ramen date night {a mini film}

hope no one minds two videos back to back but we are finally getting somewhat caught up on our back log of video! a few weeks ago j and i went on a date to makan in decatur to have ramen! we both love ramen and have made doctored-up grocery-store ramen (add an egg, some veggies and some chicken if you need extra protein!) ever since we got married. as mentioned online, the ambience at makan was very calm, relaxed and perfect for date nights. i can't remember the name of the drink i had but i think it was a lychee-flavored rice wine liqueor? something like that. so interesting! after dinner we walked around old town decatur square (our go-to date night area) and got coffee and some frozen yogurt. i'm not sure why but for some reason j, who is highly lactose intolerant, can tolerate the frozen yogurt at the yogurt tap there. it is also THE best frozen yogurt i've ever tried. especially the strawberry and chocolate flavors. yummmmm.

we did something different with this video and instead of actually shooting video, we shot a ton of burst shots and stitched them together to make a video. it was fun, hope you enjoy! :)

a date with my loverboy

for the first time in 11 months and 2 weeks, loverboy and i hired a babysitter on saturday night and went out on a date. i remember when i was a kid someone told me that you have to put work into your marriage. i really didn't understand it at the time, but having grown up with divorced parents and now being married myself, i really believe that our marriage should take precedence in our life as a family. even for our child's sake. i think that a happy, stable married life is a gift you can give your children. it is their security, knowing that you are happy.

however, it's easy to say that; not as easy to do it. i'm not sure why, but we have all kinds of excuses for not spending time/energy/money on our marriage. tragically, it's easier to spend that time/money/energy on ourselves or on our baby than it is to spend it on each other. we don't have it figured out, as we all know. but we are trying. and that's something.

after putting the baby down, we parked ourselves over at Parker's on Ponce in decatur for a long, leisurely steak dinner. and then we walked down to Java Monkey for a decaf americano, because it's not a date without coffee says my loverboy. you can never have too much coffee in your life.

thanks for the date, loverboy! it was so lovely.




p.s. here's a tip for your dating life: get all your fights out that morning, so that come evening, you're all made up and ready to be extra kind to each other on your date. ;)

peace for 50 cents

this weekend was what i like to call the epic no fight weekend. the hubs and i had a weekend of smooth sailing. and so let this one go down in the books as that maybe one weekend in a thousand where everyone got along. you know, it's surprisingly easy to do. you just have to like be nice and stuff. also, let the wife drive, give the man some food (and coffee and sleep), don't sweat the small stuff (that one is so hard. the small stuff is the only easy stuff to sweat about man! and we all know i like things that are easy;), and eat plenty of hot dogs (but not from costco).

also, i've started fining loverboy when he tries to tell me about video games. it's surprisingly really helpful in the how-to-stay-married department. here's how it works. does your lover do something that super annoys you and they just won't believe that it annoys you? fine them every time they do it. i earned 50 cents this weekend. well, almost. you can also cut them off mid-sentence with the threat of the fine and that works even better because then you don't have to sit through the annoying thing first. i learned that one from That 70s Show (Eric owes Donna a quarter every time he starts talking about Star Wars), which is really good for the learning. for instance, the jackie is always right. (i'm the jackie.) i'm talking to you, eric. i mean, loverboy!

it was a pretty typical weekend for us, really. we let the baby wake us up at 8 and then took turns running errands while he napped. on saturday my errand was taking the dog to the park for the first time in 3.5 months. i need more sunshine in my life. then around 4 we got out of the house and went shopping for house stuff (hello ikea for the fourth time in a week!). on sunday we slept in and missed church, which let's be honest, has happened a lot in the last three months. what can i say? these babies are sleep-stealers. i made pancakes for probably the second time in my life and then remembered that i don't like pancakes so much. i think i like them, but then i don't. it's sad. i so much want to like them.

then loverboy spent four hours on our yard and i swore we would never buy a house again. loverboy swore our next house would have fewer trees and fewer snakes, and then i swore our next house would be somewhere north of the mississippi. there was a lot of swearing. ;)

all in all, it was a fine time.

