So...how's married life?

So, it's been 6 months today that I've been married to James (Happy semi-anniversary!) and since we've been married, everyone I've talked to (strangers, friends, anyone) has always asked me this question "So...how's married life?". It's the same generic question as "So...how's life?" but since that extra word 'married' is tacked onto it, I feel like there's an expectation about the answer, as if I'm supposed to answer in a way that makes people understand everything about married life. And I've always found it difficult to express what I want to say about being married. So this blog post is an attempt at answering that question.

Overall, to me, marriage has been tremendously glorious and special, and yet tremendously ordinary. I'll start with the ordinary side of things. What does married life look like? For James and I, it looks like waking up every morning to go to work (or you can say, James waking up every morning and after hearing three of my alarms tapping me on the shoulder and telling me "It's time to get up"), going to work, coming home, eating together, sharing about our days, getting things done and watching TV shows (we're on Arrested Development right now), and going to bed. Pretty normal right? On the weekends, we'll usually sleep in, go out to eat, go shopping, or visit my brother or friends.

To my surprise, living a married life and living together for the first time with James has not been as troublesome as I had imagined. Compared to other people's stories about their first year as a married couple, I feel like James and I have adjusted and transitioned to being together quite well. Sure, we have our differences and we'll get into arguments. But most of the time our differences haven't caused us too serious of conflicts. For example, I say that James's natural habitat is when he is doing business. When he is filling out forms, looking up information on the Internet, or thinking about something, he is most in his element. Whereas I am definitely most in my element when I am sleeping, lying in bed, or relaxing. This has caused some differences on Saturday morning (when James wakes up at 9:00am and patiently reads/plays games on his iPad, while I wake up 2 hours later still tired). Let's just say I'm not the type who loves to do work.

So married life in many ways is just like regular life, except now you're married. But in other ways, being married is so amazingly different and special. And this is the part that I struggle to express when someone asks me how married life is. I want to tell them that married life is the most amazing thing I have experienced and that no, I do not feel like I got married too young and blew my chances at traveling the world. I want to tell them that I have learned to be more humble and to realize how selfish I can be. I want to tell them that there is an uncomfortable, but beautiful feeling and knowledge that James and I are folding our lives into each other and becoming one. I want to tell them that I have never laughed so much and that there is a deep, deep satisfaction in my soul knowing that God has found a partner for me to share my life and everything with. But instead of quoting Song of Solomon 3:4 and saying "I have found the one whom my soul loves", I usually just say "It's going well" or give a couple details of activities we've been doing lately.

Ah. The inability for words to express my thoughts has always been a frustration to me. But I hope that if you are single, you come to understand the value of marriage, and that if you are married, you open your lives to share the beauty and struggles of marriage with others.

He Asked...And I Said Yes :)

Click here to see a beautiful slideshow (with video) of the proposal :) It’s been a week since James proposed to me :) ….and when I see the ring on my finger and the beautiful pictures...I’m still in disbelief! Wow! I’m engaged!!
Anyway, here’s the story of how James proposed :) So....I’m here in California visiting James for a total of 10 days. We had been talking about getting married for awhile....and we even started wedding planning! James had planned on proposing sooner (he said at CFW...oh my goodness so happy it didn’t happen then...) but found out he didn’t have enough money to get the ring yet. So I thought in my mind that he would probably propose when I visited him in California in July, or when he visits NJ in August (since by then he’ll get enough paychecks to pay for the ring).

So for my first weekend here in California, James planned out everything we were going to do. Friday we were going to go to San Francisco...Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square, and then a beach around sunset time. Saturday we were going to go to Napa Valley, do some wine tasting, ride some bikes. I thought typical organized James...making such detailed plans, figuring out all the restaurants we were going to go eat at. But when I saw that we were going to a beach around sunset time on Friday, I started wondering to myself...hmm maybe he might try to propose then?

So we had a wonderful day on Friday...eating seafood at Fisherman’s Wharf, touring San Francisco, walking through Chinatown, and eating a delicious dinner (I had maybe the best fish I’ve had ever at Bluestem Brasserie). During the day I was thinking about whether this was the big day...would I get engaged? But James was being super nonchalant about everything...it was a pretty special, but typical day out traveling and walking around. I was getting really tired and actually started getting a little sad....I was thinking....when is he going to do it? I even thought to myself: “if he doesn’t propose by the end of the summer, I’m going to ask him what’s going on!” (This might sound weird to you, but we had already set a date for the wedding and all that so I was starting to get a little anxious. I didn’t want to do any more wedding planning without getting engaged!). While we were eating dinner, I remember asking James if he was too tired to go to the beach (he seemed super tired), but he said “Eh, we’re already here. Might as well go.” Who knew he was just saying that nonchalantly on purpose!!

