our christmas tree killed itself.

I know, I know. I just wrote a blog the other week about how beneficial waking up in the morning and exercising was to my general life. But then I realized that I was mentally freaking out any time I was going to sleep later than 9:30 and I also realized that since I don't absolutely have to, 4:30am is way too early to wake up. (It's too early to wake up even if you DO have to). So, I've changed things up. I am exercising at night. Given it's impossible for it to be quite as consistent since there are sometimes things going on when I get off work, especially during the Christmas season, but I have realized several benefits to this option. 

• I get to exercise with Luke
• I am more motivated
• I get to sleep until 5:30 or 6am
• I am less stressed about the amount of sleep I am getting

So, this is the way things are going to stay, unless I ever could exercise in the morning and still wake up at 5:30 or 6. 

I'm starting a food journal. Yep, it's starting today. I've learned that a huge part of having discipline is simply being aware of what you are doing. So, if I'm writing down everything that I put in my mouth (even just a bite of cake), I'll be more aware. And I think sometimes I may not eat certain things just because I don't want to have to write them down.

I've also decided to keep a "sentence journal". I got this idea from The Happiness Project (as well as the food journal idea). I've always been a journal keeper, but often I slack off because the prospect of writing seems like something I need a lot of time for. The idea behind a sentence journal is that I can write 1-5 sentences about whatever I want, each day, and I won't feel guilty that I'm not writing more, but at least I am writing something. 

Our Christmas tree killed itself. Ever since we got it the day after Thanksgiving, it has refused to drink water. I hoped it would hold out until Christmas, but by the end of this past week, all the branches were hanging low and it was starting to turn brown. So, we strapped in on the top of our car with twine (and if you have ever seen an unbundled Christmas tree on top of a car, it's quite a site--very Clark Griswold-esque) and took that sucker back where it came from--Lowe's. They gave us a new one. It's not as beautiful as the last one since it's the week before Christmas and the pickins are slim, but it's green and LOVES to drink water, so I love it. 

We went to Leavenworth this past weekend with friends. Leavenworth is a little Bavarian town on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. It was basically a dying town and the city council decided they could save it if they turned it into a little Germany. It's a completely ridiculous place, complete with a classic Bavarian McDonalds, a tiny hill where they have hauled snow in from the mountain (well, some might call it snow--it was more like icy mud) for children to sled on and cheap plastic sleds for $20. My favorite part of the evening was commentating on the ridiculously overpriced Christmas ornaments of angels with no pants on. Also, the bratwursts. 

The Abare's are coming this week. It's going to be a good, old-fashioned Christmas here in Sea-town. 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

the colors of the morning

By the time I get on the 242 from Seattle to Redmond in the mornings, the bus is usually pretty full. Often, the only open seats are in the accordion part of the bus where no one likes to sit (I am pretty sure it would have most people puking within minutes because of the way it moves). Thankfully, I’m not prone to motion sickness, so I usually have two seats to myself, which I really like, because then I am not trying to not slide into someone else when the bus is turning. I hate that. The bad part about sitting in the accordion, though, is that there aren’t windows in that part of the bus, and it’s difficult to see out of the other ones. 

This morning as we were driving across Lake Washington and I was reading my book, I happened to glance up and saw a reflection of orange out of the corner of my eye. I began craning my neck and was finally able to get a pretty decent view of one of the most beautiful sunrises that I have ever seen. It was a fairly cloudy morning, but the clouds were thick and low and as the sun came through them, it created a beautiful orange and hot pink pattern in the sky. That combined with the reflection on the water was absolutely breathtaking. I spent the next five minutes staring out that window. I know it was making the man who I was looking past to see through the window behind him feel uncomfortable as I noticed him awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact, but I really didn’t care. I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. In those moments, I was struck by the phrase from a Phil Wickham’s song, “The colors of the morning are inside your eyes.” That sunset was beautiful and realizing that I worship the God who created it (and is even more beautiful) was a moment of worship in and of itself. 

