Maine, part 1

(BTW, if you are in a reader, click over to see my new blog header.)

After the wedding, it was off to Maine! We had a wonderful time and high recommend our itinerary. I had some vague ideas of what I wanted us to do, a guidebook and some help from the owners of our cottage.

We stayed in a cottage right on the water in Cushing. It was a perfect retreat for us. We had great view of the water, a private beach, nice yard and cozy cottage.

There really isn't much in Cushing. We found the Olson House, which is about the only significant landmark. But we were about six miles from Route 1 and Thomaston, which had a couple of restaurants, and Rockland, which is busy little town, was another 10 miles or so. We basically drove up and down the coast seeing places and enjoyed our day trips. Here's a recap of the first half, as concisely as I can:

Day 1: Boston to Cushing
Travel day. Pretty successful minus the repacking our luggage at the check-in desk and getting swindled by Thrifty Car Rental.
But we got to the cottage about 7 p.m. and found the only place open was a cheap Italian place. We had calzones and called it a night.

Day 2: Rockland and Port Clyde
The woman that owns the cottage (she and her husband live next door) recommended going out to the Breakwater Lighthouse in Rockland. So that's how we spent the morning. It's about a mile walk on a rock wall out to the lighthouse. It was a little dreary, but we didn't get too wet.

We had lunch in Rockland and did some exploring there, including a visit to the lighthouse museum. We knew we wanted to go to Monhegan Island on Tuesday, and the boat leaves from Port Clyde. We drove down there to buy our tickets and check things out. We also headed up to the Marshall Island lighthouse, aka the Forrest Gump lighthouse.

We cleaned up for dinner and went to The Slipway in Thomaston. They had good seafood and a great view of the harbor. There was a beautiful sunset and a hill with a cross, so we watched the sun go down from there.

Day 3: Monhegan Island
We got up early to get back to Port Clyde and catch the boat to Monhegan Island. Monhegan is an isolated island that has a very small village and then a lot of hiking trails. In the village, there a couple of shops, a restaurant or two, a few inns and B&Bs, a church and a school. There are some "work trucks" but otherwise there are no vehicles on the island. All the roads are either dirt or gravel. The only public restrooms there, you have to pay for. A lot of artists live there or visit, and there is obviously a lobster and fishing industry, but that's about it. The boat is not that big and you can definitely tell you are getting pretty far out in the ocean on the way over. I was a little woozy by the time we got off and snatched up some ginger candy in the first store we came to and started feeling better.

We had picked up the trail map the day before, so we had mapped out our plans for the day. We picked up sandwiches for lunch and began our hike. We basically hiked the coastline of this island. It was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking at places. It was a really unique experience and our favorite day. When we got back to Port Clyde, we ate fresh lobsters on the dock.

Day 4: Camden
Camden is just past Rockland, and there is a state park there we wanted to visit. First we stopped in Camden to explore the town. There is a nice park right on the water with some crazy looking ducks.

We went into a Cappy's Chowder House that was said to have really good clam chowder. J was brave enough to try it, but I went with lobster mac and cheese. We both enjoyed our lunch but felt so full afterward we weren't sure we'd be able to hike. We drove up farther and sat for a while at Lincolnville Beach before going to the state park. We drove up to Mount Batty and enjoyed the views of Camden.

Then we went for what was described as a moderate hike to Mount Megunticook. I wouldn't describe the hike as moderate by any means. It was a steep uphill and the summit turned out to be much higher than Mount Batty, which we had driven to. But the views were worth it, and we worked off our lunch! We went back by Lincolnville Beach to pick up some seafood for dinner.

Wedding recap

Hello again, blog world. I've finally come up for air after the wedding festivities, our honeymoon in Maine, unpacking and organizing our house, catching up at work and writing thank-you notes. It has been an incredible six weeks.

All of the wedding festivities were so much fun. I've known for a long time that J was the man I was supposed to marry, but I just couldn't believe the peace I felt the whole weekend. Everyone kept commenting about how calm I was before the ceremony. I was just excited to marry my best friend and see all of our planning play out.

