An Ash Wednesday Anniversary

March 2 is the one year anniversary for this blog. However today is also sort of the one year anniversary  because it's Ash Wednesday and I started this blog on an Ash Wednesday. I've had blogs prior to this one, but this blog was born out of a project that happened over lent of last year.

I'm not Catholic so I don't have any religious obligation to observe lent. It's not something I always do or feel like I ought to do. But I do think that fasting is a very healthy discipline. And some years the lent season provides as good a timeframe as any for long term fasting.

Last year I decided I wanted to give up Facebook for awhile. I made this decision just before the lent season and wasn't sure how long I should give it up for. I've had friends give things up for entire years and that felt so daunting to me. But a week or two wasn't going to cut it either. It needed to be long enough that it was difficult and habit forming. Since lent was just around the corner I decided that was as good a timeframe as any.

I knew I spent too much time on Facebook and that the impersonal approach to personal issues there was causing me a lot of stress, so for roughly 6 weeks I nixed Facebook and started replacing the time I would have spent on Facebook with more productive things---one of which was blogging. And I've been blogging ever since.

This year, I'm not planning to give anything up for lent. Pregnancy has limited most things for me anyway, haha. But I am finding that for whatever reason (pregnancy? winter?) I am feeling completely frustrated spiritually and emotionally. I want to get out of this rut.

I have a tendency to withdraw when I'm going through something and it never really helps. So rather than sacrificing something, I'm going to commit to doing. I'm going to make an effort to do the daily things that keep me full that I haven't been doing. Praying, reading, engaging...on a daily basis. So I'm not "giving up" something, I'm gaining something. But it will still be a gain that is earned through discipline. To quote Aristole, 

"We are what we repeatedly do."

Anniversary Weekend

(1. The Original Pancake House 2. French Toast 3. H&M Shopping 4. Blue Monk on Elm for dinner)

We celebrated our anniversary last weekend. We decided to stay in town but do lots of fun "Buffalo" things. We started the day with a local favorite for breakfast (the food was great, who knew you could have an entire section of a menu dedicated to crapes?). Then we went on a shopping spree to the brand new H&M (and Forever 21). Then we went to the Taste of Buffalo (yum) where we met up with our friend Lauren who did a one year anniversary photo shoot (post coming soon!). After the taste we were suppose to go to the Screening Room for a movie (awesome local cafe/theatre) but instead ended up at Blue Monk for dinner with some friends and out to coffee afterwards. When we got home we exchanged  gifts. Mine...were awesome!

I received these books :)

Guest Post: John Paul

Today is our one year anniversary! This milestone is a particularly important one to me since I had a lot of "expectations" for what the first year would look like. You can read my thoughts on the first year of marriage here. Clicking on the "Him" tab above will also give you a pretty good idea of how much I admire and love this man.

But today, I decided to ask my wonderful husband, John Paul, to write a guest post. I love it when husbands and dads guest post and blog. There is just something about getting the guys view that puts things into perspective. I adore this man and I am excited he agreed to do this even though he's not big on blogging. So without further delay...

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Guest Post: John Paul

Well this is actually my first blog post ever. I've never been the writing type to be honest. I've tried to keep journals in the past without any luck and I doubt that I'll ever be good at keeping up with one. However, Noelle asked me to do this special guest post on her blog and I feel like it's appropriate since this has been our first year of marriage and I guess I will be christening our first year with my first blog post. I'm not sure Noelle will ever let me do this again so I will try to get in all I can ;) 

Before Noelle and I were married we talked to so many married couples and had gotten a lot of different opinions about the first year of marriage. Some said it was the hardest while others said they enjoyed "honeymoon-like" conditions for years. The divorce rate is so high and we've known people and heard stories of horrible things happening in the first year, but there's always exceptions and couples who have much better experiences. We've also been told by some that things wouldn't get hard until we had kids (which makes sense to me). Basically, we didn't have any idea what the first year would be like. My best friend's father once told me that getting married is always somewhat of a risk. You can be told by a thousand people what it will be like or won't be like but you'll never really know until you experience it yourself. I guess what I'm trying to say is that marriage is different in it's own way for each couple and even though there are many common issues and pitfalls, you can't base your expectations solely on what other people tell you. Inevitably, your expectations aren't going to be met in some way. And that's not meant to be depressing but simply realistic.

Noelle and I are humans and we both mess up a lot. We fail each other on so many levels and we don't always meet each others expectations. Does that mean marriage isn't worth it? Certainly not! It simply means that marriage is far more than just getting what we always dreamed of or hoped for. I'm not trying to downplay people's dreams and aspirations about marriage but when it comes down to it, selfless love is really all that matters. Marriage will never work if we expect the other to fill some void within us or meet some desired expectation we've had our whole life. Marriage is about selflessly loving your spouse.....no strings attached. Obviously, this is much easier said than done but regardless, that's the truth of it.

During our engagement we had the pleasure of doing some pre-marital counseling with my former youth pastor and we even had a couple at our local church mentor us for a few months. We learned so much about ourselves and each other through this time but I'll never forget what my former youth pastor said about being prepared for marriage. He said we could spend a thousand hours of counseling, being mentored, and even take classes about marriage but in the end it's up to you how your marriage will turn out. I don't want to mitigate the importance of being prepared for marriage (I highly suggest learning from couples who have been married for years and years) but basically what he was trying to say was that all the preparation in the world won't make a difference unless you consciously choose to selflessly love your spouse each and every day. Love is a choice and it's not always gonna be an easy one. Marriage can be amazing but it can also be terrible. It all depends on the choices you make.

For Noelle and I this first year has been awesome! Yes, we have experienced low times. We've disagreed, we've stormed away angry (ok maybe that was just me) and we haven't always been completely honest at times, but I love Noelle more than I ever have before. It's not always that kind of highschool puppy love, but it's more of mature love. Yes, somedays are more romantic than others and feelings are more heavily involved but other days I simply choose to love her even if my feelings aren't there. Of course I'm not perfect so somedays I am selfish and I don't always love her like I should but that's a constant choice I have to make.

As you start living together you seem to develop a dynamic and I think ours is great. We're both pretty laid back so we get along very well and besides the normal stresses of the workplace and money, life is very peaceful in our little apartment. People always ask me if marriage is everything I thought it would be and I can honestly say that it really is. I did my best to stay away from setting any unrealistic expectations and I think Noelle has done the same. I believe that has allowed us to simply love each other and grow together without striving for some unreachable goals. I never thought marriage was gonna be easy and that'd I'd always be happy nor did I think it was going to be miserable all the time. I simply knew that Noelle was the kind of woman I could see me spending the rest of my life with and I love and respect her as a woman of God. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us over the years! I'm sure it will be amazing and I hope to share many more stories of my experiences with Noelle and our marriage as God directs our path. Thank you for reading and God bless!

-John Paul