The Oregon plastic bag ban bill

I previously wrote a post about our problem with plastic, and the recent debate about a bill in Oregon that would create a ban on plastic bags in most stores inspired me to write another post.  Actually, it was the comments on the article found here that fully convinced me to write again.  As a note, I think that part of the rationale for the bill is to have more money go to the paper mills of Oregon instead of out-of-state plastic makers.  I like the idea of supporting our economy, however, I am more interested in promoting the idea of using reusable bags instead.  I don't know if this is a perfect bill, but I think that it is great that we are thinking forward and admitting that we have a problem.  If this bill helps us and generations to come, then great.


I am often startled by people's comments because lot of them are ANGRY SQUID comments, and I am genuinely surprised by how many people are angry squids.  In this instance, my blood pressure rose while reading the comments to this article because I was just so frustrated by the selfishness and shortsightedness.  I am going to quote some of the comments (verbatim) and then respond to them.  Before I do so, I want to say that I understand that not everybody is convinced that plastic is a huge problem, and I want to remind you that either way I love and respect you.  If you still think I'm wrong after hearing what I have to say, then I respect your right to choose.  However, I simply hope that you make your decisions about beliefs based on truth and selflessness rather than convenience.  Not everybody makes this type of decision based on convenience, but I feel like it is too often the case.


Here we go:
"Ban plastic grocery bags? You mean instead of using the lightweight grocery bags to bag our household garbage, I'll have to buy those really thick for-purchase garbage bags made by GladBag and Hefty?? And this helps the environment because????????? You can't fix stupid!"
First of all, I absolutely agree that using thick garbage bags is generally incredibly wasteful.  That being said:
1) Not all of the for-purchase bags are thick.  We used to buy garbage bags even thinner than store bags.
2) Even better, there are ways to deal with garbage that don't involve plastic bags.  From what I found online, it wasn't until the 50's that people started using plastic garbage bags.  What Matthew and I do is use a milk jug with the top cut off to collect organic waste, and then anything else can be put in trash can without a bag.  I'm sure that you can find something that works for you.


"Well of all the stupid laws to wory about. I agree there are so many more important issues to attend too.
Why in the hell don't they just require that all plastic bags be biodegradable? I have seen segments on the viability of that solution. They are made of either corn or wheat compounds. Let's just have all the Californians go back home and pass stupid laws there"
I absolutely agree that there are other issues that are affecting Oregonians including unemployment, the economy, schools, and a myriad of other things that need to be addressed.  However, that doesn't mean we should ignore the environment.
I'm not sure who has said that turning to plastic bags made out of plants was a good idea, but almost everything I have read has said that we can't use this as an answer.  The problem with this idea is that by using corn or wheat, we use farmland to make plastic instead of food.  Since food security is a serious concern, we should have reservations about this.
Finally... Californians?  Eh?


(This next comment was in response to someone remarking on how much litter is a problem.)
"Don't blame the litter, blame the litterer. There is a surprising amount of oil in our storm drains. Should we ban oil of every kind too? Goos lick getting around."
Absolutely littering is the responsibility of the person doing it.  However, it is a far stretch to go from banning plastic bags (which have a clear replacement of paper bags or, preferably, reusable bags) to banning all oil.  We shouldn't avoid solving one problem because there are other problems.  This makes absolutely no sense.


"Isn't it amazing that a small group of people we elect know what is best for us? Most of us use the bags and do not throw them out the car window. Think of all the litter pick up folks who will be without a job.Wonder what other stupid things they can think up? But we elected them to improve schools, cut back government spending,help the homeless, stop Illegals, etc. Plastic bags? WONDERFUL go team!!!"
From my understanding, we are supposed to elect people that we want to represent us to make good choices for our state - both the people and the land.  I think that it is their job to become educated about issues that we don't all spend a lot of time thinking about (like environmental problems) and then do something about it.  Additionally, many Oregonians are absolutely for this bill and are glad it is around, so it doesn't seem inappropriate for it to appear and be discussed.  Again, I agree that there are many important issues to be addressed, but I still don't think that is an excuse to ignore environmental issues.


"If this bill passes, here is what I plan to do: Do my shopping (I usually do most of it once a week when I buy a LOT of things) and when the clerk rings up my order and asks if I want to pay for bags --that the store will make a big profit on--just say, "No. Just put all that stuff back back into the cart like it was." Then say, "By the way, I will need someone to to take this to my car." When I get to my car, I will ask the courtesy clerk to put all the groceries into sacks or boxes or milk crates that I brought along. Let the manager of your grocery store know this is what you are going to do and I think the grocers will decide this is not a good bill at all."
I cannot tell why this person does not like this bill.  However, it in general just seems like a good example of belligerent, unreasonable selfishness.


