I woke up

When I was little, before I had learned to read and write, my mom bought me a diary. Every night before bed she would walk into my room, climb under the covers with me, and I would dictate my thoughts to her. The thoughts of a four year old aren't that deep but she would come in every night and write every word I said. Most entries would start off with the words "I woke up", which is always a good place to start. I still have that diary and I have fond memories of my mom snuggling in with me to write my daily activities. Then when I learned to write she let me take over. My spelling was very inventive, my family would say it sometimes still is. What can I say? I'm a creative person and it shows in everything I do!

First page of my diary in my mom's writing (mostly).

Then in junior high and high school, I wrote in a journal. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I filled quite a few spiral binders. I wrote about everything. If I was happy, sad, frustrated, I would write about everything. I was a quiet teenager and I think my parents would say I was fairly easy to "handle". I think writing had a lot to do with that. I would yell at the page to release all the usual teenage grief. I would glue pictures of happy things on pages and cut out inspirational words from magazines and staple them in. I didn't have a dramatic childhood, very drama free in fact. I had great relationships with my parents. My mom would even still come into my room in the evenings and we'd sit on my bed talking for hours sometimes. I wasn't an angry teenager, so the page-yelling was minimal. I'm kind of surprised I found so much to write about. When I look back at those journals, a lot of the entries started similarly to my four-year-old diary, "I woke up". The last entry in my last journal was in my freshman year of high school. I wrote about a guy. A really cute guy named Josh who played the bass guitar, had spiky hair, and skateboarded. Oh man he was cute. After I found him, I didn't seem to need my journal as much. He would be my first and only boyfriend. Just like when my mom let me take over writing in my diary, Josh helped me take control of growing up. 

We met when I was fifteen and Josh was seventeen. A friend of mine pointed him out to me in the quad because she thought he was cute. Oh man he was really cute! He was wearing a white t-shirt, red board shorts, and red all-star converse (we called them chucks). He had the spikiest hair there was in 1999-2000 and he wore his backpack as low on his back as he could, which was the style then. After we officially met at our church's youth group, he asked me to be his girlfriend at school outside my English class. It was a really good day. On our first date, he picked me up in his mothers van. I'm amazed my parents let me out of the house. As we walked out the front door, my dad softly remarked "I have guns". Josh didn't hear him but we laugh thinking about how he might have reacted if he had heard. It didn't take long for my parents to love Josh though, it's easy to do in my opinion. He was a perfect gentleman, always polite, brought me home on time, and had the most charming smile you've ever seen. Still does. 

Look how cute he is! And that hair...*swoon*

 
Six years later, a month after Josh graduated with his bachelors in business management, on the hottest day on record for our city in twenty years, we were married. Happiest day of my life. "I woke up" married to my best friend. The funniest, sweetest, sexiest man I've ever known.

Our first dance as husband and wife. July 22, 2016

Now here we are, seven years later, and I still get to wake up everyday next to my best friend. The last seven years involved a major car accident, the struggles of infertility, and the pain of death, but praise God! I have Josh. I have an amazing family. I have a passionate beautiful mother. I have the best in-laws in the world. I have supportive caring friends.  I have the hope that comes with adoption. I have faith through Christ.

This blog is going to be good.

Seven year wedding anniversary.