A Real Post

So for months now most of my posts have been about the house. Which I guess at least some of you are bored with. Where are the real posts? Where are the gut-wrenchingly honest posts about my life and what's going on?
The answer is I don't know. When I first set out to blog, I had no idea why I did it. I hate the idea of sharing everything with everyone, not that I have any big secrets. Who in their right mind would want to broadcast every feeling, every thought, every happenstance of their life to the world? But then again, who are we fooling?
So you want to know where I am right now? I'm struggling, but making it. I'm struggling once again with my weight. I managed to lose 30 lbs last year, then had an issue with my husband that rocked my world and made me wonder why I was working so hard to be in shape. So now when I go to the gym I wonder what I'm doing it for and I have all sorts of added fears that it will never be enough. I try to remind myself that I'm doing this for me, not for him, and that I'm doing it to increase my chances of being able to have some healthy children.
And there's another struggle - having children. It's so hard to watch others who don't even try to get pregnant get pregnant when they sneeze. It's hard for those of us who desparately want children and are told by doctors to take this pill and that pill and the other pill and keep our legs elevated and on and on. It would/will be harder after all of the methods of increasing my fertility are exhausted, and luckily we are not at that point yet. But still, I am frustrated and struggling.
And then there is work - but this struggle is only for a time. I admit, my career is very new to me, and I am not even close to knowing it all. That is actually what makes it fun and challenging at times, but it also tests my patience and humility. Because I'm used to being good at everything. And sometimes looking at all of the tasks I've taken on during a coworker's maternity leave, I feel completely overwhelmed, like I don't know where to start. It's not that I'm not capable, it's that I just don't have the experience and knowledge that she does, so things that she'd have done in 10 minutes take me 10 days. I'll get there, I know. When I've been in the business for five years and have some more training and licensing under my belt, I'll look back at these little things and laugh. But today, it humbles me to struggle to do the work set out for me.
So what's the point of sharing all of this? I guess I'm just trying to give more of myself than a photoshow of my house. I love the house and all of the work we put into it. It's a wonderful place which I feel Geoff and I are really turning into a great place for another young couple to get their start down the road (when our family grows too large to stay here any longer). And so much is going well for me and for my marriage and my life. After living in Auburn for four and a half years, I'm finally starting to develop some female friendships, I've gotten actively involved in church and music, I have a job that I LOVE, a home that I LOVE, and a husband that I LOVE. And yet I struggle. Such is the condition of all men in this life, on this earth. And thus ends an honest snapshot of where I am this morning.

Almost Forgot (and too funny not to share!)

Two nights ago I was awakened deep in my sleep by a weird sensation. My husband was "honking" my nose! I woke up startled and my sudden cry woke him up too. He was sound asleep! We can't figure out how in the world he managed to just grab my nose while he was sound asleep. He couldn't close his eyes and reach his mark again. That was too funny not to share! (Back to studying...).

Last But Not Least (More Pics...)

This barn was one of the first things that we saw as we entered Serenbe. I would love to go back and ride there. The surrouding land is beautiful. The barn is magnificent.

And if you're impressed by the barn, check out the gate to the entryway. Yes, it actually works!

And the end of it is full of horseshoes. I'm sure it has some sort of significance (luck?). At any rate, we were properly amazed by the thing...

Our final destination was the aquarium in Atlanta, where we met up with my sister and her brood. I tried to get pics in there, but only one turned out somewhat decently, so here is M checking out the fishies.

More Trip Pics

This old barn was the Welcome Center for our trip. Most of the buildings on the farm were at least 100 years old....

This was the back entry to the main house. I didn't get a good picture of the whole house, but our bedroom was right off this entry way.


Here was the view from our room. This place was charmingly landscaped!

Truly a Happy Anniversary

So we started the day out right. Happy Anniversary #4. A beautiful end to an entirely conflict-free August (the first, I might add, in our marriage). And hub was off to a great start - who could go wrong with red roses?

Next it was off for a little R & R at a B & B. If the picture looks like we went to a farm, that's because we did. Check out Serenbe at serenbe.com. If you live anywhere near Atlanta and want to get away for a night or two, here's your spot.

We stayed in the honeymoon suite, a first for us, and I am trying to include several photos, so we might have more than one blog entry. You can see from the pictures that it was a rainy weekend, but that was okay since we had more to do indoors than out.