Weddings are such an interesting event. It is just incredible to gather all the people that have been important in your life in one place at one time. Every stage of my life was represented at the wedding. I would have loved to have spent 30 minutes talking with each person, but of course, that's not really how a wedding reception goes. But it was awesome to get to see and hug friends I haven't seen in years.

Pictures are here.

Just to show who all came to the wedding: There was a table with my very first boss — a writer who did research for and served as a nanny for, my boss from my first real job and two other co-workers from that job. I just wish my co-worker from my current job had made her way to that table. Who knows what stories were told.

I had a great time dancing with my high school friends, and I was glad my Virginia friends made it to other events where I got more time with them.

The only hitch was a change in plans for our wedding night. But it meant that we got to ride in a limo to a hotel. The original plan was to walk to an inn around the corner. Considering it rained off and on that evening, the limo was a good change and our hotel was great. J also kept it from me until after the ceremony was over. He, with some help from my mom, had it all taken care of and kept it from stressing me out.

The other funny story was that I noticed a misspelling on one of the signs at the buffet. Spinach was spelled spinich. I was actually hugging a friend when I noticed it, and she got a kick out of it because I'm probably the only bride that would notice such a thing. And really, it was just funny. You can't control everything.

More updates about our honeymoon and married life to come. And if you are reading on a reader, click over to check out my new blog header.

Counting down

As I have said, blogging is at the very bottom of my to do list, and I've been fine with that. But I have a few minutes so I thought I would do a quick catch-up.

We are weeks away from the wedding. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's really happening, but most of the time I'm just ready for it to be here! Everything has come together really well. It's hard to do all of this long distance, but my mom has been great and having one contact for most things helps a lot.

I continue to be humbled as the replies come in for the guest list. I'm stunned by the people willing to travel for my wedding. It is truly going to be a party full of people from every stage of my life. What a bonus to getting to marry my best friend.

J has been working hard on the bedroom, and I think we will be able to paint this weekend. We aren't counting on everything being done when I move my stuff the weekend before the wedding. But it should be close when we get back from the honeymoon (in Maine!).

I'm wrapping up my second grad school class. I'm taking a break from class this summer and will go back full time in August. I will keep some responsibilities in the newsroom as part of my assistantship that will pay for school. I can't say that there will be balance when school is my full-time focus, but I'm hoping it's a little easier than teaching, working and being a student. And this summer will be a nice break from the teaching and being a student part.

Just counting the days now...

A gift from the past

I wrote this a while ago, but never got back to adding photos and publishing it, so here it is a month later:

About two months after J and I met, he moved into the house he built. As he was packing, he found an old Missourian newspaper from the moon landing in 1969, as well as a family history and journal written by his grandmother. (One of his family members had typed up the family history and journal entries and distributed them to the family.)

He brought both the newspaper and the history/journal over for me to see. I don't know if it was because he knew I would love reading his family's history or that he loved his grandmother so much he wanted to share this piece of her with me, but it was a privilege to get to read it.

J's mom is the youngest of eight by 10 years. Even though she is from such a big family, she was practically raised as an only child and stayed very close to her mother. By the time J and his brother were born, the other grandkids were practically grown, and his grandmother savored the time with J and his brother. And he enjoyed time with her as well.

In the journal, she wrote about the house her kids built for her. Her first night in the house was Thanksgiving night, and J didn't want her stay by herself for the first night so he spent the night with her. It became a tradition for him to spend Thanksgiving night with her, and he continued to do so into his teens.

J was also the designated mower for her yard, and she was always trying to get him to wear this yellow hat that belonged to his grandfather. J rarely wears it, but he keeps that hat around.

His grandmother died 10 years ago this month. Between the journal and the stories from J, I have gotten a small glimpse of the wonderful woman she was and the impact she had on J's life.

Fast forward to a weekend in April. We were blessed with two wedding showers here in Missouri. J's family had one for us, and then there was one at our church. My parents, sister, niece and nephew made the trek from Tennessee and South Carolina, and it was wonderful to have them there to celebrate with us as well.

These two matching kiddos were good party-goers,
and MM is an expert bow collector at showers.

At the family shower, we were given some really special gifts, including this gorgeous stained glass lamp made by J's uncle.

