Two Thousand And Eleven Years Later...

The end of the year always brings with it many feelings. Bittersweet emotions, memories of days gone by that seemed to have happened just minutes ago, and the dreaded questions of "what if?" or "I wonder if I should have done ____ differently?". Of course, there is also a sense of relief. The calendar and clocks see the ticking of the minutes from 11:59pm on December 31st to 12:00 midnight, January 1st no differently than any other transition they make. Just another day, another frame of time that has passed. For us, however, we allow ourselves the chance to change and make new. With a new year we identify a time of monumental goal setting, massive rearranging and emotional restructuring. While all of the things we promise ourselves and others to accomplish in the "New Year" could happen at any point in time, it is this magical frame of mind we put ourselves in once the ball drops that sets our bodies and minds into motion and we give ourselves permission to drastically (attempt) the correction of the imperfections we have noticed all year long.

I'm no different than the masses, either. I found myself wishing away the holiday season (sorry, Jesus, it's nothing personal against You), and craving the beginning of 2012. Don't get me wrong, 2011 has been kind to me. I had an amazing year at Lenoir-Rhyne that wasn't without its headache, I was engaged (shortly) to the love of my life and married him (quickly) a few months later, and I reconnected with family that had long since been on the back burner of my life. I grew closer to my best friend, reconnected to old friends, mended bridges that needed repair and burned the ones that were leading to no where. So many bumps were in the road for me personally; the passing of my beloved pug, my aunt and most recently my grandfather were at the top of the list of trials. Having Ethan leave for UNCC in the fall, being apart from him and then learning of his deployment surely sent me on an emotional roller coaster that has still yet to stop. I've not managed my weight well, which was a goal of mine for this past year and there are other areas of my life that aren't as de-cluttered as I would have hoped to have had them by now. But just as quickly as 2011 arrived after 2010, 2012 is just around the corner and with it comes that "fresh start" that society has created. I am so going to take advantage of it, too. I'm giving myself that amusing permission I could have granted myself all year long, and I'm vowing to make many changes. Some of them I know before I start, I'll forget in just a few weeks. Others, though, I am truly excited to integrate into myself and my husband.

Here's a compiled list of my goals for the New Year, some of them feasible and others I may only make a small dent in accomplishing. All of them should keep me busy!

1. My first resolution is traditional, over done and rarely accomplished so I'll say it first and get it out of the way: eat better, get fit and lose weight. I know, I know... so many say they'll do it but I really, really want to. I've struggled for a long time and I'm so ready to make this happen.

2. Get to church weekly! ...okay at least more often than I've been going. This year, I grew much closer to God and solidified my salvation. I weaved in and out of church but I really want to start going more and reconnect with St.Paul Lutheran Church in Startown.

3. Heart Organizing More! I think anyone who does their selves a favor and visits Jen's blog over at iHeartOrganizing leaves with many a feelings that include, but are not limited to: inspiration, excitement, a little doubt and a slight bit of self loathing... Why couldn't WE be that awesome and imaginative?! All the same, the girl has it going ON and I can't wait to organize, de-clutter, and better manage my life as well as mine and my husband's time and finances.

4. Become a Chef! ...actually, I just want to be able to cook things from scratch occasionally, make things out of a box sometimes, and microwave our dinner on other nights, too. I'm not bad cook but I'm no Betty Crocker. Ethan comes from a family of women who know how to cook well and make marvelous things out of nothing at all. My grandmother loved to cook but when she was alive, I was too young to appreciate the wisdom she could have passed on to me. My mom isn't a lover of the kitchen, so I'm determined to change things up for us both. It's totally time to start trying cool recipes and maybe even make a few of my own!

5. Blog Blog Blog. I love my blog. But it is so weird. Sometimes I rant, other times I post long, meaningful posts, and there's everything else in between. For 2012, I want to create a wonderful space to write and recollect my first year of marriage, among my many other firsts (deployment, year after graduation, etc). I need to update the layout, get a catchy new title & devote more time to writing on a schedule. I also need to do much better about pictures and video, which leads me to my next goal for 2012.

