Trip to Texas

So I have this problem... a problem that once a post has sat in my draft folder for too long, it simply can no longer be written. That's what happened here. I'm sorry. You just get a boat load of pictures.

In short, the trip was wonderful! It was so much fun to see where I came from and to visit the school our parents went to and all that fun jazz. Texas was beautiful. It was such a fun "last vacation" with the family before leaving the nest. :)



On Hickeys and Hell-Raisers

My name is Jadyn Maree and here are a few things you may not have known about me...

I am double jointed. My fingers lock which is why I could never pick up the cello or the guitar (and dang it, I tried!). My legs also lock which has proven to produce a lot of creative body mechanical stances while massaging in school.

I haven't worn makeup for anything other than special occasions (church, my friend Haley's wedding, family dinner with the in-laws...and even then it was minimal) for the past two to three weeks in an effort to help me embrace something that has been difficult for me grasp since dating Taylor...I can be pretty without it. And those who don't think so aren't worth my time. And I've been amazed at how much it's actually helping. I don't get so anal about my hair or my clothes when I can look at my bare face and accept it as being just fine the way it is... and that is one of the most refreshing things that I have ever been able to enjoy.

I never kissed a boy in High School. In fact, I never kissed a boy before I ever met my fiance, not out of some strange "won't kiss a boy until it's THE ONE" pact with myself, but because it simply never... I don't know... came up?

And here's another thing... there have been a few things about being engaged that nobody told me would happen but have taken me aback and have forced me up onto... you guessed it... the soap box.

 One of the things that has single-handedly shocked me the most has been the overloaded masses of people who, upon hearing the news of your pending marriage, feel the urgency to (in the two minutes they have with you) to do one of three things:

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1. interrogate you to make sure you "know what you're doing" (and it doesn't matter how convincing you are... it always ends in a pretty awkward judgey mess)

2. "warn" you about the things either nobody told them or about the things you are too blind to see right now

3. regurgitate as much marriage advice as they can and try their hardest to convince you why this slew of advice is the one thing that will keep you and your fiance from getting divorced later down the road

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After the smoke clears from the engagement, after everybody is over admiring the ring and giggling about the story the world comes crashing down pretty hard on a young bride with the biggest mother load of an ordeal she never expected. Wedding planning is hard. Everybody has opinions (some stronger than others) and there are exactly 15,875,962,587.000009 decisions to make and each one in the moment feels as if it's going to be life or death... which is ridiculous because really, in a few months nobody is going to care whether you had lilies or roses in you bridal bouquet. 

A midst this whirlwind of wedding fever, a new bride also has to deal with the new emotional responsibilities that comes with the title of "fiance". Suddenly this person, this wonderful, beautiful person who has asked (or agreed) to spend the rest of their life and more with you has taken a new place in your life. All at once you make the transition from this person being a luxury to a priority. When before it was nice to be able to see them on the weekends, it has now become mandatory. The relationship between me and my soon to be husband suddenly rose in importance above many things that I personally didn't expect it to after getting engaged... sleep and money being just a couple.
And frankly, let's just get this out into the open. People don't like to talk about sex but for couples set on abstinence (for religious reasons or not) before marriage, there is a lot of struggle surrounding the topic and the way that many Christian environments foster the idea of purity and chastity frankly don't help it. When a person is brought up in a world where sex is a taboo topic, steady dating is prohibited until 16, the anatomical reproductive organs of a person are referred to with made up names such as "hoo ha", "wee wee", or "tookie" in order to avoid saying their actual names, and the other kids around them are messing around so much with sex that at school and in youth groups many discussions about it turn into either a shame fest or a "how badly can I scare this kids into keeping their pants zipped up" lecture, that when they finally enter the period of their life where these things aren't actually "bad" anymore it suddenly opens up the floodgates for repressed insecurities, fears, and paranoias.
Take all of these beautiful ingredients and mix them in a bowl of  milk and honey and you create what I like to call the perfect storm.What I want to talk about a little bit is my experience and struggle as I have transitioned into this new phase of my life. How it's felt having those looks in response to the revealing of my age, the internal struggles I have dealt with coming from being a girl who'd never been kissed to a girl about four or five months later who is now finding herself dealing with desires she feels for the man she knows she is going to marry that she's never had to deal with before. How growing up in such a Christian centered home has influenced my feelings on intimacy and how living in the limbo of "it isn't allowed but you still need to be getting used to the idea" has been both healthy and debilitating.