...and also, kind of boring (but in a good way??). turns out, a fight-free weekend is the derivative of a boring weekend. so next time...just kidding!

who could call a weekend with these two faces boring??

i sure do love them.

five years

upon the eve of the fifth anniversary of our young and tender nuptials, we went to our friday night small group with our baby in the suburbs of atlanta. the in-laws were there. as were a few other friends. it wasn't about us. it was about the last meeting of our small group because some of our members are moving. we ended the night with a five-second, whispered tête-à-tête in the bathroom before bed. you know, so as not to wake the baby. (and no, that is not innuendo for something else. gee whiz!) something about — we've made it this far, let's give it another go. so, as anniversaries go, it was obviously quite the big deal. i even bought a card - and then didn't have time to write anything in it.

but come on! five years! that deserves some kind of acclamation! traditionally, we do not give each other gifts for our anniversary. i'm not sure who started that. i guess we agreed by tacit consent in the way of not getting each other gifts our first year. i'm pretty sure we spent the money on sushi instead. but according to the internet, i could have scored something wooden this year. or some silverware, because, you know, that's similar. so now i know where things went wrong. i should never have allowed us to be traditionally untraditional. i could have been getting gifts all this time! who comes up with these traditions anyways? i also sure wish i'd known about this before tonight because i could really use some better silverware. but if we can make it another five years, it appears i might be in for some tin. which...better not end in foil, if you're reading this husband. the internet also says instead of tin you can give me diamonds. (what?? i'll take it!)

so. five years. another thing that's hard to believe.

let me tell you a story:

we have the antitestimony to the picture perfect marriage. maybe you don't know that because you've only seen us through this blog, but the truth is, it isn't always pretty. i can be mean and ornery and it turns out i'm the most impatient person in the whole world. yes, it's true. probably loverboy should get a medal or something for sticking with me this far. i won't say "and vice versa" because that'd be mean and because then i probably wouldn't qualify for a medal. man, so many rules.

speaking of rules, we're really bad at following them. for instance, the date night rule. we've never had a standing date night. and here's the truth on that: our date nights do not hardly ever never go as planned. they subscribe to the bat from Anastasia rule on a regular basis — tell me that's your favorite line too? i mean, really good date nights are sort of like a unicorn. if we've planned something in advance, i guarantee you it will only end in tears.

what i've learned about marriage is that it's real challenging. we are (i am) selfish and intolerant, not to mention flawed as all get out. and darnitall, it's hard to love those flaws. that is why i'm so thankful to know a God who is love. only God could love us human beings enough to keep us around, save us and want to live inside of us. and only with His love can we really love each other. i mean, really.

over the past few days i've been considering what these five years have been and what lies in store for us, and praying for that kind of love to fill up my love. i want Jason to feel really, really loved. not just for a moment or a nice date night. i want a love that is kind, patient, does not seek its own things...a love that never falls away. otherwise i might not get any tin. i mean, obviously that's the incentive.

and because this post is already long and sort of rambling and also not smushy enough, let's end on a love note:

dear loverboy,

i love your goofiness. even when it annoys me. i love the way you talk to our baby son - and the father you are. i love the terribly silly way you dance, because i know it means you are comfortable with me. i love holding your hand. i love that you've been going to work early so you can come home earlier to us. i love your mix tapes. i love the intense way you talk about your topics. even when i zone out (sorry!). i love your fix-it-manliness. and i think you're pretty sexy. you are the sunshine to my moon. the burger to my fries. the sauce to my spaghetti. the cheese to my whine;) let's never fight again and live happily ever after.

xx,
B

while you were sleeping in my tummy

today one of our friends came to take these beautiful photos of us before this baby bump turns into a baby. i think it was one of the most fun mornings i've spent with loverboy, ever. we had so much fun being cheesy and in love and were blown away by the photos. these are just a few of my favorites. thank you, chelsea, most awesomest friend!

