How to Get a Marriage License

I'm still not sure how I feel about all the legalities of marriage. I believe marriage is a spiritual covenant so it just feels kind of weird to have to sign papers and pay taxes and all that. However, I suppose there is something cool about being legally bound to each other.

We first attempted to get a marriage license a few weeks ago, by going to the Justice of the Peace. That was the wrong place to go but I didn't know that. We stood in line with juvenile delinquents and people paying traffic tickets. When we got to the window we announced we were getting married with a silly grin. She told us to go to the county clerk, the office of whom was of course closed that day.

So we tried again last week. We found the right office and it was open, no big deal. (Although there was a guy distributing literature that said "lower gas prices to Bush's IQ", which was very romantic.) The clerk said he knew my FH was not from Texas because he had such an accent. He has not lived outside of this state for about 25 years. The lack of an accent is not an accent, but East Texans have trouble with that concept sometimes.

Any way, everything went along fine until time to inscribe our name on the official document. Without even asking, the clerk put "Mr. and Mrs. husband's first husband's last". Ugh. I asked him why I didn't get a name. Then we explained that our name would be hyphenated. Thankfully we caught him before the process was finished. But c'mon, it's the freaking 21st century. Doesn't he think that perhaps at least someone wants to do things a little differently? Sigh.

Later that day we went to pick up a Bible that we had engraved. As a wedding gift our pre-marital counselor gave us a family Bible. The store clerk couldn't find it because he didn't understand our name. When he finally located it, he said "oh, right, that combined name one".

Just a small taste of life with a hyphenated name, I'm sure. It's going to be worth the trouble.

How to Party without Degrading Yourself and the Opposite Sex

So bachelor parties are known as celebrations of all the things that are apparently most sacred to single men, namely booze and naked women. It will come as know surprise that of course I think that is completely ridiculous, and I am baffled as to why men would want to be thought of as sexist drunk idiots. Since alcoholism and objectifying women has not been a part of my bachelorhood, I certainly didn't want to celebrate them at my bachelor party. Fortunately for me, my groomsmen were all more than happy to oblige. (I think many men would prefer not to participate in such behavior and would simply say so if they did not feel it would threaten their standing in our patriarchal culture.)

Instead of the typical bachelor party debauchery, we elected to spend the day on Lake Conroe. My brother borrowed his roommate's boat, and we tubed on the lake. One of my groomsmen attempted wakeboarding, but we had to call it quits shortly after because of a storm that was approaching. Said storm almost sunk our boat on the way in, mostly because the boat was a Sea-Doo, one of those vehicles that is more like a giant wave runner than a normal boat. Needless to say, it does not have the durability of a typical boat. Water started coming in over the side. It was up to the knees of the guys in the back. The cooler was even floating. Getting back to the landing area should have taken 5-10 minutes. It ended up taking us somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour. I can't say for sure because I lost track of time when we had to start bailing water out of the boat.

Despite almost sinking the boat, we had a really good time. Afterwards we went out to dinner, and then we called it a night. I woke up the next morning hang-over-free, having had a full night's sleep (which is completely sacred to me). I did have a bit of a sunburn though. Needless to say, it is totally possible for a group of guys to have a good time without degrading themselves or the opposite sex, and they can retain most of their brain cells at the same time. Who knew?

How to Have a Bachelorette and Bachelor Party

FH can tell you all about his bachelor party (you just need to ask him about nearly sinking a boat).

Tonight I had my bachelorette party for the girls in the wedding and girls in my small group. My sister, who is the greatest, planned everything and spent a LOT of time preparing. There was a 3 course meal, a gourmet cake (that she made), a murder mystery game, gift opening, and a rosary-making-blessing (all the guests put a bead on a string and passed it around the room, saying a blessing for us as they did). It was all pretty fantastic.

I can't believe it's only 2 weeks away! It may well be the longest 2 weeks of our lives...

How to Be ALMOST Married

FH keeps saying he's going to post, but as of late he has not, so I will share a few brief words.

Engagement highlights of our 40 days:

1) Romantic dinner at our favorite downtown restaurant. We had prepared to spend about $30 (total) and ended up forking over, well, a lot more. The specials sounded too good!