Honestly, in my opinion... the thing that people don't get is one simple thing.

We are all doing the best we can.

The other day Taylor and I were therapeutically exchanging frustrating stories (i.e. venting....) about ignorant things people seem to not be able to stop themselves from saying and asking us lately and the following scenarios came up:
-we can't tell you how many people have legitimately asked us either at church or school or work if we're sure we aren't just getting married for sex... I mean really people?
-the raised eyebrows followed by the, "wait... you guys are HOW OLD?"
-the classic, "let me tell you how to plan your wedding because you are going to regret doing everything that you are planning on doing... trust me, I know better"
-and my all time favorite, the "what I wish people had warned me about" wedding night horror stories people keep feeling the need to share.
All of these things piled up on each other have made it increasingly difficult to enjoy this stage of being engaged...this bizarre limbo of loving each other but still having to say goodbye, of needing each other but still not being able to fall asleep to the sound of each others' heartbeats. The ways we both grew up feeling about and being taught about intimacy have also made it difficult to enjoy being a couple.
The one time I got a hickey I literally wept and stayed up until one in the morning trying to freeze it off with toothpaste and an ice cube. Every time we are making out (TMI...? or have I passed that boundary already? ;)) and I feel his hand go just a teeny bit lower on the small of my back or when I find myself playing with the collar of his shirt I feel the need to throw him to the other end of the room and examine myself of any boundaries I may or may not have crossed which is MORE than unhealthy... it is debilitating. It leads to nights where I have to genuinely ask my fiance through sobs if he is sure that I'm not a whore and that God still loves me even though I sometimes think about our wedding night. It leads to unhealthy amounts of feeling the need to be perfect and monitoring oneself every waking (and sleeping) moment of every un-married millisecond of life. And frankly... it also distracts from the things that really matter: you and your soon to be spouse and the love that you share and the promises that the two of you are about to make with each other and with God.
Luckily I am engaged to the man I am engaged to because none of these things has gone even close to being undiscussed and not worked through, but I guess this is just my soap box and this is just my moment to rant and rave and throw my fists up in the air defiantly and beg the world to PLEASE just calm down.
Choosing not to have a wedding party does not mean that my wedding will be a disaster.
Marriage advice is only good when given from a genuine platform.
And even then... please think thrice before giving it.
If I am sick and tired and my fiance reaches under my shirt to tickle my back we are not going to hell... and if we are, it sure is going to be a hell of a lot better than the place we would end up if we buttoned our shirts all the way up and didn't touch each other until our wedding night.
And that's all this girl has to say for one night... thanks for not burning me at the stake for saying "sex" so many time in one post. ;)

 ...I'm going to hell for that GIF too, aren't I? :)

It's Been a Tuffy

            Recently things have been a little bit rough. I’ve frankly been feeling overwhelmed with everything going on lately and haven’t been able to feel like I can get a handle on things. Take today for example. I slept in late because I was out late with my fiance  (something I wouldn't even consider taking back) with whom finding time to see is difficult on both ends and therefore didn't have much time to get ready in the morning. My hair was relatively similar to what it looked like when I went to sleep and so I hair sprayed the big bump in my bangs back up, threw a bandanna in my hair, washed my body in the shower (because I’m in massage school and I don’t want my classmates to have to go through the ordeal of massaging an unwashed body), threw on a tiny bit of mascara, grabbed something to eat for lunch, and headed out the door. I arrived to class late still and was absolutely thrilled to hear that we were going to be exclusively working on scalp and facial massage. WTF.