We entered our room in the main house through this lovely little entry way. We adjoined the restaurant and the food smells were tantalizing (the food itself was even better than it smelled).

Anyway, my apologies for taking a picture of the room after we messed it up and with poor lighting. I totally forgot my camera and all of the picture I'm sharing are from my camera phone. However, the room was all in white and was enormous. And we had a great time and I can't wait for the opportunity to do something like this again.

Check the next posts for some more pics of our trip...

Friday is the New Saturday

I am absolutely LOVING my new job. One of the many perks is the fact that for me, Friday is the new Saturday. Consider this morning. It's about 7:30 AM. I've been up for 30 minutes, saw my husband off to work, and now I'm sitting in my pajamas with a piece of lemon cake for breakfast trying to figure out if I should clean first and play second or the other way around.
Because of the wonderful amount of time I have left over each day, I can take the time to cook as much as I would like to, keep the house clean, walk the dogs daily, and even have a social calendar. For the first time in our marriage, Geoff and I are actually making plans regularly to fill our weekends and a few evenings a week. We're going to church AND Sunday School, and we're not feeling like there's not enough time to keep everything managed. I can keep the house in good order so that Geoff can have enough energy and free time to go and ride bikes with his friends or take on a few extra computer jobs for a little extra income.
Sure, we're not making NEARLY what we did before, but our lives are easier for it. It's not just the hours I love, though. My coworkers are awesome, and I'm really enjoying all I'm learning about the world of financial planning. I'm looking forward to pursuing some certification training and really getting my hands on all that I can to help my team and to implement a lot of this for myself.
Anyway, for those of you checking in, I thought I would update a little on this more personal level, since Mom and I have pretty much been using my blog for the book study now. I'll try to occasionally post something other than the book.
So have a good Friday!

Sixty-Four Seventy-Five

The last four weeks have been intensely chaotic, full of frustration and full of reward. There is a part of me that seems to think that all I have to show for this painful period has been the hard-earned $64.75 from my yard sale on Saturday. But what I can honestly say is that I have much more than that.
I'm thinking of the whole concept of receiving beauty for ashes right now, because it seems so appropriate to this past month for me. I have learned more about myself, about my God, about my husband, and about life in the last four weeks than I have in a long time. And I realized something. My marriage had been reduced to ashes. As much as it is not easy to admit, I was the arsenist. I am not assuming full responsibility for the failure of my marriage, but I was definitely the one who struck the match.
At the beginning of this month, I left my husband. I had no idea what I wanted or who I was or where I was headed. I just went to my parents house. And let me stop here and say something about parents who love too much. My mother used to have this book that had a silent impact on me because I never read anything beyond the title "Women who love too much." I don't know if I ever felt when I was growing up that my parents were people who loved us too much, but I believe it is true as I look back.
I don't say this of my folks in order to pass judgment on them, I say it as a statement of the obvious. I think my parents greatly value their children, and I am no exclusion from that rule. In their love and acceptance, I found a safe retreat from the frustrations of my marriage. I struck the match here, burned several bridges and ran to their arms and away from my husband's.
Going to my parents' home was like trying to take a nap on an inverted pincushion. I told my father repeatedly that I did not want to be there. The nettles that I felt so poignantly at their house were not of their creation, but of mine and of a God who instead of loving me too much, loved me perfectly and knew that the appropriate place for me was not in the home of my parents, but in the home of my husband.
Coming home to my husband two weeks later was not easy. I feared that I would return to a pile of ash and rubble - evidence of the significant breech in faith that I had created by my rash behavior. Instead I found something totally unexpected (to me) - that God had been working on my behalf to replace my ashes with beauty.
I am experiencing the honeymoon that I dreamed of from the beginning, in a marriage that I had not only nearly lost hope in, but one that I had also intentionally sabotaged out of my frustration. What I discovered in the midst of thinking that my marriage was for my benefit only was that my marriage, like everything else in my life, was soli deo gloria - all for the glory of God.
The concept is so basic, but from the moment I began to focus on all of the voices in my life (often including my own) that led me to alternately question and defend my views of marriage, and more specifically my marriage, I began to lose focus on the purpose of my marriage in the first place.
My hope is restored, my commitment renewed, my vision refreshed and my troth plighted (faith pledged) to my husband and my God once more. I have a great deal of work to do to rebuild the burned bridges I left in the wake of my leaving, but in the midst of this work, I have something to hold onto - out of the ashes God has recreated in His image a marriage that I was trying to conform to my image. This amateur arsenist has exchanged her matchbook for the building blocks of God's word on marriage. I hope to use this blog as a place to chronicle what I learn. Maybe others will be able to use it in some way to encourage them on the days when all they see is a pile of ashes where a marriage once was...