2) Un-level house, level-heads. Our big old house has shown us more of its, um, personality. Just about everything isn't level--the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the windows, etc. It made picture-hanging pretty interesting...

3) My first family camping trip with FH's family and friends. I know you might think camping in June in East Texas might not sound like the best of plans, but it was lots of fun.

4) Lots of unnecessary gifts. We know lots of people love us, but we are continually surprised by the lavish-ness of everyone's gifts of time and presents. Our upstairs neighbor the other day said, "you have ANOTHER box." Mailed gifts are the best, b/c you can organize them before the wedding and enjoy them as you open them.

5) Being crazy in love. We are just euphoric at the thought of being together forever. We get overwhelmed by all the many emotions and just stop to be thankful.

Sure, engagement comes with its share of frustrations, but for us it's been wonderful. C.S. Lewis said some of our greatest joy is in the longing, and I know what he means... How tremendous to look forward and long to be fully one! We are very, very blessed.

How to Count Down 40 Days

We're moving into the last 40 days of our engagement. FH noted that this is much like a Lenten season. Lent is observed in the 40 days leading to Easter, a time of reflection and reverence. You give something up and look forward to the celebration of Christ's resurrection.

So we're creating our own Lenten season to make it to our wedding. It feels like a holy time. We're only 40 days away from becoming one, from starting a life together in a brand new way. We won't be giving anything up (as we're abstaining from something pretty big already!), but we're going to focus on certain things. We'll make sure we have significant time of rest each day and time together. Basically we'll focus on taking care of ourselves and each other, and on the miracle God has created through Love.

As you journey with us in the last weeks of our engagement, you can join us in praying this beautiful prayer (from a Catholic parish in the UK):

LORD Jesus Christ, we give you thanks for the love we share, and for bringing us together.

TEACH us to prepare for our wedding by an increase of love towards each other, by an increase of generosity to others and by the prayers we make for a long and happy life together.

BLESS all those who are helping us to prepare for our wedding. Keep us good-humoured and joyful as the day draws near.

TEACH us to live as you did and to love Christ with great devotion all the days of our life together. Amen.

How to Clean 90 Year Old Dirt

As I've mentioned, the house we're renting was built in the 1920s. It is, of course, very old. A lot is original, like the molding, doors, jalousies, etc. Some is "newer" like the kitchen cabinets added in the 1950s, and the random wood paneling added on two walls circa 1960s. I'm going to guess this place has had like a million tenants.

Anyway, my parents came today to help us clean it up and get ready to move our stuff in. We had a plan to wipe down the cabinets, lay shelf paper, and hang curtains in a few hours. After some digging, we discovered that the cabinet makers were lazy and simply put up the cabinets over the original wallpaper. This was covered by project board cut in haphazard squares. We decided to pull off the paper--floral paper glued to burlap glued to the wood plank wall. There were plenty of roaches and dirt and grime. Several applications of cleaners later we were still wiping up dirt. We then decided to varnish all of the cabinets and that wooden wall to seal in the 90 year old dirt and hope for the best. It was an ordeal, we were there like 10 hours!

It's quite a first home for us, and at the risk of being too metaphorical, quite a parallel to our relationship. Some hidden, grimy things that with a lot of work became a beautiful piece of both of us. Awww...

How to Nest

Many pregnant women talk about the impulse to nest--you know, get a nursery ready, buy stuff for their new family, etc. I think perhaps some engaged couples have the same impulse, especially right before the wedding. My theory is that in general we feel so all over the place that it makes us feel better to buy or receive stuff that will go towards creating our first home. Or at least that's what I'm saying to make me feel better about how much fun we have accruing stuff.

My FH's former church in his hometown threw us a shower this weekend. It was overrun with very nice people I had never met, who all gave us lots of stuff. And we played the old standard game of making a wedding dress out of toilet paper, only this time the men were models.

I've also been thinking about how our pasts come in together. Obviously our current lives have meshed well, but we're still learning about each other before we met. This weekend was a good window into the history FH had before me. There's really a lot to this becoming one thing, and I quite like it.