So after dinner we get on the car, and we drive to a beach called Baker Beach. The first thing I notice is wow....this place is BEAUTIFUL. The mountains are overlooking the ocean, and the sun is totally visible over the water. The Golden Gate Bridge looked so close too. I was really amazed by the scenery...I couldn’t wait to get down on the sand and feel the water. When we got to the beach, James had to go to the bathroom (as usual) and wanted to get a coat (just being prepared for the cool California nights)....at least I thought (in fact he was going to get the coat with his ring and text the people who had helped him set up the proposal!). When we got down into the beach, we started walking to the right side...but James said let’s go over there (motioning left). I thought: “There’s more people there. Oh well. Doesn’t matter to me.”

So we walk maybe like 15 feet, and I see this fancy set-up with a blanket on the sand, and LOTS of roses, some champagne or something. And I’m thinking to myself “What crazy over-spending boyfriend took his girlfriend out on a date to the beach? How elaborate!” and I actually told James “What is this?” in kind of a annoyed kind of way...I guess I was just imagining some super PDA type of couple who just need to tone down the romance a little. But when I said that to James, he smiled at me. And instantly I knew....Oh my goodness. This was all for me. I couldn’t believe it.

As we walked closer, I saw the most beautfiul set-up I had ever seen. There were at least a dozen light purple roses stuck into the sand surrounding a soft blanket, which had our initials monogrammed onto it. There were a few Christian books placed neatly on the corners of the blanket, including the Bible, which had been opened and had a beautiful bouquet of roses and some other white flowers in it. Off to the side there was a wooden bench with a bottle of pink sparkling wine and two really pretty glasses. There was also two wooden stakes with flower seed packets (empty) hanging from them, a really pretty touch.

When I saw all this....I was in disbelief. Totally blown away. All this was for me?? I couldn’t believe it. How did he set this up or find someone to set it up? We had been in San Francisco all day! I knew this could only mean one thing...James was going to propose. AHHHHH :) I started taking pictures on my camera... I wanted to capture this beautiful, romantic set-up. But James told me to put the camera down and turn around.

He started reading Proverbs 31 to me...which talks about the Wife of Noble Character. I looked up, and I saw three people...two were photographers and one was taking a video (though at the time I couldn’t tell if the video person was just a random person taking a video). This made me a little nervous and I just clung onto James and kept smiling. I don’t even remember what he read....all I remember was that Proverbs 31 didn’t sound super familiar to me.

After he finished reading, James told me to reach into a large flower pot, and open a small white box with a reddish ribbon. The big flower pot said “The Lee Family, est. July 20, 2012” (but I wouldn’t notice that until later). Inside the flower pot were rose petals, and a small white box. I thought to myself...why would James make me open the ring myself? Isn’t he going to get down on one knee? But I slowly opened the box, expecting to see the ring. Instead inside was a piece of paper...and I opened it. It read “I can’t wait to grow together in friendship, in love, in Christ, forever. Love, James”. :) It was really sweet.

Then, James told me to stand up. Ahhhh this was going to be the moment! He started getting down on one knee...and I think I was still kind of in shock...I was just smiling and really happy and excited. Then HE ASKED! “Iris, will you marry me?”. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he asked...I couldn’t tell if he was crying or just really nervous. His face was kind of flushed and his lips were trembling. It was so cute to see him that nervous/emotional...but I just wanted to put him at ease! I think I quickly said “Yes” and leaned over to give him a hug. We stayed in the hug for a little while longer, and then we got up. We were both smiling a lot.

We met the photographers/planner lady and they were all really sweet and congratulated us. They also said the ring was beautiful....and they were right! I didn’t really get a good look at it, but it was beautiful and so shiny in the sun :) For the next hour or so, we took pictures along the beach. The scenery was beautiful, and the pictures turned out amazing. It was so much fun taking pictures, and it felt really easy and natural. The whole time we were just really happy and laughing a lot, and my favorite part was when the photographer told us to just go play in the water and she would take candid shots because I got to kick a lot of water on James and make him wet without getting in trouble :)

After that, we packed up, and started calling our family and close friends, and texting everyone we wanted to find out first. Then we went on Facebook....and it was crazy. So many notifications. But we both feel truly blessed to have the love and support of so many people.

