The Love Story

I met Justin Zerwekh in high school through a friend of mine that he was dating. I had the hugest crush on him, but never would I admit that to my friend, let alone anyone else. (Actually, that's not true. I found a journal when I was cleaning out all the stuff from my mom's  and in it I wrote about this really bad day that I had, and how Justin rode his skateboard all the way to my house from the school just to make sure that I made it home and that I was okay. I wrote about how nice it was for him to do that and that even though he was a big dork, he was really sweet, one the most honest people I knew, good looking, a hopeless romantic (ridiculously so) and how I wished to have a guy like him. Little did I know.... Justin actually hasn't heard that story yet... Hahaha.)

Anyways, he had a crush on me too. Apparently everyone knew that (except us). Even my friend. She told me that I wasn't allowed to hang out with him because I "was the type of girl he would date." Little did she know...) Just to clarify, we never hung out alone. Just in really big groups of like twenty people or so.

So anyway anyways, my friend and I stopped being friends and Justin and I never kept in touch. He was a junior my freshman year, so didn't even see him around campus. I heard through the grapevine that they had broken up, but our lives were so different at the time... 

And then that girl I was friends with asked to be my friend on facebook like three years ago and I was like suuuuure. I browsed through her facebook and saw that Justin had one, so of course I asked to be his friend. And he of course accepted.

Shortly after my contacts in my phone got deleted and I had no one's numbers. Because let's be real. Who remembers anyone's numbers anymore? That's what our phones are for. And to be honest, Justin STILL doesn't even know my number. (That became a problem once, but that's a story for another time.) So now it's programmed in his phone and he carries a paper in his wallet with my number on it (rolls eyes).

So the only way to get the numbers back was to send out a message on facebook (you all know how that works). Well, I sent it only to my actual friends, not all the acquaintances. It was a group message that was something like Hey everyone, my contacts got deleted. Send me a text with your number or message me back here with it. Simple right? 

Shortly after I sent out that message, I got a text, Hey it's Justin, here's my number.

I'm just gonna go back in time a few days. When Justin and I became friends on facebook, I told me sister and she said, "Wouldn't it be funny if you guys started dating?" Little did she know... And then I called my friend Vanessa so we could do what people call "Facebook stalk," I call it browsing through pictures. Whatever. Flashback to a couple days before that I had just got done telling Vanessa that I wasn't happy with who I was and that I needed to work on me. No boys. Just me. For a little while. Little did the both of us know...

Flash forward to the text from Justin. Whaaaaaaaaaat?! He texted me! I was totally fishing for his number and it worked! We went on a date a couple days later. And have been together ever since.

When we went out on our first date (which was actually like four dates in one, but that's a story for later) he gave me this look. His eyes were so sweet and sincere and said I have so much love to give, even with his tough exterior and I  just knew there was something special about him. 

And I was right. So I married him. 

He still gives me that look, but now his eyes say how much he loves me. 

Swooooon.

I sure do love a good love story, but ours is my favorite.

What's your love story?! I promise to do my best to be unbiased.

Got to go! The husband is calling me for dinner! That's right ladies, he makes dinner too!

Where Has All The Time Gone?!

Going through the last of the stuff from my mom's house. Boxes of all the stuff I put in storage when I was like a senior in high school. That means I haven't seen this stuff since at least 2007. That was six years ago!! 

Anyway, it's all the stuff I thought was important or sentimental or "I'm totally going to want this when I live on my own." Okay, let's be honest. I never ended up living on my own. I lived at home and then got married and lived with my husband (obviously). So that whole idea kind of goes out the window. We both kind of got to think that that thing is cool or that we both like it for it go up. Some exceptions I'm sure, but the things in the box were not the case. And to be really honest, none of those things were the case.

I'm looking at stuff that, sure, is sentimental (I guess) because it played a part in my childhood or my grandma or grandpa gave me. But really? That ugly bunny "piggy" bank sat on my shelf when I was like three, I never played with it and it doesn't contain any money in it now. Why do I need it? Also, I pretty much always thought it was ugly.

What about all the McDonald's toy barbies that my mom insisted that I have a play set and a set for on my shelf? Two sets of cheap McDonald's toys. Maaaaaaybe they have some worth, but I really HIGHLY doubt it.

A little side tangent... My mom always did that. We would get stuff (especially from my grandpa, who passed away when I was pretty young) and she would never let me play with it! Like this tour biking Barbie I had on a shelf. My grandpa loved to ride and got me a Barbie that I could play with that rode a bike too. But I never got to play with it because my grandpa passed away and it was too special for me to now play with. Unfortunately, I just threw it away. And I did so because I never played with it. Yeah, it came from my Papa, who I love and miss so very much, but all it did was sit on a shelf. It'd be different had I played with it all the time.