valentine's 2013

so this is old news, but on valentine's day loverboy took me to see dracula at the ballet! it was fantastic to have a night out together and the ballet was pretty good. i was most impressed with dracula himself. we also liked that they stuck so closely to the story, which we listened to together during my first year of grad school on librivox. now i can't think of dracula without thinking of the super nasally voice of the reader when she would read, "Mina Harker's journal." but the ballet was really fun. and actually it was loverboy's first real ballet! he took me to ballet austin on our first valentine's day together when they were doing this cool thing where there were three different dance companies who performed in different dance styles and the audience got to vote on which they liked best. the ballet was the best of course, but it was a short, simple production, so this one was much more interesting. seeing ballet always makes me wish i'd taken it as a kid. but i was one of those tomboys who wasn't interested at the time. i was quite impressed with this date as loverboy thought of it all himself and didn't even need me to say let's do something! then i went and got grumpy about something stupid and almost ruined it, but you know...just keeping things lively;)

xx, 

B

2012

this new year has begun with that drizzly kind of rain that bears more resemblance to a cloud of gnats than the satisfying swoosh and fall of thunderstorms that i grew up with in texas. rain in texas, like all things texan some might say, is gloriously big and bold. it shouts and hollars and drops like all the heavens are descending, sometimes without warning. in constrast, the wet perspiration of these misting showers creeps up and clings to the neck, gathering under the nose and on the backs of eyelids like a faintly unwelcome memory. it is like the insides of me a year ago and the year before and a few more years before.

maybe i'm just remembering through my nostalgic-me glasses, but it seems like they just do rain better over there in the land of wide open spaces. in fact, it often seems like they do a lot of things better over there. i can't believe it's been three whole years since we packed up all our stuff into a moving van and drove it out here to the south. loverboy says it seems like we've been here longer, but to me, three years sounds real long. one of loverboy's three favorite sentences to say to me goes like this: did you ever think you would...(often followed by, "be married to such a cool guy?" or something along those lines—and no, i really didn't;) i also really didn't ever see myself living in the south. for those of you from the south, Texas is not The South. Texas is Texas. and i've kind of been missing it lately. maybe not just it, although i do miss austin with its manageable city size, informal people, amazing tacos, real coffee places, town lake that's really a river, and rain that falls with purpose...

[long post disclaimer: feel free to skip to the end]

recently i realized—as i started sobbing on the way to the mall—that what i really miss is people. i miss family. i miss friends. i miss the community i had for so long that was mine and was comfortable. i miss having family that i felt close to (geographically and otherwise). and i miss the communal, group-centric life i had during college and especially while spending two years at bible school after college. it was a constant hum of people and togetherness. and actually, i fought it in a way, at the time, because i was emotionally hobbled from various experiences and was mostly unable to just enjoy it. i was closed off and inaccessible, even to myself. still, so many people came through the cracks in my shell, even if they didn't realize it. even if i didn't dare venture out to theirs. and when six years ago i graduated and came home from school, and life changed in an instant, it seemed like i also slowly lost that community. friends got married, moved away, left bible school to go back to their own home towns. it felt like everyone was moving on except me. i may have moved on outwardly, getting married and moving. but inwardly, i felt like i was standing still, alone.

loneliness has been my shadow, an ever-present companion even on the most promising of days for what now feels like both forever and no time at all. i guess six years is pretty long. but during most of those six years it felt like no time was passing at all. as if those years never existed—and yet continue to exist. i know it doesn't make sense. there are still days when i'm in that vortex of bleak and tormenting confusion over how i ever got here in what feels like a stranger's life.

i used to think that i would one day wake up and things would return to how they were before. maybe they wouldn't outwardly be the way they were before. but i, at least, would be the same me i was before. i would be the me i recognized. i would be the same kind of happy that i was and the same kind of hopeful. and maybe i wished and hoped that a lot of my life would look similar to how it was before. of course that's impossible. but my struggle to accept that has been long and slow and disorienting. it felt like life itself had become alien to me. it is a thin feeling. a feeling of having lost myself. of being a ghost in my own life. i was constantly treading unfamiliar territory without even the cognizance that that was what i was doing. so surprised was i to even be this person i was with this life i had, that i wasn't really able to even recognize that things were unfamiliar. it was like being reborn. like i appeared out of non-existence, with no past experience of life to draw from—as if i'd sprung fully formed into the world—and discovered that i was alive and an adult woman to boot, but without the truth that i hadn't been this person before. because i was still me, just a me i didn't recognize.

