Cancun Trip

It was a boring day at work when I received an exciting phone call from Johnie.  He called to tell me we had just won an all expenses paid trip to Cancun through a bonus program at his job.  He was ecstatic.  I was reluctant.

I didn’t like the dates of the pre-planned trip, and I wasn’t sure I would have chosen the hotel his company picked for us.  I had never really had a desire to visit Mexico, and I didn’t know Spanish.  I also had a secret fear of being detained, of not being allowed back into my home country, like my own twisted version of The Terminal.

I was so complacent about our prize that Johnie actually e-mailed a couple hours later offering to turn down the vacation.  I didn’t want to be the girl who passed up an opportunity to go to Cancun for free, and I didn’t want to spoil Johnie’s fun, so I told him we’d go and began researching the city.  I e-mailed a couple friends who had visited Cancun and began pouring over tourist reviews.

It only took a couple days for my excitement to exceed Johnie’s.  If I was going to go to Cancun, I was going to take full advantage of the opportunity given to me.  I charged myself with planning the absolute best vacation possible.  One lousy meal, one lackluster tourist venue, and I deemed my mission failed.

I estimate that I spent at least 80 (probably closer to 200) hours planning the 5 day trip.  I didn’t have much to do at work, so I devoted myself completely to the Cancun planning project.  Back at home, I would talk to Johnie about costs, reviews, and my thoughts over dinner, and then reevaluate plans throughout the evening.

I decided we definitely had to visit Mayan ruins.  I read more and more reviews, considered more and more packages, and discovered more and more sites.  Many of the packages took all day, had uninteresting (for Johnie, me, or the both of us) side stops, and only included one ruins site.  I ended up ordering a set of maps detailing Mayan ruin sites, and considering factors like accessibility (there were some that you could climb on), safety (some were steep and didn’t have ropes to hang on to), and crowds (Johnie doesn’t like them).

I probably read at least a hundred local restaurant reviews before picking out a couple of must-stop spots for us to enjoy a meal.  I decided our best tourist-marketed excursion would be on some underwater scooters that allowed us to see the coral reef up close.  Think scuba diving without scubaing or diving.  And one night I even stumbled upon a little eco-tourism village where visitors could stay in their own little huts and enjoy crafts, meals, and ceremonies from the locals. 

I felt confident I had planned the perfect vacation for us.  Six days before our flight, while talking to my mom, the subject of the swine flu came up.  I had heard about it on the news.  I had already determined a little flu was not going to ruin my plans.  I reassured her that we had already planned on drinking only bottled water during our trip, were already taking immune building vitamins, and had already packed plenty of hand sanitizer.  I also shared that Johnie and I had decided, after hearing of the flu outbreak, to diligently prohibit others from coughing or sneezing on us.

Secretly I was most worried that flight passengers were being screened for flu-like symptoms before being allowed to board their plane.  I prayed that I would stay healthy enough to make it to Mexican soil.  If I needed to visit a doctor on my return - or be detained in an airport The Terminal-style for a few days - I felt it would be worth it. 

Five days before our trip, Johnie’s company sent an e-mail saying they were evaluating the health risks of traveling to Mexico and how that might impact our plans.  I felt like everyone was completely overreacting to the whole thing and that the e-mail was sent out to calm the fears of germaphobes.  But the next day they announced their decision to cancel the Cancun trip.  I was devastated.

They offered no other details but that they were still deciding the best option for the employees who had won the vacation.  I consoled myself with the hope of a large monetary bonus in lieu of the vacation, or travel vouchers that would allow us to reschedule the trip, or just moving the dates of the trip they had planned for us.

A day later the company informed us they were planning a trip to an alternate location with the same dates as the old trip.  I was a little disappointed to abandon my new-found Mexican dream vacation, but I was increasingly excited about the mystery location.  I was sure that the company would not have bought our passports without taking us to a place to use them.

It was two days before our flight when we learned our destination.  Florida.  I cried a lot.  I had visited Florida before.  I could get in my car and drive there.  I surely didn’t need a passport.  I talked to Johnie about taking the small cash bonus option instead of the trip.  He wasn’t open to that.  While he was disappointed by the Cancun letdown, he was excited for a few days off work in what he was told was a “really nice hotel.”

I’ll hand it to Cox.  It was a really nice hotel.  And they gave us extra perks and bonuses throughout the trip to help.  If we had won this trip to Florida without having a Mexico trip offered and then rescinded, or if I had been given a few weeks to grieve the loss of my plan and the hours I spent creating it, I could have probably written a post twice this long about how amazing the Florida trip was. 

Don't get me wrong, it was a good trip.  We both had a good time.  I am thankful for the vacation, and the opportunity to stay at a hotel way out of my budget. I didn’t have time to really plan, and it was just “stupid old Florida that we could visit anytime,” so I made our new vacation itinerary to include a lot of ocean side relaxing.  That was something I had decided we didn’t really have time for in Cancun.

Other than a bus ride all the way to the Florida Keys from Miami (in my defense I didn’t realize the lighthouse was THAT far away), and an evening excursion to Espanola Way (the closest thing to Mexico the city offered), we spent our time on the beach, on the balcony of our room, or generally lounging with the calming sounds of waves in the background. 

There are plenty of pleasant memories to share from that trip, but sadly they are all marred by the fact they came at the price of a lost trip to Mexico.  And while I think almost everyone else involved in the trip has probably gotten over it, I sadly have not.  Embarrassingly so.

Just the other day (yes, more than two and a half years later), I was thinking about potential 2012 vacations and wondering if we might need a passport.  Then out of nowhere I started tearing up, memories of the missed Cancun trip - and a second canceled Mexico trip (which comes later) - flooding my mind.  

Don't worry, I am comforted by plans for a Mexican vacation someday.  And, while I still hold my pre-trip conviction that we should always take full advantage of every opportunity we are given, I did learn an important lesson through it.  Sometimes there is beauty to be found when things don't go the way we planned for them to.  And, just because you don't get to your destination the way you thought you would doesn't mean you won't get there in the end.

The Year that Nothing Happened

Our courtship, engagement, and first married year were quite eventful.  As we talked about our memories from that time, we actually had to decide what details to leave out of our "story."  Our second year was a little different.  In planning to tell the story of our second year, I had trouble coming up with anything to share.  After several days of trying to remember something interesting from that time, I finally decided to admit to Johnie I was drawing a blank for an entire year of our lives.

We talked about it a few months ago.  “I think I’m just going to say it was the year that nothing happened,” I said.  “Stuff happened.”  Johnie contended.  “Well, like what?”  I asked.  “Our new jobs.”  First year.  “I started singing with Seven.”  Third year.  It went on for several minutes.

“So nothing happened our second year?” Johnie seemed a little worried.  “Well, it’s not like nothing happened.  I mean, it was a good year for us.  I just don’t think we have very many stories from that year.”  After a bit of further discussion, he seemed okay with our lackluster year.

In way of confession, I feel I must admit that our second year may very well go down in history as one of my favorite years of marriage.  The first year was hard in many ways.  We were learning a lot about one another and how to function as a team.  I was terribly homesick and adjusting to life in a completely different place.  I have plenty of happy memories from that time, but just as many that involve tears, depression, and loneliness.  And we’ll get to the other years later.  While I don’t have any second-year stories to set off fits of laughter, I also don’t have any struggles or hardships to share. 

Just typing that makes me feel so blessed.  It is the reason why I cherish our second year.  For that and one other reason: I love routine.  Our second year was routine.  We settled into work schedules.  After Johnie working nearly every Saturday of our first year, we now had our weekends free.  I felt like we were finally normal.  Our first year we guarded our date night as though it was sacred.  Several months into our second year, Johnie asked me one evening why we didn’t do date night anymore.  It was because we had every evening together and usually more than one date a week naturally resulted. 

We received extra income from my job, but no added bills.  It was the most financially stable either of us had ever been.  We were oblivious to the looming recession and didn’t even know to worry that we might ever lose that stability.

We planned long vacations to Kentucky.  And they actually felt like vacations.  Trips home that first year felt like challenges to spend as much time as possible with as many people as possible with no regard for sleep or personal preferences before having to return to Kansas.  We purposely made our second year trips more leisurely.  Dividing the drive into two days, and scheduling side trips during our stay.

My relationships with Kansas friends and family continued to grow and deepen, and I didn't feel as isolated or lonely as I had the first year.  It was the least stressful my life had been since I was a little girl, and my schedule was more laid back than it had been in years.  If I had to describe the year in one word it would be relaxed. 

We had decided when celebrating our first anniversary in Kansas that we would like to celebrate each year in a different state.  Our second year celebration was in Tennessee.  And then we started our third - when things started getting a little more interesting again. 

