six months

walking to get chai and eat lunch yesterday i realized that i have officially been at my job as a reporter for six months. then i got distracted by a mattress on the sidewalk and thinking about how trashy the city i work in can be.

a few steps later there was a guy with a beer gut hanging out of his t-shirt while he leaned over his pickup truck staring at me. almost gross enough to make me lose my appetite. almost.

i turned the corner and someone else was apparently intrigued by my pink lunch bag because he started yelling,"damn girl, if you were my lady you would never have to carry your lunch, because i would have it catered ... and packed ... and i would carry it for you wherever you wanted to go ... girl did anyone tell you that you are looking great today?!" actually no, but thank you for being the first?

that got me wondering which way i was going to walk to get back to the office, because i already avoid the opposite side of that street where someone burns incense on the sidewalk outside of their shop every day. (incense is one of the few, if not the only, smells that i actually hate more than cigarette smoke.)

this is the city i work in and yet my coworkers still seem shocked i would rather commute 40 minutes than move here, hmm.

eventually i got back to thinking about how i've been at my job for six months and how it feels a lot longer than that. the way that things have begun to come full circle cements that feeling.

on my first day i covered my first press conference, where it was announced that marvin hamlisch was coming to town later this year as a guest conductor.

i only knew who marvin was because of his cameo in one of my favorite chick flicks of all time. (that would be "how to lose a guy in 10 days" for those of you who actually have lives and don't remember useless rom com references.) so whoever says chick flicks are a waste of time is wrong. just kidding, they are a waste of time but i love them. so much.

anyway marvin hamlisch died last week. so there's that.

and on an even sadder note, one of the first stories i got attached to was an interview with a family whose four-year-old son had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. they told him he had four to six months to live, with treatment. i cried after the interview at his house with his family and prayed for them and even wrote some of my thoughts on it here.

i was really rooting for them and must have had an underlying optimism that the adorable little boy would live, because i was crushed when my editor yelled across the office that ryan died and i needed to do a story on that now.

i thought about what my last six months have been compared to that family's. my heart breaks for his parents, but also for his siblings, who are so young that this will probably shape them even more. but life goes on for them, and for all of us. it doesn't stop when we hurt.

"if grease is the soul of the kitchen
and coffee the drink of the gods
routine too perfect to mention
time is a thief i would rob
 

we're meant to be baby hold onto me
i'll never not be your girl
cause love is the heart of the world

oh and hope is the soul of the dreamer
and heaven is the home of my God
it only takes one true believer
to believe you can still beat the odds."

[lady antebellum]

going to the beach with your fiancé's family - without your fiancé

one of my latest adventures was going to the beach with lance's entire extended family - without lance. at the end of that week i realized i have officially spent more time with his family in the last year than he has. our lives are weird.

i could say 'this is what happens when your fiance is in the military, you do weird things' but that would not be true. well partially true, but it is not entirely to blame because i have always done weird things and probably always will.

and i love the beach, so why not? plus lance's family is really great. and hilarious. especially his grandpa. who won my heart even more by agreeing with lance's aunt when she told me i look like prince william's wife, kate middleton. (um best compliment ever?! even if it was probably only because of my giant blue hat.) and pop said, "yeah, lance sure knew what he was doing." love it.

the phrase you will hear someone say to pop every time you hang out with their family is, "tell us how you really feel pop." he says whatever he wants and it's pretty much the best thing ever. his commentary while watching the olympics was priceless and i should have been recording it for lance.

they've been going to the beach as an extended family every summer since lance was born. he's the baby cousin, but of course now there are lots of cute little great-grandkids running around. case in point:

the best part of the week was that lance called on friday to tell me that he passed the darby phase of ranger school! YAY! ranger school begins with "RAP" week and is followed by the darby, mountains and florida phases. each phase is roughly three weeks and if you get recycled you must redo the entire three weeks until you pass. at the end of each phase they get a little break when they can make phone calls.

confused yet? yeah. the question lance's cousin asked: so what does this mean for your wedding plans? answer:  it doesn't actually make anything clearer, because we still don't know when ranger school will end. BUT it is GREAT news because it means he is moving quickly through school. he is amazing.

it was so so good to hear his voice and i was definitely floating for the next few days! right now he is in the mountains phase and i am counting down about two weeks until our next phone call.

this picture is from memorial day in atlanta, when we were last together. i got my face painted at the renaissance faire and kept it on all night. a perfect example of the weird things i was just telling you about. ;-)

 "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
[Psalm 27:13-14]

advice for engaged women

I am pasting this great advice from the Grace Full Mama blog here for quick reference (it's so good!) and to see what you would add to her list of "20 Things I Want To Tell Engaged and Newlywed Women (Really All Married Women)." 