Overall, I still cannot believe all this happened. Our engagement was way, way, way beyond my imagination and it was more beautiful than anything I had imagined or dreamed of (and yes, I did dream of James proposing to me...but most of the time it was a really weird dream. Like one time he proposed to me at someone else’s wedding, and another time there was a black diamond on the ring and I made him return it). The pictures/video and the slideshow have made me cry almost every time I watch it. I cannot believe that I have the privilege and blessing to marry James Lee. It is an amazing experience, and I feel so, so blessed. There is nothing James or I have done to deserve all this, but it’s only by God’s grace that we have this amazing opportunity to spend the rest of our lives together. Some people may be surprised cause we’re young (and we are!) but I cannot wait to be with James forever :)

For James' perspective on this whole thing, read his blog post by clicking here!

simple lessons from the week

So I've been working at Kumon and the hospital a good amount (~30 hours a week) but making this post has made me realize how many things I've learned this week without even really realizing it.

Here's some things I've learned this week so far:

1. God's judgment is so necessary to understand his character and his goodness. Just a greater understanding of how serious God is about justice and why that isn't just mean (learned this through our college Sunday school and reading Amos). Sorry would expand more, but tired/can't really explain everything.

2. My ability/talent? to do nothing and not be bored (at work I mean). Also the importance of having Internet on your phone (even though I don't have a smartphone and my Internet is poopy)

3. Lots of things about cancer. That Jewish-Ashkenazis have a much higher cancer risk than the general population. That oral contraceptives are sometimes used to lower the risk of ovarian cancer. About BRCA mutations. That there is such a thing as a genetic counselor. That stuff like when you first got your period and got  menopause can affect your risk level for breast/ovarian cancer. How important it is to get your family history to know what your risk is. And much more..

4. Catered Panera is so good. Mm. Salad, sandwich, bread (if you want), GIANT cookie (so thick omg I can't believe I ate that), iced tea, yum. (got to sit in on a meeting at the hospital with 6 nurse practitioners, a genetic counselor, and me hehe)

5. The beauty of the church, what the church is, and why we should be committed to and love the church (and this means our local churches, not just the generic body of believers). Click here to download the sermon from our Tuesday night college fellowship! It's super worth it I promise you.

6. Giving away old toys (even the ones I didn't like that much) and stuffed animals and books is emotionally draining and difficult.

Some of my toys from when I was little.
So many little dolls (this is just a very small portion).
Of course I couldn't donate any of the Hello Kitty stuff. 

The coolest bracelet ever. Some little girl will be very lucky :)

Polly Pockets!!! My favoritee :) Keeping all of these

Look, the fountain lights up!! Bunny bride and groom. So cute! Keeping this.

More random toys that are mostly being donated.

7. Doing algebra is about "setting the x free". (-kid from Kumon)

8. I can survive pretty well without my usual 12 hours of sleep during the summer. Wow!

9. I should write more (and not just essays/papers!). I was cleaning my bookshelf and found some poems and short stories I wrote and they weren't too bad  :) Here's something I wrote in elementary school. Very silly :P

bound for home

So tonight is our last full day in Taiwan after three weeks here. It's been so much fun traveling around this country and learning more about Taiwan and just spending time with family. At the same time, I've felt pretty homesick, especially this last week. My parents and my brother are here, but I've missed my home and the comfort of living there and even small things like having clean bathrooms everywhere and Internet access all the time and sleeping on a bed every night.

But I think what I've really been missing is something more. I've been reading Tim Keller's Prodigal God and learning a lot about God, myself, what I believe, and what I have not fully come to believe yet. The book basically takes the parable of the lost son (Luke 15) and uses it to basically tell the gospel and point out really insightful and crazy things about God, what it means to be lost, what our hope is, etc.

One of the sections is called "Our Longing for Home" and it talks about Jesus' parable and how the younger son wanders off and begins to long for home. Tim Keller calls home "a powerful but elusive concept"...basically that we have strong memories and attachment to what we call home but at the same time we are often disappointed when our memories don't line up with reality.

