Love the One You’re With

Yesterday I spent a lot of time on hold and in conversations with ‘technical specialists.’ There were some website-creation issues that I hadn’t anticipated which was partially the fault of another ‘technical specialist’ I spoke with a couple of weeks ago who said this little migration thing wouldn’t be a big problem.

Long story.

It could’ve been at some point past midnight when it dawned on me, but I think it was when I was seeing things slightly more clearly this morning — the thought that all those people who chatted with me yesterday, sent me emails instead of answering my questions directly, and pushed me to purchase technical assistance when I kind of felt like they owed it to me to help me anyway because it was partly their fault I was in this predicament to begin with — those people don’t actually go to bed at night dreaming about how to further frustrate another disgruntled customer when they head to work the next morning.

They probably didn’t draw a picture of a telephone accompanying a sign that said “I want to work at a call center when I grow up” in kindergarten.

And while it can be pretty darn frustrating when the person across the counter… in the other lane… or at the other end of the line in India just doesn’t seem to be seeing things from your perspective — maybe it would help if you were able to take a moment to see it from theirs.

Maybe they’re not living their dream. Who knows what’s going on in their personal lives outside this 9 to 5 they feel enslaved to? And is their supervisor listening in to half their calls to make sure they don’t over-assist a customer who should be paying for additional support?

And more seriously — what about that thing in their hearts that they were created to do, born to do — that dream that is burning in each of them, the thing that they might actually be thinking about when their head hits the pillow at night, that they’re too afraid to step out and give a shot because their life is consumed by getting shouted at by disgruntled customers all day, which has kind of affected their self-confidence… what about their dream?

One of my favourite moments from a kids movie, like ever, is the scene from the movie Tangled where Rapunzel’s guide takes her to a rough tavern, hoping that it’ll scare her into heading home instead of following her dream. Instead of getting frightened into running home, she asks a simple question that resonates with the rough and brash and burly ruffians she is supposed to be afraid of.

Haven’t any of you people ever had a dream?

And this is the answer she receives to that question:

I love it.

The truth is, there is always more than meets the eye to each person we encounter every day — and remembering that each one of us was created with a purpose — whether or not we know that purpose or believe we have one — can completely change the way we perceive each other and the way we receive each other.

It seems like when Jesus looked at people He saw something other people didn’t see. He looked at that rich young ruler and loved him. He saw Zacchaeus in the tree and wanted to spend time with him. He was ready with compassion when everybody else was ready to throw stones.

He saw worth and value. He responded with love.

Can you see the dreamer inside the people around you today? Can you look for the God-given worth and value that the rest of the world can’t see?

Sometimes the only thing necessary to change our day is that kind of change that looks in the mirror and starts in our own hearts.

Love the one you’re with.

xCC

Rub-a-Dub, Dub

Rub-a-Dub, Dub

I hardly shared a single photo from our time in Scotland, but I think that’s because, outside of the photos for the wedding, and whatever I took with my iPhone when it wasn’t missing in action (which was like three out of our six days there) there really wasn’t much to show, with it being so rainy every day and whatnot. But as I was looking for something to update something somewhere else a little while ago (how do you feel about vagueness, vaguely speaking?) I found this photo that I’d begged the Hubs to take when Alice was busy with dinner and I was given the task of dropping the three kiddies into the tub.

Sophie, who you may remember as the flower girl from the Bell-Tominey-do, is pretty much as cute as cute can be. Her little sister was not in the tub for the picture because she was about seven weeks old at the time, and when you’ve got a Bear and a Tank in the tub, I think you can count on things being dangerous.

Oh man, I would seriously love for the Bear and Sophie to get hitched, several years down the road, just so we can share this photo at their wedding.

Rob and Alice…thank you again for your fabulous hospitality!

xCC

And Happy Birthday, Hero Hubs

I guess you could say we’ve launched into birthday season, full swing. The Bear’s birthday was last Friday, and today it’s the Hubs’ turn. (And mine is just a few weeks away…and then my Mom’s… and a few weeks after that {maybe six?}, Bump the Third will be making her glorious appearance!) But first, it would just be wrong not to stop for a moment right here, to celebrate the awesomeness of the Hero Hubs. Who is available to shoot weddings throughout eastern North Carolina and the surrounding areas, in case you didn’t know that already.

We were interviewed yesterday for a very cool little magazine called The Washington Magazine, where HH and I had the privilege of talking about Quiver Tree Photography, our lives, our kids, our love story and how we met, and it was just so good to reflect briefly. And out of that conversation, the sweet gal who interviewed us ended up also asking some questions leading to featuring us in the “Faith and Family” moment in the Washington Daily News today. So while the magazine story is still a wee while away from print, this little article here has made its online appearance already.

{From that big old trip where he asked that big ol’ question…January 2007!}

I love Mona’s title: Faith, Photos, Finances Unite Couple. And I think those words are the result of us both believing in a very big and very good God, and are the formation of hundreds of tiny decisions, made on a regular basis. Because when life is hard, there are two directions a couple has the choice to head in. They can either allow the tough times to band them together in a we’ll-get-through-this kind of way, or they can allow the tough stuff to put space between them, forging little rifts and wedges that seem to somehow get bigger and bigger over time.