What caught us by surprise was the role J's grandmother played in one of the gifts. She had made embroidered quilt squares before she died and gave them to J's aunt and instructed her to turn them into a quilt to give to J when he got married. J's aunt followed through and gave us a beautiful quilt with those squares in it. There was a note with the quilt providing that background. I could barely hold it together when I read the letter out loud, and J was as emotional as I've ever seen him. He was choked up all the way home.

To top it off, J's dad, a carpenter, made a gorgeous quilt rack with a cross in the middle for us to display the quilt on.

Hanging up in J's (soon to be our) house. And look, the handrail is up!

Without J telling me stories and sharing her journal with me, I would not have grasped the importance of this gift. But I know J wishes I could have met her, so to have her as part of the celebration meant the world to him. And I am still blown away at the way the family carried through this wish from J's grandmother.

I believe his grandmother and mine will be celebrating together in heaven on June 1 when we say our vows.

What does healing look like? Part 2

In part 1, I shared my history of fibromyalgia. Here's why I started writing about it.

A part of me wondered — was I using the medicine as a crutch? Had God healed me but I was refusing to trust Him to find out? Did I really need that pill every night?

After I got engaged, those questions loomed larger in my mind, and I realized the next few months are the last that I will sleep in a bed by myself. If I was going to try going without the medicine, the time to do it was now.

I talked with my doctor here in Missouri about it at the end of January. She gave me some smaller doses of the medicine so I could begin to taper off. After putting it off for a couple of weeks, I went to half my dosage — from 50 mgs to 25 mgs. It turned out that the week I went down on the dosage, we got the first of two snowstorms. So life was stressful, and I was working a lot. But I told myself there was never a good week to do it and powered through.

But it was obvious from the beginning that the lower dosage wasn't going to cut it. The pain started to come back almost immediately, and I found myself in a fog from the fatigue where I couldn't even complete sentences.

So I started researching natural ways to get my body into a deep sleep. I powered everything off hours before bed and banned my iPhone from my room. I took warm baths with epsom salts and drank a nighttime tea. I read relaxing books before bed (note: Gone Girl is not a relaxing thing to read before bed!). I went to bed earlier than usual, and I didn't give up on exercising.

Even though I closed my eyes and slept for eight hours a night, I woke up feeling just as tired as I did the night before. The fog of fatigue was so heavy I forgot to pay bills and struggled to get through the day. The pain returned in my back and my neck. I pulled out the heating pad and took as much as Advil as I'm allowed to.

J was one of the few people that knew I was trying this, and he was so patient. Even though he knew about my illness, he had never seen me like this — in pain and so exhausted. He was praying for me and doing whatever he could to help — a lot of times that meant just leaving me alone. I know it can be hard to be so helpless as you watch someone else struggle, and I know it was hard for him not to be able to "fix" or "heal" me. But he stuck by me, and it showed me that he would not be deterred by this sickness. He loves and accepts all of me.

Anyway, as the days went by, I knew that my body needed that medication as much now as it did 14 years ago. After two weeks at the lower dosage, I went back to the original dosage because I knew the pain was reaching a point that I might not be able to recover from without prescribed pain medication. Three nights of good sleep later, the pain faded and the fog of fatigue lifted. J noted that I seemed like myself again.

It proved to me that the sleep disorder I have is real, and my healing comes through 21st century medicine.

But it still felt like I had failed or even that God had failed me, and I had to remind myself of the truths God showed me when I was first sick. It doesn't mean that God isn't present or doesn't care about my physical ailments or hasn't heard my prayers for healing. I believe that this illness is a part of my life for a reason even if I can't see why. But there are still unanswered questions for me as I move into this next stage of my life. I am obviously following up with doctors about those questions and will in the years to come. And I won't ever give up on praying for complete healing.

I also have to admit that I envisioned writing a completely different blog post. I had hoped to write about how I was able to stop taking the medicine and felt better than ever. I almost didn't write this one at all, but I think I probably needed to write this one more than if it had all been sunshine and daisies.

What does healing look like? Part 1

So here's something I've never blogged about: I have fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed 14 years ago this month (to help with the math, I was 15).

