hee hee hee....

This is Luke's wife posting for him, before sister Nan starts to remind how wonderful blog posts are :P
And no, he didn't ask me to, but no, I didn't hack in :^D

Well, what's up with Luke: he's busy working 31-39 hours a week, exercising (almost) daily with his wife (at her request) eating a lot of homemade food (and raving about it), and doing various other things that married life involves.
He's learning to be the head of his own household, and doing a marvelous job. He's set up a budget that we're working with this month, he takes good care of his wife and makes sure she drinks lots of water and takes her vitamins and supplements. She needs a lot of reminding. Once this weekend, he cleaned up the mess after his wife gagged on her supplement drink (and it choked it up all over the floor). She nearly cried to see him bent over mopping it up, but then she laughed b/c she felt like a baby who'd spat out her formula.
Oh, I teased him the other day b/c 'we've got a teenager in the house', but he's a really strong, God-fearing man. and I love him a lot.
Other news... Luke got a raise last week! We were very excited. And we celebrated with pound cake, which was wonderful and also exciting :^)
He'll be home in about an hour, and of course we're both looking forward to it.
Miss you, my love!!!
You can delete this post if it bothers you, but I was trying to sign into my own account on your laptop, and it put me to your dashboard, so.... :^P

Married life

First off, got to go to AARON and MEGAN's wedding today!!! Kudos to the new Mr. and Mrs. A-Luv! Just watching his face throughout the ceremony was a fun experience; he looked, as my dad put it later, like a little kid on Christmas morning. He and Megan are such a blessing; it's been so neat to watch them come into our church, pray to receive Christ, grow in the Lord, fall in love, and now start a new life together as husband and wife.

We're kinda just chillin at home right now; Lana's lying on the bed reading Calvin and Hobbes (we got the complete three-volume collection as a wedding present from wonderful Uncle John and Aunt Angie!) while I post. She made the most awesome stuff for dinner tonight. I just asked her what it's called and she bravely made up the title of "Creamy...Rice and...Chicken Bake". Sounds good to me, love. Anyways, it is fantastic; all you cook-type people have got to get the recipe from her. She told me it's an old family recipe, dating back to about 5:00 this afternoon.

Married life is quite fun. I don't want to pretend that it's always easy; things like overflowing garbage and wrinkled pants and black bean soup that didn't turn out just right, do pop up from time to time. But we are so happy; God has blessed us so much, and it is so cool to be together as husband and wife.

So, my final verdict on courtship, now that I have forever left it? I am more convinced than ever that it is absolutely worth it. Wait on the Lord, wait, wait, wait, and He will bless you a hundredfold for it. It may not seem like such a big deal to dabble with that special someone now, to dip your toes in the whirlpool of romance and swirl them around. But I can tell you, after holding back and finally being freed to give my everything to my bride, that doing things God's way is infinitely better than doing what excites us at the time. Do not awaken love until its appropriate time, the Bible says. Do not, DO NOT, DO NOT!! There, I'm done preaching...for now.

As for the wedding, yes, I hope to post some pics at some point. I'm sure you've seen Lana's blog (if not, go check it out, for pete's sake!); she's got a lot of photos there. For now, all I'll say about the wedding is:
"Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind."

God bless ya'll, and I hope to post again sooner (and who knows, maybe I'll have some news on that elusive most anticipated film of the year!).

The Return to Narnia (or wherever)

Just a quickie for now as my lovely wife and I are about to depart and (finally) watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

I want to thank you guys so much for praying for us and encouraging us through the months of our courtship. It seemed like forever, but now the waiting is over, and we've just begun.

I'll try to provide a more detailed post about the wedding in the next couple of days, because of course I want to talk about it. No pictures yet, sorry, the only one I've seen is on my wonderful mother-in-law's blog (pursuingjoy.blogspot.com). If you have pictures, please please please send them to me (or post them on your blog); my wife and I (and quite a few other people) really want to see them!

