Our first year has been filled with work and school and “fun” adventures like moving and fighting mold (and our fair share of skirmishes, I’ll be honest), but all in all the vast majority of the problems we’ve dealt with this year have come from outside our relationship and not from within it—for which I am very thankful. I would marry him over again in a heartbeat.

Last weekend, we used our camping supplies (many of which were wedding gifts) to camp out on property belonging to some very gracious friends of ours. So on the morning of our anniversary, we were in the forest once again:

Here are our silly camping faces:

Campfire coffee with raw milk (YUM):

A campfire cutie:

We came home Saturday and spent the weekend watching movies and eating the rest of our S’more fixings. Oh, and ordering a Dehumidifier, which is currently sitting in our house doing its duty. (It filled its full 30 pints on our first day using it! Yikes. But it makes me glad we have it.)

And, finally… no, I didn’t quite finish my thank-you notes on time. I am deciding to forgive myself for this. I hope, if you are one of the (gulp) many who will hopefully be receiving your thank-you notes in the next week or two, that you will forgive me too.

I have been blessed with a number of amazing friends—friends with whom I feel confident that I share a view of what is most important in this world, with whom I can trust everything from my silliest whims to my most serious fears—and I treasure each and every one of them because each of them has witnessed an important part of my growth as a person, and each of them has left their own unique, indelible stamp on my psyche. I honestly can’t imagine my life without any one of these girls. And Molly is one of them.

Molly and I entered each others’ lives at a Gutenberg “Freshman Tea” one Sunday afternoon now almost five years ago. I’d like to tell you that we had a magical “friends at first sight” connection and that our relationship was smooth sailing from there until she was my Maid of Honor, but the truth is more like this: I latched on to her right from the beginning of our Gutenberg career—latched really being the appropriate word. Molly was the first of my friends to give me a real lesson on boundaries in a friendship; namely, her boundaries, and how I was blatantly unaware of them. Not a very pretty picture, is it? But it’s the truth, and the sometimes-ugly truth of our stories is often also where the beauty lies—because, though it so easily could have been, that confrontation was not the end of our friendship. We both adjusted, and grew, and we came back together as slightly stronger friends.

Also of particular significance to our relationship was the year that we decided to be roommates—our junior year of Gutenberg. We approached the idea with appropriate caution, I think, given our history; but I, at least, couldn’t help feeling a bit giddy about how cute we were going to make our room, how wonderful life was going to be, etc. (This is the way it goes when I approach a new living situation: the ways in which I believe it will improve my life know no bounds.) But reality, as it always does, interceded. We did, in fact, have a great time decorating our room. (It was amazing, if I do say so myself. I’ll have to post pictures of it sometime.) But it didn’t take too long for us to realize, individually, that we were stressed up to our eyeballs by the other person; by our communication, by our lack of communication, by our assumptions, by our fears and worries and annoyances. We got to the point where, in a lot of ways, it would have been easiest to give up on our relationship—to remain cordial roommates but not really friends.

But that is not what we did. Somehow, miraculously, we both resolved in ourselves that we were going to make this thing work, and we opened up. We took emotional risks and resolved things that desperately needed to be resolved. We dug deep enough to build real trust between the two of us—something which I don’t think had ever really been present before.

I thought about all this as Gil drove us home down I-5 last night and the sunset-lit fields flashed by my window. And I thought about how now, on this visit, even though we hadn’t seen each other for almost a year, being with Molly was as easy as breathing—how she and I have both grown and deepened and settled into our own skins, and how that has only made our friendship richer. I also thought about how having a friend like Molly is pretty much one of greatest blessings you could ask for in this life and how our friendship never would have come about without a lot of hard work.

Hard work is not something any of us tend to seek out, especially in our relationships. We would much rather take the easy way out—not admit that we were wrong, not apologize for hurting the other person, not open up about our fears and concerns. So I am thankful for reminders, like my friendship with Molly, that if, by the grace of God, you can make the choice to work hard, there are great rewards to be reaped.

Today (now that it is past midnight) is my Aunt Annette’s birthday. I share with my aunt (among other things) a passion for creating, a love of dabbling in new disciplines, and an endless pursuit of excellent skincare. She has been a big and positive influence in my life, and I hope she knows it. In her honor, because she is a dog person, I share with you and her the above photos of an adorable doggie whom I recently captured surveying the backyard at a bridal shower.

Dear Aunt Annette: a card is on its way to you but will be belated by the time it reaches you. So let me, here and now, wish you a very Happy Birthday indeed!

Love,
- Your Niece

You might recognize them. They flew in over your borders early Monday morning; I thought I should let you know that they’re going to be with you for a while.

That one on the right is my brother. He graduated from Gutenberg several years ago, and so did his wife; that’s her on the left. He always wanted to go to grad school, but he had a few things to do in the meantime. Now, though, he’s going for a PhD in Philosophy and an MA in Classics—which should set him up perfectly to come back and teach at Gutenberg. Which is great. The only catch is, he had to go to… well, to you to do it. And you are just a little farther away from Oregon than any five-year program which my brother is attending should be.

