delicioso

tonight alyssa picked me up from work. we went home and made butternut squash lasagne and drank leftover wine from j's and my wedding. the lasagne was ridiculously delicious and you can find the recipe here (i am obsessed with this blog now, by the way). and then i cleaned my kitchen and it's sparkling and smells good.

so the beautiful thing of today was pretty damn easy.

love,
j

(selvfølgelig).

i know i keep gushing. i can't help it and i'm not really sorry either, because it's not like this is some professional blog with ads and a sourcebook. it's an account of as many beautiful things as i am able to document. and right now my life feels filled to the brim with beauty.

so i'm going to try to document one of the reasons i feel so fortunate right now, and here it is: i feel limitless. i feel like j and my family will support me in anything my soul leads me to. i feel like i have so much room to grow. every part of my life is full of love and grace. my friends are doing big things that make me proud and amazed just to know them. and even when my work day is stressful or something challenging happens, i know that at home i have a sweet puppy and a cozy bed and pretty plates and most importantly my soulmate waiting for me to remind me how delicious every day should be. it's like living in an incredibly vivid and wondrous dream, and i feel so grateful that i can barely breathe.

so here's a mary oliver (love) quote i stumbled upon a few weeks ago that i've been saving for the right moment, this perfect moment:

"i want to think again of dangerous and noble things. i want to be light and frolicsome. i want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though i had wings."

and that's what it is. the good luck i've been given seems like the most serendipitous improbability, and for the first time in my life i have whole moments where (with j by my side) i am truly afraid of nothing.

love,

j

kissing in the street

this morning, we got up at seven a.m., showered, and began our day... at eight, my mom knocked on the door, and helped me into my wedding dress again. then j and i headed down to pike place market, where we did a "trash the dress" session. we decided on one after realizing we didn't want to spend a huge portion of our wedding day taking posed pictures, and thought it'd be neat to go to pike place, one of my favorite spots in the city, and on a ferry ride.

it was so much fun. jovana met us at the newsstand and we started right away. it was a blast and we were relaxed and able to do all sorts of things we might not have done on our wedding day. we ran into the middle of the street (hoping no cars would need to go through) as j dipped and kissed me in front of the pike place sign. we stood right in front of the fish stand while a whole crowd clapped for us. we kissed in front of the gum wall. j chased my veil down elliot avenue for a whole block after it flew out of my hair in the wind. i held on to it while we were on the water taxi and it swirled around us like crazy. we couldn't stop smiling, just like on our wedding day. in fact, it was a lot like re-living our wedding day.

and it was good for another reason. i've been talking a lot with j about writing a book on the importance of civility and etiquette. it's been frustrating for me to watch, particularly in the service industry, the lack of common decency that so many people hold for perfect strangers. but today was different. there is something about a bride and groom that moves almost everyone. we made so many friends. people gave us a standing ovation in the market, and walking down elliot, everyone honked. we joked for a minute with seahawks fans on the way to the game, gave a tourist couple directions, and met a little girl named rachel who was infatuated with my princess dress. people smiled when they saw us, and were friendly and kind and eager to wish us well. and i think it is because when you see two people that are really crazy stupid in love, no matter how you were raised or what sort of manners you have, it melts part of you, and you can't help but feel hope.

so maybe that's the secret - maybe it's not re-teaching an entire society how to say "please" and "thank you" and wait their turn. maybe it's finding a way to help people see the common denominator in those perfect strangers they might otherwise dismiss. maybe it's just about hope and love. it was so good for me to see that... and if i do write my book, i'll need to think carefully about how to frame it so i can really honor the importance of those things. there's nothing more valuable than hope and love and empathy, and i am so grateful and acutely aware of my incredibly good fortune to have a life full of these things. each day i love my husband more, and it's because he brings all the joy in my days to light.

happy sunday!

love,

j

i do

i could write tonight about any of the million details of marrying j that were beautiful. i could write about the decorations we spent hours making, every word painted on signs, each of the crystal pie plates, the backdrop made from hundreds of feet of different shades of yellow ribbon and tulle. i could write about the toasts: about how both my parents gave me huge gifts with their words that night, and then my new ma-in-law got up and made me feel so loved, or about martin and alyssa, and how their faith in us makes me so proud and simultaneously grateful. i could write about the incredible food and music, the amazing guests that flew in from all over the country, or the best officiant and friend we could have asked for.

but instead i say this: after our ceremony j and i snuck away to share some secret promises. they weren't anything different than what we'd said in our vows, they were just more personal. some were in danish. some were silly. all were incredibly intimate. my first promise was to love j more every day.

and that's my beautiful thing today. on monday i stood across from my soulmate and pledged my life and soul and entire being to him. i loved him more at that moment than i had ever loved anyone or anything. i loved him more than i knew was possible.

and today? i love him even more.

love,

j