Man, there's so much to talk about, but no time now, Narnia is calling us back!

God bless you all; no, we aren't abandoning our blogs; and yes, in case you're wondering (and I'm sure you are), MARRIED LIFE ROCKS MY FACE OFF!!!

Where I am right now

I really haven't posted in a long time, have I?


Going to Lana's church tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it; should be a pretty different style of service than what I'm used to, and that's a good thing. And of course, I'm just excited about getting to be with Lana and her family.

Then, that afternoon at her church, we have the second of our wedding showers! Yippee great and glorious joy! The one last Sunday, at my church, was a blast, and now we get to do another one! Pretty cool to think about getting presents from a bunch of people most of whom I've never met.

Heading into the home stretch with school; three weeks of class left. It's strange, the way semesters go by. You get situated in your new classes, then you get used to them and they just become a part of regular life, then before you know it they're wrapping up. Cannot wait to bid this semester farewell and head into what promises to be the greatest summer of my life.

Forty days left till marriage. Sounds very surreal, yet for some reason it isn't, to me. It just feels right, to know that I'm spending my last few days in my family's house, that I will soon leave it and not come back (except to visit, of course), that I will begin to live with Lana and continue living with her for the rest of my life.

As I prepare for that, I'm still looking for one key component -- my job. The company that I have been working for had to downsize this year and I probably won't be working for them again in the foreseeable future. So I'm exploring options and trying to find a job. My personal goal is to have a job by the end of this coming week, so please pray that God will guide my search and lead me to the job He has for me, in His time.

That's all for now. Sorry for the length of time between posts; hopefully I'll be able to post more frequently in the future. God bless all of you.

You are now entering the SAPPINESS ZONE...Beware

Well, five months of courtship, today. And four more months till marriage. Wow...There's no doubt that the 23rd is my all-time favorite day of the month. It's beautiful...

She wrote an absolutely darling post on her blog about it and about me and about things she loves about me. *Sigh* Wow...she's so sweet...

It's a wonderful idea, and I think I'd like to do the same thing, about her. (Wow, you're thinking, THAT was unpredictable.) Well, she's that amazing, and I love her so much, and I love talking about her. And I haven't really written a post about her in a while anyway. And it is the 23rd, after all. OK, so I'm sure you'll agree that there are plenty of reasons for me to do this. Let us then proceed. If you don't like the sappiness, I'm sorry and don't feel obligated to read it; it's not really for all the rest of you anyway.

What do I love about my fiancee? Mmm...

I love her radiant smile; she insists on calling it crooked and I still don't see really what she means; I mean, I've never seen anyone with a straight smile. Isn't it impossible to have a straight smile, by definition? Anyways, yeah, her smile is knock-me-down gorgeous.
I love how she takes care of me. She takes advantage of every opportunity she gets now; just wait till we're married.
I love how she's mature and deep and profound, and yet also can say stupid things, pursue (seemingly) pointless lines of discussion with me, and laugh at my idiocy.
I love how she dresses, never ostentatious but always stylish and simple.
I love her range of voice, whether she's reading things aloud (you may not like it, darling, but I do), arguing an important point in class discussion, or whispering secrets to me.
I love how she is never demanding, never tries to manipulate me into doing what she wants, because all she wants is to be with me and for me to be happy. I was thrilled to be able to get her the engagement ring that she had wanted, a marquise solitaire in white gold band, but I know for a fact that she would have been thrilled with any ring I might have given her, and never would have thought to complain.
I love how she holds LilyPie and never treats her as baggage but always as a person to be loved and sung to and danced with and talked to.
I love how, when she's cooking, she climbs onto the counter to reach the high cabinets (even though it makes me frightfully nervous and I hope to eliminate it by getting high things for her when we're married).
I love how she pours herself into her work, whether it's cooking, writing, cleaning, or studying.
I love her hands; she doesn't like them (or didn't, at least) but I truly cannot imagine any more beautiful hands, and I can't wait to hold them.
I love how well she knows me and how she can tell when something's bothering me.
I love that her heart is that of a shining servant: she wants to serve God first and love Him with her everything, then serve and love me with her everything, then serve and love the rest of her family (now it's parents and siblings; eventually it will be our kids, hers and mine).
I love her willingness to come be a part of my church, even though it's outside her comfort zone and even though it's going to be so hard for her.
I love that she's acutely aware of her failings and shortcomings, and doesn't try to hide them from me.
I love that she tells me about myself, and lets me tell her about herself.
I love how she guarded her heart for me and did not let me in until I asked with parental blessing.
I love how she looked at me through the tears in her eyes and returned my love, as soon as I told her I love her. Without hesitation.
I love that she is my girl and no one else's, and that she is giving me her everything, holding nothing back.
I love how I can look into her eyes and see my reflection.
I love her green eyes, the most beautiful eyes God has ever made, eyes that He made for me.