            So after coming out of that ordeal feeling embarrassed and thoroughly self-conscious I made my way back to my car looking forward to having an afternoon to catch up on the sleep I was so desperately lacking. It would be glorious. That is why I love having Mondays off because even though the rest of my week is crazy, I have ONE day after the weekend to still feel like I can recuperate. So I get home, I eat a little bit of ice cream because I’m menstruating and feel crappy, and then I crash on the couch so hard. Next thing I know it’s 5:00 and I suddenly remember that I was supposed to stop by the Clark’s house at 3:15 to get my time sheet signed (which… by the way, I am so excited to not be working for Arion Care Solutions anymore because I abhor their time sheet system more than lots of things). Feeling embarrassed and only more irresponsible and incapable of accomplishing things I text Renee apologizing for dropping the ball and ask her when I can drop by. I do. I come back home. I still feel crappy and nauseous and insanely lethargic and drowsy. So I lie on the couch for a little bit. Next thing I know, it’s 6:50… I should have left for my night class five minutes ago! But my body seriously won’t respond to what my brain is telling it to do. It’s almost as if my psyche is saying, “Seriously? You’re STILL trying to be productive today? Haven’t we already observed what happens when we try to do that? I’m out of motivation, sorry…” So it takes me literally three to four minutes to get my butt off the couch.

            But is off.

            Serious accomplishment.

            So I get some shoes on, grab my backpack, reheat my corny bag (because my uterus is unhappy by the choice I have made to acknowledge the living…) and realize that I have no idea where my glasses are… which is a situation because I can’t drive without them and it’s too dark to simply use my prescription sunglasses. To make a long story short… they were under the couch… don’t ask me why, I couldn’t tell you. To make another long story short, I was ten minutes late to class and frankly felt embarrassed to have to walk through all the rows to the seat in the very front and center of the classroom which I have established as mine by simply sitting in it for the past three lectures clutching a corny bag to my lower abdomen. I also tried to raise my hand in class to share what I thought was an insightful thought on temperament and how a sensitive child growing up in a contentious home would turn out at age five and my professor really didn’t think I was on base… and that’s not very fun. So I get home, I plop my stuff down in my still very messy room, go to change my pad but notice that my dog has raided my trash can and tissues and wrapper and all of the changed pads from the past two days are now strewn all over the bathroom floor and as I walk out of the bathroom I pass my closet and see the gargantuan pile of laundry that is still sitting there from this morning and remember my laundry situation… (let’s just say that today was a “resort to my swimsuit bottoms as panties” kind of a day). So I walk into the laundry room to see if I can start a load and both the washer and dryer are occupied. And it’s already 10:30. And my goal for my other night class to go to bed by 11:00 every night is already basically dashed and it hasn’t even begun yet. And that’s when I just…

 You see, what I find with myself is that I get in these little ruts where I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Take my current situation for example... there are quite a few rocks and hard places in which I am feeling trapped by and with which I know if I were to get out of, solutions to my perceived problems would begin to resolve themselves... one of which is my sleeping schedule. Lately it seems like I am ALWAYS TIRED. And I know why that is. I am going to bed late. That's a simple statement that I can own up to, I know that I am going to bed too late and not giving myself enough time in the morning to wake up before I force it into daily activities... so by the time 4:30 rolls around and I am at work, I'm embarrassed by the amount of times I will pull the "fake asleep/snore obnoxiously to make the kids laugh and try to wake me up" routine just to be able to close my eyes for five seconds.