"This hearing was a farce. It's obvious the conclusion was pre-ordained. This needs to be put on the ballot where the voters will shoot it down. This is not the proper role of government, nor should it be spending it's time on this with an official unemployment rate of over 10%. Communist Oregon is right. Police state is also in the making here."
Some would disagree and appreciate that our government tries to help out our environment.  Additionally, "communist"?   "Police state"?  Really?  I'm getting tired of these words being thrown around by people with apparently no understanding of their meaning.  This bill has nothing to do with either of these things.


"PLEASE PLEASE. Could someone please find a way that Oregon, california, and washington could just break away from the country and just float out in to the pacific and form their own rotgut leftwing, liberal, moronic state? You folks have got to be the most mundane creatures on earth. Do you have ANY idea how you look to the rest of the country as you liberals battle over bags? 
You have got to understand........after the bags these left wingers will then set their sights on something else to ban. It will never end. Does ANYONE have ANY backbone in that liberal democrat state to stand up to these worthless libs and tell them to shove it?"
I'm not exactly sure that we should care what the rest of the country thinks about us, but thanks for caring. :)
As for banning things, I'm sure that another ban will happen.  However, I think that they happen because collectively people seem really good at making really bad choices.  While I personally think that people should be allowed to make certain mistakes, I tend to think that if our mistakes are affecting everybody, perhaps that's when the government should get involved.  This is an opinion, not fact.  Just saying.


"Let's take it one step further and ban all clear plastic wrap on meats. Grocery stores can just put everything out in the refrigerated areas unwrapped, you can grab the hunk of meat you want and the checker can throw it in your cloth bag, a paper sack, or you can just hand carry it out to your car. Oops, did I say car, I meant non-polluting bicycle."
Hey, yeah!  Now you've got the idea!  Oh wait... You weren't serious. ;)
I think that this person is a great example of our population's inability to understand that things don't have to be how they currently are.  It is kind of weird that we wrap everything in plastic.  It's a very new idea, and it's not even necessarily good for us health-wise let alone environmentally.  While this commenter thinks he or she is proposing a crazy idea, it's really not.  Butcher paper is certainly an alternative.  It's been done before.


"Have you lamebrains thought yet about HOW MUCH IT RAINS IN OREGON? Those of us that have to haul our junk from Fred's home in it surely haven't ... but going to paper bags just means we won't be able to carry that stuff home before the bags get soaked and everything falls out into the puddles! Big help from you people who know what's best for the rest of us! No thanks to any of you or any more of your stupid ideas!"
Again, convenience is not a valid reason to continue doing something detrimental.  Additionally: Reusable bags.  I'm an Oregonian lamebrain who manages to walk to and from stores without plastic bags without problems. :)


In a sort of conclusion, let's use this moment to examine what we do and consider the immediate and future effects.  Let's be willing to reconsider our understanding of the world around us.  Let's be willing to inconvenience ourselves for the benefit of others.  Let's make good decisions so that the government doesn't feel the burden of the results of our poor ones.


And, of course, don't forget to be awesome!

Chapter One – The Ugly Duckling

I’m in middle school, and the boys never like me.  Seriously.  People say I don't know that, but nobody can ever tell me of anybody who has liked me.  They just say that to make me feel better.  It makes me feel worse.  I am too tall, and I weigh a lot.  I realize daily that I am not dainty.  I’m not skinny.  I’m not beautiful.  I have the blond hair and blue eyes that people seem to like, but otherwise, I am out of luck.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  I get made fun of when I’m dressing down for PE because my legs aren’t shaved.  Then I learn how to shave and am mortified if I miss any hairs.  I can’t miss them or I’ll be teased.  I regret wearing shorts when I find a spot of hair on my knee.  I’m hopeless, and I just can’t do it right.  My best friend is the girl that every guy likes.  She is small and cute, and she has shoes with buttons on them.  She always looks good and says the right things.  I have liked the same guy forever.  He confides in me and tells me about his problems with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, but he never sees me as anything but a friend who listens to him.  He gives me hugs sometimes, and he has no clue how lonely they make me feel.  That is what I feel; I feel alone.  I feel like I need to remove myself from my group of friends because I don’t belong.  I just want to be happy, but I can’t be.

