3 Years

{October 6, 2012}

It might not seem believable, but today marks the longest time Ethan and I have ever been committed and dedicated to a relationship with each other. You would think that knowing each other our entire lives and the countless times we’ve given our love a chance, we’d have made it to 3 years, but nope. This is it. And for some reason to me it means this is forever.

       No, it’s not our wedding date. It’s not even that 3 years ago was such a momentous beginning to our relationship that it should be celebrated annually. It’s because we were unstable in all our other attempts to love each other before now. We never once allowed God to be a pillar in our relationship because it wasn’t serious and it wasn’t a priority.

       Now it’s different. Now as my soulmate, I am concerned about who he’s given his soul to before I came along. And I can say that it’s the same one who crafted and holds my heart in the palm of His hand.  And I see Ethan now as a gift from our Creator to have and to hold and to complete me. Now, we have this commitment to love each other and even without a marriage license or a different last name, I’ll say that I’m committed in front of God to love Ethan for the rest of my life, and these 3 years have helped to teach me that.   

What I'm thinking on our 3 year anniversary with a series of 3 word phrases:

I can’t wait –  For all the tomorrows until our wedding, for forever with Ethan, for the good days and the bad days, for every bit of it.

I’m so blessed – When I hear the song “Lucky” by Jason Mraz, it reminds me of us but I know I’m more than lucky to ‘have been where I have been.’ I’m BLESSED by the One who set this into action.

We’ve grown up- SO much has changed since that night sitting on a washing machine in a dorm building trying to decide if the risk of a relationship was worth taking, and every bit of that change has been for the better.

I don’t remember  - I used to be able to tell you the best dates, or the best kisses, or the best phrases,  or best text messages, and tell you what I was wearing, who was with us, and the complete series of events. Now, those things happen so often that it’s a blur of ‘bests,’ so now, I just don’t remember!

   Proud of us –  I never knew what it really felt like to be proud of someone else until the past 3 years. Getting through college and other aspects of life has been a big accomplishment, and I’m proud of both of us for getting to where we are. So many big things about to happen in our lives!

The majority of this entry I wrote back in March because I had it on my mind what I would say when we hit the 3 year mark.  I feel all of these things even more so now, and had to add on a few more.  We’re happy to be celebrating our last dating anniversary, and are looking forward to many more June anniversaries to come! 

  " Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle."
- Amy Bloom

 I can't wait until a lifetime!

Elaine 

Weekend Close Out!!!

This past weekend was quite the weekend, I felt like I was constantly moving and never really had time to rest and enjoy the weekend.

On Friday I signed the lease to my new apartment which will be the last place I will live before I am MARRIED!!! Elaine took off early and helped me move some small things into my new place, which I am sharing with two other guys that I have never met before in my entire life. For those of you who don't know me, I haven't had great experiences with living with people I don't know so this is a big step for me. I've lived in the place for 3 days and I've moved furniture approximately 4 times.

I've been participating in a 6 week boot camp at Anytime Fitness that completely exhausts me every time I go. Before school started I was going 8 times a week and burning approximately 1000 calories each work, the work outs are only one hour long. On Saturday they hosted the boot camp challenge, this was an opportunity for us to join a team and compete with other teams on various challenges. I am very proud of my team of four, we won two of the four events one of which consisted of flipping a 190 pound tire approximately 50 yards. GO TEAM!!!!

Following boot camp I had to rush home and get ready for my final choir audition at UofL. I get really nervous for all my auditions and typically it shows really bad in the audition. This audition was just like all the others, so nervous I rush the music and can't remember the words. Needless to say I am happy it's over with.

In order to calm my nerves Elaine treated me to ice cream at Berry Twist, only the greatest ice cream place in Floyd Knobs. While it was really good all I could think about was how long I would have to run in order to work off the deliciousness.... the run still hasn't happened.

I look forward to the third Sunday of August every year... THE SCHMIDT FAMILY REUNION AND VOLLEYBALL TOURNEY!! Each year at the reunion Team Corny and Team Francis battle it out on the court. This year we recruited one of our other cousins which made the team name change to Team CORNVINCE. Vincent was one of my grandpas other brothers. I don't think our team has won EVER but at least we have a really good time. This year team Cornvince decided to intimidate team Francis by sending out my my mom, and a couple of my aunts, I don't think the other team expected them to step out onto the court and actually want to play. We were pleasantly surprised at how good they were. Prior to walking on to the court my aunt looked at us and said, "if it has anything to do with a ball I'm out". That makes you feel really good!! To tell you how committed they were they were talking smack and my mom even dove for a ball.. thats commitment. I have a video that I will post shortly.

I wrapped up the weekend by hosting a cookout at UofL for all of the new freshman music therapy students. I have to thank all of the officers that helped and all of the students that came out and socialized.

WHAT A WEEKEND!!!

Wrapping up the summer....

I've been thinking really hard about writing another blog and every time I sit down to write I get distracted or I can't think of what to write about. I promise this time I will get through an entire post before leaving my computer, Elaine will appreciate this because every time I start a blog it show up on our dashboard and she constantly bugs me to finish so she can read the whole thing.