Whenever I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, it helps to remember that I might see a sunrise. Sunrises are always worth it. 

there is only love.

I am reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and in it she addresses happiness—the goals she makes to achieve it, why it is important and why it is not only good for you, but also good for everyone around you, for you to be happy. Each month, Gretchen focuses on different areas of her life that she wants to better—Vitality, Friendship, Attitude…the list goes on. 

In February, she focuses on marriage. Gretchen realizes that she can’t change her husband, but she can change herself. She makes an effort to look past her husband’s faults and focus on his positive attributes. She disciplines herself to be purposefully nice to him. In the midst of the chapter, she recognizes a truth that is quite sad: those we love most, we tend to neglect, take for granted or even fail to treat them with the same courtesy we would treat a stranger. On a quest to better her marriage and be a better wife, Gretchen remembers something a friend once told her: “There is only love.”

A friend of mine was the source of that commandment. She came up with the phrase when she was considering taking a high-pressure job where she’d be working for a notoriously difficult person. The person handling the hiring process told her, “I’m going to be honest with you. John Doe is very effective, but he’s an extremely tough guy to work for. Think hard about whether you want this job.” My friend really wanted the job so she decided, “There is only love.” From that moment on, she refused to think critical thoughts about John Doe; she never complained about him behind his back; she wouldn’t even listen to other people criticize him.…If my friend could do that for her boss, why couldn’t I do it for Jamie [her husband]? Deep down, I had only love for Jamie—but I was allowing too many petty issues to get in the way.

I’m only on the third chapter, but so far this small passage and that tiny little phrase have stood out to me more than anything else. If Gretchen’s friend could do this for her boss and if Gretchen could do it for her husband, why can I not take this phrase and employ it in my life. Why not hold onto that gleaming truth and when I am irritated with the clerk at the store who takes 48 seconds to scan each item? Why not remember love when a friend forgets plans that we made two weeks ago? Or when a customer service agent seems incompetent? These are things I let get under my skin. I can become angry, hurt and most certainly unhappy. Applying this principle, There is only love, seems like simple wisdom in the face of the human tendency to react quickly based on feelings. Instead of letting our feelings guide us, why not guide our feelings. So here is my goal: when someone does something that is frustrating or even hurtful, I will try to remember There is only love.

Fridays, husbands and tomatoes

Today is Friday, and I can’t remember the last time I was so excited for this day. The weekend has so much more meaning now.

I am on the last day of the first traditional, 8am to 5pm, 40-hour work week that I have had in who knows how long. I have been blessed for years to have an incredibly flexible work schedule and it is a huge adjustment to not have that luxury. I have so little personal time to do all the things that I want to do and so to maximize my time I have been waking up between 4:30 and 5:30am to workout, eat breakfast and get ready for work. I never thought I would make those unspeakable early morning hours a regular part of my life, but they now are and will be for a long time. Getting up so early means going to bed by 9:30 or 10pm, so that’s weird also, considering my history of 1am bedtimes.

One would think that waking up early to work out would make me more tired (the double whammy of less sleep and vigorous exercise), but the opposite is true. Pulling myself out of bed never fails to be hard, but once I am up I feel quite energetic (only to go sit at a desk all day…). In fact, this morning, I decided to sleep in till 7am (I catch my bus at 7:34) because it’s Friday and I know I will be up late tonight. I was hoping I would feel more rested by an extra hour and a half of sleep, but instead I felt far more groggy on my ride to work. So the getting up early and the exercise certainly are worth it (and I have lost 2 lbs.)

Marriage is pretty great. I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better husband. Luke and I work so well together in every area from decision making to cleaning the house. He is wonderful and my perfect match. The upside/downside of marriage is that, loving to cook, I have been taking advantage of having an eager recipient of my food and concocting all sorts of delicious (and usually fattening) meals. And it was starting to show up around the hips. So, this week has been full of salads, wraps and other less-fattening foods. Except last night we had pizza and Dr. Pepper…so… (but the pizza was homemade with whole wheat crust, so that’s better than Dominoes).