The book says that "the strong feelings that surround [home] reveal some deep longing within us for a place that absolutely fits and suits us, where we can be, or perhaps find, our true selves". And that's a feeling I can really relate to. In Taiwan, I'm homesick and I long for somewhere that I really belong that I really feel comfortable in. But even in America, being in college has kind of messed up my sense of belonging. Even though I spend most of my year in Michigan and I love my school and the people there, my home in New Jersey still feels like my real home...where my house and parents are, where I grew up, where I fit in the best. And yet this year I've begun to feel more alienated from home...just living away for two years now, old friends not always around when I'm home, and of course being away from James. There's a kind of uneasy tension of really never feeling like I'm at home...there's always something that's missing wherever I am. And that is something that oftentimes makes me feel incredibly lost.

And the thing is I think that's normal. Keller talks about how we all have a sense of being like the younger brother in the parable who longs for home, that we may feel like we are exiles always traveling, but never really arriving. That our longing for home is a deep reflection of where our souls are at. Using examples from Adam and Eve's exile from the garden of Eden to the Israelites' exile from their own nation, Keller writes that "the message of the Bible is that the human race is a band of exiles trying to come home".

And the message of the gospel is this: that though our world is broken and the return home is difficult,  Jesus came down and experienced the exile that we feel...coming in weakness, removed from the Father, so that he could bring us Home. And writing this and hearing this again seems really lofty and unreal, but I really believe that there is a reason we long for a place of deep belonging. There is a reason we are unsatisfied with what we feel or have now. (How can we long for something we do not know of?) We were created for an ultimate home and we try to feel at home but we are never satisfied until we realize we are as lost as the younger son in the parable and realize the profound grace and really amazing love of God as Jesus came to bring us home.

I hope that made some sense. If not (or if it did), I really recommend you to read the book for yourself. It talks about a bunch of other stuff too and just really points to God the whole way which isn't always true of every Christian book.

Time to walk around Taipei for the last time in awhile. Thanks for reading and I can't wait to go home :)

mountain adventures.

So these past few weeks, our family has been traveling and seeing a lot of Taiwan. We started in Taipei, then went to Taichung, Puli, Kaohsiung, Kenting, Meilong, (any other places?) and now we're in Tainan. We didn't really get Internet for a few days (my grandma has no computer and the only Internet we could find was at a McDonald's we drove to one day) but here's a short post with some pictures from a mountain region we lived in for two days!

I had no idea what landmarks, scenery, different kinds of people, etc existed in Taiwan until this year. We took this cable car above the mountains and over Sun Moon Lake...so beautiful. Pretty scary (my mom closed her eyes the whole time) but an amazing experience :)

Amazing view :)

We lived in my mom's college friend's house converted into bed and breakfast which was super nice and really big. Their family grows all kinds of stuff and it's amazing to see how people live and make a living on these mountains. Here's Caleb in one of their greenhouses with some crazy cacti.

I love seeing different kinds of flowers :) I think this one is especially cute. (It's from one of the greenhouses too).

We drove a super long while to see this place but it was super amazing. An old man (who passed away) made all these little crafts in a  bottle from ages 74 to 82. I'm so amazed at this place and all the handmade things we've seen in Taiwan so far...no idea how he was able to make these things 

The same old man also made a lot of cool things out of beer cans and coke cans. Here's a giant dragon he made!

Then we went to this really cool outdoor museum/exhibit/amusement park place about nine tribes of natives in Taiwan. They had a performance and this was part of the warrior dance. So awkward lol

And then just a random other sign in the park....

There's been a lot going through my mind lately and I've been learning a lot about the gospel and about myself  and the amazingness of God's grace through reading Tim Keller's Prodigal God... but I'm kinda tired so I'll post about that stuff later. Enjoy the pictures for now! 

i like art.

So I used to draw a lot when I was little...mostly flowers and little girls and Hello Kitty and rainbows and stuff, but I loved drawing. In middle school I did Creative Arts where you didn't go to certain classes on a certain day or something (wait, really?) and just did art projects like paintings of flowers and collage magnets for an hour or so. It was something you had to make a portfolio to get into...and I remember putting together all my best works from art class in elementary school to get in....lol. I also used to design and make cards a lot with my mom...we have all this ribbon and paper and stuff and I'd love just sitting at the desk thinking and matching colors and putting things together.

We've been super blessed to get to see tons of art in Taiwan this vacation...and it reminded me of how much I love looking at and making art. And I was trying to think of why I never really do much with visual art anymore...'cause it used to be a decently big part of my life. I think it might be because art class is no longer required, so I don't really have a set time and place to paint and do crafts (which I really like). Or it might be because I'm lazy (that's probably a big one). Or that I don't have enough time. Or it might be because other things are more interesting to me now (I didn't really sing when I was younger, there wasn't all this computer stuff).

