#myproject41 14/365: Wedding Prep

Greg and I had maybe the shortest engagement ever. A couple weeks after the proposal, we went to a marriage conference at another church. At the beginning they were taking a poll to see who had been the most recently engaged - we won! 

Then they asked who was getting married the soonest from that date - we won!

Also, he got me a new engagement ring, courtesy of his good friend Tim from Emma Parker & Co.

Planning a wedding in six weeks is not super fun. At least not for me. I know lots of people seem - operative word there - to enjoy their wedding planning, but I didn't enjoy it. Either time. 

I stress a lot over planning events. Is that everyone though? And why do I do it constantly? Glutton for punishment maybe? I don't know. But we host a lot of things and every time, I worry we won't have enough food (we always have too much) or that people won't have fun (they keep coming back, so I guess they are) or something.

And yet I keep planning all the things.

But I digress.

I honestly wanted to run off to Vegas and have Elvis marry us. I always thought that would be fun and I'd already had a big wedding. 

I mean, who wouldn't want this guy to do the honors?!

But this was going to be Greg's first wedding and it was important to him that his family witness him getting married (especially after such a painful breakup the year before). So his folks gave us a nice chunk of change - I already mentioned how sweet and generous they are! - and we set out planning.

And by "we" I mean "me". Greg just needed to show up. Ha ha!

We decided a small intimate wedding made more sense than a big church wedding for us. One of our first dates (but not our very first) was at an Italian restaurant in Bellevue called Maggiano's. We thought it might be cool to have a small wedding with a full dinner with a few of our closest loved ones.

Actually, the first time we went there I was meeting some dear friends of Greg's - (the aforementioned Tim and his lovely wife Tara) who are now dear friends of mine, though we don't see them near as often as we'd like. It was bizarre because I'm sitting there, a grown woman whose been divorced, sitting there with my new boyfriend and all of a sudden, I recognize one of the waiters from afar.

*side note* In my experience, it is an extremely odd sensation (for lack of a better word) being someone's girlfriend after you've been someone's wife. That is all.

I kept watching this guy, thinking he looked just like one of the worship pastors at the church I used to attend in Southern Oregon with my ex-husband. But that made no sense, right?

It was super distracting, wondering who this guy was and why he looked so much like someone from my past. At one point he came close enough that I was sure it was him and suddenly my mouth betrayed me,

"Seth?!"

He stopped and turned.

"Jaime?!"

*worlds collided*

I introduced him to Greg with a confusing mix of excitement and shame. Seth had worked closely with my ex (who was both a musician and a sound guy) and a zillion thoughts were careening around my skull as we made small talk for a few awkward moments. I wondered what he must think of me.

Gosh, I could not wait for that moment to be over.

Anywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

Maggiano's had a lovely meeting space in the back of their restaurant and they were across the way from a super cool bowling alley. We really wanted our wedding to be fun, and even though we had to keep the ceremony itself super small, we wanted to have a big reception to invite all of our peeps to.

Those 6 weeks flew by. Greg and I planned, and we fought. I've found engagement periods to be super difficult. I truly believe the enemy is on extra attack when a couple who loves Jesus decides they want to stay together forever. At least, that's been my experience. Tough. Yikes.

One of my favorite parts of our wedding was how very personal everything was. It just felt a lot more intentional to me than my first one. (It probably had something to do with the fact that this time, I wasn't feeling obligated to do things the way someone else wanted them.) So many friends offered their time and talents to make our day really special.

*side note* I'm sorry that I do these "first one" comparisons all the time. It's just honestly hard not to. They're always in my head.

My dear (then) Single Mama friend Nikki helped me design my invitations and favor cards and then she made them.

  

  

My sweet friend Shelli friend loaned me her necklace. (My "something borrowed", which is perfect for her because she's the ultimate thrifter.)

My talented friend Julie and her mama (may she rest in peace) did all my beautiful flowers.

I made my veil, and made ties for the boys that kind of told our story.