Would you add any other advice? I am all ears, people.

1. Marriage is made up of two good forgivers. Because every marriage is made up of two sinners. (Romans 3:23)

2. At some point, you will have to learn that life isn’t all about you. (Philippians 2:3)

3. Don’t listen to women that tell you that passion fades…it doesn’t have to! (um…all of Song of Solomon)

4. Don’t give up. Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13)

5. He wants a kind wife, not a maid or another mother. Be nice. (Galatians 5:22-23)

6. Give your husband the gift of your respect.  He needs it more than you know. (Ephesians 5:33)

7. Be mindful of your expectations.

8. Honor the Lord above all things. Colossians 3: 17

9. Find your worth and security in the Lord, and don’t look to your husband to meet all of your needs.

10. Be very careful about reading romance novels, they set you up for an unrealistic view of romance.

11. Real romance is finding that one spot in the crook of his arm to snuggle into, that shared look over the dinner table when the kids are acting crazy, and the way he fixes the leaky sink when he is dog-tired after work.

12. Love is about relationship.  The more I love my husband, and seek a relationship with him, the less critical and duty-bound I become.  It is similar to my relationship with God.

13. Be thankful for the husband you have. Accept him as he is, not for what you want him to be.

14. Don’t compare!! Don’t buy into the game of comparing him with anyone else’s husband.

15.The Biblically “normal” marriage is filled with joy, connection, laughter, and peace.  It’s not free of hurt feelings and conflict, but they know how to process their pain with one another so that they live more often in a meadow than at the scene of a train wreck.  This is not the average marriage, but it normal – -because it is a visible display of Jesus’ relationship with His bride (Ephesians 5:22-33).

16. Your marriage is a testimony! “The #1 evangelistic tool in America (the world) today is a successful marriage, because it’s a living miracle!” – Dr. Joe Aldrich, former president of Multnomah Bible College.

17. Pray for your marriage. Pray hard.

18.I’ve heard that is gets better with age.  I have to say in my short {13 year} experience, that is so true.

19. Where there is God, there is always hope. Even for the most broken marriages. “With God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

20.Marriage is commitment and sacrifice. But it’s also the best, most wild ride you will ever have with your best friend.

words for everyone

funeral for a soldier

when i heard that someone would need to cover the funeral of a special forces soldier last friday at work, i felt sick to my stomach. i was really missing lance a lot, and the last thing i wanted to do was go to a funeral and talk to family members living my worst nightmare.

somehow i knew i would be the one assigned to go, and sure enough my editor came to my desk and told me to go to baltimore to cover it. the only thing that consoled me was i had worn a beautiful new black dress that day that frankly was perfect funeral attire. the right clothes really do make life so much better.

it was my first military funeral so i had no idea what to expect. the local fire, police and emergency service departments lined up the road leading to the church and directed parking. the family stood outside and i nervously checked with a funeral director about where to go in, and was relieved that they were not standing there for a greeting line where word vomit was sure to come forth.

the green berets lined up outside and eventually filed into the church carrying the casket, and the entire family filed in afterward. surprisingly, the tears i had been anticipating did not come. this was the first catholic funeral i had attended, and perhaps because the traditions do not hold any deep personal meaning to me, i found the service to be very impersonal.

i only started to get a feeling for what he was like when i began talking to his family members afterward. once you work through your feelings of 'i feel like the most insensitive jerk in the world approaching these strangers for a news story right now' and talk to the first relative, it gets easier to talk to a few more.

the published story is not what i would have written if i knew him. and even without knowing him, there are a few things i would have liked to throw in if i had free reign over what i could publish. things like a rant about the rampant infidelity in military marriages and women who dress like skankasauruses at funerals. judgments better left unsaid. so really it is probably for the best that i do not have free reign over what gets printed. ;-)

"Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable. A journalist is someone who looks at the world and the way it works, someone who takes a close look at things every day and reports what she sees, someone who represents the world, the event, for others. She cannot do her work without judging what she sees."
[Marguerite Duras]

Recently Read

{source for all images in this post: Google images}

1. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
I was not overly impressed with Eat, Pray, Love - her first bestselling book that was turned into a movie I also found disappointing, despite the fact that it starred my beloved Julia Roberts. So I'm not sure why I picked this up. It was easy to follow and I like her voice, but it was nothing exceptional.

2. Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
I learned a lot from this book. The gist of it can be summed up in a few sentences: the way that women crave love, men crave respect - and vice versa. Respect your husband and show him and tell him how much you respect him. It got very repetitive, but that is often my feeling about nonfiction books by Christian authors: what they're trying to say could be summed up in a much shorter book. It might also be more aimed at couples who have already been married for awhile. I could see myself re-reading this in the future.

