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

instead of sheep

at a mere two days (less really) from becoming a mrs., i find myself counting endless blessings.

last night we had our rehearsal dinner, and i looked at two amazing families becoming one, two groups of friends and their loved ones and one very cute baby, and i felt really lucky.

and then my fiyance went and swooned all night and could only talk about how amazing marrying me is, and i felt pretty sure that i am the luckiest ever.

i can barely stay awake now (and it's not even midnight) because i have so many incredible blessings, they are filling my head and my heart and my very soul, and each day feels even better than the last, and i have simply no need at all for sheep because i could keep counting the gifts i have and never come close to running out - and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.

love,
j

snapshots

friday: an evening with shane and anne and talking about love.
yesterday: watching my puppy swim. eating caprese with heirloom tomatoes, stone fruit, fresh mozzarella, basil, and balsamic reduction.
today: celebrating grandma laurel's five year cancer free point. what a huge gift. then turning off cell phones and leaving them behind to hike lake 22 and remind ourselves what a beautiful place this is.
tomorrow: just a week left until the wedding. the beginning of a new week in my classroom. picking up old family photos at grandma g's. seeing j's brother for the first time in months.

this moment: resting under my favorite afghan with a pup on my lap.

(really great).

love,
j

such great heights

today i have a multitude of things for which to be grateful, things of definite beauty:

in twelve days, i marry my soulmate. so that's pretty amazing. and as he says, "i have hot feet." there's never been a thing in my life that's made me feel so sure. every particle of me loves every particle of him. every particle of me wants to keep him (and be kept) forever. i tend to have a really hard time with the words "forever" and "never." usually they elicit a reaction from me that could easily be compared to anaphylaxis: closed throat and panic and occasionally some hives and watery eyes. not here. i feel more grounded than ever; more peaceful and joyful and sure of everything, especially of how lucky i am to have found this amazing, handsome, soulful, intelligent, dreamy specimen of a man. did you see what he wrote about me? holy shit.

on the same note, i took my beautiful sister to go rehearse with our wedding band, pickled okra. not only are they a spectacular bluegrass group, they've taken the time to work out songs that mean so much to us (one of my grandfather's favorites, as well as our first dance, which is sort of a secret) but that resemble few of their usual tunes. they've learned the notes and the meaning, and then they've made them totally their own so that it's like de ja vu, i'm listening to songs i've known forever and finding a million new things to love about them. and they love claire, and she sounds incredible. and we spent probably a good half hour telling knock-knock and pirate jokes.

and then i went and saw my mom try on two dresses, she's trying to figure out which one to wear to the wedding, and to be totally honest, she is truly drop-dead-gorgeous in both. it doesn't even matter. she is stunning.

talked to my best friend about the things she's working on: she's inspiring. i strive to be more like her in so many ways.

realized i'm almost entirely done with wedding planning.

and now, that amazing man i'd been raving about in the first paragraph, is on his way home to me with the obvious wedding dress diet choice: a dick's deluxe and fries.

i was going to write a rant about the importance of etiquette and manners, and how much i appreciate parents that instill common decency into their children, but that flew out the window the second i started to write. this must be what bliss is. i can't stay irate. i can't even stay miffed. i am so supremely happy that sometimes i have to sit down so i don't just fall over.

love,
j