For my dress, I had a vision of a short, strapless number in raw silk, gathered at the side, with a slight ruffle peeking out the bottom. I shopped some but eventually decided custom-made was the way to go, because frankly, I'm just picky as heck and I always get very specific ideas in my head about certain things, which require stuff being custom made - it's super fun *eye roll*. 

Enter Bernie. She was a friend from church that I knew had amazing seamstress skills. I shared with her what I wanted. She found the perfect silk, but I was having a hard time figuring out exactly the detail to use as the ruffle. 

When I was 12, my Gramma Mow (my dad's mom) gave me a pale blue petticoat that had been hers when she was young. I remember when I received it, I was not yet mature enough to appreciate what she had gifted me. But still, I saved it. 

I was going through some boxes one day while trying to make room in preparation for Greg to move in after our wedding day. Lo and behold...I uncovered Mow's petticoat. And I knew it was perfect for my dress. (My "something old" and "something blue"!)

Mow and Pow, my Dad's parents

Bernie ended up cutting off the bottom 4" of the petticoat to incorporate into my dress, but the rest is still intact. And it turned out pretty much as I had envisioned - only bummer was by the wedding day I'd lost some weight and she had to pin me into it! 

I bought some gorgeous red heels (so fun, cuz the first time I was barefoot!) that I fell in love with, but they came off as soon as the ceremony was over. So uncomfy. They're in my closet still - I've never worn them again but I can't get rid of them. 

My bestie Tress and her hubby agreed to take our photos.

And my dear friend and coworker Mike agreed to let us be the first people he ever married! (He's since done a bunch of weddings, so fun!)

My dad wasn't able to make the wedding, so I created a stand-in for pictures...

I got pedicures with Teiley, my friend Tammy and my almost-mother and sister-in-love...

The big day finally arrived. 

I checked into our hotel room for the night, across the street from the restaurant, with my long-time friend Kimmers and my mom. 

Another friend, Jen, did my hair. I'd already had my make up done at the nearby Ulta - big, dramatic, smoky eyes.

Greg and I wanted to get all the family pics done first so our small amount of guests wouldn't have to wait around for us. So Greg and I did our "first look" pics in the lobby of the lovely hotel we stayed in (the Hyatt), and did some fun family ones outside in their courtyard and in the "skybridge" that crossed from the hotel to the restaurant.

And finally, it was time.

Our guests were already waiting for us, enjoying each other and some appetizers. Mike, Greg, and the family all went before me into the room as I nervously waited outside with Jasper and Teiley.

Even as I type this, my stomach is full of butterflies, remembering back to that day...

Xoxo.

#myproject41 12/365: Barely Coherent Ramblings of a Woman Being Disciplined

This is hard. 

Trying to carve out the time to write each day is hard. With two girls home, finding a quiet hour is dang near impossible. And while I write in just an hour, it takes me another one or two to edit and find pics and put everything all together. I know the results don't yet show that effort, but it's true.

This isn't something I want to do during the day anyway because my time with my girls is limited. I mean honestly, I know I am blessed to be able to stay home with them...yet I find myself irritatedly waving my girls away so I can have quiet and focus. I ignore their sad eyes as they turn back around. 

Mama is too busy to play. 

I keep thinking that this will be easier to do once Quinleigh is in kindergarten...and then I am ashamed for wishing that would hurry up because why would I want to hurry up to spend less time with her? Is me being a writer more important than being a mom?

It can't be.

But still. Those thoughts bounce around in my head. It's hard not to be distracted even when I'm being super intentional with my sweet girls.

So I write at night. Which should be my time with my son, who is gone for 12 hours a day. Or with my husband who has to go to bed early because he gets up so early for work. And then I feel like I'm neglecting everyone and everything because "Mama has to write". And Quinleigh will just not go to bed properly this week. So then I'm up until 2am.

I'm only like 12 days in and already feeling so frustrated. Feeling like a failure. 

I keep meaning to get up early to write in the quiet, but so far...unsuccessful. Still trying to find my groove here. 

