Warrior Dashes and Donut Towers - 5 Wedding Warnings

Friends, let me tell you...

WEDDING PLANNING IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.




I would perhaps even posit that wedding planning requires all the skills that marriage does, and if you can survive the planning, you're pretty set for marriage.  This is not a joke.  Just think about it, you have to manage the budget, navigate family dynamics, and make more decisions than you've made in all the years of your life up to this point combined.  You think I'm kidding, but it gets so ridiculous sometimes, I've thought about writing my own wedding version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

If you decide to have dessert at your wedding...
Cake? Pie? Alternative donut tower?
Chocolate? Vanilla?
Bowl?  Plate?
Glass?  Plastic?
Fork?  Spoon?
Plated? Buffet?
DO WE NEED WHIPPED CREAM?

And that's just dessert.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun and exciting, and people say all kinds of nice things about you.  It's kind of the one time Life hands you a blank check and says you can ask ridiculous things of all your friends, spend thousands of someone else's money on a party for yourself, and make the longest list of presents ever.

So here are my 5 wedding warnings - not a warning against weddings, just, well, you'll see.

1. Delegate or Die
I'm not kidding.  If you don't have a lot of money to pay someone you can delegate to or an awesome set of friends and family, you'd better be headed for a hilltop with your 10 favorite people.  Coming from Princess Do It Herself, you can't do it yourself - if you want to be at all sane, not to mention pleasant to be around.

2. You will feel bipolar
I'm not diminishing the seriousness of the actual diagnosed condition, but you will feel the whole spectrum of emotions.  Some days I'm the happiest, most calm, we-got-this, no worries bride.  Some days I'm not very nice, feel like I'm growing an ulcer and totally overwhelmed.  To some degree, it comes with the territory.

3. Running will cross your mind
I love Nate.  He's my favorite.  I want to marry him.  AND.  There have been times during this whole thing where I have wanted nothing more than to physically run to Namibia and be a nomad with a camel.  Deep seated, adrenaline pumping panic.  Not over anything specific, just THIS IS A REALLY BIG DEAL!  It's ok.

4. Practice some de-Pinning
At some point in the planning process, it will be much more effective to start deleting pins from your <3 Mr. and Mrs. Forever Wedding Dreams and Roses Pinterest Board.  Seriously.  Clean that thing out.  Unrealistic ideas?  Conflicting themes?  Icelandic inspiration pics when you're getting married on the beach?  Get rid of them.

5. Soak it all up
There have been lots of times during this engagement that people have told me to just really enjoy it.  Usually, I've wanted to punch them in the face and tell them I really just want to be married because the planning can get insane.  But they're right, in a sort of ambiguous, well meaning way.  I would say this - soak up the love that getting married produces.  During my bridal showers, when friends are helping with wedding projects, and hearing that friends and family are flying in for the wedding, I'm just struck by how loved Nate and I are.  It's not so much the overwhelming romantic over the top love we have for each other that has amazed me during this time, but how well loved we are by the people around us.



I love weddings, and Nate, and I can't wait to get married in 6 days... but first I have to figure out where all these 260 people are going to sit.

Much love,

Little Miss Sunshine

How I Became a Fiancee

What follows may be called the most expected unexpected proposal of all proposals.

My story begins last Friday.  It had been a long week.  Nate and I were tired, but we had decided to hang out so we had dinner with our friends, Tanner and Lisa and watched a movie.  The next day I met the roomies to check out the flower market where we were scoping out flowers for Zanna’s wedding.  It wasn’t far from Nate’s house, so I was hoping that maybe we could spend some time together.  He was busy.  I was sad.  [Perfect set up for a proposal.]  Thank goodness for biscuit baking and fantastic roommates to talk to.  

That night I made biscuits and had a small meltdown.  [I miss you.  I wish we had more quality time together.  Why do we live so apart.  You know, the usual.]  Of course, he said all the sweet things.  [It won’t always be like this.  We’ll just make a point to spend more quality time together.  You know, the usual.]  

Sunday morning, I put on my new shirt, new heels, and even managed to wrangle my hair into a crown braid.  The night before, Jill had orchestrated a giant nail painting palooza the night before, so even the nails were in good shape.  Little did I know things would get worse before they got better.  He texted me that he had stayed up late working on his master’s homework and felt sick.  

Well fine.  Just fine.  I’d just look cute by my own self.  Phooey and forget it.  I’d just go to church and manage by myself.  [This is my super fantastic, Jesus-loving attitude at its finest.]

