2013 Photo Dump

I've been promising (myself, if not you all) to do one big photo dump for the six months that I was an absentee blogger. It's a big task, time consuming and probably a little stressful, but it's no one's fault but my own. I'm going to try throughout 2014 to post at least weekly photo dumps, so everyone can see what we at The Box House are up to- being that I live through my photos almost more than anything else.
So, happy photo perusing- if you get through all of these, kudos to you. Also, if you're featured in any of these pictures, give me a shout out! Thanks for being a part of our 2013.

-M

JULY

July was full of weddings, birthdays, family get togethers, anniversary trips, and summer hangouts.

 August & September

 August was spent getting ready for school and saying our farewells to summer. September started our school days, along with Labor Day cookouts, and more time spent with friends, and a short trip to New York for me!

OCTOBER

In October we celebrated Atleigh's fifth birthday, some freakishly warm days, and added a new member to our family. Plus a women's retreat and my favorite Halloween costumes ever.

NOVEMBER

November was 10th Ashton's birthday (I know. Seriously. I don't know why I didn't think through all my kids' birthdays better), and also launched a little hash tag project on Instagram called #loveletterstoautumn. Plus random pet photos, date nights, home improvement projects, and my all out getup for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire premiere.

December

We spent December in a fog of holiday busyness. I hardly remember the month at all (that's why I take photos). December was full of more family, being reunited with out of state friends, football in the street, cousins, Ashton's VERY FIRST Legos, and general shenanigans.

Thanks for hanging in there with me! Tomorrow I'll post this past week's photo dump!

P.S. If you'd like any of the stories behind the photos (such as "Murder Most Foul!" and "What Is UP With The Togas?!", feel free to ask. I love to tell a good story! -M
 

Ampersands and Ellipses

Most of you probably know I love words. Obviously. But many of you probably don't know that I'm very choosy about my word loving. For instance, I love words that start with P and have three or more syllables. Pertinacious. Predilection. Persnickety. Perpendicular.

I hate words that have a hard G in the middle. Nugget. Frugal. Gaggle. Frigate. 

Words that start with M-e make me feel like I'm talking through my nose: meal, menial, meme. 

Most of you will be surprised to know that, as much as I love words, and as many words as I love, my absolute favorite word is a small, everyday, utility word, often overlooked or placed in the middle of a sentence to hinge it all together. 

My favorite word is "And". 

Yes. Strange. Small. But what it carries in those three little letters is hope. A sense of something more, an expectation, a "what's next?" One of my favorite commercials is for Coke Zero, where a man is facing the firing squad and they ask him for last requests. He keeps saying "And?", and they keep giving him more and more, until he's freed and riding off into the sunset. That's what "And" is. Hope. Holding your breath. Not afraid to ask for more. My favorite symbol is the ampersand, followed closely by the ellipsis. One indicates there's more coming. The other says this isn't the end. 

But lately, while I've been counting on the "and", my life has felt more like a "but". The ellipses have changed to periods, and I've found myself wondering if there really isn't a "what's next?" We've hit dead ends and corners everywhere we've turned. Doors slammed in our faces, backs turned on us, and a sense of hopelessness and futility pervading our everyday.  2013 was not an easy year at The Box House. Hard changes, hard truths, hard realizations of what our life is and most likely will be. Upheavals- big, and at the same time, not big enough. All of my ands feel like buts. Wasted away, dried up. Is this it? Nothing more? 

There's a verse I read today in Matthew 5. Jesus is talking about His fulfilling of the law, saying, "I'm not here to demolish, but to complete." (MSG) This sent me into a little bit of a tangent. Most days I feel absolutely, utterly demolished. I wonder where the good is in this? Or even, if it's like the metaphorical tearing down and rebuilding of the temple, when are my "three days" up? I feel like I've been sitting in this tomb forever, waiting to be called forth. Waiting for my stones to be rebuilt, waiting for my truth to be completed. If He is the Caller, the Builder, the Completer- where does that leave me? Where are my ands? 

However. If there's one thing I've tried to grasp and wrap my head around in 2013, it's that my feelings don't determine my circumstances- not do they often even correctly interpret them. Although I feel trapped in this holding tank, waiting, waiting, waiting, feeling myself surrounded by walls and buts and periods, my feelings are merely temporary reactions to temporary situations, real or imagined. 

2014 is only a dawning day. Full of questions, full of promise. Full of my ampersands and ellipses, full of room to hope and hold my breath. Full of "there's more coming" and "this isn't the end". So this is what I'm doing. Holding my breath, holding out for that expectation, that big "what's next?" Holding my arms open, waiting for my And. And it's coming... It's coming. 

To Love Or Not

There's so much I should be posting besides this. Three months off the map, and I should be coming back with photos, and stories of our summer and school days, new music listened to, new books read. And I will. Eventually. 