Daily a debtor to grace, friends, this I am sure of — and it is in God’s good grace that we are drawing nearer to Him, and to one another.

It was just an inkling of a suspicion on this day six years ago — on the Hubs’s birthday — when a big group of us went to see the Screwtape Letters being performed on stage during the Edinburgh Festival. And that strong and mysterious fellow whose day we were there to celebrate was sitting at the opposite end of a long row of folks from church, and upon the arrival of my friend and I, he excused himself from his previous company, and came all the way around to the end where I was sitting. I left that evening — a little early because I had a hen-do {bachelorette party} to attend — with this whispering suspicion of a hope that I’d almost let go of, because I’d already had feelings for the guy who I thought was the one for a long time.

And bless his heart, he is the guy who walks in the door after a long day at work, cuddles and wrestles our rambunctious boys and comes all the way ’round again, this time just to the kitchen, to look me in the eyes and give me a kiss and say hello. And I’m so glad six years, three countries and almost-three-kids later, he is still coming to find me.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Change and movement, suitcases and packing seem a chorus in the song of our lives. But love has been the rhythm, the beat, the lyrics, and the reason to sing.

How joyful I am, in trusting that this song, with my South African Gentleman Cowboy Hubs, is really just getting started. Feel free to head over to Quiver Tree’s page on Facebook to wish him a Happy Day!

Happy Birthday, Hero Hubs! I feel ridiculously fortunate to call you mine.

xCC

Four Score… Well Actually Just Four Years Ago

It was Christmas Eve, 2007 when it hit me. The possibility that a recent little bout of nausea, and a few other incidences I chalked up to being a lot busy and a little stressed, could mean something other than I needed to slow down a little bit. It was enough of an inkling for me to mention it to the Hero Hubs. And since it was Christmas Eve, we excused ourselves as if we were on a last-minute elvish mission, and we dashed to Walgreens, to look for that aisle, to look for that section, to look for that test.

We rushed back to my Mom’s, scurried upstairs, took both of the tests in the box, and stared each other in the face for a moment.

I leaned into HH’s chest and cried. And then we both smiled. We laughed. We stared at each other in disbelief. I may have cried again.

He was a father. I was a mother. We were going to have a baby.

We returned to Scotland when I was about five months pregnant. It was daunting to leave North Carolina all over again, but I knew an adventure was ahead of me.

And on the 17th of August, 2008, we went to the hospital around noon, got sent home because I hadn’t progressed enough, stopped for two bacon rolls with brown sauce along the way, watched Michael Phelps win his eighth gold medal in Beijing while we timed my contractions, and then we loaded ourselves back into our car to head back to Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary. On our next trip home, there would be three seats occupied in the vehicle.

The labour was long, the birth was an overwhelming mix of amazing and downright scary, and perhaps it was at the moment when a nurse came into the room and told us that visiting hours were over and the Hubs would have to leave — around 5:00, just a few hours after the Bear had joined our family at 2:26 am on August 18th — that the reality of motherhood sunk in. I was in pain, I was overwhelmed, and I was about to be doing this thing by myself for a little while.

I cried.

And the Hubs came back as often as he was allowed, but those two nights in that hospital were the two longest, scariest, loneliest nights of my life.

But when we got home from the hospital and our life together as a family really felt like it began — the most joyful moments I’ve ever experienced started making appearances on a regular basis.

That fall-to-your-knees-how-can-I-be-so-blessed thankful kind of joy.

The funny thing about motherhood is I think it is never going to be what you expect it to be. I never thought having children with me all day would make me feel lonely. I’d been babysitting since I was really young — why was I so scared? And how do ridiculously happy and oh-man-this-is-hard so consistently go hand-in-hand?

One night between that Christmas Eve and that August morning, the Hubs whispered it to me in bed, while I stared at the ceiling:

“I think the Lord told me that we’re going to have a boy. I think we’re supposed to name him Asher.”

It was the first name we both loved.

We researched the meaning: Happy and Blessed.

At my prenatal checkups the diagnosis was always the same: You’ve got a happy baby in there!

In that long labour, as they monitored my contractions and listened to the Bear’s heartbeat, while I was up and down, he had a peaceful, steady heartbeat. And the words were whispered again: That’s a happy baby right there!

Hours later, as I held him to my chest for the first time, my hair a wild afro thanks to the journey of labour, my face a swollen mess, him a shriveled lump of eight pounds and change, I had no idea how Happy and Blessed I was going to be. How Happy and Blessed our family was going to be.

Two first-time aunts and two first-time uncles and four first-time grandparents on two continents, the joy just spread.

He might occasionally be the reason I want to bang my head against a wall, but more often he’s a reason I want to fall to my knees, happy-thankful.

Instead of a plus sign, the pregnancy test should’ve read “Joy ahead” or “Adventure Coming Your Way.”

He amazes us on a regular basis. He’s reading the Dick and Jane books my Mom gave him Tuesday. Today he went from completely afraid of the water to swimming on his own with a life jacket. He’ll put a puzzle together before you can say “Do you need to see the picture on the box?”

