I got married at 20. What are you waiting for?

About a month or so ago, I stumbled across this article entitled "I got married at 23. What are the rest of you waiting for?"

While I know that my fellow Mormons see no problem in the age that I took my vows, many of my other close friends and acquaintances do not understand why I would "throw my life away" or "tie myself down" when I was so young. Contrary to popular belief, my decision to get married was not based on my raging virgin hormones or because Jay seduced me into it prematurely or because I was so oblivious that I didn't realize what I was getting into.  I married Jay because I was madly in love. Some may have thought that was naive. Maybe it was a little bit, but I have never ever regretted my decision - not even for a moment. Deep down, I got married because I love Jay and because I believe in the incredible power of companionship and families.

I think the author of the article, Julia, did a phenomenal job explaining the companionship that comes with a committed marriage.  Life is hard. Everyone has hard days full of stress, doubt, lack of self-worth, and plain, old, no good, very bad days. But, the difference between me and my friends who are not married is that I have a full-time cheerleader. He is a man who literally and truly wants nothing more than for me to be happy and successful, and for me to believe in myself and in my potential. The  difference is that I have a 100% committed confidant who never judges my blonde moments or my deepest, darkest secrets. He is a man who will always hold my hair back when I'm on a date with the toilet and who will let me curl up in his lap like a little girl and just cry. He is the very same man who knows when I am kidding myself and not living up to my potential and he tells me that! He pushes me when I need to be pushed and catches me when I need to be caught.

I can tell you right now my friends, there is nothing greater in this world than pure love. I'm not talking about butterflies and fireworks. I'm talking about a love that is based in service and selflessness. It is a love with no conditions and no bounds. That is why I got married.

Don't tell me it's because of my religion that I did this. Sure, it is a little bit of the culture. But, whether or not you believe in God or not, every single human being understands real love, pure love. There is an undefineable power that exists in love.

Find it, catch it, hold on to it, and work for it. It will always be worth it. 

 May 12, 2013. One year down, an eternity to go.

A tale of three injuries

Dearest blog,

I regret to inform you that there will be no pictures in this post. But, I assure you, the world is better off without photographic documentation of recent events.

Incident Number 1
Jay and I have gotten far less punctual when it comes to getting out of bed when the alarm goes off. Just one more snooze we convince ourselves.... three snoozes later we're still snuggled up and denying that we have any responsibilities to attend to. As a result of our excessive snoozing, our getting ready routine becomes rather rushed. One morning, Jay headed out to the car to warm it up while I finished packing up my backpack. Right before I turned off the last light switch, I realized that we didn't have lunch! I hastened to the kitchen and grabbed my supplies:

Colby Jack Cheese
Sandwich meat
Bread
Mustard
Mayo
Knife
Cheese Slicer
Bags

I got through the bread, mayo, mustard, and meat steps quickly. Now it was time for the cheese. I have always struggled with grating or slicing the cheese. If Jay is around, this is always his job. But, Jay was not around, so I braved the cheese grater myself. Because I was rushing, I was pushing down hard on the cheese so it would slice all the way through and I was moving my hand as quickly as possible. This was a terrible combination. On slice number three, I felt the tip of my finger come in contact with the blade and thought, "oh no."  I dropped the cheese and slicer and tried to inspect my wound. Right about now is when it started hurting and bleeding. I frantically called Jay and told him to come back upstairs immediately.

He found me standing at the sink clutching my poor finger. I had no idea what to do. I didn't want to touch it for fear of further injuring myself or making it hurt worse. Jay patiently helped me wash my finger off. About two minutes into the washing and cleaning procedure, my hearing became muffled and my vision started to white out. My balance was compromised and my body temperature was climbing. I panicked. Just before you pass out is a very scary moment. I was quickly whisked away into the bathroom because my fainting spell was magnified by the paint fumes that were still residual in our apartment from a spray paint project that morning.

When all of my senses and body temperature returned to normal, we could finally assess the damage. I had, in fact, sliced the tip of my finger off. But, I did not need stitches. Although, it certainly hurt something fierce. Soon enough, I was bandaged up and as good as new! (Slightly typing handicapped because of my overly bandaged finger.)

Incident Number 2
Our landlord has a cat. I am very fond of Charlie. He is a good companion for nights that I'm home by myself while Jay is at work. One morning, when both of us were home, I went outside to find the cat. He was in his usual spot, basking in the morning sunshine on the front porch. As I climbed the two steps to the porch to go get Charlie, I heard some frantic chirping begin. I spotted the source rather quickly. What to my wondering eyes should appear? A laundry basket home to four chirping ducklings! 

Charlie was very quickly forgotten as I bolted to the back door and started up the stairs to get Jay and tell him what I had found. Needless to say, I didn't get very far. I tripped on the concrete steps outside the back door and nailed my shin. Tears quickly filled my eyes and I struggled up the stairs. As I stumbled through the door, my sweet husband saw my distress and came to my rescue.