You've probably seen commercials for fibromyalgia and might be somewhat familiar with it. But here's the quick version of how it impacted me: For six months before my diagnosis, I had unexplained fatigue and back pain. In the weeks before I was diagnosed, I was also suffering from neck pain. In those six months, we saw a lot of doctors and had what seemed like every test in the book. I did physical therapy, took pain medication, slept like it was my job, but nothing solved the issue. I continue to be grateful to my parents for always believing that my pain was real and never giving up on finding an answer. They were the ones that actually learned about fibromyalgia through a friend and got me in to see the best rheumatologist in town. When I saw the rheumatologist, he checked 17 pressure points on my body, I reacted in pain to 15 of them (pain in 11 is typically enough for a diagnosis).

What was happening was that I was not going into a deep enough sleep to heal my muscles. I was put on a small dosage of antidepressants to resolve the sleep disorder, and the doctor helped me manage my pain with cortisone shots and pain medication. But once I started the antidepressants and improved my sleep habits (no naps, no caffeine, regular exercise, etc.), I got better. And it has been many years since I have had any issues or pain that wasn't resolved with a good night's sleep and Advil.

At the time I was diagnosed, I was devastated by the idea of having a chronic illness at 15. During the time I was sick before the diagnosis, I prayed for healing. I prayed for miraculous healing and for healing through an answer from a doctor. But a chronic illness was not the answer I expected.

Because of the pain I was in the day I was diagnosed, it seemed that I would live in pain for the rest of my life. I couldn't see that six months down the road, I would be able to function as a normal teenager and not wake up in pain every day. I couldn't see that I would go to college, have roommates, study abroad, spend the night in airports, work second shift jobs and completely forget about the pain.

I do remember my doctor giving me some glimmer of hope when he mentioned that I could grow out of it, that by my early 20s I could be free of it. But when my early 20s came and my doctor suggested coming off my medicine, I put him off. My life was busy and full, and I wasn't willing to change what had been working for so long. And then I got a real job and new insurance, and he wasn't my doctor anymore. After that I saw family practitioners that just kept prescribing what was working for me.

But a part of me wondered — was I using the medicine as a crutch? Had God healed me but I was refusing to trust Him to find out? Did I really need that pill every night?

In part 2, I will share what happened when I tried to answer those questions.

Snow, part 2

So I have always wanted to marry a guy that drove a truck. It wasn't a dealbreaker criteria, nor was it a reason to be with somebody. But it is icing on the cake that J drives an F250. Especially when 11 inches of snow is dumped on our town.

I have known from the beginning that J was a hard worker and does whatever he can to help others. He didn't have anything to prove to me, but I was still in awe at all of his hard work dealing with the snow during the last three days.

J picked up a co-worker and me from the newsroom on Thursday afternoon after we were surprised by the amount of snow that arrived. After dropping my co-worker off, we stopped in Walmart for food supplies and a shovel. The roads got pretty terrible when we got close to my house, and J had to circle back. Even in his F250, we got stuck for a minute on a hill — that's how bad things were.

We finally made it back to a street close to my house, and he pulled in to park on the side of the street. He then proceeded to shovel out a spot behind his truck in an attempt to protect himself from getting plowed in. But when he went to reverse into the spot, he kept sliding forward and into the curb. So he just kept shoveling.

After more than hour of this, a neighbor offered to pull him out. At that point I went inside to cook a pizza and warm up. It was another 45 minutes before J came in. I asked him what took so long, and he said he stayed out there to help shovel the neighbor's driveway. Of course he did.

Friday morning he drove me to work, and then he picked me up that afternoon and took me home before going back to work.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to find him shoveling my really long driveway. It took him almost four hours. He did all of this even though my street hadn't been cleared and my car was still in a parking garage at school.

I can't believe he went to all of that trouble for not just me, but a neighbor and a co-worker.

Here's a tip: If a guy shovels three inches of snow after one date, it means he's OK with being on the hook for a lot more snow than that in the future. Although I'm sure J's relieved that he'll only be responsible for one driveway next winter.

Here's hoping that we don't get another six inches of snow this week!