I suppose creating any new habit is hard. Breaking old ones certainly are.

And through this writing project, I'm doing both.

Breaking the habit of *not* doing what I don't FEEL like doing. 

Or maybe better said, doing what I don't feel like doing. 

Did that even make sense?

Because most of the time, I don't feel like writing. The times when I do feel like writing are completely satisfying to me. But this season of writing every day to build the habit? Of writing because I said I would? Of writing for the purpose of "showing up"? 

Not at all satisfying.

I'm not to the point yet - again, I know, I'm less than 2 weeks in, not even technically long enough to count as a formed habit which is like 21 days or something - where I'm enjoying this journey.

I've never considered myself a "go getter." I might be Type A in some respects, but on a regular basis I'm not the kind who hustles or gets all the things done or runs a successful home-based business or climbs any ladders or busts out glass ceilings because all of my life I've basically allowed my feelings to dictate my actions.

Feelings of being tired. Afraid. Not ready. Ashamed. Anxious. Meh.

To be honest, I can handle a major, out-of-my-control life crisis far better than I can the smaller demands of my every day.

Know where that's gotten me?

I'm 100 pounds overweight. I'm learning to eat better but daily exercise is not a part of my schedule.

I have a zillion unfulfilled dreams, including the one where I'm a professional writer.

I have an angry ex-husband that seems to hate my guts and I still deal with the consequences of following my feelings 14 years ago on a near daily basis.

I have kids who have been hurt deeply by other people's reactions to me following my feelings 14 years ago. 

I have lost friends by saying what I was feeling without thinking first.

I am surrounded by unfinished house projects and things that need to be cleaned.

I have done things I swore I would never, ever do.

But truth be told, I'm living the exact life I have chosen. Because choice by choice, I have created my own mess and decided to stay in it. I am not a victim.

And for a long time, I've allowed my feelings of failure and all the other ugly ones convince me that there's no point in me trying anymore, because it won't do any good anyway.

But the cool thing about following Jesus is that He loves me too much to let me stay in my mess. The cool thing about believing in and loving the One who created all of us is I know I don't have to do any of this much-needed life change in my own strength.

The cool thing is, I have a heavenly Father who disciplines me.

I had a huge spiritual breakthrough last year and now, I believe I'm in a season of the Lord being quiet because I need to learn to do the things asked of me whether I have feelings about the things or not. But oh my heart. Him being quiet while I am struggling is oh.so.painful. 

And I don't like it. Not one bit.

But I'm grateful for it. Because I know that the Lord disciplines His children whom He loves. Because I know mastering this skill will only serve me well. Because I know that He is still here with me, even if I don't feel Him. 

But I'm also battling shame that I'm 41 and just now truly embarking on this journey. Lots of wishing thoughts in my head. I wish I would've listened sooner. I wish I had learned this younger. I wish I didn't have to do this with my kids and anyone else watching. And I already know wishing only works in Disney movies. Which my life is not.

  

Wishes are lies. These voices in my head lie. Liar liar pants on fire. But they do it so often and are so good at it that sometimes, I forget they are not truth. They overwhelm me, drown me, cause me to feel powerless against them. And so I begin to believe again what they say and stay there.

"You are lazy," they say. As if that is who I am.

"You are fat, which makes you ugly," they say. As if my body is my worth.

"No one wants to read what you've written. You're not any good anyway. Especially compared to *insert anyone else's name here*," they mock me. As if needing to be liked by every other human is the purpose of me writing. 

"You are less than," they say, which makes zero sense in light of one of the previous confessions. 

As if Jesus didn't die for me, too.

Sometimes I panic in the shower. I think I do my best writing in the shower, which is a pity because to my knowledge, no one has yet invented a machine I can get my hands on that will translate my thoughts directly to the page. Without coming out of my mouth first. Because for some reason, I cannot get my thoughts out through my mouth the same way I can through my fingers.