Job Changes

Our first autumn brought some welcome work-related changes.  After settling into our house in the spring, I decided I wanted to get a job.  I spent my days alone, waiting for Johnie to get home from work.  His 12 hour work days made that difficult.  I didn’t really have very many friends available to spend my days with and I wouldn’t have known how to drive to their houses even if I knew where they lived anyway.

After a long and discouraging job hunt through the summer, I finally landed a part-time job with a local non-profit in October. 

As a side note, I was going to “tell all” about what was easily my worst working experience to date, but I have decided not to air that dirty laundry in public.  However, if anyone would like to hear some unbelievable stories sometime (not in writing), just let me know.  If you're a fan of The Office, some of these completely true stories will sound eerily familiar.

As I was celebrating my own job victories, things were changing for Johnie’s career as well.  He had recently been accepted into Cox’s Leadership Academy.  We were ecstatic for this opportunity, but had no idea how it would change our lives.

Shortly after his classes began, he learned of a newly created position in the company.  The person to fill the opening would act as a liaison between field service technicians and office and engineering staff.  It sounded perfect for Johnie.  With the approval of his director and vice president he applied for the position.  He interviewed and then we waited.

We waited until one day, in between service calls, Johnie’s phone rang.  It was the manager of the new position.  She let him know they had decided to go with someone else, whom he was welcome to shadow, for the new spot.  We were devastated.

Johnie loved his job.  He loved the company he worked for, but he hated several elements of his work.  He was required to work long hours in adverse weather.  Kansas winters, with their bone chilling wind, were especially brutal.  Before we received the bad news, we had both looked forward to winters worked indoors.  With this new development, I began praying that the winter before us would be the last Johnie would have to work outside.

The newly created position was promptly reposted the following week.  The manager had decided to go with someone else.  She just didn’t know who that other person was yet.  Johnie and I were even more disappointed and confused.  He talked with his supervisor about reapplying for the job that sounded so perfect, but was discouraged from doing so. 

The more I thought about it, though, the more I couldn’t let it go.  We studied the job description.  This job was for Johnie.  Obviously the manager had misunderstood his experience and qualifications.  I pushed Johnie to write a letter to her, asking what he could do to meet the requirements for the job, and also spelling out why he (or I) thought he was a perfect fit.

After a bit of reluctance, Johnie sent the letter.  A couple of weeks went by without us hearing anything.  We decided to accept the fact this wasn’t Johnie’s ticket inside the office, and  to prepare for another (hopefully the last) long winter outside.

My first week of my new job arrived.  One of my very first phone calls that week came from Johnie.  He had a question about one of his suits because he had been called in for a second interview for the elusive new office position.  He hadn’t been given much time to prepare.  By the time I made it home that evening, he had been offered – and had accepted – the new position at Cox.

I don’t think we ever learned why they were so hesitant to give him the job in the first place, or if the letter had any bearing on their final decision.  We were grateful for the opportunity, though.  Even today, Johnie will still mention his thankfulness for working inside on cold, rainy, or windy days.  Other times, when we hear dreadful weather forecasts, he’ll express sympathy for those still in field positions.  And this job became more of a blessing than we could have ever imagined.

A Pretty Stinky Birthday...

I was excited to celebrate my first birthday as a wife.  While I was sad to be away from home, my wonderful friends surprised me with a party in Wichita a couple days before my actual birthday.  It was pretty common for us to have dinner with friends on Johnie's days off work.  My birthday week was no exception.  We made plans with friends as usual.  I really thought nothing of it.  On the day we were to go out, however, I wasn't feeling very well.  I thought about calling to reschedule or cancel.  But, not one to really want to miss a chance to hang out with friends, decided to go ahead anyway.

After dinner, we walked over to another friend's house for dessert.  While we had never actually done this before, I again didn't think too much of it.  We had several friends in this neighborhood and we would all get together at various houses and sometimes walk or drive between houses for various reasons during visits. 

At this point things stopped making as much sense to me.  First of all, there were several desserts.  Sometimes our friends are overzealous in their cooking, and they had prepared my favorite dessert (blackberry cobbler) along with others.  I thought this might be because Johnie hates blackberry cobbler, but my friend, Teresa, said, "I hope this is enough" and didn't sound sarcastic.  I told her I definitely thought it would be enough.  She also must have noticed me scrutinizing the chairs that were sitting out.  She had put out extra chairs and there were way more chairs than there were people.  Teresa said that her other daughter and her family would be joining us as well.  We still had too many chairs for even them, but I decided to let the matter drop.

Things became even more strange when I saw Johnie's parents pull up outside.  They knew we were having dinner over there that evening, but it was very strange for them to show up.  Johnie's grandfather had been sick and my stomach dropped.  I was afraid they had come to deliver bad news.  Our friends welcomed them in and everyone began to visit like this was a normal thing.  I thought maybe our friends were just really good at being super friendly to unexpected visitors.  I also thought it pretty strange when my in-laws handed me a birthday card.  I knew my birthday was really soon, but it felt awkward for them to give it to me at our friend's house.

It wasn't until several other friends started arriving a couple minutes later - all with cards and presents - that I realized what was going on.  It was a wonderful and touching surprise.  My first ever surprise party, and it felt like retribution for childhood parties that I would plan and hope for and then cry when none of my friends showed up.  Now I had a whole house full of friends and family celebrating with me in this new place.  All the presents helped, too.  :)

Johnie made plans for the two of us to celebrate on my actual birthdate.  When the day came, I had beautiful flowers delivered to my door, and we had dinner plans that night after Johnie got off work.  Johnie called me that morning, though, to let me know he was coming home early.  That sounds really sweet on the surface, but this wasn't nearly as pleasant a surprise as my party had been. 

He was coming home because he needed a shower.  Johnie was working as a field technician for the cable company which can be a messy job.  He had come home to change and shower on a couple occasions after a particularly muddy call.  I was not looking forward to mud-caked laundry on my birthday.  But a couple minutes into the phone call, I would have gladly taken it.

Johnie was caked in something other than mud.  He had entered a crawlspace that housed a broken sewer line.  I met him at the back door with a water hose.  After a good dousing, he took off his boots outside (those boots never came back in my house) and stepped inside the door where I quickly discarded his clothes. 

This was easily the grossest day of our marriage, and really soiled my day.

Buddy

In April, the Sunday before we were to close on our first home, Johnie and I decided to stop by the local Humane Society just to look.  I don't remember whose idea it was, but I was completely open to looking.  As we passed by the various cages, a variety of cute and sweet animals peered back at us.  One in particular caught my eye.  He was smaller, puppy-ish, and looked to be a yellow lab.  While all the other dogs were barking or jumping, or completely unaware that they were in a competition with one another, scratching themselves at the back of their cage, this dog sat quietly at the front of his kennel.  I had and have an affection for yellow labs anyway.  When I walked by this one, he stuck his paw out as if to reach me and looked up with big brown eyes.  He slowly withdrew his paw as I walked on by.  Thinking it must have been a coincidence, I took a step back to make eye contact with this pup.  He again reached his paw out through the cage.  I knelt and patted it and he laid his head against the cage.  Johnie was now several feet ahead of me, but I called for him.

"Look at this one, Johnie.  He reached out his paw to me."  Johnie came over and examined him, too.  "This one is really sweet.  He's a good dog."  Johnie knelt.  "Do you want to see if we can play with him?"  I was reluctant.  I wasn't really ready to be a dog owner.  There were too many things going on in our life, I didn't want to keep any animal inside our house, and I was unsure if any dog could ever replace my last dog.  He had been a mutt.  A family friend had found him in a ditch as a very small puppy.  I was in middle school, and my grandfather took me to meet him to see if I wanted to keep him.  My family didn't believe me, but I really had no intention of bringing the puppy back home with me.  But, my grandfather carried him out to the car and held him up for me to see.  His big puppy eyes were bright green, the most beautiful dog eyes I have ever seen, and his fur was fuzzy.  I brought him home, and named him Peanut.  He was a great dog and a great companion to both me and my little brother.  He saw me through what were the most awkward years of my life and passed away while I was in college.

I never really wanted another dog after Peanut.  I didn't think there would ever be another dog as good as him, and didn't want to ever love another animal as much as I loved him.  That day at the Humane Society, Johnie and I played with Buddy.  Like I said, I thought he was very sweet, and beautiful, and obedient.  I knew he would make someone a great dog, just not us.  Johnie asked if I wanted to keep him.  I said no.  I went over the list of reasons why we didn't really need a dog.  Johnie pressed.  After a few minutes I gave in.  Apparently Johnie actually did want a dog, and this dog was a great one.  If he was going to have a dog, I would want him to have a dog like this.  We also reasoned that the house we were getting had a fence, so we could easily keep him outside.  We left the Humane Society with Buddy.

