Christmastime

It's Christmas time and I am so thankful to have my husband home for Christmas.

Josh returned from 9 days in S. Carolina just a day ago. It was longer than we had ever been apart from each other in our 2.5 years of marriage. And we got through it. Talking most every night on the phone and knowing that he was having some fun out there with his co-workers got me through it :-) I tried to make the most of my independence while he was away. I was grateful to have the time to host a Christmas cookie exchange with some girlfriends one day, not cooking for 9 days (and subsisting on leftovers), and not having to clean either (just one person at home keeps our condo a bit cleaner).

But I did miss him a whole bunch, and could hardly sleep the night he was returning home, so eager to see him.

And so, we find ourselves almost upon Christmas. We are home for Christmas this year, home in our condo, Lynnwood, WA. We aren't going to make it to Iowa or Idaho as we have in the past and it is our first Christmas together in the Seattle area. This is the year to start new traditions.

We bought our first Christmas tree together several weeks ago and often I sit in our living room gazing upon these lights. My mom sent me Christmas stockings that my late paternal grandfather Alan made several years ago. We have received many presents and wrapped many presents, all placed under the tree and ready to be opened! Above our refrigerator and above our fireplace are just covered in Christmas cards which have been sent to us. We feel surrounded by love.

Tomorrow morning I am going to attempt making swedish meatballs on my own, a Swedish tradition which my parents always take part in on Christmas eve, and they are really good! I can't wait to taste one! Sunday will be full with a holiday breakfast (maybe Swedish pancakes?), presents, and a dinner complete with ham and all the fixings shared with friends in our home. I have no doubt that his Christmas will be full and rich.

We do wish our families lived closer so that we could share the holiday with these special loved ones, but we feel blessed to have the opportunity this year to start something new with one another, Josh and I.

Fall has come and almost...gone

This fall has been a beautiful one. I decided early this fall that this season is most definitely my favorite. The colorful leaves never cease to stun me and it is one season out here in Seattle where the changes are most apparent: the weather turns chilly and I get out my crock-pot to make soups, pumpkin spice to make pumpkin pie. Our new home is surrounded by large trees and their changing leaves. I have found many new places to run throughout our neighborhood, and my days have been sprinkled with walks through Seattle parks with my friend Sam, a 19 month old boy whom I nanny for.

There has been a lot of waiting and hoping for me in this season. With our move to Lynnwood, I stopped working in Property Management. Though I was glad to be done with that job, it has left me with a lot of spare time on my hands...time to really sit with my longings and hope. Sometimes it was easier for me to just keep myself busy, because the sitting is so painful.

I sat with my desire to be successful, to move forward in my career, and work in the mental health field full-time. I have really been hoping for a job in this area that I really fit well in since 2009, but with all this extra time, the void was definitely deeper and bigger in my heart. I did a few interviews, sat with the pain, didn't get those jobs, and then sat with the pain some more.

I stated reading Nehemiah, a book of the Bible I had been led through back in college and then had proceeded to lead my parents to this study as well. This is the study they claim God used to draw them back to himself. This is really what I was needing...to be drawn back to the heart of God. He encouraged me as well, those mornings I sat on the couch with my cup of coffee trying to understand what was going on amidst the wars and lists.....God's plans do not fail, He finishes what He sets out to do, and He listens to our requests, our prayers. God can do anything.

So I started praying big, I went to interviews this time with a prayer starting something like, "God you can do anything....." Some more waiting and hoping. I started thinking about how I would cope if God called me to continue working as a nanny through the time Josh and I plan to have kiddos ourselves. In retrospect, I think this was helpful and harmful, I was "settling" for something I didn't really want so I didn't have to hold this painful hope, and I think it helped me start to become a little more content with where I was at. My discontentment had really been eating away at me.

Then I got a call. I was offered one of the jobs I had interviewed for. I accepted, told my new supervisor I was eager to start working with her and said good-bye. I was numb inside. I started crying. God you can do anything. So often I confess I am too prideful to ask.

So I don't know if this job is perfect for me. I pray that it is good enough for now. God help me to never forget these months, these painful months of waiting and longing. I don't know what God has planned for me in these upcoming years, but I am so grateful that he is teaching me to trust him again.

Chaos coupled with eagerness and excitement!

Josh and I moved this weekend and I'm exhausted. EXHAUSTED! I felt like I should write it down so that that next time I start feeling an itching to move, I will remember our past weekend.

It would be so nice to stay in this condo for awhile...but it seems already that this would be hard, especially if we had another person to the family. We have already filled out the space, essentially 3 bedrooms!