As I was coming out of church, he texted and told me that he wanted to spend time together, and that he was almost to my house.  I told him I’d be home in 15 minutes.  The whole way home I tried to figure out what we should have for lunch and wondered whether I’d better stop off at the store to grab some lunch.  I made it home without making a decision.  Jill’s car was parked on the curb.  Unusual, but I didn’t think anything of it.  The door was unlocked.  Not unusual.  I walked in expecting to hear Nate talking with the roommates.  Silence.  

As I swung open the door, I was greeted with these.  A sort of floral map that led through the living room and into the kitchen.  In the kitchen was a platter of food.  [I was thinking, hey this is great, he brought lunch!  Also I was thinking, IS THIS A PROPOSAL OR HIM BEING ROMANTIC JUST BECAUSE?!?!]  The flowers took a left turn into the… laundry room?  Yes, I was confused.  

I opened the door to the garage, and there he stood.  Standing next to him was a bike.  [The backstory on the bike is I had bought one at a garage sale a couple years ago.  Nate and I were going to redo it, but it’s been sitting in half-painted shambles in my garage for about a year and a half.]  It was a classic robin egg blue and coral pink bike with a basket full of fresh flowers.  That was all well and good, but the real show stopper was on the seat.  Black velvet box.  I saw it and immediately tried to look away because I didn’t know what to do.  So, being me, I screamed.  THIS IS AMAZING!    

Nate asked if I saw what was on the seat and I said A box?  He asked if I wanted to see what was in it and I said yeah, hoping against hope it wasn’t earrings!  He half dragged me over to the bike, as my feet and everything else had sort of stopped working.  Taking the box off the seat, he did what any red-blooded American man would do with a black velvet jewelry box in the situation [though I can hardly tell you why they do this].  He got on one knee.  He proposed.  

And I said YES.  

He put the ring on my finger, and we basked in the moment [read: I hyperventilated and repeatedly screamed IS THIS REAL].  When we went back in the house, our friends Tanner and Lisa and Jill and Lane and Zanna were waiting with my parents on FaceTime.  My sister-in-love, Audrey and her mom dropped in to celebrate and Audrey snapped some awesome pictures.  There was a lot of screaming and hugging and some more hyperventilating.  

I heard the rest of the story later, snatches from the roommates and Nate.  He had had the ring, which is a stunning antique solitaire, for several months, but was waiting for, well I don’t really know what.  He had decided [just before my Saturday evening impromptu breakdown] that he would do it the next day.  He called my dad and squared things away on the parental blessing front.  He texted the roommates and Tanner and Lisa and squared things away on the preparation front.  As it happens, he couldn’t hang out with me because he was getting a proposal put together.  He said mostly he wanted me to be surprised.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, of all the things, I was definitely surprised.  

I can’t wait to throw the biggest best party the West has ever seen with with the best man I could ask for.        

Love,

Little Miss Sunshine 

The Waiting Place

You can get so confused

that you’ll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…

Waiting for the fish to bite

or waiting for wind to fly a kite

or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps , for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or string of pearls, or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting. 

That’s from Oh, the Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Seuss.  He was wrong, you know.  The Waiting Place doesn’t have to be useless.  My friend, Paul, told me that once.  It wasn’t during a time when I could see it very clearly either.  It was the summer of 2013.  I just wanted a boyfriend.  I went through all the usual questions.  Is that so hard to ask?  Is it really that complicated?  Is there something wrong with me?  Is this punishment for something somehow that I’ve done?  No one else has to wait (ha!), why me?  It was a rollicking frolicking pity party, yall.  

What Paul said that night has stuck with me.  Waiting isn’t wasted.  It’s written right there in my journal.  Tuesday, July 23, 2013.  Waiting isn’t wasted.  Somehow, an All Mighty, All Knowing, All Perfect God is doing something much bigger than our curtailed vision can take in.  

That doesn’t make it easy.  Some of you have waited for and are still waiting for much weightier things than my end-of-the-summer-boyfriend.  

You wait for conception.  

You wait for doctor’s results.  

You wait for someone to come around.  

You wait for someone to be a friend.  

You wait for a safe place.  

You wait for someone to come home.  

You wait for someone to come to their senses.  

You wait for a small child to cross an ocean.  

You wait for the job offer.  

You wait for the sentence to be served.  

You wait for remission.

You wait for _____

Sometimes the weight of it all squishes the words right out of you.  The air goes right out of your lungs as a sigh instead of an explanation.  It can be lonely.  

When I was little, I thought that all I was waiting for was to grow up and do all the things that grownups do.  Then I would have arrived, and some inspector of persons would hand me a certificate, take my picture, and make an announcement that I had arrived.  After that, no more waiting!  Well, I have a man, a car, and a job, and you know what?  I’m still waiting for things.  