So why don't I just start going to bed earlier? There are a few round about reasons but the most obvious and direct one is my sweetheart. The man I love and have chosen to spend the rest of my life with is the reason I spend so much more time awake at night. It's a situation folks, because I am not a night owl and by body is obviously not responding well to the new routine that I have been assuming, but if I don't stay up past 11:30 at night I don't get to talk to my fiance outside of texting for close to four-five days in a row. Here's how the chips fall... I go to school in the morning from 10:00 to 2:00 and work immediately after until 6:00 (on the majority of my days in the work week), and Taylor goes to school from either 9:00 or noon until 2:20 and then works from 3:00 to 11:30. So the one small break where we could talk on his way to work, I am already at work for and the next available opportunity to speak to one another would be on his drive home from work which would be after 11:30. Sometimes when we haven't seen each other in ages and we've both had rough days he'll even drive to my house after his shift (my parents' house being the same distance from the hospital as his parents' house) and we'll talk about our days to one another, read scriptures and pray together, but mostly just sit and enjoy the luxury of being in the same physical presence of one another for 30, maybe 45 minutes and then he'll drive back home. For the time being, those moments are not worth sacrificing for a couple hours of extra sleep because I have entered the stage of my life where my relationship with another human being has crossed over from being a luxury to a necessity and neglecting the relationship I have with Taylor could be just as detrimental (if not more so) as neglecting my sleep cycle.

Another rock and a hard place? My room. My filthy, disgusting room. It is seriously a pig sty and there are multiple boxes of junk that I still haven't unpacked yet. So here we are again, with the obvious solution to JUST CLEAN IT UP! However, dear folks, here's the problem... In less than three months I am just going to move again. Nothing about my current situation is permanent and therefore nothing inside of me is willing to do anything to make me feel any more settled than I already do. But here's the other thing... I can't focus in a mess. When I know that my laundry is folded and put away, and that my bed is made, and my hair dryer put away, and my nightstand uncluttered... my mind is clean, and organized, and uncluttered. I can think and breathe and apply myself. My scriptures get read, my prayers are more meaningful, I sleep better. It might sound crazy, but the state of my room can often tip you off as to the current state of my mind. So in my situation currently, I can not make myself clean and organize this bedroom because I know that it will all come down again soon but in doing so I am preventing myself from solving many of the problems and frustrations that I am feeling!

Another thing that doesn't help my situation is that I am emotionally and mentally in a place where I physically am not. Let me paint you an example... when Taylor and I were still in our "just friends" stage, I kept getting so many different occurrences of what we called "blah moments": moments where I just felt confused and unsure about him and us and myself and they were not fun. It finally boiled up into a late night phone call to Taylor on his break at work and me telling him that I thought it was about darn time that we quit being stupid and call ourselves what we really were (which was "dating") and once we did...? Those feelings went away. I was suddenly at peace, and why? Because I was emotionally and mentally ready to move on to the next logical stage of the relationship and we just weren't moving. A similar thing happened right before we got engaged, and that same exact thing is happening to me now. I have been engaged for two months now (woa! take a moment to let THAT sink in!) and I am ready to be married. I am ready to come home to my own place and to no longer be living under my parents roof. I am ready to start my own life with Taylor and to rely on each other. I am SO done with having to say goodbye. I am ready. It's time. My brain knows it, my heart knows it, yet there are still three months to go. And here we find ourselves again at the summit: nowhere to go. All I can do is do my very best to keep my head on and my sanity intact as I try to look as if I have everything under control.

But guys...

I don't.

I'm okay with admitting that.

I'm okay with admitting that because I know that this isn't a permanent situation.

These feelings and frustrations aren't forever.

I can do this.

...and honestly, that's the reason I haven't written on this blog since Erika's wedding.

Aside from just plain not having the time between work and school and wedding planning, I just haven't been able to even collect my thoughts enough to write a coherent post.

I mean, I have had PLENTY of things to write about!

For example...

Mimi's farewell...

One of the more emotional experiences I have had the opportunity to experience. I have been so blessed to have many good, loyal, faithful, and loving friends, but this girl has been my kindred spirit since the summer of 8th grade. We have been through multiple moves, family dramas, stupid boys, wonderful boys, all of High School, our Freshman year of college, and then acknowledging and supporting each other in our different pathways as one prepared for a mission and the other had to recognize that for whatever reason a mission wasn't for her... and then that reason turned out to be because you needed to marry her best friend's cousin's ex-boyfriend... totes awk. 