I’m in ninth grade, and I’m still alone.  I wake up and daily dread peering at myself in the mirror.  Sometimes my face is so offensive to look at that I drape my hair down to cover it.  I just don’t look good.  My clothes are all wrong.  My family never goes out of town, and I don’t have anywhere but Fred Meyer to buy clothes meant for a teenage girl.  My pants don’t fit right.  They are high waters.  They are old lady pants that are meant to have the waist worn above the belly button.  I feel uncomfortable in my own skin.  I like a different guy, and he seems to like me.  He talks to me a lot and spends time with just me, and he says he likes me.  He swing dances with me on the beach.  He teaches me about the physics involved in a bubble showing a rainbow of colors.  He also likes my best friend, though.  Then he out of the blue stops talking to me.  I can’t get out of bed.  I can’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks.  I want to stay in my room with the lights down with my music loud enough to drown out my pain.  I write poetry to spill out my heart before it explodes.  My days are dark, and I just want to be happy, but I can’t be.

I’m a sophomore, and a junior, and a senior.  I am running, and I am healthier.  I have more confidence.  People seem to like to talk to me.  A couple of boys like to talk to me.  Not a lot, but a couple.  I learn to drive and take an annual trip 45 minutes north to buy pants that fit.  I smile more.

I’m in college, and I’m in my twenties.  People laugh when I say that I used to be incredibly awkward because they believe I’m exaggerating.

Bedroom wall before and after

After we got married, we bought these picture frames to display our photos. They are kind of dull though...

However, I decided to put all of the sleeves from the CDs I've using to make CD art to good use!

Cute little frames!

More CD art...

I posted here instructions on how to make this fun craft using otherwise wasted CDs. This weekend I went on another CD painting spree, and this is now the final collection on our living room wall. Some of them are difficult to see when captured on camera, but you can get an idea of what they turned out like!

Mathematics Education

My brother writes often about the significance of math education. The most recent post can be found here. As I was commenting on his post, I realized that I had a lot to say in response, so I decided to make my own post as well.

First of all, I want people to know my experience in math education. I have spent most of my life being a math student. I came to college in 2005, and I earned a BS in Mathematics and a BS in Education, and I am also a licensed high school math teacher. Additionally, I stayed in school after graduation, and I am working on my MS in Mathematics. While doing so, I am a teaching assistant, so I have continued to teach math while learning math. That's a lot of math and a lot of education!

In my experience in the education program while training to become a teacher, I found that the current paradigm in the public education sector is that everything taught should be made relevant to students. I cannot argue with the fact that students always want to know when they will use what they are learning. I cannot argue that if students know that something is applicable, they often are more captivated by it. However, I balked at this because I was well aware that much of math is not "applicable" to daily life. While applications to daily life can be found at times, if students were only taught that which is applicable to them, they would miss out on a lot of math.

Additionally, they would miss a beautiful part of math. Years after I finished my last education class, I now realize a large part of why the "relevance" paradigm bothers me. It blindly ignores the significance of the value of thought and logic. Our society has become one where thinking well is not valued, and our education system seems to be changing in a way that does not discourage this fact. If we as educators seem to value end results over the thinking process, who will teach our students to think? As Kenny explains in his post, pure mathematics begins with a few simple assumptions, and then we start a process where we discover what must be true based on our assumptions. While certainly not everybody will use calculus or even algebra often in life, we should not ignore the value of being able to think and reason! I believe that the "relevance" paradigm is allowing our society to continue to devalue the ability to think and reason well. We need to be honest when students ask us, "When will we use this?" The honest answer might include, "You might never use these facts and skills, however, if you need them it will be great to have them." However, the answer should also include, "Regardless of whether or not you use these math skills someday, I am helping you to learn how to think well. Your brain is being sharpened each time you struggle and then push through as you solve a problem. You can become a more capable, reasonable human being for the rest of your life as a result of your math education."

To you students of math, please do not write your education off as a waste of your time. I have spent the last six years of my life being frustrated and challenged by mathematics, and I promise you that I can look back and see how much my thinking skills have improved. Accept the challenge of a new problem, even if you do not think you "need" it, and you will be amazed at what your mind can do for you.

I get to wait for the bus...

Yet another reason to adore Corvallis: They just made bus service free. They created a citywide fee to pay for it, and for just a couple of dollars per family a month, anybody can ride the bus anytime. How cool is that?

Public transportation is pretty sweet. It can be very fuel and energy efficient, and I think it can save people time (when a good system is in place and utilized) because it certainly could reduce the amount of traffic on the road. The only problem is that our country is kind of slow compared to other developed countries. We seem to think that it is our right to drive around our personal vehicles without a thought to the consequences for our environment and our wallets. (You may think that gas prices are high now, but did you realize that additionally our government heavily subsidizes the oil? You're paying even more than you think.) We seem to be pretty convinced that our own convenience should be our number priority.

I admit it certainly isn't always convenient. I've had to wait for a bus for over 30 minutes on the rarest occasion when it is that late during the evening rush hour. I could have driven our own car or walked in that amount of time. But I stood there stubbornly. Why? Because I get to wait for a bus. It is a privilege to be able to be part of something bigger and better. Because if more of us support our bus system and use it, the stronger and more reliable it will become. Because our children and grandchildren are more valuable than my convenience.