But tonight I just need to write. I just need to purge some of this ick that I've been letting build up. 

I've heard so many times "I love this person because I have to." "I'm trying hard to love so and so." Or, most often, "I want to love..." What does that even mean? If you have to want to love someone, doesn't it imply that you actually don't want to? Let's be honest here. We don't love this person because we have to. We don't try to love so and so. We don't want to love each other. What we want is for this person, and so and so, and each other to be lovable. We don't want to work to see value in others. We want it to be easy. We want lovable people in our lives to make us love them. But the truth is, people are not lovable. We are not lovable. We're human. We're ugly. We make mistakes, and we make it hard for people to love us. 

I don't make it easy for people to love me. I push them away. Don't look me in the eye. Don't touch me. I hide behind my smirks and eyebrow quirks and my one liners. But the fact is that I'm so terrified of being unloved that I make myself so. And then I question my value to everyone. Am I "this person" to them? Am I "so and so", whose only chance of being loved is "through Christ so help me God, because if not for Him I wouldn't have anything to do with her"? 

But no. No. This isn't a cry for help. I don't need an overwhelming response about how loved I really am. I don't need someone to pat me on my back and tell me I'm special. Like I said, this is a purge. And a challenge. To myself, to strain towards love. Not by earning someone's love, but by teaching  myself to acknowledge that someone's worth, whether I can see it or not. To look for it. To embrace it and grow it and cheer it on, and yes- to pat someone on the back and tell them how special they are. 

Because whether we are lovable or not, one thing is certain: We are loved, by the Someone. By the So And So. By the One who made us lovely. 

Ice Cream and Absolutes

When Jeremy and I were registering for wedding gifts, we held hands, wandering around in a happy haze, knowing the whole of Target was wide open to us. We could get whatever we wanted. The bullseye was our oyster. We talked excitedly, discussing where we would place the toaster, which shower curtain and towels to get, and if the coffee maker was really worth it. It was fantastic. 
Until we got to the small appliances. Jeremy stopped dead in his tracks in front of the Sunbeam homemade ice cream maker, forcing me to take a few steps backward or let go of his hand. 
"This," he said. "We need one of these." 
"Uh. What?" I asked. 
"I need this ice cream maker. We're getting it," he said, aiming the gun at the price tag.
"Wait,  no!" I shouted, holding my hand in front of the laser beam. "We're not getting that. What would we do with an ice cream maker? Where would we put it? It's enormous!"
I saw Jeremy set his jaw stubbornly, and I knew I was in for it. Ok, I thought. That's fine. I can dig my heels in too.
"My grandad always makes homemade ice cream. I'm from Fox Hill. It's what we do. I'm going to do it too." 
This went on for over ten minutes, escalating to a near fever pitch. At that point I threw my hands up in the air and yelled, "You know what?! I just-- I can't do this. I can't believe we're doing this! I'm not going to do this. I have to walk away from you right now." And I did. I left and walked around Target for another 15 minutes, fuming. I can't believe I'm going to marry this man. What am I thinking?? 
I won that fight. I don't know why it was so important. That was ten years ago now. This weekend, Jeremy and I are celebrating our ten year anniversary. I want to shout it from the rooftops. 
We did it. We made it. In spite of fights in Target over ice cream makers. In spite of all the people who told us we wouldn't make it this far, and those who tried to talk us out of it. And yes, there were quite a few. More than there should have been, that's for sure. But God knew better than they or I ever could have. 
I like to say, when people ask me about my relationship with Jeremy, "Jeremy was never my idea of perfect. But that's not what I needed. I had my perfect, and he wrecked my heart. Jeremy is God's perfect for me." He drives me crazy. He makes me question my sanity on a weekly basis, makes me want to scream and throw things. But he makes me laugh. He makes me safe. He makes me proud. 

I know that ten years isn't it. I know we have a long way to go still. Decades more road ahead of us. But ten years is something to be proud of, and God knows I'm as proud of this as anything I've ever accomplished. 

Jeremy likes to make use of absolutes in an argument. "You never do....", or "you always say...." So many times I tell him to stop using absolutes. They're often untrue. There's no such thing as "always" and "never" when it comes to an argument. You can't tell me I always leave the bread out on the counter. Because sometimes I don't. And you can't say I never plug your electric razor back in, because sometimes I do. 
But here are a few absolutes I don't mind using: Happy anniversary, Babe. I will always love you, always be glad I didn't listen to the naysayers, always have your back. I will never leave you, never remember past wrongs, never hit you when you're down. I'll always encourage you to be the best version of yourself, whether you like it or not. I'll never let you sink so deep into a funk that you forget who you are, what your calling is, and how worthy you truly are. 

And to prove all of that, in honor of our ten year anniversary, I'll even let you win for once. I hope you love your new ice cream maker as much as I love you. 

-M