When Love Called..Part 1

I always figured that my life wavered between a soap opera, a chick lit book and close to the National Enquirer so why am I not surprised that the first title that popped into my head was, "When Love Called".

This will be a two parter since there's a few befores to explain and of course, the afters.

The before begins like this....

The wedding was held on July 2nd and although it was planned and well thought out, it was nested between moving two houses and blending them into one and a new job and moving to a new city (for me). We had two days to make all of this happen and later, I realized, that I had experienced the top five stresses in one week's time. No wonder I felt like running naked through the streets of Salem and screaming, "I must be losing my mind!"

(No, those are NOT my undies!!!!)

Jarebear Boo (formally Single Boo) and Married Boo came over 15 minutes before the ceremony was to start.

By then, I was in full panic. I couldn't find my shoes, my hair was a mess. I just wanted to be knocked out and woken up after it was all over with. My daughters saved me from myself but providing comfort, words of encouragement and reminding me to "get ahold of myself". I found another pair of shoes and they both worked on my hair and I was "fashionably late" because Married Boo said that I was supposed to be.

We drove up to the Rose Garden where the wedding was to b
e held and my Bonus Boos (Step kids) awaited in the gazebo along with the pastor with no sight of J. My heart skipped a beat or two but the kids told me that he had left the ring at the house and went back to get it. I actually felt relieved that he had left the ring because up until then, he was Mr. Composed and Calm. This let me know that he was feeling some of the same nervous excitement I was.

The major hitches were: the video camera totally locked up after a minute into the ceremony so we didn't get the ceremony on film. The next one came when the battery in the camera went dead and Married Boo and Son In Boo raced off to find a Best Buy to purchase another one.

The ceremony was filled with beautiful words spoken by the pastor of our church and also our pre-marital counselor. He was on this journey with us and it was nice to know that he would be the one who would blend our hearts together as one. During the ceremony, he shared what we both wrote: Ten Things I Love About You...to be framed as a reminder when things sometimes get tough. I loved his words that were spoken to the kids about blending families together. That has been a huge stress with the many different personalities in our new family. Lastly, we had a rose ceremony where J presented my Boos with a rose and spoke words to them and I presented his four Boos with words to the each of them.

The past totally flew in and back out of my head as I gazed into J's eyes and realized that this was the man, the only man I wanted to share the rest of my life with. We sealed our love with a kiss. "I love you," we whispered into one another's necks.

We drove home to pizza and cake and laughter from our kids. I felt tears fill my eyes many times that day. This was a joy-ney worth waiting for and the best is yet to come.

(Part two describes the joy of coming home. Stay tuned!)