Til Death Do We Part

In early March, I went to Dallas for a wedding shower and for bridal pictures. Click here to see the pics.

At the end of March, Jeff and I headed to Dallas for our wedding! When we got there, it was so amazing to see leaves on trees! Philly trees didn't get leaves for a few more weeks.

Weddings are stressful. Everybody has their own idea of what a wedding should be like. I think ours was a little "different."

For one, we got married on April Fool's Day. We weren't originally going to get married on a Sunday, but as we looked at possible wedding dates, April 1 ended up being both convenient and memorable.

For me, the day was a reflection of the life I intended to have with Jeff. For one, it was fun. We had a piñata and a bounce house and a cookie cake with milk. But also, it was heartfelt. We recited vows and exchanged rings, and neither of us took those things lightly. I hope my marriage continues in the manner we intentionally displayed that day – fun, but taken seriously.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

Awwww! How sweet!


The tame version of the cake smash.


Jeff has flipped for me!


I am a bride to respect. Damn it.


The race has begun!



Jeff and I went to Club Med Turkoise for our honeymoon. You know what's great about Club Med vacations? They do all the thinking for you. It was all-inclusive, so the food was free, drinks were free, and many of the activities were free. We kayaked, and windsurfed (I was so sore the next day,) and trampolined, and scuba dived (scuba dove?), and salsa danced, and swam in the ocean, and swam in the pool, and went to the shows, and flew on a trapeze. For real. Oh, also, we ate and drank. And slept. Honk shu!

The first time I have been warm since September!


Down at Sharkie's bar


Just relaxing. Streeeetch!


Oops. I stretched too much and flipped myself over.


That's my husband on that there trapeze!






Marriage has not been easy. It has been a lot of hard work. Sometimes it's hard to figure out who you are as a person within the context of marriage. At least it has been for me.

But I love being married to Jeff. It's worth the hard work. It's worth the upheaval of moving and leaving everything I knew. It's exciting to go back and think about all that has happened in the last two years. And the next two are going to be even better.

Warning

I am currently taking Prednisone for poison ivy. Here is one of the precautions listed:

"Psychic derangements may appear when corticosteriods are used, ranging from euphoria, insomnia, mood swings, personality changes, and severe depression, to frank psychotic manifestations. Also, existing emotional instability or psychotic tendencies may be aggravated by corticosteriods."

I think it's all worth it, though, cuz when you have a bad case of the poison ivies, you can experience some of the same symptoms.

Some firsts

But even though parts of the transition were hard, I still had lots of fun! On Valentine's Day, Jeff and I went to White Castle, which is a fast food burger chain. But on Valentine's Day, they transform themselves into, well, a slightly more formal fast food joint. We had to make reservations and when we got there, the manager greeted us at the door wearing a suit. We were shown to our table and they had lovely menus printed for us. The tables had plastic tablecloths and real flowers. A waitress took our order and brought us our food. And to make it extra special, Jeff took a packet of ketchup and squirted it onto his plate in the shape of a heart. :)

And I got to experience lots of new things! Like lots of snow! It was actually a fairly mild winter but I did have to do a little digging to get into my car a few times. It snowed on Valentine's Day (the day we went to White Castle!) and St. Patrick's Day. My roommates made a snowman in the front yard and put a green St. Paddy's Day hat on him.

I also had to shovel a sidewalk for the first time! Trust me, it sucks.

Jeff and I also got to take Christy, who was visiting from Dallas, to the Camden aquarium. We went with Jennifer, who works at the aquarium. She is one of the keepers for Button and Jenny, the two rhinos. It was great going with someone who could give you all the inside scoop about the various animals, like the time they gave pumpkins to the rhinos and then noticed a few weeks later that little green pumpkin vines were growing in the rhino enclosure! The seeds had survived a trip through the rhinos and had started growing!

I also got to touch a shark and a stingray! Don't worry, it didn't hurt.

Becoming an expatriate

Jeff spent Christmas in Dallas with me. Jon and Alison flew down as well, and since Jon still had stuff in storage that he had never gotten to Philly, we decided we would split the cost of a rental truck and the four of us (and Dylan) would drive to Philly.

