Hi everyone!
I thought I would share what I was doing exactly a year ago today.
Eleonore was overdue and I decided I should try to “dance her out”.
I started doing this on December 10th, 2011 since her official due date was the 9th.
Since I don’t normally post on Sundays I am revisiting two of the videos!
More to come in the week ahead.
peace to you,
meredith
I know it’s not Wednesday anymore, but we just got done with Bible Study!
I’m kinda running on empty with whimsical ideas, so this is what you get.
peace to you,
meredith & madeleine l’engle (the cat)
Today was an exciting whirlwind of an adventure.
Deb asked if Eleonore and I wanted to join her and Wolfie on a thrifting jaunt to Clinton.I figured we should just go crazy, and go all the way to Decatur.
(All the pictures are courtesy of her and her artistic self! )
You see, I have this odd love affair with Decatur. I lived there from the time I was four to third grade and for my freshman year of college. Those are pretty pivotal years in the development of a memory, of a personhood, at least they were for me.
It was hard as we made every turn, and drove past every place to not share with Deb the story that accompanied the particular place or street. We did some pretty great thrifting, and the kiddos behaved quite well.
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Eleonore & Wolfgang holding hands in the backseat!
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What was more valuable than any physical treasure, was the remembering. Remembering where I was when I first heard of the Iraq war starting on the radio in the car. Remembering the thrift store that my mother would buy me clothes from that I would despise because a peer had told me “only poor people wear thrift store clothes” and I had an incessant need to tell people where my clothing was from, so if I wore it, everyone was going to know it was second-hand. I was going to tell them.
The thing that stood out to me most about my time in Decatur were all my different “educational” experiences.
I was home schooled for Pre-School, went to Northwest Christian Academy for Kindergarten, and first grade, was home schooled for second grade and went back to Northwest Christian Academy for the first half of third grade, transferring to Glad Tidings Christian Academy after Christmas.
I kept harkening back to my first experience at Glad Tidings in 1993. I was excited about the change, I thought I had a good handle on things.
Our wedding ceremony was probably my favorite part of the whole wedding.
Though I may give all I possess
And, striving so, my love profess
But not be giv’n by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin.
Come, Spirit, come; our hearts control.
Our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide ev’ry deed;
By this we worship and are freed.
it is a hymn I haven’t sung since our wedding day six years ago, and I find myself struck by what little that 21 year old girl/woman (still feel like a girl/woman, but that is for another post, at another time!) knew of what true, real, hard, life, love looked like and would look like. And yet I/she knew enough that there was truth to these words, that something resonated with what this marriage thing was supposed to look like. What a gift. what joy, what bliss, this deep true friendship and community I have been given in my husband is!
I am so aware of how “lucky” I am. So grateful.
And often times when I laugh so hard that I fart in bed, because of the hilarious things he says, I half expect a parent to come in and tell us to be quiet, that it’s time to go to sleep, because I don’t know how I got to have a sleepover with my best friend every night, I feel like I must be doing something wrong to have so much fun and get to spend every waking moment with my best friend.
Bet you didn’t expect me to talk about farting, but that’s how I roll.
Or better yet, how WE roll!
peace to you,
meredith
This Saturday (November 19th) will mark the 6th year Nate and I have been married.
WHOA!
To try to grasp how long this is, it would be like making it in the same relationship for all of Junior High and High School. . .
I realize that this isn’t the point, but it does give you a tangible way to grasp the length of time.
I have dubbed this wedding week, where I will take time to highlight different aspects of our relationship so far!
Monday-How we met
Tuesday-The Proposal
Wednesday-The Wedding (worked out well alliteration wise eh?)
Thursday-Where we have been
Friday-Where we are going
It was the Summer of 2003. I had come home from my freshman year at Millikin University and had already made plans to transfer to Illinois State University, switching from Music to Theatre. It had been a wonderful year of finding myself thanks to so many wonderful people, and an asset was that many of those wonderful people introduced me to wonderful music. I needed a job, and had slacked off in those efforts. My wonderful friend (and future Maid of Honor) Michelle, suggested that I should work at East Bay Camp on Lake Bloomington. I had been to EBC many times as a child and adolescent, but something about being stuck at camp for weeks at a time seemed suffocating, and I was hesitant. I wasn’t working hard at finding anything else, so EBC it was. Miles Price (an amazing friend and future reader at our wedding) hired me to be in charge of implementing a new daily day camp.
So I begrudgingly took my dyed black hair, blunt cut banged, industrial ear pierced, vintage track jacket wearing, Norma Jean/Flaming Lips listening self to the first day of orientation and training.
It was June 6, 2003
All the counselors had assembled, except for one.