Buddy was a great dog from day one, but it was a tenuous relationship between us.  He was cute and sweet, but I wasn't wanting to get close to him.  We had remembered correctly about our new house having a chainlink fence, but had failed to recognize about a foot and a half of missing fence next to the garage.  We bought a tie out for Buddy until we repaired the fence.  But, before the fence could be repaired, we learned that Buddy could jump/climb the chain link anyway.  It would take a privacy fence to keep him contained.  Johnie was ready to build one that summer.  I dug in my heels, thinking it quite ridiculous to spend that much money on something for a dog (though we all would have liked a privacy fence).

We joked with everyone that Buddy was a trial run for us.  I said we knew that if we couldn't take care of a dog, then we couldn't take care of a child.  This was about a month before the "pregancy scare" and I would remember those words when I thought a child was on the way.  Turns out, we could not take care of Buddy.  He broke tie out after tie out.  When we finally found a tie out strong enough (it was for 250 pound dogs, Buddy weighed less than 30), he broke his collar.  We went through a few collars until one finally held.  Then he started pulling up his stakes.  We've never found a system yet that can fully contain him.  We even bought an invisible fence system that he just braced himself for and pushed through the electric shock.  We promptly dismantled it.  We've never had the opportunity to try a privacy fence, but I wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't dig under, climb, or jump over that as well.  Thankfully, we have found products now that do last several months between breaking, and we always know to have back ups on hand for when the new stuff fails.  Also, our little dog-dinni has taken to just staying (or returning) to our yard after freeing himself over the past couple of years.

It took Buddy a few months to grow on me.  I considered him to be Johnie's dog, and all of his escaping wore on my nerves.  It became pretty obvious to us right away that Buddy probably came from an abusive home.  He flinched at any sudden movements or any noise of almost any volume.  He hoarded food instead of eating it (and not in your typical dog burying their food kind of way), and couldn't get enough petting.  (Seriously, he will still sit for hours to be petted, and will choose being petted over food any day.)  I had pity on his situation, but I did not want to keep him.  I looked for people to give him to.  I fought not to get close to him because I knew he was just going to die in a few years anyway.

During a disagreement over whether Buddy was Johnie's dog or my dog a few months after we adopted him, Johnie said that he didn't even want Buddy, but only got him because he could tell I really liked him and wanted him.  I told Johnie that I was being honest when I said I didn't want him.  I could think a dog was cute or good without taking him home with me.  We decided then to search hard to find Buddy a good home. 

Sometimes on Wichita Freecycle, families would post that they were looking for a dog.  We read those carefully and usually decided that we weren't sure enough to give Buddy to those families.  One day, however, a sweet post came through from a family with a couple little boys and a large privacy fenced yard who I thought would be perfect owners for Buddy.  I shared the post with Johnie and he agreed.  I typed up a response to offer our dog to this family.  I wanted them to know all about him, so (you all won't be surprised) the response became lengthy as I recounted how Buddy would greet us happily after work every day, how he was very obedient and would only bark if a stranger came in our yard - or at the occasional cat.  I thought over how good he had been to me since we had brought him home, and I began to cry.  I began to think how sad it would be not to be greeted by his sweet little face.  I went outside and played with him.  I looked once more into those big brown eyes.  I resolved that this other family would be better for him than Johnie and I had been, and decided to send the e-mail. 

The lady e-mailed back and said they had already taken another dog.  We would not be giving Buddy away.  I resolved to be a better mom to him, and we decided to keep him.  My love for him grew immediately.  He became a part of our family.  We began including him in our Christmas cards.  We began letting a few of our rules with him (such as no digging and no going into the laundry room) slide.  We began to appreciate his personality.  For example, he knew that I was more lenient than Johnie about letting him upstairs.  When he came in the house he would always go straight downstairs.  I didn't mind him being upstairs, so I would call him up after a couple minutes if Johnie wasn't home.  After about three times of doing this, Buddy stopped going downstairs altogether if Johnie wasn't home.  I would let him in and he would just sit on the landing as if to say, "we both know you're going to let me come up here, there's really no need for me to go down there now is there?" 

I'm sure there are probably times and ways that Buddy does fool us, but we usually play along when we catch him trying.  He knew he wasn't allowed in the laundry room, but sometimes we would hear him running to the other side of the basement when he heard us get up in the morning and we'd usually find a toy and a fur covered indent in the pile of dirty clothes (or sometimes a laundry basket of clean clothes that we forgot to put on the washer just in case). 

We began taking him with us on vacations.  Johnie didn't like all the dog hair in the car, and chose not to take Buddy with us on some trips I really wanted to take him on.  When we bought our second car one of my criteria was that Johnie had to be okay with Buddy riding in it.  In our latest search for a home here in Kentucky, Johnie and I have found several places that we would be very comfortable in, but have passed them up in search of something more suitable for our dog.

In his (and our) defense, though, he has been a wonderful companion to us.  He has brought us much laughter, and much comfort.  I never feel like he cares what I look like, how I'm dressed, or even whether or not I need to take a shower.  He's always just ecstatic to spend time with me.  While Johnie does struggle with empathy skills, I've often said that Buddy usually knows better how I'm feeling and how to respond than Johnie does.  I am impressed that he never plays as roughly with me as he does with Johnie, as though he understands mom needs a gentler touch.  In times when I'm happy he'll run and jump and play with me, and in times when I'm sad he'll rest his head on me.  He has laid next to me throughout several colds and similar illnesses.  Most impressive to me, he came up to me after I had some dental work done and licked the side of my face that had been worked on, then spent the rest of the day next to me.  Once he was sitting next to me, happily panting and looking around, when I choked on a drink of water.  It wasn't dramatic, just a couple coughs, but he immediately jerked his head toward me and put his face close to mine for several seconds. 

I knew within a couple months that while Buddy looked and acted harmless, he would do whatever he had to do to protect me.  Johnie disagreed, but conceded I was probably right after seeing Buddy interact with strangers.  One day at the park behind our house, Buddy taught me a great lesson when he ran straight up to an unkempt man who I assume was homeless.  The man patted Buddy, and Buddy sat next to him and allowed it.  I would have been afraid to approach the man for several reasons, but Buddy wasn't.  And while none of us really met any of that man's physical needs that day, Buddy left him with a smile on his face.  On another day at the park, a man who I would have counted as respectable came up to me and began petting Buddy.  It wasn't uncommon for others in the park to approach us to visit with our dog.  Buddy loved it, and we were proud to show how sweet, handsome, and obedient our dog was.  He would always sit and wag his tail until the strangers were finished.  But with this man, Buddy's whole body tensed up, he crouched, and his hair stood on end.  The man kept trying to calm Buddy, but when he started growling lowly, I excused us both from the situation.  I am not sure who that man was or why my dog was so defensive near him, but I trusted Buddy's instincts.  We saw that man numerous times in the park, but I always made sure to stay far from him - and Buddy always barked at him just so we were all clear about keeping our distance.

If those instances weren't enough to convince Johnie of our dog's protective nature, the fact that we watched him run a couple burly construction workers out of our backyard (one of which refused to come back even after we came outside and agreed to hold Buddy while he worked) and that we've had other professionals who have come to our house for estimates for various projects tell us they wouldn't go near our dog was enough.  He also knew how to work this system, too, though, and was not unfriendly to all professionals who entered our backyard.  The same meter reader came around every month and he and Buddy got to know each other.  Buddy befriended this man, but was still aware that he got a treat anytime he barked at a "stranger" in our backyard.  He obviously had a bark that could scare, but did not use it with this gentleman.  We have watched on numerous occassions while Buddy would greet this man at the gate wagging his tail.  On a first name basis, the man would usually say, "Hey Buddy," pet him, and they would both walk over to the meter together.  Buddy would always look at the back door as he passed, and if he saw either me or Johnie standing there, he would sit, bark a couple half-barks, accept his treat, and then go back to say goodbye to his friend.  We always let him by on this technicality he discovered.

I realized shortly after I started writing this post that I could probably dedicate an entire blog to my little puppy.  I hope to entwine his story into ours as I continue to document our life together.  One of my fears of dog ownership from that day in April has been realized.  Buddy nestled his way into my heart much like his persistant prodding when he wants to be petted.  So much so that part of me forgot he is a dog, and that his calendar progresses more quickly than ours.  It hit me this summer when Julian began talking about his wedding.  He let me know that Johnie and I were invited.  And Buddy.  I asked him why he was going to allow dogs at his wedding, and he responded that he wasn't, just Buddy.  I laughed and thought of the day 20 plus years from now when Julian would be getting married.  I am pretty sure he would change his mind (or forget) - even about Buddy - by the time this happens.  The jokester in me thought about showing up at the adult Julian's wedding with Buddy by my side.  I would tell this story and everyone would laugh.  Depending on his wife, I thought, I might have to leave Buddy at home and just share the story.  Then I realized that Buddy will probably no longer be with us for this, but only a memory.  I don't know how much longer we have with him and dread the day we must say goodbye, but I look forward to more sweet and funny moments with him in the meantime.