Like for instance, there were two dolls in one of the boxes. One of which I played with all the time when I was a little girl, and the other served as a backup, ya know. Just in case. They both have music boxes in them that play a sweet lullaby. The one I played with is clearly used. Stitches under the arm from carrying it by its poor little arm and the music box in it doesn't work. I mostly likely wound it up too much when I was little. The other one still looks brand new and still plays it's lullaby. Someday we hope to have kids, and I would love to give my someday little girl (Rebelene, Rebel for short. Yes, we've already named our kids. Hahaha. Hudson for a boy, in case you were wondering...) the dolls I played with when I was her age. Seriously, how sweet and precious is that?? 

So my point is, I'm not going to do what my mom did. I'm not going to put that "special" toy on a shelf to never be played with, what makes it special, is playing with. Come on, hasn't anyone seen Toy Story?!

My mom also did this with my Easy Bake Oven. She said the "light burnt out and we can't get another light bulb." Lies! She just didn't want to clean it. Okay, so that wasn't really what I was talking about, and apparently I still harbor some upset feelings towards it. Though the Play-doh (my computer wants to change this to Playboy. Umm, computer... that's really inappropriate.) thing I understand about not mixing the colors... but really, now that I think about it. Just buy more Play-doh!

I started off with three really big boxes full of stuff and what I've came out with (the stuff that I'm keeping) is/are:

- A journal (because its super cute! I tore out all the pages because they were just filled with teenage angst and because it was kind of depressing. I'm definitely more thankful for where I'm at now.) If only I could tell my high school self, everything works out. You find God and love, and in fact, you marry JUSTIN ZERWEKH. Can you believe that?! Probably not right now, but it'll be a love that truly is amazing. (For those who don't know, Justin and I were actually friends in high school and I had the fattiest crush on him! Apparently he did had a crush on me too, and everyone seemed to know except us. But six years after he graduated and a facebook message later, we went on our first date and then later married. That love story is my favorite. Mostly because it's ours. I'll tell it to you guys later <3

- Those two dolls that I previously mentioned.

- A Bob's Big Boy piggy bank. Justin loves it. Hahha.

-A few glass dinner salad plates because they are cute. Somehow they ended up in my box, so I'm keeping them.

- Two very small alarm clocks because they are also cute and match our place.

- A Snow White music box which doesn't really count because I'm giving it to my sister.

And I think that's it. Not much at all really. I was actually kind of worried at first. What if I wanted to keep all the stuff in those boxes? We live in a one bedroom apartment with only a small storage area in our carport. Where was I going to put everything?! Well, all that worrying was for nothing. Thank God, seriously.

Just one last little note for you. My mom bought us all the storage boxes so we could put stuff away that we wanted to keep but didn't want in our rooms because we were too cool now or whatever. Ya know, like stuffed animals, barbies, beanie babies...etc. Well my youngest sister Kate was just a baby when my mom got them for us, so Kate didn't get a box.

Well, I went through my boxes with Kate and she was like this is so cool. But also, a lot of this stuff is stupid. She couldn't understand why I kept all that stuff in those boxes, especially because a lot was, in fact, pretty lame. Part of it is definitely the generation gap between us. I'm twenty-four and she's twelve. What I thought was cool at twelve, is definitely not what's cool anymore. But the other part is that she hasn't really been alive long enough, to accumulate that amount of stuff. So she couldn't possibly understand yet. So I gave her one of my boxes to fill up with her own stuff that she thinks is important now, so put it away and revisit years down the road. And then she can give smiles and eye rolling with head shakes to the stuff she put in there.

It's like a time capsule of sorts. And it all kind of makes sense now. Opening those boxes wasn't just a change to purge more stuff, but to see a former me. A reflection on how much I've grown up. How much better things got at a time when I didn't think things could get any better/could get better at all. Looking through those boxes was an awesome experience. Things I have completely forgotten about, that though may not mean anything to me at all now, but were at some point apart of who I was.

The craziest part, I probably won't ever have boxes like that again. I mean, obviously some small things... But now the stuff I have are for building a home with my husband and someday family. And actually, the time I get another box like that, will probably be when I pass away and my kids and grandkids get to go through it and reminisce about the life they shared with me. Whoa. So crazy. Is it weird that it kind of brings me to a place of peace when thinking about that? That I'll have lived and grown old with an amazing husband and the best kids ever (Come on, look at Jus and I, you know it to be true) and grandkids! I know all that is a long way into the future, but I feel so much love already. And then going home to my rightful place in Heaven with a God who loves me even more than the love that I feel right now.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely can wait for all that. 

Have a great weekend all!