Do you get to wait for a bus?

What Valentine's Day looks like...

A beautiful rainy day in Oregon! Seriously pouring...

Valentine's Day is a great day to give blood! What better way to tell up to three people that you love them than by helping to save their lives? On a separate note, I was curious to see how my iron levels were doing, and I actually have better iron than before changing to a "near vegetarian" diet. Go leafy greens!

Nerdy Valentine for Matthew...

Eh?

Obligatory adorable shot!

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope it was filled with love in some way!

Piano!

I have a long history with piano, although most people who know me don't know that. I took lessons with a few different teachers when I was between four and seven years old. However, when I was seven or eight, I became best friends with a girl whose mom (Sarah) taught piano lessons. Sarah got to put up with me for the next ten or more years of lessons.

That's right. Over ten years of hammering away (literally) on those piano strings. I started on a little bitty keyboard, but Sarah eventually convinced my family that I needed a real piano. Fortunately, we had one. It just really needed to be tuned, and maybe it needed a small repair or something. My parents were nice and made that happen. In the long run, I think they realized it was a good choice. After years of practice and Sarah's instruction, I became fairly good at piano, and a point came when it was actually pleasurable to listen to me.

Unless you were listening to me perform. Then you'd wonder if I bothered to practice. Why? Because I have enough adrenaline for a herd of stampeding elephants. I would sit in my seat waiting for my turn to perform, and I'd feel my hands grow cold. My heart would race. I would sweat. My brain would feel like it was exploding. All I would want to do is get out of that room. But my turn would come, and I would take a little bow, sit down, and proceed to mangle the piece that I had practiced hours and hours and hours. My knees would literally jump up and down as my adrenaline ruined my body's control. I'd plow through to the end, stand up, take another little bow, quite possibly give the audience a horrified expression, and then walk to my seat and burst into tears. Again. And again. And again.

You might be thinking that I probably should have tried to prevent this. Oh but I did. I took deep breaths. I prayed. I thought positive thoughts. I remembered all the hours I put into the piece and how I was ready. Sarah helped to get me to a seminar on performance anxiety. None of it worked. Seriously.

I graduated from high school with probably half the town wondering how I made it through Level 10 Syllabus and how I got into the Honor's Recital each spring. Little did they know that I actually practiced and could apparently play quite well for one kind lady or gentleman adjudicator each spring. I'm sure that it's a mystery of epic proportion for some people in Newport.

When I left for college, somehow the piano didn't get to come with me. I also suddenly had more schoolwork devouring my time. I played on the piano in the dorm about once a week the first year, but after that, it became challenging to make it to a practice room on campus to play. I ended up only playing once every couple of months for the next few years, and I missed playing more often.

Then enters this guy:

Why hello there!

I have been on again off again searching for a good quality digital piano on Craigslist for awhile. New keyboards are expensive and take a lot of materials and energy to make, so I really wanted to just wait it out until I found something used locally. During the summer, I thought I found a catch, but I experienced a nightmare situation by accidentally bringing home a midi controller (something that needs a computer hooked up to have a brain) that didn't connect to my laptop. It was like dating a person who just isn't right for you and you know you need to end it. Thankfully, for a small price and a little bit of panicked emailing, the person I bought it from took it back. Months later, I browsed on Craigslist and this pretty little keyboard is sitting there. I looked at reviews, and people seemed fairly pleased. I had hundreds of dollars of birthday and Christmas money saved up, and a piano is really the only thing I had even considered using the money on.

So I went and tried it out. And I bought it. And I know that it was meant to be because one of the demos was a song that I had played my junior year.

And that's my piano story for the day! *happy face*

Look for what is good...

When I was around 14, I convinced my parents to let me use a twin bed instead of my current queen bed. I feel like a lot of kids want a big bed, but I didn't. I wanted a twin bed so that I could move my furniture around and rearrange my room. I also wanted a twin bed so that I could have floor space for projects.

However, my twin bed did not have the bookshelf headboard that my queen bed had. Suddenly my alarm clock was homeless! Thankfully, I remembered that there was a small shelf-like thing in the garage. It was sad-looking, but it seemed willing to please and ready for some love. I attacked it with white paint, and then I introduced it to my room. My creative innards were not yet finished though. I had a Mary Engelbreit page-a-day calendar that year, and I found some of my favorite quotations from the pages. The picture at the top of this post is one of the quotations that I painted onto my new bedside table. My alarm clock still rests above this quotation.

I mention this because these words changed my life significantly. I read it multiple times a day, and its truth sank into the corners of my brain and heart.