The Tree that Love Grew...

The first Valentine's Day that Johnie and I were married, a huge bouquet of flowers was delivered to my door.  They were gorgeous and after I learned how expensive they were, I can assure you they were a little too beautiful.  It was the biggest and most beautiful bouquet I've ever received though, so I did enjoy them.  There were a variety of flowers arranged in the vase and were so fragrant you could smell them from every room in our tiny little apartment.  I sat them on a corner table in our dining room, and took several pictures of them. 

I left them sitting out far longer than I should have.  They did maintain their integrity for more than a week before starting to decay and wilt, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them away until March.  Even then, I snipped some of the flowers and pressed them in books to save them.  There had been three little curly twigs arranged among the flowers.  Amid all the blooms, I thought they were probably just man-made decorative sticks.  They looked and smelled as though they had been sprayed with something.  As I was cleaning out the vase to pitch the dead arrangement, I noticed these little twigs were growing roots.  Upon inspecting them closer, I noticed there were little buds along each twig.  I kept them alone in the vase with fresh water and made a trip to the florist that had delivered the bouquet.

The florist informed me the twigs were cut from curly willow trees.  She said if they were growing roots, then they could be planted just like any tree.  Upon hearing this, I bought a pot and some soil, and planted the three little twigs.  I named them Larry, Curly, and Moe and sat them out on our deck.  I was amazed that they continued to grow, and the little buds bloomed out to produce leaves. 

When we moved to our house, one of my first orders of business was planting these little trees in our front yard.  I never imagined them to grow very large, so we planted them close together in the middle of our front yard.  They grew like crazy.  By the following summer, they were several feet tall and had become bushy.  After a few more months we discovered they were taller than me, although Johnie pointed out they were still not as tall as him.  The three little twigs melded together and swelled to the size of small trunks.  We couldn't even close our hands around the base of what had become one curly willow.  They passed Johnie in height, and then the roof of our porch and continued to grow. 

One day a man came to our house and struck up a conversation with Johnie about the tree.  He asked to cut some twigs for himself to start some of his own curly willows.  According to him, we had a golden curly willow variety that was uncommon in that part of Kansas.  He said he was going to cultivate them and then sell them.  We aren't sure what that man ever did with the twigs he clipped that day. 

I'm not sure if future owners of our house will continue to let the little tree grow, or if they will cut it down.  I will admit Johnie and I would have probably planted it in a better location had we known how big it would grow.  I am also thankful that we knew how to cultivate more and more little trees by cutting the branches and soaking them in water.  I brought several branches with me on our move to Kentucky and look forward to planting them whereever we go throughout our life.

Our First Year

Our first year of marriage was full of fun and surprises.  We navigated home ownership for the first time in our lives and managed the fears and anxieties that come along with being newly married.  We worked hard that first year at understanding one another and being mindful and respectful of each other's thoughts, feelings, needs, and desires.  We negotiated very important matters such as which way the toilet paper roll should go and the placement of furniture.  We heeded the warning that the first year is the hardest and took keeping one another happy seriously.  There are a lot of things about that time that we both look back fondly on.

Johnie loves telling the story about how I had trouble adjusting to him sleeping in the bed with me.  Luckily for him, we usually planned our evenings so that we went to bed at the same time.  But one night, about a month after we were married, I was too exhausted to wait up for him and went to bed by myself.  I am a very heavy sleeper, and when that sleep is disturbed it usually takes a few minutes for me to gather myself.  Throughout my life, during times of change, I have woken up unsure of where I was, which day of the week it was, and what exactly I needed to accomplish (i.e. go to work, school, church, etc.).  Even during that first month, mornings would sometimes find me trying to figure out why the paint in the bedroom of my apartment was a different color than I remembered and how the window had grown larger only to remember I had moved to Kansas and gotten married.
This night, I was deeply asleep in minutes.  The next thing I remember is hearing footsteps and panicking because someone was in my apartment!  I look to the doorway of my bedroom and see the outline of a tall man in the darkness.  I was terrified at the thought of what might be in store.  Was he just here to steal things?  Would he hurt me?  Would he kill me?!?  I didn't know what else to do but start screaming at the top of my lungs in hopes a neighbor would hear and call 911.  I also threw the only thing within reach, my pillow, at the intruder as sort of a knee jerk reaction.
Through the screams I hear a voice, "Amy, calm down.  It's me.... It's me."  After a few additional seconds of further panic at the realization that the stranger knew my name, I realized that I did recognize his voice.  I quickly recognized it as the voice of Johnie, my boyfriend.  I was confused as to how he managed to get in my apartment (maybe Sarah let him in) and why he chose to surprise me with a visit so late at night (maybe he had been driving all day and was just now getting to Kentucky).  Then I remembered: I live in Kansas now and Johnie and I are married.  I was a little disappointed, and also a bit relieved, that none of my new neighbors came to my rescue.

I love telling the story about how Johnie lost his shorts.  It was a warm summer afternoon, and we accepted some friends' invitation to spend the day with them on their boat at a nearby lake.  We had gone out with them a couple times before and were looking forward to another day on the water.  The last time we had gone out, we had tubed.  It was a thrill for me, but borderline too much, and my arms ached for a few days afterward from my deathgrip on the intertube's handles and the roughness of being thrown around behind the speeding boat.  While I'd probably be willing to hop back on again today, I just wasn't feelling it on this particular trip.  Johnie, however, was very excited at another chance to experience this fun activity.  He was the first one out on the tube that day.  And possibly because we had just heard him talking about how much he was looking forward to this ride for the last couple of hours, or because our prior trip had just been a taste of what a real tubing adventure could be, or just because guy friends find pleasure in pushing one another to their limits, Todd (driver and owner of the boat) was giving Johnie the ride of his life (and maybe this is just a sheltered little girl's perspective).
At any rate, it was a more rough ride than the last one.  The boat was going fast and the tube was bouncing all over the place, crossing wakes, and skidding across the water during turns.  At one point the tube bounces into the air, flips upside down and lands back in the water.  My throat tightened in the second it took for the tube to right itself on the lake.  I was ready to scan the area for my husband, but amazingly he was still on top of the tube.  He was still hanging on, but wasn't really moving or saying anything.  I was worried and shouted out to him, "Johnie, are you okay?"  His timid reply came, "yeah... I lost my shorts."  The dark bump floating just a couple feet from Johnie in the water were his shorts we quickly realized.  Even though he was wearing a life jacket, he was unwilling to let go of the tube to retrieve them.  We turned the boat around but by the time we made it back to the spot the shorts had sunk.  Thankfully, Johnie's cousin, Jessie, was wearing a pair of her husband's swim trunks over her own swimsuit.  We all decided giving those to Johnie was the best option we had.
And, because I love my husband, I will share his favorite part of this story.  Jessie handed me the swim trunks and I realized that everyone expected me to deliver the clothes to a naked Johnie behind the boat.  I was still not used to the fact that it was completely appropriate for me to see Johnie naked and had a moment of internal panic and embarassment.  Why didn't she give the trunks to one of the guys to give to him?  They all knew he was bare bottomed and I would see him.  Then I remembered once more that we were married and this was in fact completely okay.

Thankfully, not every day was as eventful as those two days during our first year.  After getting settled into our house, I fell into the wifely routine very well.  I had a laundry day, would walk to the grocery store, or take our dog for a walk throughout the week, and enjoyed all the cooking and some of the cleaning my scheduled afforded me.  By mid-summer, I was feeling a bit bored.  Johnie worked long days, and on those days, I felt like I was waiting on him to get home every evening for hours.  I began seeking out work, and by the end of summer had landed a job with a local non-profit agency (it shall have it's own post later).  Johnie's job contiued to go well.  He was accepted into Leadership Academy at work and after a diligent application process landed his first office job with Cox as a Communication Specialist.  It was a good time for us.

As we began celebrating our first holiday season as a married couple, we also began celebrating our first year of marriage.  We began verbally expressing to friends and family how relieved we were that our first year, the hardest, was now behind us and wasn't so bad after all, only to hear that actually it is the first two years that are the hardest.  Thanks, guys.  We've heard since that it is the first five years, and there's also the "seven year itch," the fifteen year mark seems to be difficult, along with any time you move or switch jobs, or have a baby, or another baby, or when children reach certain milestones, also when they move away, or when a family member dies, or when one of you gets sick, and well, basically, the whole thing is just hard.  We were a little discouraged by this, but still very thankful to have made the leap into marriage with each other.