6. Capture My Life! I need to first purchase an awesome camera, but even before that, I intend to document more things photographically as well as through video. I'd love to set a goal of vloging once a month, and also updating my blog with more pictures throughout the year. Not just virtually, though. I want to make photo books, and perhaps dabble a bit in scrapbooking. While it can get expensive, those memories are so worth every penny. You can't take it with you!

7. $ave lot$ of Money! We are by no means a wealthy young married couple, but we're also pretty lucky. I work, Ethan works, Ethan is in the National Guard and we have a lot less debt combined than most young college students accumulate. While we're going to be working to pay off our -mostly my- debt during 2012, I also plan to save lots of money and cut corners wherever I can. As a wife, I think part of my responsibility to my husband is to help provide for as much as I can without losing sight of the fact that my husband is the head of the marriage, just as Christ is the head of the church. It doesn't bother me as much as it used to, because I understand that it is an equal partnership that requires just as much work from me as it does him. I am not submitting to his every desire or making him sandwiches when he demands, but I am working to please him just as he works to please me. Together, I pray, that we can become financially secure during 2012 and into 2013 when he comes home.

8. Get my read on. I love books. I love them, love them, LOVE them times infinity. Sad to say, I've maybe read one book since seventh grade. I know, crazy, right? But school has me reading lots of things for no fun and then you throw the internet in my face and all my free time for reading just seems to disappear. But I want to reclaim it and enjoy it and truly reconnect to my favorite past-time. I was given several books for Christmas that I can't wait to read and I look forward to getting new ones. I'm thinking about getting a kindle or a nook, so we'll see how this goes!

9. Be An Awesome Army Wife. It still hasn't sunk in completely that I'm a wife, let alone the wife to an amazing soldier. While his deployment is something I'm dreading, I'm looking forward to taking advantage of my time at home to be better for him and Him. I'm looking forward to sending only the absolute best care packages, writing sweet letters, embracing short phone calls and counting down to r&r and homecoming. I'm already planning video updates, photo-shoots, and other nifty ideas to pass both my time and his. No one looks forward to a deployment, especially in the midst of such an awful conflict, but it is coming. And instead of being in denial, I will take it by the horns and make the most out of such a terrible situation. Look out, deployment, here we come!

10. Keep Making Goals. There are so many other things I want to list. In fact, number 10 was going to be, "be more crafty!" until I realized I could go on and on and on. So my tenth goal is to keep on keepin' on. Everytime I think of something I want to accomplish - like right now, I decided I want to learn to knit - I need to write it down here and remind myself that I have another goal! It's time to make things happen and get the ball rolling.

2012 is going bring me so much STUFF. It's going to bring me a graduation, a (prayerfully) new job, a deployment, a first full year of marriage, birthdays & holidays without my husband and I'm sure a million surprises along the way. And it will also bring me another year of Christ. I can't forget what happened two thousand and eleven years ago; what happened that marks the turning of each year.

"I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen."

Cheers to a blessed New Year, I'll see you on the flip side.

Pictures of the Big Little Day

As promised, here are some pictures of our big, little day.


I'm pretty sure I was saying my vows to Ethan here:



The first kiss:



With my sisters:



Ethan's Dad's side of the family:



With our moms and Gina's husband, Kyle:

Keep Calm & Elope: Our Story

The first weekend of December, Ethan had drill with his new unit in Laurinburg for the first time. When he got there, he was told he would be given his drill dates and the date that he would be leaving for his deployment. Anxiously, I waited to hear the news. Would he be leaving at the beginning of July? Maybe the end? Could it possibly have been pushed back to August? I was so eager to find out what our plans were. He called me on a Saturday morning and told me that he had news but that it wasn't very good. Momentarily, I told him I didn't want to know. I wanted to pretend like if he didn't tell me, my plans could stay the same somehow. But a few moments later, I asked what he knew and discovered that he would be leaving much earlier than expected... May 5th, 2012.