Things I love already:

• My shower/bathtub (yes, we have 2 large bathrooms in this place, so Josh and I each have our own) I am so excited to finish decorating this space and get my make up, lotions, and perfumes into their places. It is a lovely bathroom. For us women it is so important to have a place that you LOVE to get ready in the morning.
• Our kitchen. All of it. I even have extra space in the cabinets. And I had to stop myself from neurotically wiping every spill I made on our flat stove top while making dinner tonight. Well, I stopped and then Josh did it :-) It is so nice, one cannot help to want to keep it clean.
• Our dining room! Our dining room in our old place wasn't much and we didn't tend to eat there very often unless we had guests over. Josh and I have eaten at this table 2 of the 3 nights we have been in this place (the first night it was too surrounded/stacked with boxes to use.
• LAUNDRY MACHINES!!!! In our condo!!! I don't have to walk up or down steps and doing laundry doesn't require quarters! The first full day we were here I think I did 6 loads of laundry, mostly because I could :-)
• I cleaned our building (The Commodore Apartments, in Magnolia) for the last time today. One of our tenants told me that she thinks I deserve to be able to hire someone to clean my house now. I think she is right. I couldn't stop dreaming all day about when Josh and I will be able to do that, it may come sooner than later it I find a full-time job and we have 2 full incomes coming in. That would be wonderful.
  

I am eager to:

• explore the area more. I still have yet to find a good place to run. This is very important to me. I hope to have time to look later this week.
• get all the boxes unpacked and out of here so our home looks even more lovely and so that I can take some pictures to share with family and friends!
  
• Try Ascension Presbyterian. Josh and I decided this is where we want to try attending. Maybe this Sunday or next?
• find a full-time job. Days are so much longer when your hubby works 8-6 and you don't. I work these hours 2 days a week right now, but would really like to do something in my field full time now that I am done apt managing (officially done at the end of the week, this means I'm still taking care of needs/ phone calls/etc. but not anything extra) Please pray that I will get the job I interviewed for a week ago or that more interviews will come along and that I can start working full time again!
  
• Have friends over (after everything is in place of course). Hope to get a Housewarming party on the calender soon!
• Try out our Bungalow! This is in our condo association and has an exercise room, movie theater, and large party room. I will probably try out the exercise equipment first. This will come in handy this winter.
  

I will post pictures soon, I promise.

Happy to be wed

Oh my, I can't believe it. My Clare Bear is married.What a beautiful day it was, and what an incredible honor to stand up with her during the ceremony as she and Ben repeated their vows. I remember so distinctly the minister saying, "They will now do everything together. It will be Clare and Ben or Ben and Clare, but no longer will they make decisions on their own." What a beautiful (and sometimes frustrating) part of marriage!
I remember facing towards her and the minister performing the ceremony. She had walked down the aisle, her parents had given her away. Tears were streaming down my face and I was silently praying prayers of Thanksgiving to our Lord who had brought the two of them together. It felt so painful to "give her away" and at the same time I felt immense joy for the love and relationship she was entering into with this man. I had never seen her so in love with a man.
I was struck several times throughout the day and the days after by how much harder it is to be in a wedding after you are married yourself. I used to spend time on my hair and make up while the bride spent time on hers....not so anymore. I remember that day, just a bit over 2 years ago, and how much help I needed for the day to go smoothly and how much I appreciated those dear friends of mine who help me calm my anxious and eager heart. I was motivated by how perfect I wanted the day to be for her...and it was, perfect for her.
The joy and love I knew she was experiencing that day, I understood greater as a result of my own wedding, my experiences in my own marriage led me to hope for this love to surround her in this marriage with this man.
Though I was sad not to have my husband with me on this trip, my desire for him may have just deepened my hope for Clare's relationship with Ben. I prayed prayers of thanksgiving that day for the God that brings us together with the men whom we were destined to spend our lives with, and I continue to pray this prayer now.

headed to Iowa.

Well, I'm headed to Iowa tomorrow. Home of beautiful cornfields that extend beyond where the eye can see. Where it's too hot and too humid in the summer. Where my parents and brother live. Where I grew up.

It's going to be a fast trip, I'm going for my best friend, Clare's wedding. I've known here about as long as I've known anyone in my family....since age 3. She is like a sister to me, the sister I never had and her family cared for me like a second family, anytime they had the chance.
Clare gets married Saturday. I wonder how our lives, our stories will evolve now. Once we are both married, we'll bring our husbands into our stories. I hope that Clare, Ben, Josh and I are good friends. Seriously, I would move to Iowa to be close to Clare often....I will feel that even more after this trip I suppose.
I went digging and I found some pictures. Scattered throughout this post are pictures with Clare in them. Seriously, I wish I had the picture of us at age 3 on my computer.... we were so cute!

