Here's the "serious" post I promised.

I met my husband, Terry, on Xanga.  He found me in the summer of 2005 through the Houston Baptist University (where he was a student and I was a new transfer) blogring, and started commenting on my articulate and thought-provoking entries.

Actually, he just thought my profile picture was cute.  While I, in fact, blogged about my boring life, he liked to blog about politics and his cat, Shadow.
 

We commented back and forth for a while, then we connected on Facebook and AIM.  The fall session of classes began.  Then one afternoon while we were chatting online, I mentioned that I was going to go to a bible study at a professor's house that night.  He responded that--what a coincidence--he was going, too!  (Later confessions have revealed that he had no intention of going until I said that I was, but at the time I had no reason to suspect his devious plot to steal my heart...)  So that night, we saw each other in person for the first time...and I was pleased.  He was so handsome!  We talked a bit and blushed, and he flirted with me by untying my shoes.  It was a little embarrassing, but I liked the attention anyway.  After the study discussion was over, I wanted to talk to him some more, but he planted himself in the corner of the room and talked to one of his "old friends", completely ignoring me!  I was mad, so I left in a huff.

Later (as in the next day), I forgave him--it was easy to do.  We started hanging out on a regular basis, going for dinner, listening to music, drinking pearl tea.  He showed me his super-secret beer stash in a mini-fridge he kept in his closet (HBU has a strict no-alcohol policy), and he gave me my first microbrewed beer, Dogfishead 60 Minute IPA.  He was impressed that I liked it so much, and later told his cousin about it, who suggested that we should get married.  It's not easy to find a girl who likes strong beer, I guess.

Then came hurricane Rita in late September, not long after school had started.  HBU cancelled classes for a week and kicked all of its students out of on-campus housing, so we both--Terry and I--went our separate ways to evacuate the city--he to Shiner, Texas, and I to Tyler, Texas.  It turned out that the hurricane had weakened substantially by the time it reached Houston, but our interest in each other had only grown stronger while we were apart.  We both realized during that week that we wanted to be more than just friends.

So, we made it official, and lots of amazing things happened after that.  We had our first kiss, we said "I love you", I made a lot of girls jealous, we made a cookbook, we spent almost every moment together.  And two years after we met, we got married, and the awesomeness continues.  We've traveled, we've bought a house, we just recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and now we're waiting for our first child to be born.

I love Terry so much.  (Here comes the mush.)  He is truly my best friend.  I always knew that that's what a husband should be, but I didn't anticipate just how connected I could be with one person.  I don't exactly believe in soul mates, but the intimacy we share is incredibly deep.  God willing, we will spend many more years together.

Last week I finished reading the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy.  It was a beautiful, tension-filled, painful story.  Well, I'm not sure that others would find the story painful, as I did, but I was able to relate to its protagonist, Kristin, far too much.  She is headstrong, she lashes out at those who love her, she holds grudges, she is internally conflicted; but she is also strangely pious, having a half-hearted love for God and neighbor that doesn't bear substantial fruit until the very end of her life.

Aside from her personality, I was also able relate to her young life and some of the things that occurred (to know what, you'll have to read the books!).  As for her life as an older woman, I saw it as a potential glimpse into my own future.  At a certain point after the death of her husband, she is able to view her life as if from the top of a mountain, and realizes that,


At her old age, Kristin is finally able to see the big picture, all the consequences of all the choices she had made in life--and she is not pleased.  But Kristin is a funny lady, for while she is unhappy with her decisions, she, later on in the story, also realizes that she does not wish that she had have chosen differently.  How seemingly conflicted, but how very wise.  While things could have been better for her, she is able to see the good in what she did choose and the fact that she cannot change the past.  What's done is done.  What she must focus on now is choosing the better road for the short time she has left, which she does, resulting in a saintly deed.

I hope that when I am older, that I will not look back at my life and feel regret, but I talk too much and listen too little.  I want my own way, which may not necessarily be good or bad, but will never be as good as what God may suggest.  So I fear that, in the end, I will regret.

But, I already have regrets.  Many regrets.  At various times in my short life, I have made poor choices.  But some of those choices--like some of the choices Kristin had made--I'm not sure that I would want to have made differently, because we can never know what could have been.  We only know what has been, and sometimes--if we allow ourselves to--we gain wisdom from what has been, and can help shape what will be.  And that is my hope:  that, though I have made mistakes, goodness may still come from them somehow.  If not now...then someday.

You can find Part I here.

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Me, trying to get comfortable on the couch.  Husband, sitting at the computer.

Me:  Not comfortable.  Not comfortable.  NOT!  COMFORTABLE!!!
        [silence]
        Terry, Julie got a nice, comfortable chair when she was pregnant...

Terry [without looking up from the computer screen]:  Well then why don't you ask her husband to buy you a chair, too?

Me:  Humph.

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Terry and I, arguing about what kind of chair to buy when Thomas is born.

Terry:  Rocker.
Me:  Glider.
Terry:  Rocker.
Me:  Glider!
Terry:  Rocker!
Both:  GRRRRRRRRRR!

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All the time.

Me:  I love you, Terry.
Terry [putting his hand on my belly]:  I love you two.