E&M

Melody and I have been planning on having a joint blog for a long time now, dating back to when we were just dating. We had hoped that by being open about our relationship struggles, the complicated emotions surrounding dating, and our consistent time spent "solving the world's problems" might be valuable to people in our sphere of influence. It's sometimes awkward to transition a small talk conversation into deeper topics, even with close friends, and a blog is a great way to do that. Dating took a ton of our time. We wanted to spend all our time together, but that meant neither of us was acting particularly efficiently, even when Melody and her roommates moved closer to my apartment. There was a lot of planning, and that planning ate time (plus, we didn't always make the best decisions about food and ended up at restaurants a lot, to our stomachs' delight and wallets' chagrin). Plus, the post-college funk is a real thing and hit us both hard and in dif...

In our Christmas card this year, I listed my current activities as "dreaming and scheming." There were reasons for this--deep and complicated reasons--but after I ordered the cards, I realized that people probably just wanted to know whether I was still working where I work. I'm still working where I work. Glad we got that out of the way. Not long before we got married, we received some stellar advice. Take a year off. Don't feel like you have to do big things or sign up for lots of stuff. Walk the perimeter. In other words, turn your attention inward and take some time to appreciate this whole marriage thing. And that's what we did. For a whole year, I let myself rest. I put no pressure on myself to perform or achieve or accomplish. I didn't hide from challenges, but I also didn't seek them out. I let God bring me things to do and didn't go looking for any more. Then we celebrated our first anniversary, and I was excited to begin again. I ...