Happy weekend all

What on earth is that apostrophe taking the place of? It's part of the Campbell's m'm m'm good logo, and I can't figure out what the options are on that. Whatever it means, it is on our new casserole dish; the one made especially for green bean casserole.

Behold.

Josh and I tastily succeeded.

We stayed in Salt Lake City for Thanksgiving. Josh had to work Wednesday and we thought Friday, too. I planned on driving back to Colorado until the forecast came through.

Did I cry as I hung up the phone with my mom and dad Thanksgiving day? Yes. Did I start to feel the city close in on me so busy and full of people? Yes. Did we make way too many mashed potatoes? Yes, about enough for five people.

 

But, it was a special dinner and it was Josh and I together for our very first holiday cooking for ourselves. You know those moments when things are real and present and asking you if you see them? Thanksgiving dinner was one of those moments when the fact that we're starting a life together is sitting in the crook of my ear and whispering sweet nothings to me. Except that they weren't sweet nothings they were sweet everythings.

Not being able to get home to family is something that you take into consideration when you choose a college. And that consideration is exactly to this extent: 'I have a subaru. I'll be fine.'

 
So that was the struggle of the week. Knowing that in a big green house in Colorado there were grandparents to be held and dogs to be petted and a sister and brother to make fun of ;) Parents to be talked with and friends to have coffee with. And in that small town a river to be sat by and a brick wall in a coffee shop that knows when I walk in the door and invites me to sit next to it. And in another house there were more parents to see and another sister and brother to hug and a new dog to pet, and grandparents to whom I owe some conversation, being the girl that's about to join their family and all. A canyon to marvel at and cotton candy to eat on the drive.

But sometimes, even Pearl the subaru needs to change her plans and sit in the driveway next to her buddy Mazda for a weekend.

I pray everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that there are only safe travels back home. I, for one, will be curled up on the couch reading Cry the Beloved Country (probably not the wisest choice for a homesick girl in the city, but once you start reading that voice it's got you there 'til the end of the book). Stay warm, best beloveds.

The Crux

I read blogs; wedding blogs, blogs by mothers who remind me of my mother, Christian blogs, blogs for the sake of their pictures, cooking blogs, blogs on womanhood. Where are the blogs about the point that I'm at in life? I have no children, my deepest friends and my family are miles away, I don't need to decorate a home for Thanksgiving company. I think, that this age - the age of leaving home and being in a serious relationship, of going to classes and praying for a direction, of finding new and strengthening community, of yearning for the people who know you best - has become the target age for dumb social advice.

 We are who Cosmopolitan targets with their offers to teach us how to make a boy love us in bed, how to do our makeup, how to make friends, what to wear for our body type, and if we still don't feel good they'll throw in others' embarrassing stories so that we'll know we, at least, don't have it as bad as they do.

I, for one, don't need to know what those editors and stylists and whomever else is behind it all advertises that they want to tell me. I don't need to know how to make love to a boy because I don't have sex. I don't need to know how to do my makeup because getting ready in the morning feels like such a time suck. I don't need to be told how to make friends because we just need to go out there and love on people. I'd rather just read about other real people doing real, lifestyle things similar to the real, lifestyle things I am doing.

My grandma's advice on boys was to move away. As soon as you find one that you fall in love with and decide to marry, leave home with him. And I did.

 

We are learning, and there are so many things to learn.

Did you know that sometime between the spin and rinse cycles, the washing machine just stops and rests? This does not mean that you need to panic. It does not mean that you broke it and need to remove the clothes from the cold water, ring them out over the machine and pile them into a laundry basket. It doesn't mean that once you've done that you should put the basket in the shower and run water on it to try to somewhat rinse it off. Once you do all that and close the lid again, it will start its rinse cycle, so you can pile all that sopping laundry back into the machine and let it do its thing.

Did you know that those antique ring holders are actually very useful? If you're in a pinch, though, you can hang your ring on a towel rack while you do the dishes. Where, then does the towel go? you ask. It's being used by your fiance to dry the dishes you're washing.

We cook together and we clean together and I go to class and do my homework and wonder what on earth I'm supposed to be majoring in, and I wonder if I'll be able to apply the classes I'm taking now to the major God ends up putting me toward. I wonder if I'll even use my major once I'm out of school.

You see, right now, in the chaos of college and church and wedding plans and being engaged and making friends and keeping in touch with old friends and all of the rest, right now is when I'm learning to not just read the Psalms but to pray them and to take them and put those words into my own life and my own needs from God.

Why does nobody write about this time of their lives? This crux that I'm sitting in.  All I know how to do is shrug these days, to tell people that I'm waiting to hear back on that, to tell it that I'm just doin' what I'm doin' until I'm told to do something else.

Taking pictures and looking and pretty things and talking to interesting people. Reveling in the place that I'm in because it is oh so much fun and so wonderful.

So, I suppose the key to this part of the story is to be looking and listening. I'll try to be better about writing about these things - the things that come at this point of a girl's life - because these times are very important, too.