it longer, let's talk to Jason and Cassandra (my mentor and her husband the director of the school) and see what they say."

And I told him no, that I wasn't going to consider it anymore. We were waiting and I knew that was what I needed to do. There was nothing that he could say to change my mind. And that killed him. It killed both of us. The only thing we wanted was to be together. The timing just wasn't right.

We did end up talking with Jason and Cassandra, and they encouraged us to set a time frame for when we would begin to consider dating again. We thought just a couple of months, but Jason encouraged us to wait longer. He suggested January 1st of the following year, which was 9 months away. Without fully understanding the implications, we agreed. January 1st. The day when we would see if we were ready to date. The day we were both hoping and praying would arrive quickly. The day that we hoped the other would still have feelings for us.

Along with the commitment we made not to date, we also knew that it was best if we didn't talk much during this time. We needed to have our space, because if we kept talking all the time and hanging out together, how would that be any different than dating? It would only be denial of what was really happening.

I asked Alex to write his story down also and here is some stuff he had to say:

“I really want to date you right now, but I think we should wait too,” it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to say. At that point we both committed to wait roughly 9 months, until January 1st. As soon as the conversation was over, I bolted straight outside and as soon as I was safely hidden behind a row of cars, I burst into tears and cried for several minutes. I’m not a crier, you can ask Tanya. I don’t cry often, but when I do its pretty pathetic. I don’t just tear up, I ball. Full on snot dripping down my nose, loud, gasping sobs, alerting everyone in a two block radius that I am upset. 

I knew that from now on I wouldn’t get to talk to Tanya pretty much at all. Our interactions at school was cut back to only the essential. And our texting conversations stopped completely. It was horrendous. 

It was especially hard until school was out, then I didn’t have to see her every day. We were trying to see if our feelings would wane. Mine never did.

So there we were, at the end of March, fully committed to waiting to date until the following winter.

Many, many, many, people asked me if we were crazy. And the answer is probably, yes.
That was one of the absolute hardest things I have ever done.
But it was also so worth it!

Did we actually stick to our commitment?

I'll have the next part up for your reading pleasure tomorrow! :)

A Race & A Wedding!

My parents and I after my race!

I ran in the 5k I signed up for on Saturday!

It went pretty good, but my time was terrible.

I actually stopped to go to the bathroom halfway through. We got there super late and I didn't have a chance to go before the race started!

My total time was 34:17, but I figure with a bathroom break in there, it wasn't too bad!

May have even been under 30 minutes if I hadn't stopped. Maybe.

I've also been totally slacking on my weekly updates. Training has been going good, at least up until last week. I only ran twice (including the race) but it was a nice break for me.

Then Saturday evening I went to a friends wedding and got to spend some time with one of my best friends, Sara and her husband Collin!

Modeling, yet again!

Alex and our friend Adam.

Alex and Collin, smoking the pipes that they made for themselves! Or at least pretending to smoke them.

Then on Sunday Alex and I did pretty much nothing until about 5pm when we decided to take a spontaneous trip up to Ikea, which is about an hour away from us!

We didn't buy a lot, but it was a fun little trip.

 All in all it was a fun weekend!

My biggest struggle?

Being too judgmental.

Honestly, this is something that I really hate. Not only am I judgmental of other people, I'm extremely judgmental of myself. My husband and I both try to encourage each other in this, but it is hard. 


But you know what? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that struggles with this. I hear it all the time. I hear people talking about how this girl is fatter than that girl, or how that person should not be wearing that shirt. Or how that girl is too good for that guy. That couple fights more than this other couple. The list goes on and on, and I would be a complete hypocrite if I ever said that I do not participate in any of these conversations or have these negative thoughts.


And it's ugly. I do not like this about myself.

I will be the very first to admit that this more than likely just stems from my own insecurities.
What if I don't measure up?
What if people think I'm fat?
What if I wear clothes that I should not be wearing?
What if we are the couple that fights all the time?

I try to act cool and confident. But inside I always feel like in one way or another I'm not measuring up. I could list every single part of my body that I wish was skinnier or every part of my personality that I wish was different. Heck, I could probably name like 20 different things that I wish I was better at. Actually, I'm sure I could write more than that.