When I painted this, I was not terribly good at seeing the good in things. I was critical of myself and others. I complained about life. I was frequently disappointed.

However, I learned to find the good in life by hearing these words in my head over and over again. The challenges of life didn't stop, but the thoughts that I fed myself did. As the years went on, negative thoughts were replaced more often with positive ones.

I think that this is what God wants for us, too. It's so easy to be overwhelmed by pain, anger, sadness, and the overwhelming nature of life. However, I think that by seeing the good, we see God.

Thanks for this lesson, Younger Karen.

Knitted Potholder

I had some extra yarn from a quilted blanket that I'm knitting, and I found instructions for a really nice potholder here. This is what convinced me to figure out seed stitch. I could knit, and I could purl, but for some reason having to switch between them every stitch was a mess at first. I finally figured out that I was forgetting to pull my yarn to the back before each knit stitch. Aha!

I thought that 50 stitches was a lot, so I scaled things back. I did use Size 8 needles.

Here's what I did:

Cast On 40 stitches with two strands

Row 1-4: Seed stitch

Row 5-21: 4 seed, knit 13, purl 13, 4 seed

Row 22-38: 4 seed, purl 13, knit 13, 4 seed

Row 39-42: Seed stitch

Bind off, but don't cut the yarn

Finger crochet your "hanging loop" to be as long as you want. Then cut the yarn and sew the ends in.

Here's a picture with vegetables. Yay, vegetables!

Pesto!

My basil plants were looking more and more distressed as winter lingered. I kept pinching the flowers off to keep it from flowering and dying. (Seeing as they were inside plants, I didn't imagine that bees would help them pollinate so that I could get seeds.) However, the plants went on strike when they got only the most pitiful amount of sun from our west facing window. They whined, and they moaned. They started dropping leaves. I gave them a pep talk, but they just gave me a pained look while breathing out a deep sigh.

I gave in. I told Matthew that basil seeds would make a great Valentine's Day gift. Then I plucked every leaf off of those whiny plants. I had been waiting for an excuse to pick enough leaves for pesto, anyway.

Ingredients:

3 small cloves of garlic

3 cups basil (approximately)

3 Tbsp olive oil

1/3 cup grated parmesan

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. In your food processor, chop the garlic until it splatters all over the processor walls.

2. Put in the basil and parmesan, and pulse or chop until it is the consistency that you desire.

3. Add the oil, salt, and pepper, and pulse until combined.

4. Store in the refrigerator up to a week. Otherwise, freeze either in freezer safe containers. Another option is to make pesto "ice cubes" in an ice cube tray and then, once frozen, put them in a bag or container for convenient portion sizes.

Pesto in jars!

Pesto on toast!

How to make a bathmat using old t-shirts!

I don't know about you, but when I wear out a t-shirt, I save it. I feel like, while it it ratty enough that I cannot wear it anymore, there must be something to use all that good fabric for! I cut out squares that had designs on them for making a t-shirt quilt, but there was still a lot of the shirt leftover that I didn't need or couldn't use for a quilt. I only have so much storage, so I really wanted to find something to do with the rest of the shirts!

Then I saw a video on YouTube of someone making a bathmat out of t-shirts. Brilliant! I took my pile and began cutting and knitting, and you can see how it turned out! I'm pleased! While we don't really need two bathmats right now, it will make out original one last longer, and eventually we will probably have two bathrooms anyway. Now I just have a small bag of scraps that I think I'll probably use to stuff a pillow someday...

Instructions:

1) Cut up old t-shirts into strips about 1.5 inches wides and as long as possible. Don't worry about making these strips perfect! If your shirt has no side seams, you can cut off the bottom and just wind your way up the shirt. If you have side seams, you will probably want to cut up the front and back separately in the manner shown in the the diagram below. Note: If some of your shirts are especially thin, you might want to cut a bit wider than usual. I think this would have helped my rows to be more uniform.

2) Begin knitting! I used size 10.5 needles, and it was a bit tough on my fingers. Bigger needles would probably be easier and go faster. I think I ended up casting on 30 stitches. Change colors when you feel like it!

3) When you feel like it is long enough, cast off. All you need to do now is trim the tufts of shirt that will be sticking up occasionally. Then - ta da! - awesome bathmat!

Relationship Three

The Story:

Matthew and I met in physics lab our first term of college in 2005. That particular week, I wanted to get out of lab quickly so that I could make it to a birthday party. I had seen Matthew in my honors math class, so I figured that if I worked with him I was more likely to get out quickly. It worked!