We left on December 28 and got into town on the 30th. The ride up was long, but fairly uneventful. Dylan was so good! And he was rewarded handsomely! We stopped at Arby's to eat once and I let Dylan out to walk around a bit, and he found an entire discarded Arby's roast beef sandwich! Jackpot! He scarfed it down in about three seconds.


When I first moved, to Philly, I lived with Krista and Carolyn, who were friends and old roommates of Alison. I had met them before. In fact, the three of us had been bridesmaids in Alison's wedding.

Even though I lived with other people, I spent a long time feeling really alone. I didn't have a job for the first month I was there, so I stayed home in my cold, dark, third-floor room, tried to look for a job and do cover letters, and worried about money and how to pay for a wedding. I missed my friends and my church. And things that felt familiar.

My bedroom was a decent size, but it was on the third floor, so half of the room had a slanted roof, so I spent a lot of time stooped over, trying not to hit my head. It got bitterly cold. Most of my things were still in storage. And like I said, the room was dark. There was just a small lamp on the wall but it wasn't very bright. I also had a table lamp and Jeff loaned me a stage light that he had.

I finally got a job as a business manager at an arboretum. The pay was disappointing, but it was better than no pay, which had been my salary since August when I quit my job to go to seminary. (Wow, life sure did change fast!)

Through it all, Jeff was loving and encouraging, but things were changing so much for both of us so quickly that it was hard to adjust. Mostly, I was just ready to be married already.

Here is a picture of the house I lived in when I first moved to Philly.


There are three basic types of houses in Philly: singles, twins and rows. This is a twin, two homes within one building (what we called a duplex in Texas.) We lived in the right house. As opposed to left, rather than wrong.

The City of Brotherly Love

and coworker snooping.

Philly in the national news again...

The Proposal

We looked at rings a little that weekend, but neither of us had ever done it before, so the process was long and confusing. But we picked out our wedding location (it was the only place we looked!) and starting talking about dates.

The weekend ended too quickly, and I wasn't ready to say goodbye on Sunday. I wouldn't see him for two more weeks, when I flew to Philly for his birthday.

By the time I got to Philly, we had decided that we would use the diamond from my mom's ring and just buy a setting. So we went to the jewelry store and bought one we liked. But we had to wait for them to size the setting and set the stone, so I wasn't getting it for a while.

Two weeks later, I was BACK in Philly (long distance dating gets expensive with all those plane tickets) and I KNEW I was going to get my ring. I sorta felt like there wouldn't be much of a surprise, since we picked it out together and I knew he had it because he called me when he was there picking it up. I thought it might be a "Okay, here's your ring" sort of thing. And I would have been fine with that. I was just happy about marrying him, I wasn't gonna create too many expectations about the proposal.

But Jeff had other things in mind.

We stopped at a convenience store (I don't remember why) and while we were there, he bought some red roses. He told me to act surprised later when he presented them to me. Strangely, I still didn't realize there was going to be an actual "moment."

That night, we had a church function to go to, and when we left, I remember thinking we were leaving a little early. And we're never early to things. But, okay, whatever, I didn't ask. As we drove through the city, we approached the art museum and he turned in to the museum drive. THAT is when I finally figured out.

(Okay, I must be dense. I knew I was getting my ring that day. I knew he had it. He had just bought flowers. And we left too early for the thing we were going to. And it wasn't until we were in the art museum parking lot that I had a clue about what was happening.)

We ended up back on the steps of the art museum, where we had hung out those many months ago when we first met. (Ha!) He had brought ice cream, the same kind we had that first night. And he had the same two plastic spoons we had gotten from McDonald's. And he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

Absolutely!

We sat there for a few minutes and ate ice cream, but it wasn't August anymore, it was November. And we were cold.

Funny, we ended up being late to church. :)

Sometimes we would look at the calendar and say to each other, "Wow, this happened really fast." But it didn't feel too fast. In fact, it actually felt a little slow to me.

It's okay, everyone. He lived.

This might come as a surprise to you, but basically I freaked out. I had been out walking, too, so I ran home and told my roommates what happened.