Mother's Day 2007

So, things have been quite busy for us with our current move and all, and I've also been debating what to include in the next installment of our story.  I'm afraid I may take some heat for this one, but I've already shared the proposal in all it's glory so why begin hiding or sugar coating things now?  In all honesty, this post probably isn't for everyone, and may not be understood by most, but when I think about the purpose of writing our story to begin with - to be able to look back and remember our life and to share it with those who come after us, this is definitely pivotal.  If we ever do have children or grandchildren, especially if they are girls and make it to adulthood, this will be a story I definitely share with them.  Mother's Day 2007 changed everything for us.  We refer to it as the "Great Pregnancy Scare of 2007."

To give a little background information, Johnie and I love children.  We made plans for children before we were married.  We talked about when we wanted to have them, how many we hoped for, and how we preferred raising them.  I actually have a distinct pre-marriage memory of an impromptu kids discussion taking place at the dining room table in Johnie's apartment.  We were disagreeing over appropriate discipline.  We were on a time crunch for some now forgotten date.  Mid-discussion Johnie stood and said, "Oh well, we can talk about it more later.  We need to get going."  I stopped him.  "No, this is important.  I'm not going to marry someone if we can't agree on how to raise our children.  These things need to be worked out now, not later when there's nothing I can do about it."  (Note my pre-marriage view of marriage as being "stuck" with a husband until one of us dies.)

I'm not sure if it was out of fear that I would actually call off the wedding, or because he genuinely began changing his mind (he has now genuinely changed his mind - just not sure when that actually happened), but we did come to an agreement on the matter that day.  Our other discussions about children decided that we would like to have two to four, preferably healthy, children a few years after we married.  We both agreed that we would be more comfortable if I was a stay at home mom.

Prior to my first Mother's Day as a wife, I took being a mother seriously.  I read books and articles about parenting and pregnancy.  I made up possible scenarios in my head and thought through how I would handle them.  I debated mentally over what foods I should feed my future children, and what activities I should engage them in.  I analyzed other parents' boundaries in an effort to determine my own.  And even though Johnie and I had taken precautions to prevent pregnancy, I was nervous from day one about having a surprise.  Post-Mother's Day 2007, my trepidation reached a whole new level.

We all know I have a problem with patience.  But, I did manage to wait impatiently until early Sunday morning before deciding I could wait no longer.  I had been awake for a while thinking about our situation, thinking about the "what-ifs" that hung in the balance.  This wasn't uncommon during our first months of marriage.  Previously, I had always taken a test to set my mind somewhat at ease (those tests can be wrong, you know).  This time I had decided to wait it out.  Mother's Day morning I was officially late and could wait no longer.  I had already determined that there was no other possibility than that I was pregnant, and it would be best to find out on Mother's Day than any other day coming up in the near future. 

I woke Johnie and convinced him to go buy a test (I was out) so that we would know definitively that morning.  Within half an hour the test had been retrieved and taken.  I waited.  I watched the little window.  I continued to wait.  The window remained completely blank.  I usually used tests with lines, but this one was supposed to clearly say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" on the stick.  I consulted the instructions to reaffirm that I was supposed to see something in the window as well as to double check that I was doing everything correctly.  I was.  But something had gone wrong.  And I was now out of testing material.  It was going to be an interesting morning.

I was sure that the blank window was only further affirmation that I was, in fact, expecting.  I had never had any other test result than one little pink line.  I nervously made it through church services, and we came back home anxious for round two of testing.  I tried again.  The second test was not blank.  It literally (I am not making this up) displayed a little digital picture of a book.  I didn't even know that was an option!  What could that mean?  Was the test so advanced that it was able to determine that not only was I pregnant, but that I also had a lot to learn before I began parenting a helpless baby?  I consulted the instructions once more.  There were a handful of symbol options that could have appeared.  I located the book symbol on the leaflet.  It literally (I am not making this up) said please call [xxx-xxx-xxxx] to interpret these results.  Whatever this result was it was so terrible that they couldn't even write it!  Maybe the book symbol meant that they already knew that something was so horrible with me that they needed to get me on the phone to get personal information from me to track this pregnancy! 

I called the number.  They only have people answer that line Monday through Friday.  They should really rethink that, in my opinion.  Unable to wait to find out what this book symbol may or may not mean, I downed a glass of water and headed back out to the store for another box of tests.  I made sure this box had only my trusty lines (or line, singular, up to this point) and that there were no vague symbol options meant to appear.  Hopefully this test would just tell me whether or not I was pregnant, not hint at a special manual I might need for parenthood.

I can only stipulate that there may not have been any hormones at all in the "testing material" this third go around.  But even with my usual First Response test, I again got a blank screen Sunday evening.  The leaflet included with these new tests said that a blank screen was a malfunction that could have been caused by a number of reasons.  I couldn't help but wonder if this test, while not armed with a plethora of symbols, might not also be smart enough to figure out there was news it was not willing to share or I was not ready to hear. 

I didn't get much sleep Sunday night.  I calculated my potential due date if I were pregnant.  I thought about how our lives would change.  I thought about my life the past couple of weeks that I was unknowingly pregnant.  I hadn't taken multi-vitamins.  I had consumed caffiene.  I had even had some fish.  I didn't even know what would be the best things to be eating at this point, and had to figure it out since I was already in the middle of a pregnancy.  I would need to exercise, but not too much.  I wanted to have a natural birth, but what if I couldn't stand the pain, and got an epidural, but it malfunctioned and then I was paralyzed from the waist down?  And I had a baby.  How could I take care of a baby while being paralyzed from the waist down?  What if Johnie decided he couldn't love me or take care of me and the baby after being paralyzed and then I was a paraplegic single mom 800 miles away from family with a newborn? 

I couldn't even think about all the decisions that would have to be made after the baby was born.  What if I couldn't breastfeed?  What formula would be the best?  What if my flippant actions over the past couple of weeks or my ignorant actions in the upcoming 36 weeks caused something to be wrong with the baby?  How would we handle that?  How would this affect our marriage?  Was I ready to be a mother now?  Was Johnie ready to be a father?  How would he react to this news?  How could we afford a baby anyway?  If I was able to even get this kid to school age, which curriculum would I use to teach him or her?  If this child decided to marry, how would I ever find an appropriate mate for him or her?  What if the baby was a boy and when he became an adult there was a war and he got drafted and had to fight in it?  What if by the time this little baby inside me became an adult our country had completely changed and we were no longer allowed to freely practice christianity and my child faced persecution like some of our brothers and sisters in other countries do now?  Or, my biggest fear, what if this little one chose not to follow Christ at all?

The reality of parenthood hit me like a ton of bricks.  I loved children and I had always wanted to be a mom, but I had not realized the responsibility that comes with creating a soul before this day.  My chest felt tight just thinking about it.  I also worried about worrying that night, because I knew that couldn't be good for the baby, either.  I did not feel ready.  I was not ready.  I felt like I was being forced to do a job for which I had received no training and a person's life hung in the balance.  I had never thought of child-rearing as seriously as I did when I faced it that day.

Monday morning came and I called the number again.  The lady on the other line apologized for the inconvenience and told me the book symbol meant there had been something wrong with the test itself (unrelated to user error).  I couldn't account for the other two blank screens.  I took another test that morning and finally received one single pink line.  Later in the week I received further confirmation.  Nine months later I was sure I hadn't been pregnant that Mother's Day. 

The great burden I felt that day at being completely responsible for creating another human and then caring for that human through adulthood hasn't left me.  I did not feel ready then, and I have not felt ready since to undertake such a feat.  To be completely honest, I keep expecting that feeling to either subside or be overwhelmed by a desire to be a mother.  It hasn't yet.  I like to say my "baby wanter" is broken.  I've remained content over the past four years to vicariously mother through family and friends.  There are things I think that would be enjoyable about parenthood, but it just isn't worth it to me (yet).  There was once, this past December, randomly at a Christmas play, in which I sat behind the parents of most likely a 5 year old on stage.  The child was beautiful, smart, and entertaining, and the parents' pride and love was obvious.  I actually teared up at the thought of never having that experience.  I thought maybe that was the beginning of the tides turning for me, but that feeling was gone before the evening ended. 

I will also say that seeing sweet daddys with their babies also makes me think about what a wonderful father Johnie would be if he ever has the chance.  I have no doubt he'd be a great dad.  I have always been open with him that I did not want him to be deprived of that experience should he choose it, but he, too, has been content not to test the parenthood waters.  We aren't sure what the future holds for us child-wise.  I've had many discussions with God about this and have tried to stay open to His will in my life.  I tell Him regularly if He decides to surprise me with a little one, I'll try to be the best mom I can be.  But so far, from my viewpoint at least, I feel like things are best the way they are.

