Updates, answers, and the like

Hello 2013! Excuse my absence from this little blog, I've been quite busy wallowing in the winter weather and sleeping 10 hours every night. Spring has reluctantly arrived and there are a few sunny days most weeks now which has given me extra energy to pour into this space.

Matt is still working for a local company as a quality assurance engineer and he rides the bus to downtown Seattle 5 days week. I was working part time at a local domestic violence agency, but as of April 2nd I will be a full time staff member of the part of the agency that runs a shelter for abused women and children.

I'm absurdly excited (and only a teensy bit anxious) about transitioning to full time. In my mind, this is my first "adult" job because I will be eligible for benefits, accrue vacation time, have sick pay, etc. It only took 23 months after graduating from college and 19 months after moving to Seattle to get here, but they say life is a journey.

I also applied for graduate school in January and finally heard back about admissions early this morning. I didn't get accepted. And while that distresses me a little, I'm also relieved. I had just accepted a full time job and I was unsure of how I would juggle both commitments. In addition, the path to become a licensed social worker isn't exactly a short one. It requires 2 or 3 years in school and 2 to 5 years to get all the supervised hours and then you've got to take a competency test before you're officially licensed.

The idea of starting a graduate program became this huge commitment hovering over me that I wasn't sure I wanted to make, but who says "no" to something they've already said "yes" to so many times? Not being accepted was a reprieve in many ways, but I was also majorly disappointed. Several times I have asked myself, "What the heck? Why didn't they want me? I am AMAZING." But more often than not I have said to myself, "Thank goodness, now we can move back home whenever we want."

I wouldn't mind committing to the PNW for another year or two, but the idea of being here for 2+ more years is stressing me out. I've had numerous anxiety attacks about being stuck here for the duration of graduate school, or being unable to get back to Texas if I became pregnant, or being trapped here by job opportunities we couldn't pass up. Now I feel like there is one less obstacle blocking our path to getting to where I see us in 5 years: surrounded by our support network of family and friends.

Our One Year Wedding Anniversary!

I've been considering what to write for this commemorative post for several weeks now. Did I want to reminisce about our wedding, discuss the ways that we've grown as a couple over the past year, wax poetical about love and marriage in general terms? I even looked back to my journal for inspiration. What I found there made me laugh:

January 18th, 2011

Official confirmation of plans to wed.

January 23rd, 2011

Is this really happening? To me?! I am 110% ready to marry Matt and spend the rest of my life with him. I do not doubt that we can conquer and work through anything that comes our way. One big rule: we will NOT be the gender stereotypical husband & wife, but partner & spouse. Things have been so crazy and I really need more to time to relax but life is running me ragged! Maybe next weekend? I promise myself right now that this will NOT get out of hand. I will have a beautiful celebration but not at the expense of my sanity or anyone else's. What I care about wedding-wise: spending time with my family and Matt's family; a pretty, simple dress; a clean, handsome suit; two comfortable rings. Screw the rest!

March 6th, 2011

Talking to Matt on the phone - today has been stressful - the past few weeks have been stressful. I bought a dress for the wedding celebration. SIGH. Things have gotten difficult. Fast. But I guess we will survive. This will all end soon. 10 week countdown to May 15th, 2011!

And that is the last post in my journal. A few months after my last entry, I started this blog but that is a lame excuse for my absence in a journaling habit I've kept over the past decade. In my defense, I think that the 5 months of our engagement were the craziest, busiest and most emotional months that I've experienced since I was a wild and hormonal thirteen year old.

Anyway, after great indecision I finally decided to share the two pieces of relationship advice that have stayed on my mind over the past year. The first nugget of marriage wisdom comes from Matt's cousin, Autumn, who wrote to us and said, "There is no magic formula for a successful marriage, only love, trust, honesty and open communication. When all else fails there is always paper, rock and scissors to help with compromises!"

I love this advice because it demonstrates the basic tenets of any good relationship (love, trust, honesty, and open communication) while admitting 1) that marriage takes effort and 2) what works for one marriage won't necessarily work for another. It also recognizes that comprise and humor are useful tools when problems arise (which they undoubtedly will)!

The second piece of advice came from a random gentleman at the grocery store. Matt and I were debating the merits of different coffee brands and flavors when he approached us. He told us that we reminded him of a younger version of himself & his wife who came to pick out their daily brew just after being married forty three years ago! After telling us this adorable anecdote, he cautioned us with a gentle phrase, "Hang in there. Stay in love."

At first, the phrase "stay in love" seemed a little too generic to be good advice, but after reflecting for a while I think I understood what he meant. He meant that we should stay fond of each other as people, stay interested in the daily things and small quirks, stay connected and aware of one another. All those little things that people in love do without a second thought. 

Why those two pieces of wisdom have stuck with me, I don't know but I like them and there is comfort in knowing that good advice is out there, even if we don't really need it just yet, still being newlyweds and all. One year down, seventy eight years to go (I'm going to live to be a hundred, don't cha know)!

Anniversary Dinner Date!

Mothers & Daughters

Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing Moms that I know, including Grandma's and Momma's-to-be! Where would we be without y'all? In honor of day, I thought I would share  my absolute favorite Mother's Day postsecret card ever posted and a heartbreakingly beautiful letter:

The Found Essay: Letter from a Mother to a Daughter

“My dear girl, the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through. If when we talk, I repeat the same thing a thousand times, don’t interrupt to say: “You said the same thing a minute ago.” Just listen, please. Try to remember the times when you were little and I would read the same story night after night until you would fall asleep. 