In other news, Congress decided that Pizza is a vegetable. Because of the tomato paste. Tomatoes are technically a fruit, but that’s beside the point.

falling in love.

Most girls dream about their wedding days from the time they are young. They wear dress-up veils and imagine how much fun it will be to wear a princess dress and dance the night away with their prince charming. As they get a little older, they may start picking out colors, themes and flowers, even before they meet their one-day husband. I can't deny that some of these plans have colored my thoughts over the years, but the thing I have always dreamed most about is what it would feel like to be in love. To be held in the arms of a man who cherished me and to look into his eyes and know that I never want to live my life without him.

When I met Luke Abare at a John Mayer concert back in the summer of 2007, I had no idea that he would be my dream come true. We barely even talked that night. Then at the end of 2008, we reconnected when we ended up on the same trip to welcome in the new year of 2009 in New York City. The like we felt for each other on that trip was mutual and impossible to ignore and after sharing our first kiss on New Year's Eve, we decided to develop our friendship. Luke went home to Seattle, WA and I went home to Lynchburg, VA. We were on opposite sides of the country and 3 time zones apart, but that didn't stop us from talking every day. Pretty soon, in spite of the distance that separated us, we knew that we cared about each other and wanted to make our relationship official. Luke surprised me by flying to Lynchburg on Valentines Day weekend and asked me to be his girlfriend, to which I enthusiastically said YES. 

In May, I flew to Seattle and spent 2 weeks with Luke and then we packed up his car and drove across the country so he could move to Virginia, go back to school and be in the same place as me. The following 8-9 months definitely taught us a lot about ourselves and each other. We experienced ups and downs in our relationship and there we some times when we weren't sure if we would stay together. But through all of that, we realized something: We loved each other. No matter what happened, nothing changed this, and by March of 2010, we had both shared this fact with each other.

From that day forward, I stopped having questions about whether Luke and I were supposed to be together and I started thinking about how wonderful it would be to spend forever with him. The year and  five months since the expression of our mutual love have been filled with adventure. Luke spent two months in Africa last summer, my niece Evelyn was born in October of '10 and I spent the last three months of the year traversing back and forth between Lynchburg (where Luke was) and Charlotte (where my family and Evelyn were). On January 1st, I left Charlotte for Lakeside, Montana where I spent 5 months in my DTS with YWAM (2 months of which were in India). Those five months were life changing for me and for Luke. And they solidified even more our love for each other.

Two weeks after finishing my DTS and arriving in Seattle, I woke up early one Saturday morning, the eleventh day of June. Luke surprised made me with a breakfast of pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries and we drove to Edmonds to take a ferry across the Puget Sound to Kingston where we planned to drive the 3 hours to Third Beach in LaPush. The day was cloudy, but we talked and laughed and sang along with Broadway tunes for the whole drive. We hiked a mile down to the beach and I was amazed at it's beauty. A 60-foot waterfall cascaded beautifully from the top of a cliff into the ocean and sun-bleached driftwood covered large areas of the shore. Large rocks in the water were covered with starfish of various colors--so many of them! We walked for an hour or so and waded in the water (even though it was cold). We finally stopped for lunch and after I finished my sandwich, the green-eyed boy sitting beside me declared "I want to do something right now. I want to propose." He got down on one knee and reached into his backpack and pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper which he promptly ripped off. He opened the small navy box in side to reveal the most intricate, beautiful, diamond engagement ring that I have ever seen. The words that followed elude me and all I can remember was sitting there with my mouth open in surprise as he asked me to be his wife. The only answer that could come out of my mouth was "yes" and I meant it with all my heart. (You can read the rest of our engagement story at blanzyandabare.ourwedding.com).

From that moment, my heart has been filled with such joy knowing that Luke and I will be together forever. The feeling that I dreamed of as a little girl--knowing that I couldn't live my life without this person--is here. When I look into his eyes, I know Luke will love me forever and I will him. And I couldn't be happier.