House Hunting

I would imagine that anywhere in the world, at anytime throughout history, you could gather a group of married ladies together to ask them what surprises they received after the wedding day and they would all have an answer.  I would like to think for all of us there has been at least one thing that wasn't what we expected, or that took us by surprise.  For me, it was the living situation.  While I understood that part of getting married was living with your husband, I hadn't thought through losing my wonderful perfect little girly apartment and getting dumped right in the middle of a bachelor pad.  For the first time in my life, I had to share every room in a house with another person!  And, that person is a boy!  (I still completely agree with my grandmother that boys have cooties.)

Johnie kept his apartment clean, and it wasn't a bad apartment.  It just wasn't my apartment.  It was filled with his no sense of style stuff, and was smaller and more expensive than my place had been.  I quickly set about changing it, but I definitely wanted a different, and bigger, space.  I was pushing for a two bedroom apartment.  Johnie wanted to make the leap to home ownership.  I was reluctant.  Mainly because I felt like buying a house was planting roots in Kansas.  When I first moved to Wichita, my main goal was moving back to Kentucky as quickly as possible.  I was against anything that might keep us in Kansas longer than necessary.  Despite it's flat, barren dullness, it didn't take long for the entertaining diversions (having the second most restaurants per capita than any other city in the nation, for example) and wonderful people to grow on me.  I knew I could be out here indefinitely, so I decided to start having the full experience.  I agreed to meet with a realtor, a friend of Johnie's willing to find us the perfect place.

As is our style, Johnie wanted a new home, a large home, an expensive home.  We looked at model homes and considered homes that would have maxed out our loan approval.  I wasn't working then, and Johnie was still a field technician, so my budget conciousness motivated me to look less at the most home we could get, and more at what homes we could comfortably afford.  We couldn't comfortably afford much, so I wasn't really open to homes more than $75,000.  I began scouring the internet for possibilities.  While Johnie was ready for a four or five bedroom, I was content with only two.  There were a lot of possibilities, and while he was drawn toward the more large and extravagant homes, I prefered small and cozy (along with their price tags).  There were a lot of different options available.

One morning I came across one little house that I thought would be perfect for us.  It was painted light blue.  It had actually been flipped, so everything inside the house was brand new.  New laminate flooring, freshly painted walls, new heating and air, new appliances.  It was a very small two bedroom, but the pictures of each of the rooms just sparkled.  The tiny, tiny asking price of only $35,000 appealed to me too.  I told Johnie about the house.  He thought it was too small.  I kept bugging him about it.  One day he asked where it was.  When I told him, he said he thought it wasn't in the best neighborhood.  Day after day I would go back to the website to check on this little house, and I would talk to Johnie about how much I loved it and how I thought it was perfect for us.  He kept shooting me down.

I began to get really frustrated with him and told him so.  I thought he wasn't giving this house a chance just because it wasn't in a subdivision and wasn't several bedrooms.  I told him he only wanted a house that we would be stuck in because we wouldn't have any money left after paying the mortgage.  After about a week or so of this, he finally agreed to go look at the house with me.  I was ecstatic.  I pulled up the website and retrieved the address.  From that moment on, I chattered on and on about how I knew this was the perfect house for us, and he would think so too when he saw it.  I talked about how fast we could pay off the small mortgage for the house.  How that it might even be an outreach opportunity if we weren't in the best neighborhood - maybe we could help our neighbors.  He quietly drove, I'm still not sure whether or not he was listening.

When we turned off the highway into the neighborhood, I was taken a little aback.  It was a bit more seedy than I had anticipated.  I wasn't ready to be deterred though. "Yeah, so you were right.  I guess it's not the best neighborhood, but I still think this will be a good opportunity.  And, just because people are poor doesn't mean they are criminals.  I was probably more poor growing up than some of these people, and we weren't bad neighbors.  Look over there," I pointed to a house, "They keep their house up nice."  We drove closer to the address of our perfect little house.  Things began looking worse.  I became quieter.

When we reached the road the house was on, we also reached the end of the pavement.  Being from the country, I am completely accustomed to unpaved roads.  Unpaved streets in the middle of a city are a completely different experience!  "So, it's on this street?" I asked quietly.  Johnie affirmed my question.  I wasn't ready to say it out loud because it might mean defeat and I hadn't actually seen the house yet, but I was unsure whether or not I would feel safe on this road by myself. 

I was hopeful we would return to pavement before we reached the house.  During the days when Johnie was ignoring my monologues about the little blue bungalow, I was fixating on it.  The more I looked at it's listing, and the more I looked at other listings, the more convinced I became that this was definitely the perfect house for us.  I knew my only obstacle was getting Johnie to seriously consider it.  By driving to look at it, he was seriously considering it.  I knew he was going to be surprised by how nice it was, I knew everything was going to work out.  I was so happy and proud of myself for being open-minded enough to find this little gem for us!

As Johnie continued to drive, the back of a little blue house came into view.  My heart sank.  I had looked at the listing enough to know this was the house.  The pictures hadn't shown the "yard:" reaching only about two or three feet out all the way around the house and nothing but sand/dirt.  A final nail in the coffin of my dream came when we reached the side of the house.  That nail also held a piece of plywood presumably over a window.  Spraypainted in red was the following:

"Dear theif [sic], All of the copper has been taken.  There is nothing left to steal."

The plywood, nor the letter, were also not mentioned or shown in the listing, either!  I felt horrible, not only was I wrong and Johnie right, but I looked like an idiot for talking on and on and on about a wonderful little house that had letters to criminals instead of windows, in an extremely questionable part of town.  And, now I was completely back at square one.  I had talked up this house, and talked down all the other houses, so much that I felt it nearly impossible to begin the house hunt once more.  We laugh at this story now every time we think about it.  I cried about it that evening.  Instead of telling me he told me so, Johnie just comforted me, reassured me we would find a house we both loved, and took me to Old Chicago to cheer me up.

I called about a few other houses, and even went to look at some with our realtor with no luck.  Our realtor planned a day of showings for us on one of Johnie's days off.  We just ran across our notes from that day a couple weeks ago as we were preparing to put the house we ultimately chose back on the market once more.  While I have not enjoyed the selling process so far, and am not really all that excited to leave a house that I absolutely love in the first place, I do look forward to getting to look for another perfect house in Kentucky. 

I had fun with the house hunting process that day.  I do enjoy looking at houses, whether or not I'm interested in buying them.  This day I gave each house a nickname so that we would be able to remember each one and the details about it at the end of the day.  We visited crazy lady's house.  It was a spacious three bedroom with a partially finished basement and detached two car garage at the top of my price range.  Crazy lady had some crazy stuff going on including bright blue carpet in the living room, a randomly placed refrigerator that you had to stand on a set of stairs to open, a shower head in the middle of an unfinished part of the basement, a pole like those used for dancing in the middle of the finished part of the basement, and several other questionable things throughout. 

We also visited serial killer's house, named because of a room that had been added on to the house that featured more than 10 of those really big electrical sockets that you plug things like dryers and freezers into.  We concluded the room could have been used for no other purpose than to house multiple freezers to store dead bodies in, especially since the rest of the house had a bad vibe and gave us the creeps.

I wrote on the listing sheet for the house we ultimately chose "our perfect house."  It wasn't perfect, but it was love at first sight.  My boss back in Richmond lived and worked in an older home built in the early 1900s.  It was then that I fell in love with older homes in general - their hardwood floors, their character, their history.  This house was built in 1923.  It still had all of the original doors, including skeleton key locks, and some beautiful woodwork, built in bookshelves, and a fireplace.  The kitchen was huge, as were the bedrooms, and although unfinished, it had a basement (I was still nervous about Kansas tornadoes at this point).  The bathroom was straight from the 70s, but it was clean, and the heating and air hailed from the same era (although they still worked).  I was disappointed by the lack of a dishwasher, and a bit nervous about living on a main street in Wichita, but I took the advice of friends from church and called my would-be neighbors were we to purchase the house.

I talked to several neighbors.  For the most part they were elderly and had lived on this block for many years.  It was difficult for me to learn much about their living situation in this area because most all of them wanted to interview their possible neighbor.  They seemed concerned that Johnie and I were so young and without kids (but with a dog), but all were relieved when I answered yes to their very straightforward question "so, are you married?"  The fact that there was a park, a library, a grocery store, and the company Johnie worked for in less than a five minute walk, coupled with overly concerned neighbors, was enough to outweigh my concerns.  We decided to buy the little house - with a warranty on the old heating and air.

This house has been an acquired taste for Johnie.  He has loved it's character, but always dreamed of something bigger.  Even now, as I drove away from the house crying when the realtors were coming over to look at it, Johnie had been trying to convince me to put my home on the market even if we weren't moving to Kentucky.  I was unwilling to budge and had conceded to finishing the attic as quickly as possible.