How do I change? And how do I encourage change in others? To that I do not have answers. I only hope and pray that this isn't a part of my life forever. I need to learn not to be so hard on myself and on other people. People have enough problems of their own without me (and others) being judgmental about them. 


And the worst part is that I genuinely want the best for people. I want them to know that they are beautiful. I want people to know that they don't have to look like a Victoria's Secret model to be beautiful or "sexy". And I genuinely want all people to believe and see that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and colors and personalities. 


Sometimes I just get caught up in everything that I am lacking to see that maybe the only true things that I am lacking are love, compassion, and humility.

How can we be an uplifting community that doesn't tear each other down just to make us feel better about ourselves?

A retraction of sorts

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote about all the things that I had learned about marriage in the last two years (see that post here). Well someone just brought to my attention that when they read this post that they thought it meant that we fight all the time and were having marriage problems. I'm sad that this is the impression that I may have given off and I just can't live with the fact that anyone else out there may have gotten this same impression. That is so not true, nor was it the purpose of the post that I had written. 

"We don't have a perfect marriage. Sometimes people comment (IRL) about how in love we are or how happy we seem or that we look like the perfect couple. But we aren't. I don't really think anyone is. I promise you that we have had some bumps in the road. And I don't mean about who is going to do the dishes. We have had some real heartbreaking struggles. But, at the end of the day, he is still my husband. I still love him no matter what. I still know that I couldn't live without him. No matter what mistakes he makes, or I make, we still make each other better people. He is still my best friend and the only person that I have ever been able to trust my whole heart with."

I suppose it could have been easy to misinterpret this line. I only meant that we aren't perfect, and I don't believe that anyone else is perfect either. I'm not going to pretend like in our nearing 3 years of marriage that we have never been through any struggles. Usually it is coming through the tough times that brings us far closer than we ever knew we could be.


Call me crazy, but I just have this nagging within me to always be honest about my humanness. I have flaws. Alex has flaws. We don't always say or do the right thing. Sometimes we don't act in loving ways. Sometimes we fight. That's part of being in a relationship. If we never fought then we wouldn't really be working through our true issues. We would just be pretending like everything was fine. I just don't want anyone to have a false impression that we have the perfect life and that I am here to tell you how perfect I am. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time at all you should know that I just want to be real and honest. I'd rather admit my areas of weakness than have you all believe that I am someone that I am not.


I want to be free to be the real me, and I want to be accepted for who I am. How can I do that if I give you a false impression of who I am?

When you get married you don't just suddenly become a perfect partner to your spouse. It is something that you have to work at and learn to grow in. And in order to grow and better serve each other, you have to desire that. You have to want to be a better spouse. Otherwise you just wont care and will never try to change.

I suppose the point that I was trying to get across is that being married has really opened my eyes to my own areas of weakness. Everyday I see how much more I can do for him, and sometimes I even recognize the unwillingness in me to take those loving actions.
If you think that is a bad thing, that's ok. Because I don't. It works for us. We are happy. And that is really all that matters.

We love each other more than I knew two people could love each other. We want to spend every minute of every day together. We still haven't gotten sick of each other. Yes, we need space from time to time, that doesn't mean we don't love each other. I never want anyone to think that we aren't madly in love. Or that we don't truly value each other and our marriage. I never knew that I could feel so strongly about one person that I feel like if anything ever happened to him that I would mentally, emotionally, and physically die without him in my life.

I just can't picture a single day of my life without him in it. I didn't even know it was possible for someone to love and adore me the way he does.

Regardless of how much we may love each other, I just don't want anyone to try to hold us up to any sort of standard.

 Just let us be us, whatever that may mean.

Marriage, lessons learned

Photography by ZenRG Photography

Back on June 15th I said it was my two year blogging anniversary!
The very first post I wrote was not about why I decided to start blogging, or what my blog was going to be about. Nope, I jumped head first into it with some of the things I had learned as a newlywed. That was 8 months into our marriage. I still didn't have much figured out, but I did learn a lot about the pressure that had been put on me as a wife. And not only as a wife, but a Christian wife! As you will soon find out from our love story [part 1, part 2, part 3] Alex and I did not have a typical relationship.
We didn't meet, start dating, fall in love, two years later get engaged, and a year after that get married, like it seems so many had expected of us.

