Save the Tentative Date!

Planning a wedding, even one as simple as ours, can be hectic, especially if your venue choice (our future home) is not yet set!  Many of my loved ones get booked so far in advance (residencies, camp counselors, language immersion programs abroad, sheesh) that even a tentative date must be given now if I want a chance of gettin you all here.  So assuming we close on the house "soon" (in quotes because that term has let me down for two months straight) we will wed on Saturday, August 10th, a fine way to spend the day after my birthday :)

I greatly apologize for any inconvenience this should cause should it not happen, but we are hopeful!  Josh's confidence is unwavering, and I am more of the "keep telling yourself something until you're convinced" type.  I am excited however because it is going to be awesome!  I shant be a bridezilla and this will be on the cheap because what's most important is priceless.  I'm planning on being barefoot (maybe even pregnant, haha) and surrounded by those I love and have supported Josh, myself, or us together over the years.  A dear friend of ours will officiate, hopefully with great sarcasm and delight, and we hope to grow a great deal of the food (another reason I want to get into this house ASAP).  Though we are aiming to provide the meal, BYOB will allow you all to bring yours of choice (and allow us to keep that mega expense down). With our acre there will be plenty of room to camp out overnight as well.

Please do email me your addresses because while it's fun to send updates via the internets, most of you know I truly love homemade cards and do plan on sending out actual announcements.

My love to you and yours.

Nature's change of plans

I want to begin by thanking you all so much for being such a wonderful support; full of excitement about our news and eager to help, should we ever need it.  It’s a blessing having you all in our lives.  I know that this will only continue as I share the unfortunate news that at just past nine weeks, and not even one week since sharing the news of our pregnancy with the masses, I have miscarried.  There is good reason many people wait to share the news until after 12 weeks - the odds of this happening after then go way down.  Being healthy and young and excited I decided to just go for it (it’s seriously hard to have real conversations with close friends and family and not mention the most exciting news of your life!) and there’s no sense in being sorry for what’s already happened.  I trust that just as my body was well enough to begin a pregnancy, it was intelligent enough to pass what would not have come full term or been born healthy.  From my research, it seems about 20% of all pregnancies result in miscarriage, so this is not incredibly rare and does not necessarily indicate I will have problems again (80% of women who miscarry once go on to have healthy pregnancies afterwards).  It simply is what it is.

We of course grieve this event, but I beg you to not waste any sorrow on this because I really do trust that my body did what was best, and thank goodness we haven’t figured out how to stop random, early miscarriages; they happen because they need to.  Though it has been emotionally painful, I must say that the physical pain was far, far worse!  Which I certainly didn’t expect.  I hope this mini labor, to pass what had only been gestating nine weeks, combined with my history of intensely painful cycles, is only more preparation for actual childbirth.

I couldn’t imagine anyone I’d rather have by my side at this time (as all times), and I assure you he’s taking fine care of me, as usual.  It has been a wonderful experience to be pregnant together and realize just how excited and ready we are to become parents.  I promise we’ll be attempting to make this thing happen again in the not too distant future, though I may keep my mouth shut about it until we make it to the second trimester.  This in no way dims our excitement about the wedding and all the many other plans we have going at the moment, and I’ll continue to update you, hopefully with brighter news, soon.

Love, Love, LOVE you all,

Gettin hitched and pro-creatin!

So, yea.  As if we weren’t getting a crazy enough start on adult life . . . Josh was halfway through his graduate program, half a year into teaching, and I wasn’t even a licensed massage therapist when we decided to buy a house.  Awesome, totally feasible, completely exciting.  We found a wonderful house, began to fit the motions of buying it into Josh’s tight schedule and I began working as an LMT.  Exactly one month after I began my new career a welcome surprise changed our lives for good.  I’m pregnant!  Wowza!  This may seem like mayhem, but it is in fact bliss, and made for a most special Valentines Day.

We soon decided to get crackin on what we’d been putting off til we had “time.”  What a silly thing to wait for, because it just keeps moving.  I’m speaking, of course, of making the married life we’re living official by celebrating with you all!  To us the event is really for loved ones to come bear witness to a promise we’ve already made, no more valid or real, just shared publicly, and to make merry with good food and booze! (No booze for me of course)  This house we’re aiming to get has a yard fit for hosting such an event, which did not escape our notice, and so long as we close soon and can get the necessary repairs done in time, we plan to get married late this summer.  We’re picturing pig roast, camping, good music, etc.

Though I’m completely aware this provides far off family and friends with the difficult decision to either come to our wedding, or any other time when you could see a beautiful baby, we’re doing it soon anyhow.  I’m due mid-October, which will conveniently, inshallah, place an infant in my arms in time for the holidays.  You are more than welcome to come out for the wedding, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and/or any other stinkin day of the year to celebrate with us.

We just returned from a lecture by Vandana Shiva tonight, and yea it's a pretty crazy world to bring a child into.  I can't say whether the future for this little one will be brighter or darker than ours, but I do believe we'll be giving him or her a great start and hopefully instill values and inspiration to also make the world a better place.  I cannot express my gratitude enough for the incredible family that surrounds Josh and I; with you we know we'll never be an island and always have a community.  We certainly didn’t think new careers, buying a house, getting married and having a kid would all happen in the same year (more like over the span of five years), but shoot we’ll take it, yeaaaa 2013!

Also, unless you are close family that has never moved, PLEASE send me your physical address so I can send you purdy and proper announcements in the neari-sh future.  I’ll send more updates, probably via my blog, soon.

Much love and big hugs