For me, the love at first sight has only grown over the last four years.  I feel like we've made a great house even better by updating the kitchen and bath.  I want so badly just to pick this place up and move it to Kentucky with us.  But, I know that just as I loved my apartment on Keeneland and left it only to find this house that I have grown to love even more, I'll find another house in Kentucky that will be the best yet.  I'm thankful for this little yellow bungalow on Hydraulic where Johnie and I celebrated our first Christmas, where we celebrated new jobs and promotions, where we had fun times with friends and family, and where our love for one another has continued to deepen and mature.  For all the horror stories some couples have about their first place, and despite the funny story that could have come from a quirky sub-par house, I'm glad we have this little place to always call our first home.  I think we will always remember it fondly.

The Wedding

It was pretty tough planning a wedding with a fiance more than 800 miles away while juggling all the other things I had going on.  It was a quick decision to have the wedding in Kentucky.  It would be much easier for me to plan in Kentucky, and well, I was the one moving, so it was kind of like a final goodbye to my home state before moving away.  (I did offer to have the wedding in Kansas if Johnie would live in Kentucky.)  I'll start with the things I would have done differently: I would have thrown my budget out the window with my wedding dress and picked my attire based solely on what I loved with little consideration for price.  I would have taken more pictures (thank you, Misty, for making me take the ones we did - I remember Sheila asking what poses I wanted and replying, "none."  To which you said, "you're my best friend, and if you don't want pictures of your wedding, I do!").  I would have stayed in Kentucky a few days after the wedding.  It put a damper on the wonderfully happy occasion to be leaving my home for the final time at the close of the reception.  Overall, though, I am proud of the wedding Johnie and I planned and hosted.

Not a surprise for those of you who know me, I definitely made the budget a priority during wedding planning.  I would have never wanted an overly extravagant day, anyway, but from the very beginning Johnie and I planned the day with one mantra: The marriage is much more important than the wedding and we would much prefer an impressive marriage over an impressive wedding (it would be nice to have both, and I guess the jury is still out on if we will have either). 

A local church, who had nicknamed their building "the wedding chapel," offered their wonderful facilities for free to brides on a first come, first served basis (they even had a "skinny mirror" in the bridal prep room).  I had worked with the church through one of my jobs for a couple of years, and booked it immediately.  It wasn't very difficult to decide on colors: lavendar.  I had imagined wedding decorations in either pink or lavendar.  I called my best friend to ask her to be my maid of honor.  When she asked if I knew what colors I was going with I told her that I liked those two.  Before I could finish by saying I knew she hated wearing pink, and had decided to go with lavendar because I would never ask her to do so, she said, "you're the only person I'd wear pink for."  That made my decision even easier.

I also quickly decided on just what I wanted the cake to look like.  Although I had not yet decided on how to get it, I was toying with recruiting my mother to make the cake on our own.  My boss offered to buy my cake as a wedding gift and suggested a local decorator who had baked her daughters' wedding cakes.  She and I went for a tasting.  The cake was good, but the price was double what she had expected.  While she still offered to help cover the expense of the cake, no matter who made it, that appointment solidified for me who was going to make my cake.  I shared with La Lola my thoughts on my dream wedding cake.  Offhandedly, I mentioned to her I had seriously considered baking the cake myself until my boss so graciously offered to buy one for me.  La Lola let me know that this was a bad idea on my part because wedding cakes are a big deal, they need to be perfect, and I deserved a "special" wedding cake.  I must say it was a classic Amy reaction, but I decided when La Lola hinted that my cake wouldn't be as good - or special - if my mom and I did it, that my mom and I would make one amazing cake.  And, excuse me while I brag - I absolutely loved our final product.  Not only did it taste delicious, but it looked gorgeous, too.

Johnie and I designed our own wedding invitations, and even though Johnie suggested we cater the event throughout the planning process, I remained opposed to the idea to the very end.  I wanted the rehearsal dinner to showcase classic Kentucky and planned for my mom to fix chicken and dumplings.  I also purposely planned the wedding in the middle of the day and wasn't concerned with serving a full meal to my guests (although there were many tasty fingerfoods).  We also picked out some of our favorite songs to sing at the wedding and created a song book as a wedding favor.

Throughout the planning process, Johnie and I knew we would write our own vows.  In the beginning, I imagined this would be something we would do months in advance, separately, after much reflection on our love and relationship.  It never happened.  And, well, with my control issues and Johnie's failure to produce an acceptable proposal, I'm not sure I would have wanted him to "surprise" me with his own vows on our wedding day.  So, in the car, on the way to Kentucky from Kansas, I pulled out a scrap piece of paper and we began drafting our lifelong vows to one another and God.  Having been married for four years now and looking back over them, I think if I could redo them, I might water them down a bit to be more realistic, but we had lofty goals for ourselves then, and I still think our vows were sweet:

(Johnie) Amy, I promise to always love you, respect you, honor you, and cherish you.  I fully devote my life and myself to you for as long as I live.  Today, I make it my goal to love you just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it; and to put your needs and concerns above my own.  I will constantly strive to make my love for you kind and gentle, pure and humble, strong and everlasting.  My love for you will never fail.  I promise to be the best husband to you that I possibly can be and to safely lead and protect our family on our journey together as we serve the Lord.  I offer you this ring as a token of my promise and my love.

(Amy) John, I promise to always love you, respect you, honor you, and cherish you.  I fully devote my life and myself to you for as long as I live.  Today, I make it my goal to submit myself to you as I submitted myself to the Lord.  I will constantly strive to make my love for you kind and gentle, pure and humble, strong and everlasting.  My love for you will never fail.  I promise to be the best wife to you that I possibly can be, to walk with you on our journey together, and to guide our family as we serve the Lord.  I offer you this ring as a token of my promise and my love.

My fears of Johnie's vows being a little less romantic were made more legitimate when I read the first line back to him in the car and asked if he thought any other verbs needed to be added.  His answer: "Well, I was thinking about it, and trying to decide what order they should be in." 
I reply, "So, love, respect, honor, and cherish - you want them in a different order?" 
He answers, "I can't decide what order they should be in..." After a short pause, "How about I say, 'Amy, I promise to always love you, respect you, honor you, and cherish you, but not necessarily in that order.  Except for love.  Everything that I do will be a result of my love for you.'"
"Seriously?" I ask. 
"Yeah... because everything I do will be a result of my love for you, but those things shouldn't be ranked or done in a particular order."
"We" decided not to make that edit on the vows. :)

While I enjoyed having our wedding between Christmas and New Year's, and enjoy celebrating our anniversary that time of year since, our wedding date, and coordinating the event with hundreds of miles between us, presented a few obstacles.  One being securing the wedding license.  Between our schedule, and the courthouse schedule, we didn't have a lot of options.  A day or so after Christmas, my brother caught a stomach bug.  By the following day, I had it, too.  I kept putting off the wedding license, due to my illness, until the last day the courthouse was going to be open prior to our wedding.  My stomach was a bit more settled that morning, so I slowly got ready, and we headed toward town.  I was barely a mile down the road before the nausea hit again full force.  I cracked the window, willing myself to make it.  My efforts were to no avail.  Johnie had to pull the car over for me, and one of my worst fears since acquiring this virus was realized: for all time part of my wedding story would include throwing up on the way to get our marriage license.

The stomach virus had both positive and negative effects on the wedding itself.  It was a wonderful pre-wedding crash diet.  My dress definitely fit more loosely that day.  Unfortunately though, it made it's way to several friends and family that morning, preventing many of them from being able to attend. 

In an effort for full disclosure, I began feeling nervous about the whole thing a couple days prior to the big event.  I'm not sure if it's part of my Appalachian heritage, my grandmother's superstitions, or the silly ways my mom always looks at things, but I've always been on the lookout for signs and omens.  A preacher who was a wonderful friend of mine once shared with me that when a river winds it's way to the ocean, it never takes a straight path, but rather bends and curves as it comes to obstacles.  He said that sometimes we as humans don't recognize obstacles meant to lead us in another direction, but sometimes stand in one place and continue to bang our heads against the rock.  I began wondering if I'd missed some signs - if maybe I shouldn't have settled for a lackluster proposal.  If maybe the fact that I wasn't going to finish my degree should've been a red flag for me.  Maybe my stomach problems were not the result of a virus so much as my body trying to reject my decision and possibly God trying in one last attempt to show me I was making a mistake.  I worried that I didn't really know the man I was about to marry.  The amount of time we had spent face to face in one another's company was small.  What if part of the whole promotion-moving to Kansas thing was part of a scheme to completely isolate me from my friends and family?

In my doubt, I began replaying the past year.  I really had no reason to believe that Johnie hadn't been genuine all along.  And, I began remembering all of the good signs - the things that told me this was really meant to be, from our similar backgrounds, to the way he looked at me and treated me.  I had always said that if I ever found a man who made me his priority I would marry him.  Johnie definitely made it no secret that I was his priority.  And, at the end of the day, my husband once more owes thanks to Gary Barrett.  As wrong as all of my intuitions could have been, and as possible as it was that he could put on an act for me for a year, Gary and his family had known Johnie all of his life.  I had known them all of my life, and I trusted them.  I knew if they knew of anything that should concern me, I would've known about it, too. 