Matthew and I became friends on Facebook, and he added me on AIM. I was still raw from the abrupt end to my relationship with Andrew, and I had my emotional walls raised. However, I had let my guard down with Matthew for a few reasons. First of all, the first time I saw him was in his Facebook picture before college even started, and he looked really grouchy in it. I was convinced he was a grumpy person who hated the world. (I was later told that he didn't like cameras.) Then, when I met him, he immediately came across as really weird. The first time I talked to him in the physics lab, he randomly would switch into horrible accents. He wore pleated khaki pants with his t-shirt tucked in and his cellphone in a holster on his belt. He also had a little fuzz mustache that didn't seem to grow in. While these things didn't make me not want to be friends with him, they certainly didn't make him immediately attractive to me.

However, we started hanging out both when doing homework and in social circumstances like large UNO parties in my dorm. I also made friends with his roommate who happened to also be his cousin, and the three of us spent a lot of time together that term. Matthew and I also spent a lot of time talking in person and on AIM. I learned that he was a good listener and a really caring person. I still needed someone to talk with me while my insides ached from my last relationship, and for some reason Matthew became the person I depended on most.

After Thanksgiving, we started to illusively hint that we each had a secret. We were enigmatically trying to hint that we liked each other, but neither of us wanted to say it first. Finally, we decided to reveal our secrets. I made Matthew go first. How fun it was to hear that he did like me, and it was nice to be able to tell him that the feelings were mutual!

When I went home at Christmas, Matthew gave me flowers because he knew that I had missed getting them in my last relationship. Over our month-long Christmas break, we discussed the idea of dating. We created a pros and cons list. We talked about what we wanted in a relationship and in the future. I told him I was scared of getting hurt again. He told me that he didn't want to hurt me. It would be his first relationship, and that was significant to me because he was practical enough that he wouldn't date someone he didn't seriously care about. We both prayed about our decision, and in the end we felt like we could go forward in our relationship.

In January, we began our journey as a couple. I admit, there were a few things I asked him to do. He very quickly learned that I liked his mustache shaved, his shirt untucked, his cell phone in his pocket, and jeans instead of pleated pants. He hadn't even noticed the pleats.

The next couple years were spent in a pleasant dating relationship where we gradually got to know each other. We took classes together and worked together, and we also spent time with friends or just hanging out. I cried on him time and time again when I was overwhelmed by the stress of classes. He'd let me recite definitions and theorems to him while I baked cookies during one of my most difficult terms.

I learned that he did not appreciate spontaneity like I did, and we struggled to figure out how to enjoy our time together so that both of us were fulfilled. He learned that sometimes I just can't let things go. I learned that he struggled to express emotions. He learned that I can get grouchy at times. Despite these things, we mostly learned to love each other, care for each other, and have fun spending time together.

After we had been dating for a few months, I would occasionally be filled with fear that he would leave me like Andrew did. I became convinced that I was worthless, and Matthew would figure that out and break up with me. Matthew would be holding me, and in my happiness the fear would creep in, and I would slip into sorrow and tears. He struggled to let me know that he loved me while not pretending to know the future of our relationship. It was scary to feel myself caring more about him.

During my sophomore year of college, we started talking about marriage. We had dated long enough that we realized that we were serious about each other. We spent that year talking about the details of that type of commitment, and by the summer, we were fairly convinced that we wanted to get married after our junior year. We wanted to do things right and include our families in the decision, so Matthew told his dad what he wanted to do. When he visited me and my parents that summer, he sneaked into my house before I was awake one morning, and he asked for my parents' blessing as well. It meant a lot to me that they were pleased with our relationship because I knew that we were fairly young.

He officially proposed to me in early September just a couple of weeks before we began our junior year of college. He made me dinner and had a lovely date planned. He asked me to marry him by the Willamette River where which was one of my favorite places in Corvallis. I said yes, I cried, and we both were very excited. He also kissed me on the lips for the first time that day.

The following year was a whirlwind of planning the wedding, continuing to do well in school, and living life in general. He was in an internship program that would have him working from April through September, and we waited nervously during February to hear where he was placed. We had hoped he would be in Corvallis or Albany, so we were a bit disappointed when he was placed in Beaverton since it was an hour and a half away. Being me, I cried.

During the months leading up to the wedding, I saw Matthew every other weekend, and I missed him a lot. We would talk on AIM and on the phone each night, and I would cry profusely each time he left at the end of a visit. However, it made the idea of our wedding day even more exciting.

The week of the wedding finally came, and it was a flurry of bridal showers, last minute details, and preparing the food for the wedding! I spent most of my 21st birthday with my Maid of Honor baking the wedding cake and making other baked goods to feed our guests. That evening, Matthew arrived in Waldport from Beaverton, and suddenly we were with each other and about to get married. What a good birthday present.

The day finally came, and the wedding was filled with love, family, and friends. It truly was the happiest day of my life. The anticipation for the day had been building for years, and to finally come together and commit our lives to each other and to God was an wonderfully emotional experience.