We threw her a surprise going away party and it was lovely. :) I stayed as long as the McPeeks would let me and up until that point I had done what I'd like to think was a fantastic job of holding myself together. We hugged, giggled about how exciting it would be for her to be going to Italy and how exciting it would be for me to be getting married... then there was a pause... and then there were sobs. Guys... the feels could not be controoolllleeeddd! When I got in my car I called my poor fiance at work and left a blubbering message about how I hope his day had gone well and then went home and cried some more. This amazing Sister has been doing so well and I am so proud of the person she is already becoming in just the short time she's already been at the MTC! I am also so happy for the both of us in our different "missions" that we have been called upon to serve. I know that the Lord is with both of us and that we are both doing His work and what He has planned for us to be doing.

Random crafting urges...

Okay... this one is a weird one and I think it goes along with my itch to get my own place, but recently I have been getting SO MANY CRAFTING URGES!!!  I made the two slat board quotes that you see above (much thanks to the lovely woman I am lucky enough to work for who is a crafting GOD) as well as the wreath below and I can't explain why they have been coming, but I am currently working on refinishing a vintage end table that I have been wanting to do for a while that will look SO GOOD in our entryway of our apartment and... I just can't. I barely have time to sleep but my brain apparently finds priority in making beautiful things.

...eh, not complaining.

Haley's wedding! :D

This gorgeous girl FINALLY got to marry her sweetheart just last weekend and it was beautiful! It was so fun getting to go to her wedding with the man she set me up with who will be marrying me in December.. also, I just love the dynamic of two friends from high school marrying two friends from high school. Taylor and Ian growing up as best friends... Ian dating Haley... Haley hanging out with Taylor because of Ian... Haley thinking that she could maybe set Taylor up with an old friend of hers from high school... it actually working?!? Again... I love it. Her wedding was beautiful, and she looked beautiful (and frankly so did her man! Look at those dress blues, I can guarantee that temple didn't see a more gorgeous couple for the rest of the day!)

And just to prove my point I have Facebook stalked one of their pictures...just for you guys...you're welcome...

Also, speaking of weddings...

Look what came in the mail a couple weeks back? :D I swear I will forever be grateful to my homegirl Haley for giving me the advice to buy my dress online. It may sound scary girls, but honestly as long as you go and try on a bunch of dresses at different stores you can pretty much figure out what it is you like and what looks good on you...

I honestly had so many different dresses that I was going back and forth between from a vintage lacey short dress...

To a longer elegant dropped waist...

To falling in love with a way too expensive asymmetrical tulle and lace dress...

To falling in love with a cheaper yet still too expensive ball gown...

In the end I look back at all of these dresses and they don't hold a candle to the dress I ended up ordering. Besides a few alterations it needs (basically a little lining, taking it in on the shoulders, and letting it out at the hip to get it over that ghetto bootay of mine) it is PERFECT!! Can't wait until I'm allowed to post pictures of THAT one. ;)

My pending marriage...

May I just take a minute to gush about how wonderful of a choice I am making in who I am choosing to marry? This man of mine is the most caring, sensitive, thoughtful man I have ever met. Exhibit A.) he's had a long day too but just barely called me up and let me cry big fat ugly menstrual tears to him while I finished up my time sheet submission. Exhibit B.) with him being a words of affirmation person, I have been finding little sweet nothings here and there every now and again and how could that NOT make a girl feel special? I have never ever felt so unconditionally loved and accepted and to be able to know that I could call him for no reason in tears and have him gush about how much he loves me ESPECIALLY when I'm emotional and menstruating is the most wonderful luxury I have ever been lucky enough to receive. I mean... I know he's full of crap, but it's crap that I can live with... ;)

Also, I just absolutely adore this ring of mine. It has become so much of a comfort blanket to me recently as I've been having a tough day or anything like that. All I have to do is look at the GORGEOUS rock that my love gave me and it's an instant pick me up. I never thought that I would ever feel such a strong attachment to a piece of jewelry but I can say without a doubt that it is my #1 most prized possession. I am in love with it. And him. And the fact that I get to marry him and spend the rest of my life being Mrs. Taylor Kerby.

Honestly... nothing on earth could sound better to me.

Forever can't come soon enough.