By the time I reached the day of my wedding, I was exhausted in every form.  I had been working too much, studying too hard, sleeping too little, and riding a roller coaster of emotions for the past several months.  I hadn't fully recuperated from the stomach bug and I was about to become a wife and move hundreds of miles from home all in one day.  I've often said I wish I could have another wedding day so I could actually enjoy it this time.  But, it was still a nice day, nonetheless.

Prior to the wedding, I had worried about marriage.  I had worried about my ability to actually do it.  I thought my independence and stubborness just might hinder my success as a wife.  I foresaw many arguments in my future as I fought to have my own way in a relationship that by its very nature sometimes requires that we not have our own way.  I'm also not one to stick around for something I don't like - I've always striven to change things in my life that I'm not satisfied with, even if it means leaving a school, leaving a job, leaving a residence, leaving a boy, or leaving a friend.  I just prefer being happy.  I worried that when marriage stopped making me happy, I'd leave it too.  I worried I'd feel stuck, or find another life or another person I might prefer sometime in the future. 

Prior to the wedding, I thought that a wedding ceremony did nothing to actually change a person or a relationship.  At least for me, the wedding ceremony changed me.  Maybe it is a switch that gets flipped in all of us.  Maybe making that vow "for real" to God carried more weight than I realized before.  Maybe a marriage really is different from the very beginning.  Whatever the reason, I've never been the same since the afternoon of December 30th, 2006.  Actually saying those words, actually going through the ceremony, humbled me.  When it was over I felt like I had been handed a most precious and fragile gift.  I felt like I had been given the opportunity to have a great life, with only one shot to make it happen, and it was all up to me.  I felt the need to choose my words and my actions carefully, as they could have a profound effect on this other human being who I felt more connected to, more responsible for, than I ever had anyone else.  I knew that one bad move, one harsh word, could never be taken back and would always remain on this relationship that would always be.

Suddenly, I knew that nothing was really all about me, and that all the things I had been so concerned with before meant very little.  I've found it isn't difficult at all to follow a man who puts my happiness behind only the will of God and ahead of even his own wants.  And, when you're married to someone who places you above everyone else, how could you not be motivated to do the same? 

 I have a deeper appreciation for what the scripture says about marriage.  As Johnie and I (usually) quietly overlook one another's daily mistakes and shortcomings, and love each other despite knowing all our past failures, I learn more about the mercy, grace, and love shown to me by Jesus.  I have watched in awe as our relationship has grown, developed, deepened, strengthened, and been blessed these first few years.  I had no idea marriage could be so wonderful.  While I may have had a few doubts back then, I made one of the best decisions of my life the day I married Johnie.

Saying Goodbye to my old Apartment...

So, admittedly, this post has much more to do with me than with Johnie or our life together, but when remembering this time in my life, moving out of that apartment was a big deal for me, and I must have one post just for that little place in Richmond, KY that will always have a special place in my heart.

In December 2006, one of the hardest parts of marrying Johnie was giving up my apartment.  I had hoped my roommate would want to keep it so that I could continue to visit it whenever I was in town.  But she decided to move out, too, and I understood her decision.  I did not look forward to saying goodbye to my little home.  Even today, in this big wide world, and all the places I've visited and lived, Richmond, KY is where I consider my home to be.  I've often said that I would have been content living my entire life in that little place and would have loved to begin my married life in it.

After transferring to EKU, a friend from high school and I decided to get a place of our own.  After a small search, we visited her cousin's girlfriend's place and considered her offer to let us move in with her.  It was cheap and workable, so we agreed.  I packed all my belongings into the back of my blue 1991 Chevrolet Cavalier and officially moved out of my home and out on my own into this apartment.  My friend and I bought matching beds and shared a bedroom of the second story apartment.

I had been craving independence.  I wasn't wild or rebelious, but I didn't want to have to answer to or ask permission from anyone to do the things I wanted to do - as low key as staying out late on a Friday night, or going out with friends may be.  While this place gave me that, it wasn't an immediate love between us.  We knew that three people in a two bedroom apartment would be tight, but it wasn't just the three of us.  Our new roommate had friends and family visiting almost always.  She did hook me up with a job as a front desk clerk at a local Comfort Suites which I greatly enjoyed.  But, I worked several third shift nights, and would often come home to complete strangers sleeping in the living room when returning in the morning. 

Thankfully, those conditions didn't last for long.  By the end of the summer, our roommate let us know she would be moving out.  My high school friend said she would be moving out, too.  I was anxious during that time, but before I was stuck with my bills tripling, my best friend took me up on moving in the vacant second bedroom.  And this is when my affection for the dwelling began to increase.  With my roommates gone, I was left with an empty home.  My grandfather gave me an old couch.  It was the only thing in the living room.  Misty moved in and filled up the bedroom, and decorated the bathroom.  With a few little accents she made the lone couch actually look good.  We combined our money and bought a dining room table. 

Mip is quite the interior decorator, and she definitely transformed the apartment.  She was reluctant, but I talked her into decorating the kitchen and dining room in cherries.  She said to me that she was surprisingly relieved that my ideas for those areas turned out not to be tacky at all!  She enhanced my work by tying little cherries onto the dining room chairs, painting and framing a cluster of cherries, and even making a little cherry window cling for the kitchen window.  With my best friend living with me, the apartment felt like home.

Misty only lived with me a few months before relocating to Louisville.  I had taken a second job and was able to afford the rent on my own, and decided against yet another new roommate. The lease on the apartment had been signed several year's prior by my original roommate's cousin before she even moved in.  Rent was set then and never increased.  Beyond that, the apartment complex across the street had a pool and fitness center.  While we technically weren't supposed to use those facilities, the codes were shared freely.  While my guilt prevented me from using those facilities very often, I did still brag about having access to them with such cheap rent.  My family bought me a new desk, and I transformed my second bedroom into an office.  I made everything about the apartment exactly the way I wanted it.  It was wonderful.  My boyfriend at the time and his parents showered me with many gifts to help make the apartment even better including kitchenware, a washer and dryer, a computer, and quite a few decorations. 

While I was nervous about living alone, and honestly there were some nights that were very lonely, I loved this experience for the most part.  I will always be thankful for this time in my life, and believe I will always look back fondly on it.  I accepted an internship in Bloomington, IN during the summer of 2005.  While I spent that summer in a dorm in Indiana, I kept my Kentucky apartment.  While at IU, I forged a friendship with a fellow intern.  We traveled together back and forth from Kentucky.  I don't remember who talked who into what, but by the time the internship was over, I had a new roommate.  And, while I had a total of 7 different roommates throughout my college years, Sarah will always be my college roommate. 

My little apartment transformed yet again to accommodate what I really felt was a true college living experience.  I had a fellow roommate who had tons of classes and homework like me.  We left notes for one another, bought a table, chairs, and umbrella and began utilizing the back deck to its fullest potential (and actually pushed some limits after a fire involving a table top grill with improvised legs).  We even snuck in a cat my friend could no longer keep after getting married.  It was yet another wonderful experience.

Before I moved into my place, my father told me I'd never be able to cover my bills and keep up with my classes.  I wasn't sure he was wrong at first.  But I proved to myself and the world that I could make it.  This little apartment was the central hub of my life.  It housed many wonderful times and great laughs.  It was the place where I first began navigating adulthood.  It is where I heard some of my friends' deepest fears, concerns, and secrets, and shared my own.  It was there that the man I loved knelt on one knee and promised to ask me to marry him someday, and that same place I broke both of our hearts by ending that relationship a couple years later.  (Laughably, I also panicked during that proposal as well.  I did accept the promise ring on his first "try," but I felt like I had to make a verbal response to "I promise to ask you to marry me," and was at a loss for words.  I thought it was expected for me to say that I promise to say yes, but I also felt like you couldn't break a promise and didn't want to commit so fully that I couldn't back out later.  My response was, "I promise to let you ask me.")  It was there that I completed my Bachelor's degree and began my graduate degree.  It was in that apartment where I spent hours and hours and hours talking with Johnie, and ultimately accepted (and followed through with) his proposal.

On this return trip to Kentucky, just days before my wedding, I closed the door to my apartment for the last time.  Johnie and I stopped by it on the way to my family's home on Christmas day.  I picked up a few final things.  I raised the shades in the kitchen, but couldn't bring myself to remove the little cherry window cling.  And, as dorky as it sounds, I sometimes still get a lump in my throat when I think of driving down North Keeneland and not seeing them if I look up at that second story window.