In came this tornado with a sideways cap, hoop earrings, thick black glasses, tattoos and a soul patch. He didn’t seem phased by being late, and just jumped right into the conversation.
I just thought COCKY,COCKY,COCKY, cute, but, COCKY, COCKY, COCKY.
Well, thinking the cute boy was cocky wore off pretty quick.
We flirted (a lot).
We prayed together (a lot).
We read the Bible together (a lot).
And by the end of the Summer, we were already talking about marriage.
This was overwhelming for me in so many ways. I had a list of I never’s that I have talked about before. This was when I knocked the first two out of the park. Nate was the first guy I had ever dated that was shorter than me, and he had experienced a call to pastoral ministry.
1.) I will never marry a guy who is shorter than me
2.) I will never marry a minister
3.) I will never live in Bloomington-Normal permanently after school
2 out of 3. . .for a time.
I had never been serious enough about a guy to have the “meeting of the family”.
I was terrified. A twin brother who was the president of his Christian Fraternity who was engaged to a beautiful petite art major, and a Mother who was a music teacher, but also a ridiculous composer and musician.
The first time I met Jake and Kenz was in Peoria at Ruby Tuesday’s. I think I cried most of the way there begging Nate to take me back because I was so petrified.
When I met them, they were great and so nice. But I did notice they looked at me a little odd when we first walked in. I was already PLENTY self conscious about our height difference. I am 6ft. he is 5’8, and figured they just thought we looked funny together. Later that evening we went to meet his Mom and stay the weekend. She too gave me an odd look.
What I found out years later is that Nate said this to his family right after we met.
“Mom, Jake, I think God wants me to marry a big girl.”
So why the odd looks? They weren’t expecting someone tall, they were expecting someone overweight. They thought I was a new girl, and they were obviously perplexed since he had talked about marrying the “big girl”.
He hasn’t ever lived that one down, probably never will.
I’m glad God wanted him to marry this “Big Girl”. Very glad.
peace to you,
meredith
I have been debating for so many years now about getting a tattoo. My husband has a few :), and I have been itching lately for some ink. These pictures are some inspiring ones to me, and you can also find them on my Pinterest!
The problem is, ever since I met him, and ever since I have seen his amazing artwork on Nate, I have only wanted one person to do my tattoos, if I ever got them.
That person is Jimmy. He now lives in Eugene, Oregon. And that makes a tattoo REALLY expensive. Although a total bonus would be visiting Mindy Rawlins and The Blair Family.
Trying to justify, trying to justify, trying to justify.
Do these images inspire you as they do me?
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One of my favorite musical groups of all time will be playing a show in Bloomington, at a childhood friends apartment.
I have been dubbed a “Superfan” along with my dear friend Lindsay who will be absent this concert since she currently lives in Arkansas.
Lindsay and I first saw Rue Royale in 2007 at Uncommon Grounds in Wrigleyville. We didn’t pay much attention or realize what amazing food was there. We were there strictly for the music.
Our fates were sealed, and since then we have tried to make it to every show that has been accessible to us.
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| Our 3rd concert at Subterranean Winter 2007! |
There isn’t really much to say about their music, it is better to listen, and feel.
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| Cornerstone 2008. I had an appendectomy, so I wasn’t there. There was an empty seat in my honor. |
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| At Schubas, end of Summer 2008! |
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| Fall 2010 in Macomb |
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| Spring 2009 Their Moving to England show at the Hideout |
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| Look up “Bosom Friend” in the dictionary, and this is what you’ll see! |
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| Liesl and I enjoying a good “brew” on our German Day Trip! |
Halloween is one of my favorite Holidays. It’s dramatic, it’s fun, it can be educational, mostly it’s fun.
Nate and I first committed to Halloween as a couple his first year of Seminary at Trinity. We had met an amazing hip and funny couple, The Blairs, and somehow we all decided to get dressed up and go out to dinner. It was History in the making. Since that first year we haven’t missed one Halloween until last year when it was our first year apart from the Blairs (they live in the Portland area now, they are THAT cool and hip). It seemed like an appropriate mourning period. But with Eleonore being here we figured it was time to “get back in the saddle”.
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| Halloween 2006-Sonny & Cher |
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| Halloween 2006-Lucy & Ricky with Sonny & Cher |
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| Halloween 2007-The Flinstones! |
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| Halloween 2007-Barney & Betty |
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| Halloween 2008-Linus, Luci, Charlie Brown & Sally |
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| Halloween 2009-The Wizard of Oz |
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| Halloween 2010-In Mourning |
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| Halloween 2011-Olive Oyl |
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| Our Sweet Pea! |
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| Popeye, Olive Oyl & Sweet Pea! |
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| The beginning of a beautiful tradition with the Kocourek family! |
And many more to come!
The Hopping Home 