Nope... for us it went much differently. Once we started dating, which was quite awhile after we first met, our relationship progressed very quickly. We were engaged within 6 months and married 4 and a half months after that. And for us, I think that the timing was perfect.

Honestly, the only things that I regret are 1) that I didn't stand up for myself and what I wanted our wedding to be like, and 2) that it seems that our wedding caused so much strain in the relationships around us. We had to fight tooth and nail on almost every issue that pertained to our wedding, whether it was the date, time, place, what food we served (or didn't serve), what kind of cake we got, what kind of dance we did, if we had a "cut the cake" portion.... blah blah blah. The list goes on. I say all this because when I wrote my very first post I was chalk full of pent up anger, frustration, and a bit of resentment. I was tired of everyone telling us how and when to live our lives. And then, after everything was all said and done, I felt as though everyone sort of abandoned us. I felt the waiting and watching to see if we had truly made the right decision or not. To see if our marriage was going to quickly fall apart. It was frustrating to say the least. Especially after all our friends and family seeing exactly what we had gone through to be together (which you guys will learn about soon).


Well, here I am two years later and I feel like some of that "waiting and watching" has stopped. Maybe after almost 3 years of marriage people have finally accepted that we might actually be happy? 

ZenRG Photography

Here are some of the things I have had to learn, after I realized that regardless of what everyone else says or does, this is still my marriage. We still have to work through the hard issues together, and putting up fronts and pretending like life is perfect so people will get off our back does not solve our real life problems.

1) I am so selfish. Sometimes in marriage, we have to give up the things we love for the things they love. And boy, am I bad at this one. It might help if he wasn't so willing to do whatever I wanted to do. He lets me get away with far too much stuff! I wish that I was more loving and gracious and sacrificed to do some of the things he loves more often.

2) We don't have a perfect marriage. Sometimes people comment (IRL) about how in love we are or how happy we seem or that we look like the perfect couple. But we aren't. I don't really think anyone is. I promise you that we have had some bumps in the road. And I don't mean about who is going to do the dishes. We have had some real heartbreaking struggles. But, at the end of the day, he is still my husband. I still love him no matter what. I still know that I couldn't live without him. No matter what mistakes he makes, or I make, we still make each other better people. He is still my best friend and the only person that I have ever been able to trust my whole heart with.

And to be 100% honest sometimes I lean too much on my trust in Alex, and not enough on my trust in God.

3) He becomes the punching bag of my frustrations far too often. I learned a lot about this during some counseling sessions that I just went through. When I get angry or frustrated, I take it out on him, even when it has nothing to do with him. He will do the slightest thing wrong, but because I am mad at so-and-so for saying who-knows-what he gets the bum end of the deal. After I went to counseling I've started to learn that he is really my support system, and I need to treat him as such. I need to lean on him and allow him to be my support, because he is pretty good at it.

4) Sometimes I just need to keep my mouth shut. Like when he is driving. Enough said, right?

5) Alone time is still important. It's funny now that I'm not in school anymore and I am only working 20 hours, it almost feels like we have too much time together. I never thought there was such a thing. Sometimes we just need a little bit of time apart. A time to go to a coffee shop by myself. Reminding myself that I can still be an independent person within an interdependent relationship. It isn't that I don't love to be around him, but I've really learned to value my alone time, as well as his. We both come back refreshed from having a bit of time to ourselves.


Obviously there are so many other important lessons I have learned, but I think that these are ones that I have to work on daily. Marriage has been one of the best experiences of my life. It didn't take long before I started to see so many thing in myself that I needed to work on to be a better wife, and just a more caring and loving person in general. I still have a long ways to go. I'm never going to be perfect. But hopefully I will improve somewhere along the way.

If you are married, what are some things that you have learned about marriage?

Our {love} story: part 3

I'd say it's probably about time to finish this love story that I started back in May. Now that I have time to write the story myself, and Alex already wrote out all of his half, I will just include both sides. I'd love to have him write it, I just can't bring myself to only let you guys in on half of the story.

{Incase you have missed any of this story

 please check out

part 1 & part 2}

A key thing that you need to keep in mind while reading this, is that there were only 3 times when Alex and I had actually talked about our feelings with each other!

1st     when we were out for coffee, which Alex told you about in the first part of our story.