I decided to call 911, foolishly thinking that there was some magic button that the Dallas police could press to get in touch with the Philadelphia police. This was not the case. They had to call Information. Let me tell you, when the man you want to marry has just been robbed and you don’t know if he is hurt or bleeding or dead on a sidewalk, it's really frustrating to hear "What city, please?" AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

While I was on the phone with Dallas police, one roommate called my brother and sister-in-law, who lived less than a mile from Jeff, and told them what happened. They called the Philly police and then headed over to Jeff's house.

My other roommate looked up a phone number for the Germantown police station online and called them.

While I was freaking out, the whole ordeal was already over for Jeff. The guy took Jeff's phone and $11, but he dropped a quarter and a lighter, which Jeff kept. Not exactly a fair trade. After the guy ran away, Jeff just calmly walked home, realizing that he needed to call me and let me know he was okay. And he figured he'd call the police.

What he didn't know was that I was already in action. The police had already been called and were on their way, as were Jon and Alison. He said it never occurred to him that people would already be in motion, making sure he was okay.

It was eight minutes from the time our call ended to the time I talked to him again. It was the longest eight minutes of my life.

I wanted to see him so bad after that. We talked a little that night, until I calmed down. Luckily, he was coming to Dallas the very next day already. He didn't have a phone anymore, so we couldn't talk or text like we normally do, so I basically heard nothing from him that day until he walked off the plane and into my arms.

The date: October 5th.

Drama

So now I have taken you up through Labor Day of 2006. I have known Jeff for a month. I know I want to marry him.

Jeff had moved for a girl before and I assumed he would have no qualms about doing it again. But we decided that we'd both at least consider moving and see what happened.

I was living with friends and wasn't locked into a lease. Same for Jeff.
I didn't have a job. Jeff did.
I was in school, which I could technically do anywhere.

We gradually came to the conclusion that I would be the one moving. But then I told him that I didn't think it was a good idea for a girl to move for a guy she was just dating. He figured out that I needed him to propose before I would agree to move.

In early October, we started looking at rings online.

One night we were on the phone having a great conversation – about how things were going with us, and how we each were better people because of the other, etc. And we were talking about marriage.

Jeff didn't always get good reception on his cell phone in the house he lived in, so he often went walking when we talked. That was the case on this particular night.

As we talked, I heard him start talking to someone else. I couldn't really make out much of it, but I could tell Jeff was talking to someone and the phone seemed far away from him. Then I heard Jeff say, "Just take the money."

Holy crap, he was being robbed. While I was on the phone.

Then I heard key tones, like the buttons on the phone were being pressed and I heard someone say "$11."

And then I heard nothing.

Long Distance Dating

The next day, I was on my way home to Dallas. Jeff and I talked and texted several times that day. He had already mentioned coming to visit me in Dallas, which we tentatively planned for Labor Day weekend.

In the meantime, I had one more week at my old job, and then I had orientation at seminary. We talked frequently, but it wasn't the same. I remember thinking, "I'm tired of talking to Jeff on the phone. I want him here."

But I had another thought as well. Within three weeks of meeting Jeff I thought, "Yeah… I want a ring from him by Christmas. I'm not ready for him to propose now. I'm not even ready to tell him I love him. But by Christmas, definitely."

About ten days before he was supposed to fly to Dallas, he called and said, "If I can find a cheap flight, can I come visit you this weekend, too?"

Yes!
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On Jeff's first visit to Dallas, he had to meet a few people on the JMAC – Jan's Man Approval Committee. This might sound stupid, but only if you haven't met all the guys I've dated in my life. Most of them clearly would not have gotten passed the JMAC. I get a little stupid when it comes to guys and I really needed to make sure that was not the case this time.

Jeff got the stamp of approval.

That weekend, Jeff told me he loved me, which was a little weird since I wasn't ready to say it back. The thing is, I had already planned on being ready to say it on his originally scheduled first visit. But then he arrived a week early and I wasn't ready yet! So, yeah, a little weird. We had to talk about it, but what could I do? I couldn't very well say, "Don’t worry about it cuz I already know I want to marry you and you better propose before Christmas."

The next weekend, he was back in Dallas. I was sitting there with my arms around him and I sort of hugged him a little tighter and I said, "I have you." And he said, "I love you, too."