I could go on and on and on ("and you already have," the rest of you are groaning), but it's considerably past my bedtime, so I'll stop there. Although the posting day will read the 23rd, it is now the 24th - three months and twenty-nine days till I marry my Lana Marie. I still have trouble believing it. Wow...

Thank You, Father, for the unspeakable gift that is my lover. I ask you to allow me to love my princess the way she deserves, to always treasure her and love her as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. I praise Your Name, my God; the life You've given me is the opposite of what I deserve, but to share life with Lana...You are too good to me.

My Lana, I miss you terribly, and I can't wait to see you tomorrow. I love you.

The Future Fast Approacheth

As much as I'm ready to get home and eat some supper, I kinda dread it because I have two papers to write for my writing classes: a personal essay and a memoir. I figure I can complete the personal essay to some degree of satisfaction today, but the memoir will be much less so. But, Lord willing, I'll have both of them ready for tomorrow, and it will be good.

Lana and I have been talking a lot lately about the future, namely, when we can get married. We're looking into some options for housing as well as work, and also trying to estimate what our monthly expenses will look like. I don't guess that sounds like much fun; it's actually a blast. I love talking to her about it.

The biggest concern for me is, and has always been, income. Namely, where exactly will it be coming in from? I feel called to be a writer (perhaps among other things), and writers aren't exactly known for having steady income. But right now I'm looking at this really cool book about freelance copywriting, which basically is working independently and having different companies hire you for jobs that require writing -- press releases, posters, instruction manuals, whatever. It sounds really good to me on a number of levels, the primary one being that I could work at home and be with my wife (and kids, eventually) a whole lot more. But, if I do it, it's going to be pretty hard to get established. Just trusting God that if He wants me to do that, He'll provide a way; and if not, He's got a better job out there for me.

In the meantime, I'm finding out how badly I want to marry Lana. As soon as workable. We'll likely wed either in summer '08 or summer '09. And in case it's not obvious to you, there's a big difference between those two time periods. But, if we need to wait an extra year to get married, I'm willing to do that. I can't deny hoping we don't have to do that, though.

It feels pretty weird to be looking at all these options and wondering about insurance and groceries and figuring out a way to make enough money to put bread on the table. But it's also exhilarating, because I know that answering these questions brings us closer and closer to the time for setting a date, buying a ring, and planning a wedding. You guys simply have no idea how much I long for that, though you will someday.

Today Lana and I checked out Sebastian Commons, the apartments at our own UAFS. We like the idea of living there, if only for the two years before graduation, simply because the housing and utilities would be free under scholarship. We got to tour an apartment, and it was so amazing to think, "Man, in less than a year, we could be living in something like this." It was a lot of fun.

So I ask you to please continue to pray for us. We need the wisdom and guidance that only God can give as we try to sort out all the wonderful issues that come with the decision to marry. We want to make sure that we know the difference between what we want and feel and what God wants. I can't wait to see what happens as He continues to unravel this beautiful tapestry of our life together.

Till tomorrow, all; and, I love you, Lana.