2nd    a few months later, when we chose not to date... we will get to that ;)

3rd     when we actually started dating.

All this meaning, that we allowed our feelings for each other to develop naturally. We weren't constantly reassuring each other how much we liked each other. Which was the hardest part!!


Well, let's get on with the story...

******************************

My side: Beginning Life School

So, there I was, a brand new face in a church where I knew almost no one. To say that I was scared, and a bit intimidated, was an understatement. I felt like such an outsider, and I literally had not a clue what I was getting myself into.

Something you may or may not be able to tell about me from my blog is that, I'm pretty quiet. Very quiet. This isn't really something that I brag about. It is actually part of my personality that kind of annoys me. I feel like I often have a lot to say, but sometimes I'm just not given an opportunity to speak. I'm sure we have all run into the kind of people who don't allow anyone else to get a word in. They just talk and talk and talk... and if you have something to say you have to interrupt them, or just wait for them to finish talking so you can say something, but half the time once you get a chance to say something it isn't even relevant anymore because they have talked for so long (I'm aware of the run on sentence). Well... I find myself surrounded by those kinds of people ALL. THE. TIME.

It's frustrating. I feel like I can never speak my mind. Maybe if I was louder I would try to talk over them. But I'm not. Sometimes this makes being the new girl really tough. I just don't know what to say. So I just stand/sit there. Awkwardly.

The first time I met Alex I was sitting in the hall of the church waiting to have an interview with the director of the school to see if I could come. After sitting there for awhile, not sure what to think, Alex walked in. The only thing he did was stare at me. Him and another student sat in the chairs across from me both looking at me like who the heck is this girl? but none of us saying a single word.

That was probably one of the more awkward moments of my life. 

I remember seeing Alex and not thinking much of it. I wondered what he was like. I wondered if he was going to say hi to this stranger sitting in his church hallway.

Then I got called in to talk with the director. Long story short, they accepted me into the school. Attending this school was probably the most rash decision I have ever made. Someone had told me a very little bit about it. I didn't want to go. Then one day I decided I wanted to go. I went in, applied, got accepted and left for "boot camp" all in one week. Everyone else had applied months before.

A few days later I packed up my bags and headed out to the church to go to "Launch Week" which was sort of a boot camp style retreat. That is when I saw Alex for the second time. He was leaning against one of the church buildings when I came up with all my bags, completely unsure of myself and second guessing my decision to attend. I remember thinking that he was kind of cute. I actually remember sizing up all the guys and thinking that Alex was the one that I was the most attracted to. 

I tried to mingle a bit. But I felt awkward. Most of these people knew each other for years, and all of them were regular attenders of the church. I did have one "friend" that was attending this school. I'm not sure if we could really be considered friends at the time, more like acquaintances. We both had worked at Starbucks, and had met each other at a party the year before. Neither of us having any clue that the other was attending this school. Her name was Aly. And I soon found out that she was actually Alex's cousin. 

During that first hour of waiting to board the bus, I was constantly aware of Alex. Still standing against the wall. Still eyeing me strangely. I wondered if he was ever going to say hi to me, or introduce himself.

But he never did. 

I pretty much hung out with Aly for most of the week, every once in awhile Alex would talk with her... and look at me, saying a few words here and there. Thinking back, I'm not even totally sure what I thought of him. He was a little awkward. A little nerdy. His clothes were far too tight. I wasn't in love with his hair (long and shaggy). But somehow, I was just drawn to him. I remember several times throughout that week when we just had some sort of connection. Not the kind where we talk for hours and hours. It was the kind where we would catch each others eye from across the room. 

I knew instantly that I had a crush on this guy, but since I had just gotten out of a relationship and I hadn't come to this school to meet anyone, I tried to ignore it. Then Alex started hanging out with one of the other girls. Honestly, I was pretty jealous of this other girl. She was beautiful, athletic, a total package, that I could never compete with. I had resolved that this was for the best and I ignored him. {Plus, I hate to admit it, but I was totally a game player. I knew the more I ignored him the more intrigued he might become.}

And so things went for a little while. I made other friends and just tried to focus on why I came to this school, to have a better relationship with God.

When we had come back from launch week I moved into the "dorm" with three other girls, which was really just a modular building on the church property.

My roommate Nikki!

