Posts Tagged Love
Wedding joys and woes, a privilege?
Yesterday, as Andy and I were meeting with our pastor to finalize our wedding ceremony plans, the Minnesota Senate voted to pass a bill that would amend our state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
The same thing has happened in 31 other states. And in each of those 31 states, the voting public has passed the amendment.
Unreal. I can’t even process what’s happening.
At no point in my life have I ever questioned whether or not I had the right to get married. The only question was, “Who out there can possibly handle my sass, loud laugh and love for the Packers?”
Marriage vs. Career
Last night, I participated in #u30pro. I jumped in about halfway through and found myself in the midst of a conversation about relationships, commitment and work-life balance.
To my dismay, many of the participants were in agreement that marriage and being career-minded don’t go together. Several tweets included such phrases as:
“I’m focusing on my career, no time to think about marriage.”
“Planning a wedding is a full-time job.”
In fact, one participant sent a tweet that it is impossible to be career-focused and thinking about marriage/married.
Wait, what?
Do people really think this? Actually believe that you have to choose between being a motivated professional and love, marriage and family?
Well I sure as hell don’t. Maybe I’m sensitive because I’m planning my wedding, but even before I was at this stage, I believed that it was possible to have it all. Find a successful balance between professional goals and personal relationships. Serve on a nonprofit board and still make it to happy hour with your girlfriends. Have chats about climbing the corporate ladder with a significant other over dinner that you two cooked at home, together.
Am I crazy for thinking that this is possible?
You need this today…
This video has been floating around on Twitter and Facebook today, and I’ve watched it several times.
And you should watch it too, especially on days like today when Minneapolis and St. Paul have declared yet another snow emergency.
Why We’re Here: Twin Cities from Seven and Sixty Productions on Vimeo.
My Forever Roommate
And I’m behind again on Reverb10 posts. At least I did today’s post.
Prompt: December 29 – Defining Moment. Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year.
This August, my fiance and I moved in together. It represented more than just the next step in our relationship and with it came a number of changes, challenges and firsts. Most importantly, he became my forever roommate.
Ever since freshman year of college, I have had roommates. One, two and three roommates at one time.
Some of them were crazy. Some became my best friends. All came with learnings, challenges and memories. But all of those roommates were temporary – for one semester or one year. This new roommate of mine is forever. Well, hopefully.
We’re forever stuck with one another’s flaws, pet peeves, habits and annoyances. But, we’re also blessed with each other’s laughs, advice, jokes and kind gestures.
So, he may not put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher each time, but I know he’ll walk the dog in the morning when I want to get an extra 10 minutes of sleep. He may not do laundry until his basket is overflowing all over the bedroom floor, but he will always be there to clean the house before my parents come over for dinner – even though he thinks it’s unnecessary.
I guess this whole roommate thing isn’t too bad.
Sharing News in the 21st Century
Well, as many people know… I am recently (very recently) engaged. The past 24 hours have been exciting, happy, busy and overwhelming. Wisely, I waited until the next morning to start sharing the news with family and friends. This is, by far, the biggest news I have ever had to share with so many people and I wasn’t entirely prepared for the process.
Naturally, the first form of communication was a phone call to my parents and sister, followed by a picture text of the ring. Following a phone call to my grandma, I resorted to text message to share the news en masse. All of this, plus the phone calls that followed were completely expected. However, the announcement via social media was quite a task.
Congratulations tweets from Madeline Koch and Paul DeBettignies were the beginning, followed by congratulations and excitement from all of the great people I know online and in real life. The official changing of the Facebook status and obligatory photos unleashed even more.
I am so very grateful to have so many people who care about me and love me. And that isn’t the point of this post. I am truly amazed at how differently information is shared, especially huge life-changing information. The utter speed of communication and response is exciting, and alarming! I am still working to catch up, say thank you and update everyone on the news. This entire process has truly opened my eyes to communication of the future, and at the same time, how traditional communication – over the phone and in person – is still necessary, and important.
Well, I’m off to make more phone calls to family, but this is definitely a moment and a day that I never want to forget. Thank you to all of you for being my support, sounding boards, friends and mentors.
Love is All We Need
I ran across this video this afternoon and wanted to share it:
Organized by Starbucks, the video highlights our ONE global community and the power of music.
From Starbucks:
On December 7th, 2009 at 1:30pm GMT Starbucks invited musicians from all over the world to sing together at the same time to raise awareness for AIDS in Africa. In that one breathtaking moment, musicians from 156 countries played “All You Need is Love” together. Watch now, as musicians from all around the world come together and share a song.
About Me
Marketing, web and communications professional. Passionate about sports, photography, travel, friends and family. Minnesota gal, who happens to cheer for the Packers."In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary." --aaron rose