We moved in together first in Beaverton for a couple of weeks as Matthew finished his job, and then back in Corvallis in the place that I had been living before we got married. Our apartment in Corvallis was horrifyingly run-down, and I affectionately called it the "mouse nest." I did my student teaching the next two terms, and he immediately had his work cut out for him as a husband because I was constantly working, exhausted, and as stressed as I ever had been. I looked forward to coming home to him each day.

The next two and a half years were filled with us spending time with each other. Taking time to show love. Forgiving each other when we made mistakes. Working to understand and accept differences in personalities. Smiling at each other. Comforting each other with hugs and kind words. Supporting each other as we help each other grow and change and become better. Taking walks and talking about the future. Loving the other person.

And we still are.

Reflection:

This is honestly just a glimpse of our story. We have been together as a couple for over five years, and there are just too many memories and lessons learned to share here. I'm always happy to talk to people, though, if you have questions.

Looking back, I think that my relationship with Andrew helped prepare me to be able to love and accept Matthew for who he is. I mentioned that I asked Matthew to change a few things at the beginning of the relationship, but after that, I haven't asked him to change. Mind you, I do challenge him to be better, just as he does for me. However, I think that he has always known that regardless, I love him and support him.

Marriage has taught me a lot about love. Love is a choice. When you are married to someone, you realize how very human the person is. However, in that human is amazing things. You can choose to see and cultivate the good and constantly forgive the bad. You can think of your spouse's needs above your own so that you do not grow bitter but instead find happiness in his happiness. It takes work and care to tend such a close relationship, but it is absolutely worth it. Matthew regularly fills me with joy, and I cannot imagine my life without him.

Relationship Two

The Story:

Near the end of my junior year, I was convinced that I would not date again until I went to college. I was mostly alright with that. I remember being pretty happy with life at that point. Of course, MSN messenger once again changed my life.

Andrew was very quiet and reserved. When we started talking on MSN, I think that we mostly joked around and talked about things from school. Whatever we said, I'm sure that it was very nerdy. My friends and I were planning to go to prom as a group, and while online one night, I invited Andrew to join the group. He said that he would join us because he was planning on inviting me anyway. I remember seeing that on the screen and having my stomach do the flip-flop that I regularly got as a teenager.

With that flip-flop, I began to realize that perhaps I was interested in Andrew. In the month leading up to the prom, it ended up that the group plans turned into three couples making plans together. Andrew and I also somehow ended up discussing the idea of dating. We deliberated for awhile. We talked about how he was leaving for college that August. We discussed how we viewed dating and relationships. We laid out all the details.

One of my reservations was the fact that he was Catholic while I was a Protestant of sorts. I was under the impression that Catholics were wrong and believed wrong things, but when talking to Andrew about beliefs, I learned that there were only subtle differences between what we believed. He explained all of the traditions of his faith, and I was satisfied.

We went to prom together, and we had a really good time with our friends and each other. We had a good enough time that when we talked the next day, he told me that he had thought and prayed about our relationship, and he believed that God was letting him date me. Flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop went the belly, and we made our relationship official.

The last couple months of school and throughout the summer we spent as much time as we could together. The realization that a long-distance relationship loomed around the corner made us appreciate each moment. We played Egyptian Rat Slap while at track meets, and we regularly crushed all the competition, and then we'd play against each other for hours. On the way home from the late-night track meets, we would lean against each other and rest. Our little nerd romance thrilled the track coach and probably overwhelmed everyone else with nerdy adorableness. Andrew also surprised and thrilled me by his enjoyment of ballroom dancing.

The one thing I remember being dissatisfied about was romantic expression. I wanted flowers! I wanted romantic dates! I wanted excitement! He told me he didn't understand the point of these things, so they generally only happened by accident or when I made them happen.

A highlight of the summer was when I went with his family on a camping trip over the 4th of July. Sitting in a fold out loveseat with my head against his chest listening to his heart while watching the fireworks was all my teenage heart needed for contentment.

When we got back to his house, we were figuring out what we wanted to do. He made me stand up, and he said that all he really wanted to do was kiss me. And he did! The surprise of the kiss made it remarkable.

However, the summer of fun ended, and the dreaded moment came: We had to say goodbye because he was heading to college. That day all I could do is cry. My nose ran everywhere. I was filled with pain at the thought of the loneliness. Despite my best efforts, the day ended, and he left.

The following months were filled with emails and MSN chats. We both missed each other dreadfully. He confessed to crying for the first time since he was 12. It was an intense time of life emotionally. We were used to expressing love for each other through hugs, kisses, and hand-holding, and suddenly we only had text to communicate. Neither of us had a cell-phone, so we only talked occasionally by phone because it was so expensive.