the view from here

looking around this place (i'm in greenville, sc) i am reminded that a fresh perspective always makes for better decisions. even if you choose to stick to your initial choice, you have found even greater reason that you feel the way you do by observing the other choices and knowing why you don't want these things.
right now, looking at my marriage and the other problems i have been facing lately, being here and not in opelika seems only a different perspective - not better, not worse.
ironically, i have hardly talked about or begun to deal with my marriage issues. it turns out that in three days of counseling i've done more work and gone much deeper into dealing with other issues that i haven't even had time to get to the marital stuff. i'm guessing that these other issues were more important anyway. i feel much free-er today than yesterday, if that's a sign of anything.
i'm trying to figure out this whole thing of forgiveness and of goal setting. i think i'm going to stay here for awhile and continue to work toward sorting through all of this. part of me really wants to leave, but i know that the view from here is a little clearer than the view from home for now.

Double the Certified, Double the Fun!

Another positive post for my #1 man. Today he passed the second leg of his microsoft certification!!!

YEAH FOR MY HUB!!!

Geoff passed his first Microsoft Certification test this morning on his first attempt! He's got one more test to take tomorrow, but I'm so proud I just had to go ahead and brag on him a little. (I knew he could do it)!

Changes

One of the most intimidating words in the English language is change. It's a word that means work, struggle, letting go, learning. And its most fearful context is in relationships. My husband is out of town working on Microsoft Certification training and testing and I have been trying to use this time by myself to work on change for our marriage. Most of the changes I have looked at making have been minor, but one has been major.
For the past four years, I have been looking at my marriage as an opportunity to change my husband. I made the mistake of marrying potential instead of reality. Not that the reality of who he was wasn't great, but that I was looking more at what he could be. Hardly a week has gone by that I haven't found some opportunity to point out to him some little or big change he could make that would improve our marriage. Anything from iron your clothes! to buy a new car!
I've got to admit this constant flow of criticism has changed our relationship a lot -- but not for the better. The clothes remain un-ironed, he still drives an old gas-guzzler clunker. What has changed is my attitude toward my marriage and my husband.
Suddenly something as small as the cabinet door being left open creates a crisis for me. I begin to say, he asked for the cabinet with a closed door, but he always leaves it open! He must do it to annoy me. He doesn't appreciate that I chose the cabinet he liked over the one that I liked. He is totally careless. He endangers others (I could hit my head on that open cabinet door if I am not paying attention). And the ultimate conclusion - if he doesn't love me enough to do something as simple as close the cabinet door, then maybe I shouldn't be married to him anymore.
Sadly enough, this has become the story of our relationship. Now, I know enough about dealing with bipolar disorder to know that some of my overreaction in situations like these is directly related to my disorder. But I am also learning that I have become a negative spirit in our marriage. By constantly focusing on changing my husband, I have neglected my own need for change.
Even though I am not an alcoholic, my counselor is always reminding me of the serenity prayer. One of my hardest life lessons is to learn the difference between what I have control over and what I have little or no control over. My steady drip of change... change... change... does nothing for my husband or for me except to exasperate us both. I have been trying to control things that are not under my control, namely my husband.
So my change, if I can succeed in implementing it is to stop listing the changes I want in my husband and start noticing changes I can make in me. I know this is more easily said than done, but I have discovered a tried and true recipe for success.
Scripture tells us that the provider of our needs is God - that he will not give us more than we can bear, that he will not give us rocks when we ask for bread, that his eye is on the sparrow and he cares for us to an even greater amount. Jesus reminds us to ask our Father God daily to provide for our basic needs.
The big change I am trying to make is this: when I see a change, little or big, that I want to make in my husband, I am going to give it to God as a request. Instead of saying, Hub, why can't you get a new (safer/more economical) car?! I will pray, God, provide safe transport for my family today. God is responsible for my daily needs - if he wants to provide for me in the form of my husband's beat-up old van, so be it. Who am I to question God?
Lord, grant me the serenity...