Seriously, I don't even plan to hold it together during this wedding, I'll probably cry; tears of happiness, excitement, sorrow. I will miss how things were Clare, just you and me.

Here's to a new season. A season with happiness, delight, and love. Clare, we're not kiddos anymore. We're both all grown up! Man, I'm going to miss Josh on this trip. I'm going to need some strong arms to hold me as I mourn this one.

Sacred memories, and a collision of sorts

Yesterday I felt as if there was a collision of sorts. A collision between traditions I have grown up with and Seattle friends.

We made crepes (to me known as Swedish pancakes). I used my grandma's recipe, and taught a couple of my friends how to do it the way she taught me, the way my dad and I do it every time I am in Iowa for Christmas. They were yummy.

I grew up making these pancakes. Thinking about it more brought me back to my grandma's kitchen in Pella, Iowa, we would make them on Christmas eve at her house. My grandparents don't live there any more and as she is nearing late stage Alzheimer's, she wouldn't be able to ever make them with me again, but I'm sure if you put some of these yummy cakes in front of her, she would smile, say something off topic and find a way to eat them. She grew up making them too I bet.

I remember making these thin, yummy pancakes on my parent's stove Christmas morning. My dad took so much pride in teaching me how. Now as he watches me make them, he stands back, both proud and a little hurt that I can self-sufficiently come up with a finished product. He often makes the batter before I am up in the morning, secretly I think just so one portion of the recipe he can call himself completely responsible for...maybe he wasn't quite ready for me to take over the tradition (as I'm sure he has memories of cooking these with his mother, my grandma as a child).

So I made the batter this time. I cooked a couple and taught my friends how to cook them too. I'm ready to take on the tradition of cooking these pancakes Dad. But next Christmas I am home, I'm going to make sure we both have our hands in it equally. I am starting to understand how the act of making these pancakes is like a memory that you yearn to play out each year. A memorial of sorts. A privilege for each of us to take part in this sacred memory.

So the collision came in as I realized that my traditions (only ever played out in Iowa) could collide with people out here in Seattle. This tradition could come together here, a completely different place, a different territory with different people. It is really hard for me to think about traditions developing (and growing) out here in Seattle, maybe because I have spent most of my life in Iowa.

It is a different landscape, different pans, a different stove, and yet the sacredness of the tradition remains. And I remain grateful for the places in my life where collisions happen, where people come together a bit different and collide, with their interests, priorities, talents. They are similar and yet different, we need these collision, God uses these collisions to make us each more whom He Created us to me. Thank God I don't live in a vacuum, and that God uses experiences, people, and places in my life to make me more whom He has always envisioned me to me.

Deepening love

Josh and I had so much fun this Thursday night at our photo shoot. It reminded us of our wedding photography, and I felt like it made up for the fact that we never got professional engagement shots done. We were so stressed out about how to pay for the wedding then, it didn't seem like a good idea.

Thinking about this however, made me wonder, if we had gotten engagement shots done and then compared them to these...how would they compare? I wonder if you could see a different depth in our love in these shots. I wonder if you would see it (if you looked closely) in our eyes....our admiration and respect for one another. It has deepened in the last 2 years. Josh and I have been married two years June 27, it was a beautiful day.....

The picture to the left is one of my favorites. I love the water and the sailboats in the distance, the delight in our eyes....We were at Magnolia Park on the Southern side of Magnolia. It's a gem of a place.

It's been a rough 2 years honestly. Josh's studying, my frustrations with my career. I think it's making our love stronger, God, I hope you don't waste this pain. I know from how you have guided me in the past...you won't and sometimes I just have to wait patiently to see how you will use it. I'm beginning to see glimpses now.

I wonder when the next time will be that we have professional photos done. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying that it is when Baby Jones #1 arrives. Nope, I'm not pregnant. But maybe, hopefully, God willing in the next 2 years. Okay, you guessed it, I cannot wait to see what the next 2 years of our marriage bring. I'm sure it will be full of new adventures, and a deepening love.

Honestly I've read stories of others deepening love in their marriage with time, but it's something that is hard to understand until you experience it. Such a beautiful love flourishing.

This post would not be complete without a shout out for our photographer, Charis. She went to Mars Hill Graduate school (as I did) and I know she is a better photographer because of it. Seriously, I think she called forth the best of Josh and I for this short session and did a little rekindling of our romance. Check out her blog in my "Blogs I read"section. Then, find a reason to hire her. It's a photography and therapy session in one. Trust me.