Christmas came, and I went to the airport with his parents to pick him up as a surprise. Words cannot express the relief and joy that I felt when I saw him and his puffy hair in the airport. During his month of break, I spent every moment possible with him. However, the month ended, and an even more painful goodbye followed. We now knew exactly how difficult things were while he was gone.

Every once in awhile, Andrew would send an email that was filled with words that made me feel special and loved. However, the emails became shorter and less frequent, and my pain increased. I checked my email often and waited at night praying desperately that he would sign onto MSN. My stomach would flip upside-down the rare night that I did hear from him. The rest of the time I went to bed with my heart breaking. I was in pain, and I missed him horribly, and I wanted more. I wanted to feel cared about again, and I wanted to feel romance in the distance relationship. I asked for romantic notes and poems, but he didn't know how to do this for me.

Spring break came, and he came over to my house and broke up with me. Out of the blue. I had no idea that it was coming. He told me that my needing to talk to him so much was putting stress on him that he couldn't handle. I told him that he should have told me there was a problem so that we could have worked it out. He agreed that we could try again if I was willing to work on not pressuring him.

Between spring and summer, I spent most of the time in anguish because I was trying to stay close to him but not push him. I desperately wanted to hear from him, but I also wanted to give him space. He wrote, but not as often as I hoped. I sent letters and emails telling him how much I loved him and hoped he was happy. The only thing that I held onto was the fact that he'd be back for the summer.

May came and with it the end of Andrew's first year at college. My relief was palpable. I was ecstatic at the thought of seeing him again and picking up our relationship where we left off. However, he had different plans.

One afternoon, we went for a walk, and he told me that he was ending our relationship for real. I felt my insides crack. I think I begged for him to reconsider. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to understand what had changed. I wanted to know how he could have loved me so much and then not love me anymore. He didn't really know how to answer me. He just knew that he didn't care about me as much anymore. I just didn't understand how the love I believed would go on forever could just stop.

I stomped into the trees and sat against a trunk and sobbed for a long time after he left me and went home. Eventually, his mom came for me. She wanted me to come back for Wednesday dinner which was a weekly tradition we had that whole year. I politely forced as much of my food as I could into my mouth as I tried not to bawl at the dinner table. I loved their family and how much his mom tried to maintain the friendship we had developed, but that night I got out of there as soon as possible.

But I couldn't go home yet. I wanted to be distracted, so I went to youth group. It wasn't enough though. I sat silently crying all the way through it.

At home, I had to tell my parents what happened which began a painful journey of letting people know that after 13 months and a school year of distance dating, our relationship had ended. I couldn't talk about it without drowning in tears. I couldn't sleep at night without waking up filled with sorrow and pain. I ended up getting online and talking to a friend of Andrew's from college who listened and comforted me in the wee hours of morning. I had never even met him, but he was so nice to me.

I cried periodically in class during the next school days. At home, I walked in the living room, and suddenly was overwhelmed with a pain that made me immediately lie down and sob into the carpet. I couldn't stand the thought of being alone, so I asked a friend to spend the night that weekend. I was a horrible sobbing host, but she stood by me even though we were not the closest friends. I just needed someone, and she was there for me.

As weeks went by, I began to have days that I might not cry. Andrew and I didn't talk to each other much. I don't think we knew how to relate to each other after going through so much pain because of our relationship. I continued to try to make him wish that I was still his girlfriend, but it didn't work. I wanted it to work, but as time went on, I didn't want it as much.

Reflection:

This story was very difficult for me to write. Thirteen months is a long relationship to summarize. It was also an extremely emotional relationship. I experienced some of my highest highs and lowest lows from this relationship. I still cry when I recall the pain of the break-up.

Over a year later, I asked him why we broke up, and he told me he just didn't feel like our being together was right anymore. I still don't really understand what happened, and perhaps it really was mostly the distance that hurt us. In the long run, I'm happy that I got to meet Matthew, and that Andrew and I didn't have to go through the stress of distance dating for the next few years.

One thing that it was hard for me to express in the story was how much I wanted from him. I think I wanted things from him that he couldn't give. I wanted the romance I saw in the movies, and he was a very practical person. He loved me though. He cared for me in his own way, and I told him I saw that. However, I wanted more. This probably stressed him out.

I feel bad for pressing him after our relationship, too. He probably was still hurting as well, and it wasn't very nice for me to continue to put pressure on him. I still hope that it wasn't my inability to let go that caused us to be unable to stay friends.

I still am looking back at our relationship to try to gain understanding and learn from it. I again don't regret this relationship. I learned a lot about loving someone, and Andrew really was another great guy who treated me well. It's just a relationship that still holds mystery to me.