This morning I panicked. My head and heart began writing painfully honest confessions of ways I've sinned, ways I've hurt others, ways I've made mistakes and by the end of it all I was being washed by as many tears as hot water.

I don't want fear to be the reason I'm not honest.

To be honest, I've spent much of my life as a liar.

But that is a post for another day. 

But thinking about sharing things that I've never shared with people before, for the sake of...what? What is my goal in doing that?

To get things off my chest? To challenge people to see who my real friends are? To encourage others to be honest, too? To show that the Lord uses our ugliness and sin and makes all things beautiful?

All of the things? Share all of the things? I know I need to find that balance between being honest and being wise. 

And clearly, I don't have much of a track record of either.

And the lies start in again.

"If anyone *really* knew you, they wouldn't love you. They wouldn't want to listen to a word you have to say."

Lies.

Because my Father, who knows me better than anyone, loves me anyway.

And He tells me I have power over my ugly thoughts. I have power over my feelings. They are not the same as truth. They were meant to be a gift to enhance my life, not to direct it.

This is where choosing to believe that He has good for me is crucial. Because if He's calling me to do a thing or go through a thing, I have to choose to believe He loves me. I have to choose to trust Him.

And then I have to sit down and write.

Whether I feel like it or not.

Xoxo.

#myproject41 11/365: Lies, A Tattoo and A Proposal

It's funny how different people cope with grief.

Not like, funny haha. But funny interesting.

By the time July rolled around, Eric was living here with his folks and we all spent a lot of time together as a family. Even though the kids and I weren't technically family yet.

That could be tricky sometimes. I felt Greg's folks start to pull the kids and I back in some, but I still really struggled with my role in the family. Especially because with Eric in town, emotions were high for all of us, all of the time.

I remember one evening we were all over at Pat and Carol's for dinner. It was a little chaotic as we each had different jobs prepping for dinner, and little almost-5-year-old Teiley asked Eric something. Instinctively, he responded to her with a, "Go ask your Aunt Kristie," and suddenly, time stopped.

I hadn't even noticed, really, over all the commotion. But one second everyone was fine and the next Eric was sobbing in the laundry room, realizing he'd replied to Teiley as if she were Madigan, and then we were all in tears.

Once we recovered, we sat down and prayed together - always emotional - and ate dinner. I remember feeling so very aware suddenly of my kids' behavior. Little things - kids being kids - that I would've let slide in the past were now causing me a lot of anxiety. I could feel my blood pressure rise with every complaint that came out of Tei's mouth, every burp Jasper let fly. I knew what I was feeling was completely inappropriate for the actual situation, but I started to get physically agitated from the stress.

A sneaky little voice in my head whispered, "Look at those kids. They are awful! No manners! You're a terrible mother! And everyone here wishes they were dead instead of Liam and Madigan."

*gasp*

Thoughts like this plagued me during these months. Maybe it was a bizarre version of survivor's guilt...I don't know. But I know who was responsible, and it makes me furious.

But at some point, it all got to be too much. So to add to my stress-eating, I decided to get a tattoo. I already had some, but this was a big one, for me. I think I needed to channel my pain into something beautiful. And I think I needed to show the family I was all in, I was committed.

A friend of mine was training to be a tattoo artist, and around this time she was also trying to raise money for her upcoming missions trip. So one afternoon in early July 2011, I sat in her chair for 5 straight hours. Well, I say "straight" hours, but I had to stop her a couple times so I didn't pass out. I knew I had to finish the piece that same day or I'd never come back. This wasn't my first tattoo, but it was my first with color and shading, and by far the most painful. And with it on my back, I wasn't able to watch it like I had the ones before it, which somehow made the pain even more intense for me. After 5 torturous hours, it was done.

I chose wings for two reasons: Eric often referred to his kids as his angels, and as you've seen, large angel wings surround their graves. But I wanted these to be more bird-like, to represent how we were all going to be able to move above and past this tragedy.

I was nervous to show everyone. Only Greg knew I was getting it. Again, those voices told me I had no right to insert myself into their pain like this. But I did it anyway. 

