It was a weekend of babes.

Friday night, Six and Three:

Sunday night, One and a half, and Three Months:

Another revelation to continue on my previous post about what makes marriage hard: our own demons.

Because it's just amazing sometimes how we humans interpret what people are saying and doing.

Because I am one of those people who has very rigid standards and expectations.

It's constantly a practice for me to extend grace to those who don't "reach" my standards or operate as I would have them.

But mostly, because the person I have the hardest time forgiving is me.

Sometimes, on a late night train, when you're standing for 30 minutes, supporting a 50-pound bag on your back while that stranger occupies a seat with his grocery bag ... a husband uses gentle and encouraging words to inspire the wife to keep working hard and all the wife can hear is "I'm disappointed in you."

Sometimes it doesn't matter what people are actually telling me, all I can hear is "You could have done better. I'm disappointed."

And that gets very frustrating for my loved ones.

It is, in fact, a breach of communication. Sacred communication.

So I've found that sometimes it's our own demons that hijack the voices of our loved ones--our teammates--and make marriage hard.

In those cases, when Jake and I are just not understanding each other, we huff around the studio sighing "marriage is soooo hard."

And then we smile, because we've come to the truth together and we recognize we're both trying so very hard.

Lord, keep the demons at bay, so that we may clearly see and hear our love's sweetness.

No, no, no. I take it back. I cannot continue pursuing summer in 50-degree weather.

I was wearing a skirt and tee-shirt, headed down to Chinatown with a bunch of new students, when things got ugly. I'm talking windy, grey, and no trees to admire. I could feel seasonal affective disorder creeping at my door.

If this is how September is going to be, then I am busting out all of my survival tools for the winter. Now.

Come on Fall, you can pull through.

Ooooh, it's a good thing for pumpkin and candles and St. John's Wort. And that I live near plenty of therapeutic trees!

(One of my autumn dreams already came true, sleeping chilly with the windows open and a crisp down comforter.)

Nothing pairs better with kayaks than family.

I really love this picture from our family camping trip a few weeks ago.

My auntie, Jake, my momma and I had a super fun time together, just us:

Now, unfortunately, do you see those pasty sticks-for-legs I've got myself?:

They (nor any part of me) were not properly protected from the sun on this expedition--something I'm embarrassed to admit because I'm normally Mrs. SunSafety.

Two hours floating on reflective water has done this red no good!

Now, weeks later, I am peeling like an orange over here. I feel like I've shed an entire layer of skin on my arms and shoulders and I find myself hoping nobody has to sit too close to me on the train.

Oooh, summer, you honestly have been great!

I've been trying to think lately about what it is that makes marriage so difficult sometimes.

And conversely, what it is in those shimmering moments that can make you utterly and completely forget how difficult it can be.

(The caveat here being that I've only been a married woman for almost 10 months.)

We are recklessly in love. Of that, I have no doubt. We genuinely want what is best for the other. We have a Lord who extends infinite grace upon us, which makes it even more possible to have grace and forgiveness toward one another. We have a lot going for us.

But if I had to name the arch-enemy of love, it would be selfishness.

Is that perhaps because love is the most offensive opposition of selfishness?

Imagine all of the manifestations of selfishness that are possible in a human being.

Our only weapon against them, is love.