Eat, Drink, and Marry!

A long quote, but this is an excellent synopsis of what I think, in the words of Danielle Crittenden in her book What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us.

Here's another unconventional idea: By marrying earlier, a woman would probably make a better marriage. There is actually little evidence to support the wisdom of our time that waiting until one is older and wiser to marry leads to happier marriages. Marriages last not just because the people within them love each other but because the time they have spent together, the events they have mutually experienced, the memories they share, and the depth of their intimacy and comfort with each other makes marriage to anyone else seem impossible. If you wait to settle down until your hair is graying, when your heart is bruised, when you have seen a number of commitments you thought were true love vanish or waste away, then when you finally do marry, you may be wiser, yes, but also more broken--less willing to trust another or to make the necessary accommodations to married life. Two people who have spent their youth with each other have a better chance of growing old together; they become bound and entwined with the other like the sturdy, thick vines of wisteria, clambering up the same wall. Over time, the two souls blur together; it becomes hard to judge where she ends and he begins--a terrifying thought for a feminist, perhaps, but the essence of enduring, romantic love.

Spring is Pink!

Thank Kevin for these pictures.

In our backyard, Spring is decidedly pink. We have a bright pink azalea bush in full bloom and a pink dogwood tree to match.





The maples are leafing out marvelously as well, and the long row of white azalea bushes on the side of the house are just starting to open--they don't get as much sun as the one in back, I suppose. We'll try to post a picture of them when they bloom a bit more.

Fly Fishing

Kevin went fly fishing in the Susquehanna River this week with a friend from church.

Holiness

Here is a short post about marriage with which I whole-heartedly concur. We read this book in our Sunday School class in Tulsa and thought it worth keeping.

I would also add that this truth is applicable to life in general. The ladies at the shower on Sunday were asked to each share some bit of maternal wisdom, and there was a common theme that life is not perfect--not for us, not for our children. Those imperfections, even the pain and suffering that often accompanies them, are what God often uses as a means of sanctification in our lives, making us more like Him and more reliant on His grace. American Christianity indeed has a tendency to imply that God wants us to be happy and healthy, sometimes to the exclusion of the basic reality that God wants us to be holy. Holiness is, certainly, not necessarily opposite happiness and health--but it is often in the less happy and less healthy times that we learn true godliness.

Baby Family

A few more pictures from the shower day





This is a pillow Kevin's Nanny made for him as a baby:



The pillow goes with the duck quilt, shown here among various other keepsakes from mine and Kevin's own babyhood:

Baby Gifts

Here are some of the gifts from the shower:

An assortment of clothes:



Blankets and towels:



Kevin, obligingly posing with the puppet jack-in-the-box:



Onesies and bibs:



Bouncer and Boppy:

Baby Shower

The ladies at church showered us with baby gifts this weekend. They planned the shower a bit earlier than usual, so that it would be while my mom was here. Kevin's mom and grandma also flew up for the occasion.

This is the cute and delicious cake my good friend Jen made:



The gift table:



Some of the food:



The pastor's wife, showing me the cake before it was cut:



Opening the hooded towels my grandma made and sent:

Popcorn, anyone?

As my stove and I are continuing to become better acquainted, there is the occasional catastrophe. This weekend, it was popcorn.

I've not been able to pop "real" popcorn on the stove since we moved, since the townhouse had a glass-top range, where you can't drag pans across it without risking scratches. So I was excited to pop corn this weekend. . .only it didn't turn out so well at first.



Perhaps my oil was a little too hot to begin with. Or perhaps there wasn't enough oil in the pan. At any rate, after emptying out the blackened kernels and washing the pan to rid it of any lingering burned-popcorn taste, I had better success. And I was just sure you would all like to see.

Finally. . .

5 weeks, 2 work days, 3 techs, and 12 hours later. . .we have internet! Yippee!

20 Weeks

There's no blaming this one on the dress! :-)

A Picture and a Poem

Red wine flesh
and magenta-stained peels.
Succulent, sweet
surprisingly orange nectar
tickling the tongue.
Dribbling down ten fingers,
leaving sticky pink trails,
a tell-tale sign.
Hands awash in
blood orange.

More Milton

These quotes from Paradise Lost are out of context and unexplained. The phrasing is just beautiful, though, making the sentiments expressed more so. May we each be able to say the first and have the second said of us.

“. . .well may we afford
Our givers their own gifts, and large bestow
From large bestowed. . .”
(Book V, lines 316-318)

“So spake the seraph Abdiel faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single.”
(Book V, lines 896-903)