but i guess what i'm trying to say is that i'm starting to recognize it, to recognize the deep longing i have within to be with family, friends. and also the need to accept and embrace the me i've become.

the truth is, i've experienced a huge amount of healing, a regaining of family and friends, here in the south. as much as i yearn for texas, most of the people i miss aren't there anymore. season by season, and with great strides within the last year, i've begun to climb out of that intense well of loneliness. happiness is something which i've begun to feel again in these last three years, since moving here. and i have to cling to that, to acknowledge it and bookmark it for all those many moments when i feel like i'm not really here.

but today, even though it is dripping like my nose outside, i am reminded that things are very, very good, here and now. i'm so thankful that we're going to be a family of three. and i'm thankful for the families and couples and friends we've gotten close to here in atlanta. i'm thankful for our friday night small group gatherings. i'm thankful for friends who get to visit from other states from time to time.

i'm thankful for 2012, even though parts of it have been the hardest in the last six. although i didn't really do a very good job of documenting most of it, 2012 was a big year for us:

first, we went on a special new year's eve adventure. then, we had a fun, frozen, long weekend in nyc. i had a miscarriage and spiraled into a scary place of fear and desperate sadness. i got braces (and never smiled in a photo again). we attended my sister in law's beautiful wedding (and three other weddings in three other states that same spring!). i dreamed of tacos and rambled my way through my last quarter as a grad student. i finished my mfa in writing at scad which i didn't post about because i was really going through too much to talk about anything. we visited the most beautiful beach in isla mujeres, mexico for our fourth anniversary and thought that was the end. i started to recognize myself again. we watched some fireworks on the fourth of july. i went to london to pass out free bibles during the summer olympics. i spent the rest of the summer sitting on the couch in nauseous misery but i couldn't talk about it because it was the most wonderful, mindblowingly awesome secret! but before you knew about that, i got a job and then turned the big 3-0, while apple picking which is not the worst way to head into a new decade. we also visited family in raleigh for thanksgiving and demonstrated how to (not) babymoon in the north carolina mountains. and finally, we celebrate the second anniversary of fête.

it didn't always feel like much was happening (especially last night while i was sick and we continued our tradition of not really being prepared for celebrations). but really it was a lot for one year. i'm thankful for it, but i'm so ready for 2013!

happy new year!

we are party decoration challenged:/ we know. we're working on it...

xx

B, loverboy, lars & baby

how to babymoon

i've decided that there is a rule out there somewhere that something unfortunate must happen on all our trips together. this summer there was that plane ride from hell which has loverboy convinced he can't fly anymore. two years ago there was that completely rained out trip to Charleston. two thanksgivings ago, we went camping in the freezing cold and the screen on my camera cracked. and before that, there was the epic failure of our honeymoon in Mexico, wherein we got sick from the water somehow (even though we tried to avoid it at all costs) and spent the next two weeks at home wrapped around the toilet, all our stuff still in boxes in our new apartment. that was a wonderful way to start married life (honey, pass the toilet paper). yes, i might still be a little bitter about it.

so, in keeping with tradition, we decided to get food poisoning on our last day in the mountains in North Carolina during our babymoon this week. we spent the whole drive home and all that night as sick as dogs and only started feeling back to normal again this morning. you gotta love tradition, don't you?

speaking of traditions, you may not know that we don't celebrate christmas. i didn't celebrate it growing up and now loverboy and i still don't. i've never put up lights or decorated a tree or stayed up waiting for santa...and to be honest, i never really felt like i was missing out on anything. however, i may have fallen completely in love with the bazillions of christmas tree farms we passed on the way there. i never knew christmas trees could be so cute—all lined up and fat and puffy! especially since on the day we arrived there was snow on the ground in the mountains. i totally get the allure now.

see: 

these could be better pictures if they weren't taken from the car window. but after five hours on the road, we are more like aren't-we-there-yet-angry-face than oh-look-lets-stop-for-a-photo-opp. and when i say we i mostly mean me. i wish i were more of the scenic route variety person, but i'm just too impatient.

the trip all began when we thought it would be fun to rent a cabin in the mountains and be all outdoorsy for our babymoon. instead, we ended up staying in a lodge that was "cabiny." as in, there was wood on the walls and a hunting motif:

 

but with extras like a hot tub and dining room. it was a really cute room though and we even got the front desk guy to find us a plug for the bathtub so we could use it. apparently he knew the plug was broken but no one has wanted to use the tub before. most of the trip was nice except that we realized when we got there that it's really a skiing town. and being that close to winter wonderland fun that i've also never done before and couldn't do still, was kind of a downer. to cheer ourselves up we searched for snow-worthy coats as it had snowed five inches just before we got there, visited three different locations of the legendary Mast General Store and stocked up on candy, drank hot chocolate and watched indiana jones in our room when it started to rain.

we did have fun driving on those twisty mountain roads, taking photos of beautiful farmland and looking around antique stores. my favorite part was the snow, playing pool and spending time together. but as we drove home in agony, loverboy decided we were never going back there again. which is probably good because it makes it that much more special.

and now for some pics of the good times:

first hot chocolate at a bagel place while frantically trying to find a bathroom. oh pregnancy!

festive truck in boone, north carolina

Mast General Store, home of candy and other outdoor goodness

loverboy looking studly with his Cheer Wine soda out in the country

once the snow melted and it started raining i didn't feel stupid wearing wellies in the mtns.

on our hiking trip before it got interrupted by a monsters-sized, loose, black dog who wanted to eat us.

just before loverboy demonstrated the consequences of scratching on the eight ball. our last night of fun.

our just-been-poisoned faces before we left to puke our guts out.

and that, folks, is how you babymoon.

xx
so-happy-to-be-home B

just a little something we made...

......

we pretty much think it's the greatest thing ever!

:)

our little nights at home

going to bed early has been one of the good things about this week. sometimes it's nice to just check out early. and okay, maybe we're reading or looking at the computer, but at least we're together, and it's made our bedtimes feel so cozy. i must remember these days of just me and him, and this small little house and our dog on the floor there, who won't get on the bed despite all our pleading and coaxing, who we put up here next to us just last night and who immediately sunk down on top of jazz, all four paws splayed out and panting as soon as he found himself up here, because he's afraid he'll fall off our not-two-feet-off-the-ground bed, and who got off as soon as we turned the lights out and went to sleep in the living room, because obviously we were trying to do him cruel harm. he's our funny bunny lars.

i must remember these nights with our old-fashioned target fan and little dorrit on pbs and jazz laughing at silly videos he finds on youtube and interrupting my book to tell me about them in our third rental in our third march (almost spring!) in atlanta and also how when we drive around now we think about how used to living here we are now and how beautiful the cherry blossoms are at this time of the year and how it almost feels like summertime. and how we have some real friends here now, friends that we prayed hard for, that we're still getting to know, but who help make it feel like home.

even these are good nights. 

Yangyang Pan

have mask, will travel.

2011 new year's eve escape:

the last hurrah

happy new year's everyone!

this year has been amazing and i can't believe it's almost over!

it seems like just yesterday i started this blog.

 in 2011:

i began the big fête * jazz turned 30 * there was a snowpocalypse

and i made snow angels for the first time * lars wore the cone of shame

jazz took me to see peter pan for valentine's day 

i worked for student media & got published  

we made sandcastles on the beach and celebrated our third anniversary  

we went to stone mountain for the 4th and lived with the in-laws again

i spent my summer (class) watching movies * we discovered how much we ♥ pizza

k visited from japan * we made our first movie and ran our first 5k

we moved into a not-apartment and finally had people over for dinner

i turned 29 * we fêted an engagement in charlotte, nc and a wedding in austin, tx

i interned at atlanta magazine and passed my 45 hour review

i also discovered hot yoga and did a friend's wedding (& engagement) photography

we went to a dumpling party * lars turned 2! 

i baked pies and we made a magical winter wreathe.

i'm so grateful and happy to have had such wonderful blog friends/readers.

all your support and encouragement means a great deal to me,

and i might have given up without it.

so thank you!

 i'm looking forward to celebrating another year, even though

i probably wont be blogging every single day, cause, you know,

it's kind of hard, and right now i'm off to celebrate the new year

with jazz on the lake with no internet for at least 48 hours!

but don't worry, the big fête isn't over!

:)

happy 2012!