I must say it has been one busy and long summer for both Elaine and I. Elaine is less than two days away from starting her student teaching and I am less than a week away from starting my senior year at UofL. I remember sophomore years staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking to Elaine about how it seems like forever until graduation and real jobs. Now were both wondering where all that time has gone and we're asking the big question, what next? What we do know for sure is that we are getting married on June 22, 2013 and we will be gone the following week for a honey moon but after that we have no idea what we are doing, besides being MARRIED!! It's exactly 313 days away.

This semester I will be doing music therapy clinical work at Norton Audubon Hospital in Louisville. I have been waiting for this clinical every since I started at UofL only because I have always thought I wanted to do medical music therapy. A normal clinical placement at UofL lasts one semester but this clinical will last the entire year which will run me up until I start my internship. I am hoping that after this year I will have a better understanding of what populations I want to serve.

Elaine will be starting her student teaching at Cedar Hall Community School in Evansville, teaching a class full of 30 fifth graders. Sometime I think I am more excited than her about her student teaching. Today she had to explain to me that it was more of a nervous excited feeling. I have to admit I would probably be really nervous myself if I was going to be standing up in front of a class full of 30 fifth graders. As much as she likes to doubt herself I know for a FACT that she is going to be a great teacher and she is going to have some very lucky students. For more detail about her student teaching check out her blog "Teaching to learn and learning to teach".

While Elaine and I were both very busy this summer we made the time to spend some time with each other and with our AWESOME friends. As many people know I have been slowly starting a photography business and this summer Elaine was the greatest help a photographer could ask for, I like to tell her that she is my mean assistant that constantly tells people to sit up straight and to smile. We have taken senior pictures, family pictures, maternity pictures, and this coming weekend we will be shooting our first wedding.

Last week we did maternity pictures for my cousin Nick and his wife Kaitlyn. Growing up Nick was like the brother I never had and many can testify that when the two of us were together someone was bound to get hurt and that someone wasn't either of us. In May he married the love of his life and now in less than a month we will be welcoming Ms. Norah Jane Cherry into the family. I am more than excited for both of them and I know that they are going to be great parents.

Now that I jumped all around and rambled I would like to close with a thought that I learned this past weekend while attending church at Greenville Christian with Elaine. I am constantly questioning the journey that God has planned for me and I spend a lot of time trying to take detours and living a life that I hope to live and not a life that God has planned for me to live. I tend to allow others to pull me down and more importantly I allow myself to pull me down. This week I pray that I will start the journey that God has planned for me and pray that I will take the time to listen and trust the God that loves me more that I can imagine.

"MY CHAINS ARE GONE AND GOD WILL SET ME FREE"

Gaining Much-Needed Confidence

Remember that time we said when we posted the proposal story blog we could finally write again?
Obviously....That was fake.

It must be some sort of annual thing for January- March to be the craziest time in our lives, because I recall writing a teary-eyed blog about our busy lives a year ago and history seemed to repeat itself this year. In other news- even with only one semester left of school and Ethan with two, Ethan and I have both had plenty of days when we question our career choices. Ethan hasn't felt a lot of encouragement from the Midwest in music therapy as a full time career and I have days when I feel that I only chose teaching as a default because I don't know how to do anything else. Trust me, when you get this close to graduation, even with these doubts you start to feel like you'll settle just to get through and you can change your mind later.

   Last month, Ethan started a clinical at Kosair hospital working with music therapy in the NICU. A few months ago he was in Georgia getting certified to work with these tiny babies and he'd had quite a while to be uneasy about the kinds of things he'd be dealing with. In my elementary teacher mind, I was just excited he'd be with babies. I couldn't wait to talk to him after his first session to see how it went.  
    He was overflowing with excitement about the opportunities to learn more and to just take in the awesome miracle that these babies are. Going into it, the music therapy students were unsure about how the hospital staff would react to their work. To their surprise, they received the utmost respect from the NICU staff and are welcomed when they return each week. I'm so proud when the rest of the world realizes that music therapy is real and can truly help people. I'm even more excited that Ethan can find confidence in what he loves to do. It inspires him to think about how far he can go as a Music Therapist and that means how far we can go since we're in this for the long haul. (and those future plans are a whole other blogpost altogether) Really excited for Ethan's future career!
     As for my future career, I know it's teaching. Surprise! But really, if you know an elementary teacher very well you will know that they are constantly doubting themselves and hoping that the kids will get something out of what they're trying to teach. They're praying the test scores will be good, not only so that the nightmare of merit-based pay grants them a paycheck, but so that the students can go on with their lives being children and not worrying about standardized tests and marks that are heavy and dark.
       After a recent job, I've decided, I want to be a teacher to have a chance to see the sunshine of a nice day when the kids go out to recess. I want to be a teacher so that I can see my family on the weekends, even if it's from behind a pile of papers to grade. I want to be a teacher to hear the silly ways kids explain life. And finally I want to be a teacher so that I can be who God has obviously created me to be. I've heard it said that no matter where you are, you're going to be doing what God made you to do. Kind of like, even in a retail setting, you're going to be prone to explain things to people in a way they'd understand, refer to a book for answers when you're unsure, and sometimes you're fixing problems people come in with, not what you're assigned to do- that is, if you're called to be a teacher.

"Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." Hebrews 10:35-36