So take a good long look at them, because I have a very important job for you. I need you to take care of these two. I want you to make sure that they are fed, clothed, educated, encouraged—make them at home, but not too at home; comfortable, but not too comfortable. (After all, we do want them to make their way back over here at some point.) Make sure that Brian does well in school and that Melanie finds a job she likes—and make sure that they both can feel the motherly, fatherly, and sisterly love emanating from this little house on the other side of the country.

Oh, and, Boston? You just received a couple of first class folks. I hope you know that.

Sincerely,

Erin

I think I may have just died and gone to heaven.

(P.S. Just kidding. Not about wanting them… but about the whole “buy these for me!” thing. Just so you know.)

In other words: perfect time for a blog post!

Haha. Do not worry. I am not COMPLETELY insane—therefore this will be only a very short post. I just thought I should give you something lovely to look at on your Sunday evening. And these shoes fit the bill quite nicely:

Mmmmmmmm, delicious. Yep, that’s what I thought, too, when I found them perched on a spinning rack at a local thrift store over spring break.

And what’s more…

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have teeny-tiny feet. It is very rare that I actually find any shoes in my size. So when I leaned in for a closer look and saw “5 1/2″ printed on the footbed of these scrumptious little numbers, my heart went pitter-pat.

And then I found out they were only ten dollars, and, well… that is when I melted into a puddle of shopping success.

… And they lived happily ever after, except for the permanent damage that Erin is probably doing to her legs and back by wearing high heels around all the time.

The end.

Is it because I got a few new articles of clothing with my Christmas money?

Is it because I shot a wedding all by my self (successfully, I might add!)?

Is it because there lies ahead of me a crisp, brand new, fresh year?

Is it because all my friendlings are returning for school?

Well, the answer is… yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But this is why I’m REALLY excited:

That’s right… my very own pocket-size Weekly Moleskine 2007 Calendar.

I’ve had it since the beginning of November. But now I can start using it.

*SWOON *

Let me take a moment to tell you what a remarkable woman my mother is. She and I have had our fair share of scuffles, especially in the last few years, mostly because we are so darned alike. And, as a result, I rarely give her the respect that it is both my duty to give her and that she deserves. But the fact is, my mother is one of the most admirable people I have ever met.

Her life, like every person’s who is willing to admit it, is not neat. She makes mistakes. She makes choices she knows she doesn’t want to make when she makes them. But Mom has always modelled humility, honesty, and graciousness of character for my brother and I in her everyday interactions with other people. She is always thinking of other people before herself—a fact that, to my great shame, I often do not recognize as she provides for me. She also has real wisdom born of experience, and has shared it with me to my great benefit on many occasions. (Not to mention the fact that she is insanely organized and has done a fantastic job of making sure our household runs smoothly for decades.)

I do not think my mother is a perfect person. And sometimes, all that my blind eyes can see are her faults, perhaps because I know so many of them are also my own and I am afraid to own them. But when God opens my eyes, I see that she is a true woman of Character and Virtue, who has been faithfully doing her best to serve God and her family through the years.

I talk a lot about what a big deal this period of transition to adulthood, of starting college, of moving on and growing up has been for me. But it has been just as big a deal to Mom. She has watched me grow and struggle and learn. She has watched me prove what a selfish sinner I am time and again. She has watched me succeed and fail and encouraged me to look at what things are really important in life. Heck, she even faithfully reads my blog (and all your comments, FYI ).

And I know that she is proud of me, but I can also see that as she watches me prepare to leave the nest, her heart aches with that bittersweet mother-ache that I suppose I can’t yet fully understand.

I don’t know if I can possibly make that ache better, but I hope that letting her know how much I appreciate her will help. Thank you, Mom, for being a role model, a teacher, a comfort, and a friend. Thank you for sharing wisdom and caring and endless patience. Thank you for supporting my crazy ideas and interests, and for always being there for me. Please forgive me for the disrespect I have showed you and the pain I have caused you. I really do not think I could have had a mother better-suited to me. God knew what He was doing. I love you. Happy birthday.

Between then and now, it has…

… had its first snow…

… had its hood stolen (!) and then replaced…

… had its stereo’s faceplate stolen and not replaced (sigh)…

… and taken me on multiple road trips, carried me to and from work and school, and contributed a great deal to my growing feeling of independence.

For our anniversary, I gave it an old, half-broken tape deck/radio combo that Elijah took out of his car when he got a new CD player. It appreciates not driving in silence all the time anymore.

Thank you, car, for being the (fairly) reliable companion that you have been. Please don’t get stolen again.

(P.S. I still haven’t washed it. As in, not once since I got it a year ago. The Oregon rain kept it clean in the winter, I swear!)