But really I think I stopped doing much with art because I don't think I'm good enough at it and so I stopped. I don't know about high school but in college you only have so much time and you can't do everything. Even though I think college provides a lot of opportunities and people say you can explore lots of things, I feel like if you aren't really (or pretty) good at something it's really hard to be a part of that thing (in general). Like you may like dancing, but there are tons of people who love dancing and there are so many ridiculously talented people...so if you can't get into a dance group it's a lot harder to do much with dancing right? I really like art, and I think I'm pretty creative with certain things...but I don't really have time for an art class and if something needed to be drawn I would never volunteer because I know I wouldn't be the best.

Not that that's all a bad thing. We want the best person for the job...but that makes me wonder how many people stop doing something just because they aren't "the best". I feel like there's a lot of lost talent if only people who excel at something get to do it. If you're kind of just average you don't really get to maximize your average-ness do you? You just kind of stop doing what you're average at if it's not really something you're being pushed to do (like schoolwork or stuff like that).

I don't know. I'm not blaming anyone or offering any solutions. Just observing. Cause seeing some beautiful pieces of art has reminded me of how much I love art and how I want to be able to enjoy it even if I'm not the most artsy fartsy person around. I used to write a lot of poetry when I was younger too...silly rhyming couplets with terrible rhythm. But I stopped doing that too cause I realized (or other people told me) my poems weren't that good...and even today I always tell people I'm an English major but bad at creative writing. Maybe I should give that another try.

Okay enough ranting. Hopefully I made some sense. Here are a few pictures of artwork in Taiwan...really awesome things we've seen and some other stuff. Enjoy :)

My aunt owns a quilt/craft shop  in Taipei called Patchwork Garden.
Here are a few quilts she made hanging on the wall in her store.
She also makes purses and tons of other stuff and sells fabric, kits, and has classes.

Me and Caleb making some pottery in Ying-ge. The clay felt super nice.

The flowerpot I made :)

At the ceramics museum in Ying-ge. So pretty!

From the same museum. Don't remember the title
but it's Chinese yoyo's and something about relationships

Another of my favorites from the ceramics museum.
This one's about visiting a beautiful place
 and bringing the memories back with you.

Giant plates and sculptures outside.
 It's hard to tell but the sculpture back there  is maybe 20 to 30 feet high?

Not just a sculpture...it's a lantern!! In a park in Taichung

Everything in this store was made from paper...
these sculptures, the lights (not the bulbs themselves),
the chairs, the tables...

Giant tower of lights made from paper.
It's taller than the store next to it!

I have a ton of other pictures of beautiful artwork but that's it for now! I hope these pictures capture how beautiful these things are :) I really like art. It's amazing what people can make. 

only in asia.

So I'm in Taipei, Taiwan right now with my family. We got here Wednesday and we'll be here for three weeks. So far it's been really fun walking around, shopping, and spending time with family and it's also been pretty tiring just being jet-lagged and also not having much time to myself to relax or pray or go online and just chill.

But anyway I figured I'd make my first post about some funny things we've seen here in Taiwan even just in the first few days here. Hope you enjoy :)

At the Taipei airport, the first thing we see after we get all our luggage. Bunny (?) with a unibrow and nosehairs....so creepy.

A brand of toothpaste. If you can't read this, it's probably better that way.

Not something you see everyday, especially in Taiwan ...

"Jesus is coming soon!"

Metro? I wish I had more pictures of the mobs of people we see everywhere. Everyone needs to calm down....you'll make it in no need to crowd. And if you don't I'm sure it'll be okay

At a government office where my parents were getting some ID...

"Breastfeeding room". 4th floor.

At a ceramics museum in Yingge...

 

 Oh some more Asian crowding outside this really famous Shanghai bun restaurant we went to.

At Grace Baptist Church (biggest church in Taipei or Taiwan?)

"plane water". Way to go Jesus!

Okay that's it for now. Sorry this isn't very thoughtful and it took me many days to make a post...but sometimes when you only get to go on the Internet an hour or two a day there are more important things to do :) Oh and these aren't really things you only see in Asia either but oh well sorry for the bad title. Still learning how to blog haha. Going to lose the Internet maybe for a week but I'll try to post more later! Byebye