Life goes on....

This is a picture taken from a small graduation party we had for Josh. It's been a long two years! I am so glad he is done with his degree, and I know he is too!

He never ceases to amaze me with stories of what he did at work in any given day....I don't know how he could have learned so much in 2 short years! I think he feels the same way. We are really crossing our fingers that this job continues past the summer, but if not he is having some great experiences there.

I have been feeling a lot of feelings of futility lately in my work. I nanny two days + 1 evening/week and then I work on property management stuff off and on. My private practice is just really on a lull. I get a call from a client...they want to work with me, and then for some reason something doesn't work out, insurance, timing, etc. I am eager to start working with more clients and I wish I had the magic piece of marketing to do which would bring me instant results. I feel like no marketing brings instant results and it is so hard to motivate myself to do it due to this...AND it all costs money, not a whole lot of money but when you aren't bringing in money from your practice it sure seems like a lot of money.

I have been looking for a full time or almost full time job in the mental health field again. My last positions were at Fairfax and then most recently the Center for Counseling in Edmonds. Josh and I are becoming a little more stable now financially and if I had a full time job we could stop managing the building. This would free me up to work full time. This is really what I want to do to get licensed as a mental health counselor. I've sent out quite a few resumes and cover letters but I haven't gotten any interviews yet.

I really am grateful for this period of our lives. Josh and I have had more time together than we had had in a long time (while he was in school). Josh started school right after we got back from our honeymoon.

I think it is wearing on me to see Josh starting to do so well in his career with the reminder that I had to set aside some of my career as a therapist for him. This must be how God intended it, but sometimes I think I know a better way, you know, and I fight with God, frustrated at myself and Josh "Why didn't it just happen the way I wanted it to God?" I try far too often to convince God that my ways are best.

God has been inviting me over and over again lately to sit at His feet and trust in His timing.

Blessings.

Yes, Josh did get a job. It came practically out of no where. Josh hadn't even been looking. He didn't even know he was done with classes yet. It was a huge blessing.

Then about a week later he found out that all the emails and finagling he had been doing was not in vain. All of his classes (not just some, but ALL of the classes) he had needed to transfer from CU in Colorado to finished his Electrical Engineering degree transferred and he was done with his BSEE!!!!

It was a full week. New job. Done with school. We are both still adjusting to it in multiple ways.

I'm done being the sugar mama. Ha! It's been two years!!!

Well we're not set yet. We still are managing a large building, 33 units and we are getting increasingly more tired of it. Josh does not have a solid offer from this company yet (Williamson and Associates--where he is working as an Electrical Engineer). As soon as he gets one from them or from another company we will quit the building. I hope the offer comes soon. Please pray that Josh would have the time and energy to keep looking for another position just in case this company can't hire him after the summer.

In the meantime....I'm working at private practice. I'm going to start marketing a new group I hope to offer in the fall. I am also working on a website, a brochure....plus a curriculum for this group. I'm also keeping my eyes out for a new therapy job, I am even open to taking on a full time or near full time one. I need to acquire hours for licensure (and hope to get licensed before kiddos come!). Private practice is a hard and slow way to acquire hours. I'm slowly trying to keep studying for the NCE too.

God is good. Despite the ups and downs of life, I know he is good.

Starting something

Tonight, the last night of our 2nd year anniversary trip I decided it was high time to start a blog for us (Josh and I) and our (God-willing) growing family. For all those now wondering, it'll be at least a year until you hear about a baby Jones on the way.

Josh and I need a place we can share our thoughts, things going on for us, hopes, dreams, goals. We both are in very exciting times of our lives I would say. Not a whole lot of security and known variables, but quite a bit of passion and energy in knowing that we are both working in careers which we love.

Josh: the Electrical Engineer.

Lynn: the Therapist.

married 2 years ago at Quest Church in Seattle, WA.

I remember when I was younger and I thought that these professions (or any profession) was pretty much black and white. Nope, not at all. I don't see it that way any more. The profession of a therapist can look so many different ways; the profession of an electrical engineer really can too.

I think we're both praying right now that God would lead us down the right path. Me, as I grow my private practice, decide how to market myself, my groups, and possibly some upcoming seminars. Josh, as he finishes up a couple classes this summer and looks for a good job that uses his skills and is in the area that he wants to work in (embedded systems I think). Josh is thinking this job may lead us to Colorado or somewhere in Oregon or California. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we can stay here.

God does have a plan and we are both confident of that.