Riddle!

 What do you get when you take

 

 (beloved car friend) (means of transport for multiple Goodwins and Larsens since 2005) (Brendan)

and add standstill traffic on 9th East

 

 (it was right about here)

+

my obliviousness

+

one ill-timed glance at the air vent

(is this for display only or what?)

/

JJ's car-shopping expertise and some really good luck?

.

.

.

.

.

Ta-da!

Not to brag, but this thing is pimp. After the unfortunate incident on 9th that left Brendan's hood shaped like a tent and my heart shaped like a sadface, I didn't think we could ever be happy again. (That's actually false, but it seemed like the right thing to say there). 

Thankfully my husband loves targeted shopping. He lives for it. The research, the meticulous cross-comparisons, being wooed by popcorn-wielding salesmen, countering offers, threatening to walk away, reconciling, and, after all of it, determining for himself what he thinks is the very best deal. And believe it or not, this silver slice of chic was, indeed, the most reliable, in-best-condition car for our price range. 

So, we are mustang owners now. It makes us feel rich.

In other news, JJ has a job! He sells low refinance rates to veterans, and loves it. Not that my poverty-line income hasn't been helpful and all, but...we are grateful to have two incomes again. 

And finally, our Christmas tree.

Her name is Birdie, I just made that up, she is three feet tall, and we love her.

Doubting

A rather disturbing phenomena that I've noticed is this: The older and more educated I get, the less certain I am. The more questions I have. Tough issues grow more and more confusing and farther away from resolution. I guess this is disturbing to me because, not surprisingly, I always thought it would go the other way around. And true, there's still plenty of black and white. Maybe the world doesn't have to be as gray as I make it out to be, but certainly the grayness is there.

Which is why I simply love Rainer Maria Rilke and his words of comfort:

"Leave to your opinions their own quiet and undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. Everything is gestation and then bringing forth."

 "...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

I hope that I don't use these words of comfort as an excuse to give up trying to learn the answers. "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

But, it's still nice to know that maybe I don't have to figure it all out just yet. I still have time.

Letter vs. Spirit of the Law: Discuss!

This is an issue that has both fascinated and utterly perplexed me since I first came to college. And even now, after reading this insightful post which I was hoping would put the issue to rest once and for all, I find I am still not sure what I think. I admit that in recent years I've started to lean more towards the grayscale, but MMM has a lot of good points too, and now I am back to being utterly perplexed.

And, now that husband and I are supposed to agree on things like this, I find that resolving this dilemma is a more pressing matter than ever before. Please help a sister out and share your thoughts!

Marriage in pictures

Everyone: It's been three months. Three fast, yet somehow incredibly long, at times terrible, but equal times wonderful, months. I think we are starting to get the hang of it, but then, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so let's just all laugh together, ha ha!

Anyway, here are the pictures I've taken to document our married life so far, and then I have something to say.

First. I made this salad. I know it doesn't look amazing, but I made it, and we ate it, dangit. Marriage to me means a lot more cooking than I've done in recent years, which has honestly been a delightful reawakening of a pasttime I've always enjoyed.

Then, I made this garlic cheesy bread. Do I need to tell you how it was glorious, how it made our hearts sing, how it settled in that deepest, heaviest parts of our stomachs and warmed our whole beings with garlic rapture and white flour reveries? Do I?? I don't think so.

 

Taking this picture made me feel like a wife. But really, isn't that a beautiful sight? Domestication, complete.

And this one I took because of the way our toothbrushes are lying side by side, like husband and wife. I know. (For the record, I realize that this kind of thing won't always be cute to me, which is why I'm documenting it now while still in the haze of newlywed bliss).

 

And then there was the time when we went to a rooftop concert and JJ caught the prize water bottle filled with eight free yoga passes! Kids, sometimes it pays to marry someone tall and coordinated.

 

Labor Day picnic/shooting date with Carol, Todd, Micah and Emily in Hobble Creek Canyon. A fabulous idea, whoever's idea that was!

  

After finishing our meal, JJ began to explain proper gun handling. When he pulled a gun out of his pocket to illustrate, some people may have freaked out a little bit.  I'm happy to report that I am officially desensitized  and didn't think anything of it.

 

Then we went to a chalk art festival. Oh, artistic people. Why they gotta be so good at art.

 

We sold the truck, and that was a pretty rough week for one of us. Here is JJ reacting to his new '97 Toyota Camry keys.

 Here he is saying goodbye to the Silverado keys.

Ok, now can I take a timeout here and just say how grateful I am that I married such a quirk of a husband? Whose free spirit and total lack of inhibition both surprises and delights me nearly every day. For instance, here he is watching an Ohio State game, alone, on his laptop, wearing his jersey, cheering with the best of them. Also yes, that's a rifle just chillin' by our couch.

And here he is playing the piano in the middle of Hot Dog King while we wait for our hot dogs to be made.

And let's not forget the time I was looking for my husband among the aisles of Target, only to find him like this, chilling in a comfy chair (which we ended up buying).

And, not pictured because he wouldn't let me photograph it, JJ playing with his new gun while watching Bridalplasty. This is the same Bridalplasty that I tried to turn off, only to be rebuked by a sincere, "Hey, I wasn't done watching that!"

Ok, now this picture symbolizes an unfortunate gas-running-out-of incident I had a few weeks ago. Wearing a dress and not having any idea how to use a a gas can, I thought I couldn't be any more of a stereotype. That is, until a kindly man came out to help me and instantly fixed the problem I had been wrestling with for over half an hour. I blame my innate femaleness.

A couple weeks ago, I surprised Jj with tickets to a Real Salt Lake soccer game. As far as spectator sports go, soccer is a good fit for me. Continual action, pretty straightforward motives, only 90 minutes long. It was hard for me to balance my loyalties, however. I knew I ought to be rooting for the home team, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for the visitors. They looked so tired! That elevation difference must be so hard, and no one's cheering for them, and the poor guys are so far from home. I know this is ridiculous, but there it is.

And now, a word about marriage in general. As I mentioned earlier, being married for three months now, I consider myself something of an expert. As I sit here and wonder how it is that the time has gone by so fast, while simultaneously feeling like I've already been married for years, I think of a passage I read a few months ago that has stuck with me. From her book, Committed,  Elizabeth Gilbert writes,

"The poet Jack Gilbert (no relation, sadly for me) wrote that marriage is what happens "between the memorable." He said that we often look back on our marriages years later, perhaps after one spouse has died, and all we can recall are "the vacations, and emergencies" - the high points and low points. The rest of it blends into a blurry sort of daily sameness. But it is that very blurred sameness, the poet argues, that comprises marriage. Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody - so utterly well known and so thoroughly ever-present that you become an almost invisible necessity, like air?"

As I reflect on my mom's developing condition, as well as the sudden death of one of our very close friends over the weekend, I can't help but be overwhelmingly grateful for the invisible necessities that I am allowed. What a wonderful security is to be able to take someone for granted - to know, without having to think twice about it, they they will always be there- until one day they're not. Which I suppose is why we caution ourselves not to take our loved ones for granted. But still, this pattern of daily sameness seems beautiful to me, and even as I try to document on this blog the more exciting things that we do, I hope that I never stop seeing the beauty in the sameness. Especially since I have a feeling there's a lot more where that came from.

Get it?

...Cause it looks like the cover of an Ensign issue, and cause we took so long to get married? Do you get the funny play on words I made?? Ok, this title is not set in stone. We are accepting suggestions.

Anyway, welcome to our life! Update posts to come soon.