I showed back up at the house and revealed the new ink. There were a lot of tears all around. Not sure that Pat and Carol approved, exactly, haha, but they were touched. Eric hugged me.

That night I carefully tried to sleep with plastic wrap stuck to my back. It shifted in the night and the next morning, my shirt was stuck to one of the wings. Getting my shirt wet didn't even occur to me, so I just carefully peeled my shirt off...and a lot of skin came with it.

To this day, the left wing is scarred along the top. And I actually think it's perfect that way. Fitting. These wings can fly but they'll never be the same again.

Some people eat. Some people get tattoos. Eric is covered in them now. And some people shop.

That July, Jasper and Teiley were spoiled rotten by the Murphy's for their birthdays. Christmas was more of the same for all of us. A blessing and a curse, I think. Because being spoiled like that is fun, but when you know pain is attached to it, it makes it sad.

That season was hard on my relationship with Greg.

Shortly after the kids were killed, he quit his job to go on a road trip with his brother and sister, as Eric moved from Colorado to Washington. They took their time and bonded and had a good trip together.

When he came back, he didn't feel like he could just go back to work in the shop where we'd met. He needed something different, so he called up an old boss he used to wire for, and got some travel gigs.  

Greg would be gone in California and Connecticut for 3, 4, 6 weeks at a time. I hated him being gone and we'd often end up fighting on the phone when we could connect. 

When he was in town, little 5-year-old-pitbull Teiley had turned super protective of me and while she liked Greg, she didn't want him anywhere near me. If he so much as looked at me too long or sat next to me on the couch, she would force herself between us and start throwing a huge fit. There were definitely a few months towards the end of 2011 when Greg and I didn't think we'd make it as a couple because of Teiley's interference. 

I found out later that didn't stop Greg from calling my mom from Connecticut one night to ask her if he could marry me. Apparently, her "She's a very special girl," reply was in the tone of, "Are you sure you wanna marry her? She's...different." Haha! 

Thanks, Mom.

Greg decided he'd take his chances. 

But there was still the matter of Teiley.

At the time, we all attended an evening service on Sundays. Greg had been at our house for the day, and as we all started getting in our prospective cars to head to church (because Greg would head straight home after that), Teiley declared, "I'm going to church with Greggy Pants!" 

Greg and I looked at each other, eyes wide. This had never happened before. Teiley had never wanted to go with Greg like that. He grinned and put her car seat in his car and we all met at church.

Turned out, that's the breakthrough he'd been waiting for.

Not too long after that, on my birthday, Greg showed up at my work one day during his lunch break. I was on the phone when he came in so gave him a distracted wave and barely noticed the balloon and flowers with him. When I hung up and turned around, he was behind me, on one knee, holding out a ring.

I totally did the girly thing and gasped in surprise, hands clapped to my mouth.

I don't remember what he said, other than Jasper had picked out the ring. An amethyst, my birth stone...

We'd been talking about getting married for months and months, and we more or less had our wedding planned by this point, so of course I said yes! But I couldn't get Greg to commit to a date just yet...

You already know I like dates. I get attached to them. So I really wanted to get married on our one year anniversary, which was rapidly approaching. Do you wanna know how I finally talked Greg into it?

I'd been hounding him via text all day. He was back working at the shop temporarily and I was in the office, going into crazy-girl mode. We were texting back and forth about a date and he kept pushing back my March 24th idea.

"What are you scared of?" I asked him, super compassionately, lovingly.

No reply.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" came my text again.

*pause*

*pause*

*pause*

"Fine."

Yes! He committed!

But I had to make for sure for sure.

"So, can I like, Facebook it? Cuz once I do that there's no turning back."

*pause*

*pause*

"Ok. Yes."

He's so lucky to have me.

Turns out the long pauses were (mostly) because he was elbow deep in grease under a hood and had to take his gloves off every time his phone buzzed.

He's since thanked me for pushing him into marrying me. (Hey. My Mom tried to warn him!)

Xoxo.