 3. Army Wives by Tanya Biank
I couldn't put this down! This book was the basis for the Lifetime television show. I picked it up in Barnes & Noble just for a quick skim and made it halfway through the book, and the next thing i knew i was sitting in the cafe starting to cry as I read. The man next to me who had asked me to watch his computer while he went to the bathroom came back and saw my tears and had the most panicked expression you can imagine. So I did everyone a favor and bought the book and got out of there. The author weaves the stories of several different women together into one amazing book. Each are married to men of different ranks in the Army and their stories are very different but interconnected. It's a quick, easy read.

4. The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller
LOVED this book! I learned so much and gleaned a ton of practical wisdom and fun sociological insights from it. As I said in this post, I  would recommend it to everyone, regardless of religion or relationship status.

5. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Auken
A few of my friends list this in their all-time favorite books, but it wasn't my thing. Maybe because I have never been able to enjoy C.S. Lewis in more than a quote or two (and this  was full letters from him), or maybe because I found it too full of dull details in a depressing story line. It is about a couple who falls in love, goes from agnosticism to Christianity, and that adjustment and how their faith journeys affect their marriage and trials. Read it if you enjoy C.S. Lewis.

6. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
I loved the first and second Hunger Games books. It's the first mega-hit series I have gotten into and Lance makes fun of me, saying soon I'll be this excited about Twilight and Harry Potter. (He is a kidding and I won't.) Mockingjay was my least favorite in the series and the ending wasn't happy enough for my liking. But I'm super stoked for the next two movies!

7. 30 Life Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans by Karl Pillemer
Dr. Pillemer realized the last living generation who had lived during World War One will soon be ... extinct. Also recognizing that the entire focus of his career as a sociologist had focused only on the negatives of geriatric patients and the aging process, he decided to instead seek out the wisdom and stories of the oldest generation before it's too late. He compiled the interviews here and they are so touching and encouraging.   

This book makes you want to talk to every old person you can - but then that has always been one of my favorite things to do. I found out about this book after I covered an event for work where the author was speaking to an audience of mainly people age 60+, and during the Q&A everyone wanted to know how they could get young people to listen to their advice. So young people: seek out an elderly friend! They want to be your friend and we need each other! Dr. Pillemer said it's more likely for a person to have a close friend of another race than in another age group - we are very segregated by age. This was a fun read and gave me some much-needed perspective, I loved it.

I think I will make monthly book posts a habit, because as I look at this list I'm realizing how much more well-rounded my reading could be! Yikes! Oh well, marriage books as the bulk of my reading material while I am engaged can't be a bad thing, right?   What are you reading?  
Have any must-reads I should add to my  books-to-read list?

2012 London Olympics LOVE

i love watching the olympics. it is so fun watching people's dreams {that they worked so hard for} come true.
and they inspire me to work out harder. 

people like oscar pistorius, the runner from south africa who is a double amputee, AMAZE me.

how can i be lazy in my workouts and not go a little bit harder if i have a healthy, working body? how can i not push myself more if even when i do i'm still not pushing myself to the levels that these athletes are?
when rowing was on the tv while i was on the rowing machine at the gym i was pretty much in my glory.

 and then there's ryan lochte. my friend sarah says he is muscular in a way that makes him look fat. um, i had not noticed? but gorgeousness aside (or maybe included), he fits my (ever-so-loving) stereotype of jocks based on things like: 1.) his mother telling the world that he only has time for one night stands (how lovely) and 2.) the lack of intelligence revealed whenever he opens his mouth. examples: tweets like "pain is temporarily but pride last forever" or "too travel is sometimes better to arrive" ... and telling ryan seacrest that he has peed in the pool in london. some things are better left unsaid, buddy.

the whole badminton debacle cracks me up! what the heck?! who tries to cheat and rig badminton games?

the best responses from my coworkers in the newsroom when the AP story on this came through: "what a racquet!" and "well they don't call it GOODminton!" ha. ha. ha.

 i love this commercial ...

and i love watching the athletes parents reactions during the olympics! i am so impressed by gabby douglas, and her mom for being brave enough to let her daughter move across the country to train for this.

{source: google images}
gabby is amazing. gymnasts in general are just, WOW.
i freaked out doing something new at crossfit the other week because i was afraid i was going to fall on my face ... from a piece of equipment that was only maybe four feet above the ground. i think i am filled with the most respect for gymnasts because it seems more difficult (to me personally) than any of the other sports.

"for the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words." [ecclesiastes 5:3]

"conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all.  conventional wisdom is taking somebody else’s word for the way things are… it’s the followers of this world who rely on assumption. not the leaders." [richard marcinko]