When I don’t want to take a bath, don’t be mad and don’t embarrass me. Remember when I had to run after you making excuses and trying to get you to take a shower when you were just a girl? When you see how ignorant I am when it comes to new technology, give me the time to learn and don’t look at me that way. Remember, honey, I patiently taught you how to do many things like eating appropriately, getting dressed, combing your hair, and dealing with life’s issues every day. 

The day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through. If I occasionally lose track of what we’re talking about, give me the time to remember, and if I can’t, don’t be nervous, impatient, or arrogant. Just know in your heart that the most important thing for me is to be with you. And when my old, tired legs don’t let me move as quickly as before, give me your hand the same way that I offered mine to you when you first walked. 

When those days come, don’t feel sad—just be with me, and understand me while I get to the end of my life with love. I’ll cherish and thank you for the gift of time and joy we shared. With a big smile and the huge love I’ve always had for you, I just want to say, I love you, my darling daughter.”

Essay courtesy of Spring In The Air

Christmas is what you make of it

Happy Holidays from Team Smelkins!

We don't have a kitty, but we put a stocking up for the kitty
we hope to have some day in the future!

Is it Christmas already?! The holidays don't feel as if they even began because they weren't ushered in by the intense amount of family togetherness that I am used to being surrounded by this time of year. Ignoring my opinion on the subject, decorations and presents found their way to the Pacific Northwest and the holiday cheer snuck into our apartment. Honestly, I'm grateful for the care packages that ninja-ed their way into our apartment because it eases the strange heartache I feel about not spending Christmas engulfed by my insane family traditions.

The sight that greets you when you walk in our front door!

Cinnamon scented pine cones! Cinnamon is the best scent of the holidays season.

Reindeer towels & oven mitts (not pictured)

Jingly snow man door hanger

Our Christmas-tree-shaped rosemary plant sunning itself on the window sill!

Christmas presents! Hooray!!!

Christmas presents under our rosemary tree!

Tomorrow (Christmas day) Matt and I will open the presents we've received. Afterwards we're going to watch Home Alone and bake homemade pizza with sausage and zucchini.  For desert we will gorge ourselves on ice cream and the chocolate pumpkin spice cake I baked recently.

Thanks google images

Our plans are no more complicated than that. In the evening, I might wrap the presents we bought for our friends and family just because it seems like such a strange thing to do on Christmas day!

I am excited to start new traditions during our first married Christmas season and to make relaxation & togetherness our #1 priority. This year has been such an incredible and eventful year for us and I am happy to entertain an uneventful holiday season. 

Christmas is what you make of it and this year, it's all about the low key love.

The following is a reading from a small group I participate in that I would like to share with you.

 "Sometimes it's hard to know what to make of Christmas. It seems to have such a multitude of meanings.

Is it only a punctuation mark in the change of the season and the turning of the years?

Or is it only a chance to discover amidst the frenzied, frantic busyness of our lives, a time of stillness and quiet and rest?

Or is it only an excuse to celebrate a little, to indulge ourselves a little, in the abundance of the season -- food and drink and music and gifts shared with family and friends?

Or is it only an evil plot by corporations to keep us forever trapped in a vicious cycle of getting and spending on things we neither truly need nor want?

Or is it only a time to carry on family traditions, whether those traditions still mean much to us or not, because they reconnect us with our childhoods, our families, and all those who have come before us?

Or is it only a time, when the world around us seems cold and barren, to celebrate what is best within the human spirit -- our capacity for love, concern and generosity, not only for friends and family, but for all humankind, especially those who may not share in our abundance?

Or is it only a time when we affirm, that as the sun just began its return on the longest, darkest nights of the year, that there is hope for our own lives and our world even during the darkest times of our lives, a time when we remind ourselves of this hope by decorating everything around us with light, a time when we affirm with our effort that perhaps one day there will be peace on earth and goodwill toward all?

Or is it only a time when we celebrate in story and song the birth of a child born as a savior to his people, a child not born to royalty, but to humble parents in humble beginnings, reminding us in a different way that salvation comes unexpectedly in the unlikeliest of times and in the unlikeliest of places and that love must become incarnate to become real?

Or is it something completely else?"

-- Reverend James Kubal-Komoto, Saltwater Church

On the Origin of our Partnership

Call me Alycia. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no life beneath my belt, and nothing in particular to interest me more, I thought I would venture about a little and see what would become of me. Who could have guessed that soon B, the most particular and intensely admirable person in my acquaintance, would be the one to point me towards a life and a partner I could not have imagined better.

There was a puzzle and a dragon and a floor and as ambiguous as that sounds, it was unusually comforting to share those moments in such a volatile time. Soon, Matt became the figure I scanned for in crowds. The face I could not shake from my thoughts.

After a painfully patient courtship, there was a mutually agreed upon dependence that could be put off not much longer. And thus they were happily bound.

Side by side they proceeded through a number of days until an unremarkable evening came to a close. That was when things began to evolve, and with a bathroom proposal (to be expanded upon at a later date) they were set to create a new family unit. The pair were anxious to begin a bout of exploration and since they did not need much, arrangements galore began.

This brings us to today. It is not a complicated or tremendous tale, just the production of several simple decisions by two individuals so relentlessly infatuated with one another that they knew no other way.

Here within lies an ongoing tribute to the trials and triumphs of Team Smelkins, as they so fondly refer to themselves.