Oh, no! He thinks I said it! And I didn't! I mean, I'm going to, very soon, this weekend. But I haven't yet! This is weird!

It's funny cuz I don’t even remember the first time I actually said it. I just remember saying, "I have you." I eventually told him that story and he thought it was hilarious.

Enter Awesome Man Stage Right

Eight days later I found myself in Philadelphia. My mom and I had both gone to Philly to visit my brother and sis-in-law. Jeff came over to have dinner with us that night. He sat next to me at dinner. He drank out of my glass. He was funny. And interesting. And conversed well with my mom.

We had plans to hang out the next night. We ended up not getting away until about 11, which I thought meant we wouldn't be able to go get ice cream like we had planned, but Jeff was creative. We went to the grocery store and got a carton of ice cream. Then we went to a McDonalds and asked them for spoons. Then we went to the art museum and sat on the steps and ate ice cream.

It's a beautiful view of the city. And it was a pleasant August night. We talked for a while, and again, I had a blast.

My family and I went to the Jersey shore for a few days so I didn't see Jeff again until Friday. He already told me he intended to kidnap me for the evening, and I was pretty okay with that. I had no idea where we were going.

We ended up at this BYOB Italian place. It was sorta weird food, and we both agreed Chili's would have been better. He was actually a little relieved that we seemed to have the same taste in food. I mean, it was fun to try new things, and I had a great time at the restaurant, but I like old faithfuls like hamburgers and fries – his kind of girl.

He also had brought a bottle of wine, which I drank half of. I don't really like wine that much, but I liked him, and I was going to drink the wine he brought for us. Turns out, a half a bottle of wine makes me giggle.

Then we went to Cirque du Soliel. Have you ever been? It's totally cool. I imagine that Cirque is pretty cool when you are sober, but when you've just had half a bottle of wine, it's really cool. I kept saying, "Wow. This is amazing." And he said, "You're talking really loudly." Oops. Sorry, it was the wine.

After it was over, we decided to go for a walk. I was sober by then, which was good since I was in heels. We walked along Kelly Drive, which is right along the river.

KELLY DRIVE


Crew teams row on the river and there are bleachers where people can go watch them race. We ended up at the bleachers and at the bottom, there was this little wooden dock actually on the water tied to the edge. We walked down to it and sat on the dock, floating gently on the water.

Perhaps it is bad form to talk about ex-boyfriends when you are on a date. It probably is. But I did it anyway. At one point I mentioned that I felt bad because I dated this one guy for four and a half years and I knew I wasn't going to marry him and I felt like I let him waste those years of his life. And then I said, "I'm just tired of wasting time." Jeff said, "I hear ya, sister." And then he grabbed my face and kissed me.

We Interupt Normal Broadcasting

to bring you this story.

Philly is in the national news again, making all kinds of weird history.

A co-worker of mine was in the wedding party. He has played Thomas Jefferson since 1994.

Long Distance Pick Up Lines

When I got to work that next day, blog dude had responded to my email. He was very friendly, and actually a little forward, and suggested that I call him sometime. I just laughed and laughed. And reread the email and his words (remember how I love the way he writes?) and just laughed some more. (I was so busy being sorta goofy over the email that I completely forgot about lunch plans I had with a friend. Oops, sorry, Matt!)

When I emailed him back, I told him that I had emailed him first, but I wasn't calling him first. He responded with, "Maybe I'll give you a call sometime then."
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I moved the next day. And that night, my husband called me for the first time. I was actually still moving, so I didn't answer, but he left a message. I listened to it a billion times. I can still remember his words. I passed the phone around and let my friends listen to his sexy voice. I called him back later and we talked for about an hour and a half and I loved every minute of it.

But what about October 5th? Screw it, I didn't care. This guy was great.

Blating*

In the meantime, I had been reading this guy's blog. I had started reading probably sometime in March, although I can't be certain exactly when. He lived in Philadelphia and was a friend of my brother. He had happened upon my blog and started reading and told my brother I seemed interesting and he'd like to meet me sometime when I was in town. My brother then sent me the guy's blog address and I started reading and I loved what I read. He was such a good writer. He expressed himself so well. He had feelings. He talked about his feelings. He eloquently talked about his feelings. Wow. How freaking great is that?!