He tried very hard to get me to explain what happened. I managed to get out that I had tripped on the concrete stairs. After that, the next sentence I could formulate was "I just wanted to tell you about the ducklings!!!"  This statement was followed by a very confused look on Jay's face. All I could keep saying was that I wanted him to see the ducklings. When the initial pain of my shin's encounter with solid rock subsided, he went downstairs with me to see the ducklings. And all was right in the world.

Incident Number 3
I don't have a particularly funny story for this one. I'll let the irony of the situation take the glory.

I cut myself with an Exacto blade while trying to get the blade guard off. Yup, true story.



Hopefully my injury streak will subside long enough so that my body can heal from the three injuries I've obtained in the past ten days. Good kharma would be appreciated.

Five Jews and a Mormon - A conversation on religious tolerance.

Dear blog,
I am sincerely sorry for the drought in posts - it has been an unexpectedly busy semester. As an apology, I am offering pictures and thoughts on a semi-serious subject.

On Saturday, March 30, Jay and I had the opportunity to attend the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork, Utah. The Festival of Colors is also known as "Holi" and is a Hindu celebration of spring. It is a very joyful celebration where participants sing, dance, and throw colored corn starch powder at each other. The colors are completely edible, but gross tasting. I don't recommend it.

The Utah Festival of Colors is at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple is the largest in the Western United States. It attracts tens of thousands of people every year and is growing at an incredible rate. Frankly, I think people go the see the llamas, but maybe that's just me. Anyways, just before we passed through the gates to enter the temple grounds, I was handed a postcard sized handout. I thought this handout would be purely informational about the festival and include helpful hints such as:

Do not inhale, snort, and eat the colors.
Do not pet the llamas. (dang it!)
Do spread peace and love.
Remember, do not hug people without their permission.
Absolutely no climbing on the elephant statues next to the temple doors.
Please do not chase our peacocks.

You know, all of the important things. But, to my dismay, it was not what I thought it would be. It was, instead, a handout of religious nature informing me that I if I believed in the Christian God and was participating in the Festival of Colors, I was breaking God's commandment:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Honestly, I was not angry when I read the pamphlet, but I was, and still am, incredibly sad. Whatever happened to religious freedom and religious tolerance? How would the church-who-must-not-be-named feel if the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple handed out pamphlets at their events?

The past week or so has been a huge and wonderful merging point of several different religion's beliefs and celebrations.
The Jewish faith celebrated Passover - Jay participated in a Passover Seder.
The Christian faith celebrated Easter.
The Hindus celebrated Holi.
And I'm sure there were others.

I loved the opportunity to learn about and participate in another faith's religious celebration and it reminded me of the magnificent country we live in where we enjoy the freedom of religion. There is no reason, whatsoever, to diminish or combat other people's religions. Especially at their religious celebrations.

Every religion has principles of peace and love: Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.  So why do we all struggle so much in practicing that?

Before Picture

Recent Adventures and Planned Adventures

Dear Blog,

I thought about trying to recap our entire lives since getting married last May, but that seemed very tedious and boring. So, for the time being, I've decided to cut my losses and start with our lives right now (the past few weeks). One day, maybe I'll go back and create some sort of a timeline of our lives...

But, for now, we are in the present! Over the three day weekend in January (MLK Day), Jay and I hopped in the car and headed to Boise to spend some much needed time with Jay's family. Our adventures included, but are not limited to: Indoor archery in the hallway of Bill's (Jay's dad) house, girl's night with Lohrea (Jay's mom) and Katie (Jay's sister), spending the day with Lohrea and her new beau, and last, but certainly not least, playing a life size version of tetris as we tried to fit a disassembled futon into the Subaru.

And....speaking of Boise, Jay and I have decided to pack up the Subie and head to Boise in April and stay allllllllllll summer. We haven't been able to spend any significant amount of time up there since we started dating and we miss our family! So, ready or not, Boise, here we come!

 That's the most exciting part of lives right now. Beyond that, we are trying not to freeze to death as Mother Nature continues to dump snow on our humble town.

Lohrea and Mark

Clearly, bowling is not my thing. 

Love, 

Lexi

First Post

Dear Blog,

I've had mixed feelings about pursuing a relationship with you. Why would anyone want to read about my newlywed bliss? Or for that matter, why do I want to tell the world about how madly in love and happy Jay and I are? For these reasons, I managed to avoid my relationship with you, but I cannot stay away any longer.

Jay and I are having so many adventures and I keep forgetting to document them. I could use the excuse that we've been having too much fun to take pictures, but that would be a lie. The truth is, I'm lazy. There, I said it. I have been relaxing on my hiney, avoiding taking pictures while we're having fun because I don't feel like putting the effort into them. This has got to change. After much contemplation on how I can solve this problem, I've come to the conclusion that the only real way for me to overcome my bad habit of picture-aloofness is to start a blog. Hopefully, some people will care about us enough or think our lives are interesting enough to read this blog. That would really help my incentive to take pictures and keep up this. But, even if this stays between you, me, and Jay, I'll still be documenting life and taking pictures more often.

So, there you go Blog. I want you. Please say you'll have me too.

Love,
Lexi