And he frustrates us on a regular basis. Screaming at the top of his lungs for no particular reason. Getting overly-rough with his little brother. Copping an attitude I thought I wouldn’t see until the teenage years.

What a paradoxical gift of grace, this parenting thing. I see myself, in the eyes of the Lord. Sometimes eager to please. Sometimes afraid to trust. Sometimes downright certain my way is the way.

Who knew that plus sign on that test meant I would soon have a student…and a teacher?

{This birthday morning, at the Beach}

So much I don’t know yet, so much still to come — one thing remains, and we’ve been certain of it since nearly the beginning: We are happy and blessed, with Asher.

Thank you for four ridiculously wonderful years, Bear!

xCC

A Get Out There Giveaway! :: Win a Free Month of Boot Camp

Hi guys + gals!  Is it totally against proper netiquette to introduce a new giveaway without announcing the winners of the previous one? You’ve got grace for that, right? Because the Hubs and I have seriously not had a chance to sit down and talk through the Senior Session name suggestions — but oh man “Quiver me Clever” sure did make me laugh! {Thanks, Deliverance!}

Part of the reason for this slight delay is that I’ve been working on websites for a couple of artists at the Inner Banks Artisans Center… full steam ahead! And between the file uploading, domain mapping, theme tweaking, logo creating and colour choosing, I have been so hard at it I find myself waking up during the night (to use the potty of course, I am so pregnant) and I feel like I have been thinking through website decisions in my sleep. {When I have something pretty (and close to finished) to show you, I will!}

But you’re here about the giveaway anyway, right?

Sorry.

So. There’s a fabulous new exercise concept called Boot Camp that is growing in popularity all over the country. Here’s a little description to start us off before I say more:

When it comes to fitness, Boot Camp is the best of both worlds. You get the expert training and fun group dynamic of taking a class at the gym, along with the freedom and flexibility of diving into a good workout in the great outdoors. You’re signing up for a total body workout – a typical session can include interval training, sprint and agility drills, stations, plyometrics, body weight strength drills, cardio mix, and much more.

And here’s a picture, because that’s worth a thousand words, right?

{Taken by one excellent Hero Hubs.}

Boot Camp workouts are held outdoors (yay!) and are focused on exercises that don’t require machines. A group of about twenty people will work out together with a couple of trainers/coaches leading the way, and each ‘camp’ runs Monday to Friday for four weeks. You’re doing a different workout every day, you get to enjoy the dynamic of having fun in a group, but since the group size is small, you also get the personal attention of a trainer, encouraging you to go for it every day {which I could totally use when I’m slacking on the treadmill at the gym.}

Some wonderful friends of ours have launched a local boot camp right here in wee Washington, {NC, y’all} called IBX Boot Camp. {And for those of you dearies who aren’t from around these parts, IBX stands for Inner Banks, since Washington is situated on the “Inner Banks” of North Carolina, as opposed to the Outer Banks {OBX} which are perhaps a little better known… they’re the long string of barrier islands you’ll see if you look at a map of North Carolina. (And that’s the place where the Wright Brothers took their first flight!)} Man, I do not stay on task well, suntines.

Back to Boot Camp.

Our local Boot Camp meets at the Washington waterfront to take in the fresh air down by the rivah at 5:30 every morning, Monday through Friday. The Hubs says Friday is his favourite because it’s “Easy Day.”

IBX Boot Camp is giving away one MONTH of free Boot Camp right here on this wee happy website. That’s right… four fabulous weeks of free encouragement and training and letting someone else choose your workout for you. {Whether you’re just getting off the couch or you’re already a fitness fanatic, you are good to go — you can choose the intensity level that’s right for you every day.}

And, we have to call the Get Out There Giveaway MY BIGGEST GIVEAWAY EVER because that’s worth $200. Which is a lot.

So how do we pick a winner? Well, randomly of course.

Just leave a comment and answer two questions for us:

First, tell us either 1) If exercise is already a part of your lifestyle — what do you like to do best or, 2) If you’re not exercising these days, what’s holding you back?

And second, tell us whether you’d like to Camp it up at that 5:30 am session or whether you’d rather be going to an evening session instead. (If there is enough interest evening sessions might be starting soon.)

Before I tell you I love you, now go leave a comment, there’s one more piece of sweet news. The first fifty commenters who come in second (meaning, don’t win The Get Out There Giveaway) can have a FREE week of Boot Camp, just for being great and answering two questions. So for all of you who would like to say “I never win anything,” I kindly rebut… if you’re in the top 50, you just did! (And even if you’re not, your chances of winning the month increase by 100%, just by you entering.)

You can find out more about IBX Boot Camp on their website right here.

This giveaway will end one week from today, August 23rd. Leave a comment before midnight {EST} on the 23rd and you’re in the running! So, I love you, now go leave a comment and please tell a friend!

xCC

 

P.S. It would be a good idea for you to live in or around Washington, NC to enter this giveaway. It’s not a requirement. If you want to fly in from Scotland for a free month of Boot Camp, you are more than welcome. Especially if your name is Agnes. And you’ll stay until the baby comes. 😉