I quickly started a friendship with one of Alex's roommates. Since their apartment was right across the street from the "dorm" I would spend a lot of time there hanging out and talking with the guys. This was something I was more comfortable with, being surrounded by guys. I just found it easier to be myself with them. With girls I felt so much pressure to live up to some sort of self imposed standard, but with the guys it was more laid back. Sometimes my roommates did come with me and we all had a lot of fun over there.

No matter the friendship that I formed with any of Alex's roommates, there was still an undeniable connection between him and I. I always longed for him to spend more time with us, but he was stand-off-ish and often opted to go to bed early whenever I was around. However, there was the occasional times when he would be a gentlemen and walk me back to my door. Which often led to us standing outside my door talking for far too long.

Nothing exciting happend, nothing that let me know that he was in anyway interested in me (other than my own suspicion) until that Halloween. His roommates had a party that me and my roommates went to. I don't remember much about that night, other than sitting on the couch with Alex talking, for hours. He was flirty. He was awkward. He would punch my arm or try to tickle me. I was pretty sure he liked me.

Alex on Halloween

After that night we spent a lot of time flirting. Everyone but us could tell that we had a thing for each other. Even our teachers would comment. At this point in time everyone decided they needed to warn me about Alex. I heard all kinds of stuff about how he was a big "player" and he was always looking for a girlfriend. I heard about all the different girls within the church that he had crushes on at one time or another. With all this information I tried to deny my feelings for him. I tried to pretend like I wasn't "falling" for his "game".

I remember one of my friends asking me if I liked him and I flat out denied it and told her that Alex was like a brother to me. I even told him that to his face once... NOT a good idea! Ladies, if you like a guy, do not say they are like a brother to you. No matter how much you want to pretend you don't like them.

But the truth was, we were bonding. We were building a really deep friendship. And I was smitten with him. I couldn't help it and I couldn't explain it. I didn't even know why I liked him, all I knew was that I did. Regardless of all the warnings everyone had given me. Regardless of how awkward and completely uncharming he was... I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't help but try to sit next to him in class, or strike up a meaningless conversation, or just be near him. I had fun with him. He was different. He was funny. He was nothing like any guy I had ever met before. And he was SO SOOOO not smooth. [Sorry babe, you really can't deny it.]

This was awhile later, much different style!

I slowly let a couple of my friends in on my [not so] secret crush. They were by no means surprised when I told them. My friend Nikki was probably the most supportive. Which is why, when all of us got invited to a holiday party, she was the one encouraging me to ask Alex to go.

Which I did. In a text message, of course. It went something like this,

me: Hey, do you want to ride with me and Nikki to the party tomorrow? 

Alex: Sure, I'll drive.
me: cool

Thrilling conversation, I know. None-the-less, I was as excited as I could be, and knew that I had to look my best. Electric blue dress, 4 inch red heels. I was set! Since Alex already told you all about this party and how we got our lovely "marriage bears" as they are referred to, I wont go into more detail. But just know, that I'm pretty sure that was the single most embarrassing moment of my life.

After that whole experience I think it was pretty obvious to both Alex and myself that we needed to have a little talk. Did he like me? As obvious as it should have been, I had no idea! One second he was about as subtle as a blow torch, the next second he was pretending I didn't exist. I think this had a lot more to do with him trying to focus on not dating, but to me it was just confusing. And as a girl, I just needed some answers.

Thus led to our coffee "date" during which Alex asked me if I liked him. I didn't know what to say. I knew that this question was bound to come up sooner or later, but when it did, I wasn't sure how to approach it. In my past experience the next step to mutually liking someone would mean dating them. Was I ready for this? Four months after my last relationship, was that enough time? I don't know why, but I knew that this wasn't our time. I knew I needed to wait. Alex had become one of my best guy friends and that was something I wasn't ready to sacrifice just to have another failed relationship. I wanted something more.

I knew that the initial excitement could fade over time. I've experienced that more times that I would like to admit. I didn't want that. I wanted a steady relationship with someone who was going to be my future husband. I was done with dating for fun. I was done with trying to find my worth in guys. If he truly liked me and wanted to be with me, I knew that he would still be around when I was ready to date.

So, I told him that I did like him, but that I wasn't ready for a relationship.
He agreed.
And that was that...

At least for another three months.