I started to cry. He felt helpless. A million thoughts ran through my mind: No time for wedding plan, he's going to miss my graduation, May is almost here, is there any way to get out of this?, what do we do?, I wonder what's going to happen next... so many thoughts, so many fears becoming reality in such a short time. He told me that he had his drill dates but that they weren't stable, and that he would be going to at least two schools, a week each, before he left on May 5th and that he wouldn't know those dates until January. I got off the phone and started looking through my calendar, trying to find a date for us to have our wedding. We both wanted to be married before he left, and I was determined. Frustrated, I posted a status on Facebook as a joke.



I was kidding, at first. And then the more I looked at it, the more sense it made. It was perfect. I called E, told him what I thought we should do and surprisingly, he agreed that it was a good idea. I spent the next few days researching, figuring out how much it would cost, where the money could come from, where we would go to to do it... I was on cloud nine. I found a minister in Asheville who would preform the elopement ceremony and a cabin in the mountains to stay in for a week. And then E said that he would feel more comfortable if someone we knew preformed the ceremony, not someone random. We made a call to his former Youth Pastor, and set an appointment. After that, we went to Charlotte and picked out our wedding bands.

I was adamant that while I wanted to be married, I didn't want this to be my wedding. This was an alternative to the Justice of the Peace, not a wedding, and we would still have a ceremony and reception when E came home. We told selective family members and a few friends of our plans, and while a few were upset that we didn't invite many people, most were extremely supportive. Our moms would be there, Ethan's grandmothers, our sisters and E's dad. It would be small, short and to the point.

Monday, December 12, we met with Andrew Rawls and he agreed to do the ceremony as long as we committed to marriage counseling prior to Ethan's deployment. It was starting to get so real. We set the date. December 17th. The next day, we went to Charlotte and picked up our bands, and I found a white dress at David's Bridal that would be perfect for a small marriage ceremony. Not a wedding, a ceremony.







During this week, there has also been a down side. My grandfather was admitted to the hospital and we thought it was routine. Never a man that I was extremely close to, I'm ashamed to say that it had probably been a year since I had seen him. My older sister and I were going to see him in the beginning of the week but for one reason or another, we didn't make it. Wednesday morning, we got the call that if we wanted to see him, we needed to go now. He wasn't going to make it. I got to the hospital and my sister and I went in the room to see him. We weren't expecting to find him in the state he was in. Skeletal, weak, on life support and not responding, I knew things weren't looking good. I asked my dad if anyone had called my grandfather's brother, and he said no. I was outraged. His own brother didn't know he was dying. After getting permission from my dad, I drove to Burl's house and gave him the news. He was devastated. On my way back to my car, my sister called. They were taking him off life support and were waiting for me to get there.

I got to the hospital and they asked me if I wanted to tell him goodbye. Could he hear me? Did he know what I was saying? I didn't know. I went to his room and it was just the two of us. I apologized to him for not being a better granddaughter, for not going to see him. I told him how I loved him, how my Mamaw Dot would be so proud of who he was. I prayed over him. I asked God's spirit to fill his room, to fill his body and to consume him. I prayed for wisdom for the doctors and strength for my father. I rambled, perhaps. I didn't want to leave... but I did. A few minutes later they took him off life support and he wasn't supposed to last minutes, maybe an hour. And then, the days passed.

Wednesday came and Thursday came and he still hung on. I called into work, cancelled all other plans and stayed by his bedside. Going home a few times during the day and sometimes at night, I was back the next day.Thursday night, my sister and I stayed with him. We were afraid he wouldn't make it through the night and didn't want him to be alone. That night, we talked to the nurse because we were confused. By this time, Hospice had come in and we didn't understand why, if he was still alive, he wasn't being given nutrients or hydration. We had been told his kidney's were shutting down and that he was dying, yet, he was still here. The nurse said that it would only be prolonging the inevitable, maybe making it worse. We were not satisfied, but understood.