People tell me to “just be patient” “just wait”.  Do they tell you that too?  Probably so.  Most of the time I nod smilingly, but really I want to sort of swat them.  Don’t you understand?!  I want to tell them.  I don’t like this!  This wasn’t my plan!  [My plans rarely include waiting.]  What does that even MEAN?!  Just be patient.  What is patient, anyway?!  I get it, I get it, it’s a fruit of the Spirit.  It’s an orange or a strawberry in flannel graph Sunday school land.  But what ELSE is it, and can I buy it at Target?  

It’s ferocious.  

What?  Not what you were expecting?  

You were probably thinking sheep and knitting and porch swings.    

Patience is a wild one.  It stands still and runs at full speed.  It clings to Jesus and lets go of being in charge.  It waits but it doesn’t wait around.     

Patience swaddles squalling babies.  Keeps the flags standing straight in the front yard until the hero comes home.  Doesn’t give up when a year of treatment stretches into ten.  Shows kindness to the wife who isn’t quite ready to give up her bitterness.  Gives respect to the husband who only seems to have sharp words.  Gets on knees for the 67th time with the same prayer.  

Patience declares that God’s will, whatever it is, will come at the best time.  Patience declares that God’s love is not absent.  Patience gets busy living life because standing around in a black hole of self pity isn’t worth the time.  Patience declares that though we wait, we are not forgotten.  

Patience holds on to hope with white knuckles because God has been holding onto us since Adam, and He isn’t about to quit now. 

Love,

Little Miss Sunshine

Cubelife: The Update

A maze of cubicles.  People talking away on their headsets.  Mandatory meetings.  Quotas.  Pencil skirts.  This is where I work.  Oh, sure, it could be taken for the drab, crushing, corporate life.  I mean, I answer the phone, leave voicemails, have to formulate strategic plans for meeting my quota, avoid certain awkward office people, and wear a headset.  

Except.  

I was not born to fit.  I am learning this more and more the longer I walk with Jesus.  Neither are you.  Neither is anyone.  We were not born to fit in, but fit together, using differences as a multidimensional strength, not an aberration to be lopped off at the latest convenience.  

So, yes, I do have a cubicle.  I do wear a headset.  I do feel the pressure of trying to make my quota each month.  I do sit through meetings that could have been condensed to an email.  

But also…

I do spend most of my day at a standing desk - standing, line dancing, dancing in general, doing squats - or bouncing on a yoga ball.  I do occasionally stand on my rolly chair and twirl around to find the person I’m looking for (wherein I usually get admonished and asked haven’t I read Officer Buckle and Gloria to which I say, yes, I dislike it very much thank you.).  

I do wear a headset, which frees my hands up to do fistpumps, type memos and do power poses.  I do leave some of my customers singing voicemails during the holidays just because.  I do have meaningful water cooler conversations with my coworkers about their children and pets.  I do round people up for a daily stroll around the block because sitting all day isn’t good for you, and office air isn’t either.  Note: I do try to be a good responsible grownup when I must.  

See, it isn’t all bad and squelching and American nightmare.  I get to work with principals and teachers.  Some of them teach in schools with lots of students from lots of nations.  Some of them teach in schools surrounded by cornfields tilled by five generations of Johnsons and Smiths.  I get to give away free stuff that will help students meet their goals in meaningful ways.  I get to sell AP French and elementary science and middle school literature.  I get to make sure that schools get what they need to meet the rising demands of education.  

I get to work with people that make me laugh so hard I’m crying.  I get to celebrate with them when they make their quota.  I get to share their birthday donuts.  I get to hear updates about their kids’ football games.  I get to help them sort out the stresses of ordinary life that sometimes seem extraordinarily heavy.  

Being in sales is fun for a reason I didn’t anticipate when I began, as is usually the case.  My dad has been in sales for as long as trees have had leaves, and growing up I always heard stories about his trips and accounts.  Now I am running around in the business world trying to keep my accounts happy, and it’s created a sort of vocational kinship with my dad.  I can call him and talk about strategies or efficiency or whatever is going on that day.  

Is it the perfect job?  Nope.  I don’t think they make those.  Do I want to do it until I’m 70?  Probably not, but if I did, it wouldn’t be a bad gig.  Do I love it and am I beyond thankful that God has me here?  Yep-o-rama.  

Pearson is a great place to work.  Tomorrow, they’re taking our entire department to attend training in Orlando for the week.  Helllooooo, business trip!  

Sometimes it’s more about making whatever you do meaningful than searching high and low for something that seems meaningful to do.

- Little Miss Sunshine, who occasionally wears pencil skirts, and who is chided at least once a week for standing on her desk chair.