Eventually I started commenting on his blog and he started commenting back. I have since been accused of flirting with him via the blog, which seems sorta bad since I was technically dating the coffee dude, but it seemed innocent enough. It was through blog comments. And he lived on the other side of the country. And it was fun, so… yeah. No big deal?
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After the break up with coffee dude, my life was kind of in turmoil, for lots of reasons. I was thinking of changing jobs and maybe moving. I had good friends who were getting married, which is really good, but it changes things and I wasn't thrilled about that. I finally decided I was going to quit my job and go to seminary. So I did. I quit and made plans to move and start school.

Oh, and the plane ticket to New York turned into a plane ticket to Philadelphia to visit my brother and sis-in-law just before I started school.

I posted on my blog that I would be in Philly soon because I wanted blog dude to read it and perhaps try to arrange a meeting.

Then blog dude posted on his blog about Frederick Buechner, a theologian that I had read (but only a little) and I decided I wanted to talk to him about it, but not through blog comments, so I asked my brother for his email address. And I emailed him.

That night, I got another word from God. He told me "October 5." Uh, wha…? What does that mean? Oh, crap. Maybe it means that I am going to go to seminary and meet "the guy" on October 5th? But I just emailed this other dude. And I kinda like him already. And he has expressed a little interest in me. (After all, he did a little flirting back.) And maybe this is just me being impatient and forcing things or making bad choices instead of waiting on God?

It sounds like not that big a deal, but I was really kind of freaking out.

*A word I made up. A combination of "blog" and "dating." A form of online dating that occurs exclusively through blogs.

The story continues

I have always been afraid of getting married. I would literally have nightmares about getting married. When I was younger, I had three recurring themes in my dreams. I dreamed of tornadoes, of getting pregnant outside marriage, and of getting married. The scariest by far were the ones where I would get married. In the dream, I would say, "Well, now you've done it. You got married. You know, you always said, 'I've made mistakes in my life but at least I haven't gotten married.' And now you have. And you can't ever change your mind. Ever."

I would wake up and literally breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Thank GOD. It didn't really happen."

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In March of 2006, I found out that our singles pastor was dating a girl in the singles' group who was 10 years younger than he was and I was flabbergasted. He was a smart, educated, cultured man in his early thirties dating a girl (yes, I said 'girl') in her early twenties. I just couldn't imagine a girl that young being any sort of a good partner for a man like him. It was SO obvious to me that it was a mistake and they would break up, but he's the singles' pastor, so then what? Does she have to start going to another church? Man, this is just a bad idea. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was really annoyed by the whole thing.

That afternoon, I took a Sunday afternoon nap (those are the best), and when I woke up, I felt like God had spoken to me: "Don’t worry about it. I got it. Don’t worry about them. Oh, and, uh, don't worry about you."

Fine.

(Also, after thinking about it further, I realized it was probably a pretty good match, and therefore gave it my blessing, which I'm sure everyone would have been thankful for, except that all of this was happening in my head.)

Anyway, that day, I got a call from a guy. He wanted to see if I was interested in having coffee sometime, which I happened to know was his standard line. So me getting this call right after God told me that He had my love life under control meant something, right? It was a sign.

Things went okay with coffee guy for a while. He was going to go away for the summer and I bought a plane ticket to go visit him in New York. But then a few days before he left, we broke up. It was sort of a mutual "I'm not getting what I need from this" sort of thing. But it still sucked. And what the heck did it mean? What about God having my love life under control? Huh? What about that?

My story

I am going to tell you a story. My story. The story of how I ended up in Philadelphia. How I ended up married. How I met the love of my life. I will post it in segments, so come back often for more of the story.


I think the Old Testament is really interesting. For lots of reasons. I enjoy the stories and the history and the ancient way of things. But I also like the ways in which God communicated with people back then. Audible voices. Burning bushes. Rivers of blood. Angels of death.

I'm sorta glad God doesn't use those methods of communication much anymore.

But God still speaks to us. I personally have had God speak to me through dreams, which I may write about later. But mostly He's a voice inside my head, which is tricky because His voice inside my head often sounds a lot like my voice inside my head.