Friday came, there were still no answers. Ethan and I decided it wasn't best to go to Asheville for a honeymoon but we were still going to be married Saturday. And married, we were.



It wasn't an ideal situation, please don't get me wrong. But it was perfect. I was in denial that I was getting married until it happened. Our family gathered in the sanctuary of East Maiden Baptist Church and we talked for a bit before Ethan asked everyone to sit down. We stood in front of them, my little sister by my side as our only attendant holding our rings perfectly, making faces at E the whole time. And then I realized how much I loved what was happening. There were no fancy dresses, no flowers, no string quartet... and it was just what I needed. I needed a husband. I needed Ethan and he needed me. And each other is what we got. It lasted ten minutes, when it was over, I was in disbelief. I looked down at my hand and found a wedding band. Yesterday, we were high school sweethearts calling each other a few times a week. We were at a band competition and I was sending him airgrams right before he competed. We were going to the movies. We were graduating high school. We were crying before basic training. And today, we made a commitment to be married for the rest of our lives. It was a beautiful, spiritual and unforgettable moment.

For the most part, our families were supportive. There were many hurt feelings that we decided to limit our guests to only immediate family, but in the end, we had to do what was right for us. And this was so, so right. I don't think I would trade a thing if I could back and do it again, because my end result would have been the same. A beautiful marriage, blessed by God and ordained by one of His.

As for my grandfather, he's still holding on. A week ago today he was taken off of the ventilator and we were told he only had minutes to live before he would pass away. A solid seven days and the doctors are in disbelief. They used the term, "bewildered" as to their state of mind. Days with no food and barely any water and his heart is still beating. Two days ago they started him on more liquids after questioning the ethics behind "making him comfortable" and assuming that he needed a lot of morphine. He shook his head and answered two questions after a few hours and we are truly blessed that he is still with us. No, he might not recover and this may be only a prolonging of the inevitable, but God is not ready for him to go.

It has truly been a bittersweet week, filled with ups and downs and bumps and twists. But it's life. And no longer do I have to experience life alone; I have my husband. What more do I really need?



Pictures of the big (small) day will be here soon! :)

...the11th? Already?

I'm ashamed that it's December 11th and I've just now made time to write for the first time this month. Here's a big shocker: I should be working on - or rather, starting- a final project for my feature writing class that's due tomorrow morning. Instead, I find myself eager and determined to crank out a December blog post. Sometimes, I have such little motivation to write. Does anyone read this thing anymore? Maybe they do. And then I remind myself of my sweet child(ren) who may read this one day. I remind myself that I, too, want to look back and remember who I was and that I've made a promise to not-yet-to-be concieved gifts from God that I will document myself for their beneift.

December is always a crazy month. For the past ten days I have been writing massive papers, studying for final exams and balancing an abnormal social life with a few friends and E. Between wedding planning, emotional breakdowns, tantruns, triumphs, naps, sickness, working & day dreaming, well, there has been little room for much else. I can remember back when October arrived and I was thirlled and saddned...I knew that when I blinked my eyes, Christmas would be here and the magic of my favorite months would be gone. And here I sit, December the 11th, and the time has flown by.

Last night, we had a small get together with friends and family for the holidays. Joyous but tiring! Today, we went to Christopher's birthday party and the Shaw's Christmas dinner before I came home to "work". I forgot how tiring the holiday's can be... just three weeks ago I put my tree up in my room and I've barely had time to enjoy it. I moved it in our living room last night so I could see it more and so mom could see it. I like it better in my room but at least out there it isn't being neglected.

I have so much to say in this that I can't yet. I'm not a good secret keeper. I'm down right awful with keeping my mouth shut. But in good time I will write a post that will make up for this slightly awful one... all in good time.