For your convenience, this page is divided by the type of information in each section. Depending on what you want to know, hopefully you’ll be able to skip a bunch and zero in on exactly the stuff you want.

What This Blog Is For

My life does not look like I would have guessed. A lot of that has to do with the chronic health issues I deal with (see also: What’s Wrong with Me) – since I’m not functional approximately 1/4 of each month due to pain, I am currently unable to have a “normal job.” Housewifery is an art I am not well-trained in, so it’s been bumpy. I find myself struggling to learn to do things – like scrubbing the bathtub, and using the food processor, and doing routine chores without angering my very touchy body – and letting my classical Greek skills rust.

As I have been looking around for advice and recipes and “how do I even do this?/I am a sucky wife” laments on Ye Olde Interwebs, I have not found the “hey, me too” voice I was looking for. So I’m gonna be that voice. I have the writing bug, so I’m going to act on it. And maybe you will laugh along with me at my weird life, or come to feel that your own isn’t so weird after all, but I hope that what you find here is a lot of grace. Because I desperately need grace, and I’m not good at giving it to myself, but I’m having to learn. Writing helps me apply learning to my heart. So here we are.

What’s Wrong with Me

Endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and chronic pelvic pain are the heavy hitters. I also live with depression and, on a smaller scale, anxiety.

(The Calvinist in me wants to add that the whole Total Depravity thing is also wrong with me, although the Holy Spirit is working on it.)

Crazy Love Story

My husband and I met on okCupid. Everything moved very fast, especially after we met in person. Basically, this is how it went: we start talking online in August, meet in person in September, decide to get married the next spring the week of Thanksgiving, travel with my parents to Italy and France for two weeks at Christmas, get officially engaged in early January, and get married on Super-Pi Day: 3.14.15. That means we celebrated the anniversary of our first date at the same time as our six-month wedding anniversary, seeing as they’re within a few days of each other.

He is an electrical engineer with a passion for helping people make good music. He is an artist. He loves doing things – working with his hands, snowboarding, He is good with words, but he is quite oblivious to that fact. He’s a proud Aggie but doesn’t really like sports (unless he’s there and it’s an experience).

I’m big on enjoying the journey as well as the destination; he’s unlikely to stop and smell the roses because he has places to be. I can tend to stuff my less-fun emotions without realizing it in the name of making things fun; he actually lets himself feel his feelings – and challenges me to do the same. I love country music and think he’s cute when he listens to Panterra; he hates country music and loses his mind when I play him Slugs and Bugs songs. I am very attentive to theology; he cues into vibe and culture. I love superhero movies and tv shows; he fell asleep on the couch when we watched Avengers: Age of Ultron to celebrate my birthday. I am really hard on myself; he is shockingly gracious with me.

He is so many things that I am not, and so good to me. I am very loved woman.

What Are Our Dietary Restrictions? 

Lauren: I am allergic to turmeric, blueberries, and cantaloupe. I can’t tolerate chicken or chicken eggs more often than every 2 days. We’re aiming for a low-carb anti-inflammatory diet, but still figuring out exactly what that’s going to look like for us.

He: abhors celery, fruit with meat, olives, and vinegar. He gets a craving for pizza once a week. He is allergic to cats, but that doesn’t affect our diet much.

Brief Timeline of My Life

Born in 1984 in Dallas, TX to parents who had moved from the north east a few years before. Obtain siblings (unlock: playmates) in 1987 – a sister – and 1992 – a brother. Attend Dallas classical Christian schools from kindergarten through high school. Major in English (and nearly-minor in Classics and History) at Wake Forest University. Get a masters in biblical studies at Reformed Theological Seminary – Charlotte. Work for two years as a campus intern with Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), the campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), at Rice University in Houston. Move back to Dallas to become the Director of College Placement/Registrar at high school alma mater in 2011, a role which unexpectedly ends in the summer of 2012 due to illness. Become terribly ill (see above, What Is Wrong with Me?) and spend a year doing pretty much nothing but being sick and trying to get well. Get a retired racing greyhound to help with recovery from surgery. Start an educational consulting business in the summer of 2013, predominantly to help kids get into college (have also advised families applying to high schools, tutored, homeschooled, and coached writing). Meet future husband at the end of summer 2014 and marry him within 7.5 months (see also: Crazy Love Story). Move back to Houston to live with new hubby and greyhound in March 2015. Start trying to figure out how to be a housewife, and a wife, and move my business to Houston, and live in an apartment with a man (!) and an 80 lb. dog.