only help my unbelief


Pictures in which we are engaged
December 30, 2008, 8:00 am
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Chelsey’s life: A mid-December rundown
December 17, 2008, 8:00 am
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Most of my daily conversations are not exactly as enthralling as I would like. For example, I wish someone would ask me something like, “What are your hopes and dreams? Please answer using as many metaphors as possible.” Imagine something like the scene from Never Been Kissed, when Drew Barrymore is in the cafeteria with the popular girls. Except I’m Drew Barrymore, not the popular girls. I have, truthfully, never been one of the popular girls, but thankfully, middle school is long gone.

But if you’re reading my blog and you don’t know me in person, you don’t have the joy of asking me the more mundane questions, so I thought I’d answer some of the most recent questions I’ve been asked.

When/where are you getting married?
The Big Day is April 18, 2009. We’re getting married at our church. The Big Day, incidentally, is six weeks after one of my best friends is getting married and two weeks after my college roommate of three years is getting married.

What are you going to do after you get married?
Probably most of the same things I’ve been doing before I got married. I suppose the biggest difference will be Living In The Same Domicile As Christian. Other than that, I’ll be working, cleaning, cooking, and praying for my very own chubby babies. Christian will still be working at his job, and things should stay that way until we pay off all of Christian’s student loans. Once that’s done, we hope to be headed to seminary, where, as of this writing, Christian will study Hebrew and Greek in preparation for Bible translation, and I will hopefully be raising aforementioned chubby babies (who may, at that point, no longer be babies).

How’s your job going?
It’s going, and I still have it, so I’m thankful. I may only have it until the end of December, and if that’s the case, I will probably babysit and nanny until I find something else. Once we’re married, we will be able to live (very, very frugally) on Christian’s income, but I don’t have a whole lot else to do, so I’m hoping to at least work part-time.

What are you doing for Christmas?
My family is doing something new – we’re eschewing spending the holidays with our extended family and sequestering ourselves in a cabin in North Carolina. Christian is coming with us, and it looks like Christian’s family may meet us there for a day to be introduced to my parents. I’ll be sure to let you know how the 2008 Initial Parental Contact goes.

What are you doing tonight?
OK, so no one asked me that, at least not today. But I asked myself that so I could tell you that Christian and I are driving to Charlotte after work to see Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God show, and I. am. beyond. excited. This will be the third year we’ve gone together (for those who are counting, that’s every Christmas we’ve been dating).

Any other burning questions? E-mail me (chelseykarns [at] gmail [dot] com) or leave a comment. Especially if they’re of the Drew Barrymore variety.



My “friend” and I like each other a lot
December 10, 2008, 4:06 pm
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It was one of those days when I didn’t exactly need, but really really wanted, Taco Bell for lunch.

There’s just something about Mountain Dew and three soft tacos with two packets of hot sauce each that makes my stomach grumble.

And so I drove the short bit down the road to my favorite Taco Bell location, ordered the usual, and settled down with The Christian Wedding Planner by Ruth Muzzy and R. Kent Hughes, printed in 1984. A friend of my mom’s let me borrow it.

I thought, since so many of my friends are engaged, that I would share the most helpful tip I’ve found so far, to be done immediately after the engagement:

If you like, your mother can invite people over to meet your “friend,” and then your father can reveal the “inside facts.”

I’m not sure what the “inside facts” are considered to be, but my dad isn’t really the kind of person to reveal them.

In another book that was lent to me, I’m excited to read the “Top Ten Ways to Plan Your Wedding Using the World Wide Web.” Sounds cutting edge!