Care Package

Two weeks ago I sent my first care package to Matt... he should be getting it soon! Yes, that is a bottle of Cholula. I hope it makes it one piece.

I am going to try and send chocolate chip cookies to him tomorrow and see how they do... I have been testing out some new recipes and I think I found the perfect one.

Homemade cards... the one furthest to the left is the wine label from a lovely bottle of wine that Frank the jeweler from Aspen gave us.

The second one is a map Matt drew me when I first stayed in Tacoma instructing me on how to get to the water.

The third is just a cute card....



One of my homemade envelopes these were fun to make.



Ahh cookie dough! The best part of making chocolate chip cookies! The only problem is that I eat too much of it and then can't have any of the baked cookies because my stomach hurts.

Parent's new home

My parent's new house... view from the back deck... so pretty

Deogie Bear

Since I moved from CB and am waiting for Matt to come home I am living in my parent's basement ( no joke) and have quite a few spider friends. Since I don't like killing any living things, I am participating in the spider relocation program. I let this guy out only to have him crawl back into the house. Geez...

DeogieBear

Anyone that knows me, knows how much I LOVE my dog. I don't even think of him as a dog to be honest. I think of him as a small, black, furry, LIFE FORCE. He is so sweet. He follows me everywhere I go but not in an annoying way. More like, I move some where, look down and there he is kind of way. He is my best animal friend.

Once Matt gets back and we have a yard we will get some chickens to keep Deo company. I hope they all cuddle together. That or he might eat them... we shall see.

Prayer

I wrote this in one of my journals before going to bed the other night.

Funny thing is, I woke up to an email from Matt the next morning saying he could feel people's prayers working (without him knowing I could feel them too).

Fasting

While Matt is at war, I am doing the Orthodox fast in his honor, but also because I tend to turn to food to comfort me.

Something that rang true for me in a recent conversation with Matt is that he told me we should not be slaves to our bodies, our bodies should be slaves to us.

In doing something like a fast, it is not only an important way to focus on prayer for Matthew but also to remind myself that my soul has power over my physical body.

Here are the fasting rules.

The hardest part for me will be my salmon and feta salads with olive oil that I have for lunch. OH, and not having wine. :)

Orthodox Christians are to keep a strict fast every Wednesday and Friday.

The following foods are avoided:

Meat, including poultry, and any meat products such as lard and meat broth.

Fish (meaning fish with backbones; shellfish are permitted).

Eggs and dairy products (milk, butter, cheese, etc.)

Olive oil.

Wine and other alcoholic drink.

So if I get hungry or crave something that I can't have, I am going to pray for Matthew. I have a feeling I will be praying a lot!

Honored

I am so honored to have been given a necklace ( originally worn as a pin) that has been passed down for three generations. Matthew's grandmother wore it when his grandfather went to war, Becca wore it for Matt's last two deployments and now I get to wear it for his last deployment. Every time I feel it on my neck ( I wear it every day) I am reminded of him and all of the men and women out there who are fighting for our great country.

Diamonds

Diamonds are most certainly not a girl's best friend but they do put you in a fabulous mood!

I found Frank our jeweler( by Googling him) from Aspen! This was obviously taken in the '80s ( notice the horrible sweater) but what a great guy. And we are so lucky to have found him!

Here is a picture of my ring. My camera is old so sorry it is kind of blurry. It is an antique. He sold estate jewelry and this ring was the cut I wanted ( cushion), hand engraved platinum, and it fit my tiny finger ( 4.25). How amazing is that?

So Let's Do It

This shows you what a take charge kind of guy, Matt is... love it! :

My hero

Matthew is so brave. To say, I am proud of him would be an understatement. He signed up for the Air Force to fly F-15s after 911 because he felt it was the noble and right thing to do. Now, on his final and not to mention most dangerous and longest deployment, he is being put in some very hard conditions.

The war was never something that had an impact on me. I do remember one time, while on the train in DIA, a young solider was returning from war and everyone on the train started clapping ( I cried). But aside from that it never really entered my mind.

Now, he is over there and I have so much respect for him. I think respect is probably one of the most important attributes to have for your spouse. So much goes hand in hand with it.

A lot has changed

My last blog from my cooking site was posted on March 10th. Little did I know my recipe for Grilled Tuna Steak Baja ( along with many other things) would bring me to the place that I am right now... which in case you are wondering is ecstatically married to a husband currently deployed in Afghanistan.

My Grammy Cortesi used to say "mushrooms grow over night". I never believed that in the proverbial sense. There were many other sayings that I did not believe in until a few months ago. "Love at first sight" ( how can anyone just BAM! know they love a person? LOVE takes time! ) "When you know, you know " ( How can you ever really know? You have to dissect your pros and cons and come up with the most sensible solution and then there will still be doubt).

Ever the cynic, the irony that I experienced all of these cliches to the fullest magnitude is not lost on me.

If I look at time and place when this all began, I would have to say with my Grammy who prayed for me to have a husband in my life who would love, honor, cherish and take care of me. I know this was her dying wish and I also feel that she played a very important role in bringing Matthew and I together in heaven.

Long story short, Matthew and I, re-connected after 20 years of not seeing each other. He had always had a childhood crush on me as our families spent a few holidays and vacations together.

In May, Matthew called his mom to chat and when she told him that my father was visiting and he heard my name, he felt God say " that's her!".

The rest that follows is detailed more in my post that is from our engagement email. Basically, he wasted NO time, contacted me, flew me to Tacoma ( where I instantly knew he was the ONE). Two weeks later we were engaged, 10 days after that we were married, and now he is serving his country in Afghanistan.

Our Engagment Story

Hello my dear family and friends!

As all of you know by now, on Friday July 9th, Matt Chapman asked me to marry him and I said, " Of course!". The events that lead up to this day are nothing short of a miracle.

On June 1st, I got a unique phone call from my dad. He called to tell me he just had gotten back from visiting his friends Geoff and Becca Chapman in Pittsburgh. Geoff and Becca's son, Matt, who is in the Air Force and was going to be coming to CO before he deployed to Afghanistan at the end of July. My dad asked if it was okay if he gave Matt, my phone number and email address, so that he could perhaps meet up with me for lunch on his way thru the state. While I found it a bit bizarre that he would be passing thru Crested Butte (which is in the middle of nowhere) I told my dad Matt could have my information. I hung up with my dad and called my friend, Lori, and said," I think my dad just found my husband....".

After some brief email correspondence, Matt asked me to come to Tacoma to see him. On June 18th, I hopped a plane from Denver to Seattle. I really didn't know what to expect but I knew if I didn't go meet him ( as it had been over 20 years since I last saw him) that I would regret it.

On a side note, I had been dating someone who was not good for me and he dumped me via text on Thursday night, then right after that text, Matt emailed me asking me to visit him.

This is from my journal before I left to go to Tacoma:

I am interested in the timing of all of this because right after that text, I got an email from Matt Chapman saying he wanted to fly me out to Tacoma. So that's what I am doing. It's going to be odd because I have only met him once in my life. So basically, I am going on a blind date across the country.... but I am trusting God. I trust that he has his hand upon me and that my life is given up to him. I believe that he has a destiny for me. I am not sure if this is it or not but if I don't go, then I will never know.

My two days in Tacoma, turned into a week... and per my journal " when he came up to greet me in the airport at that moment I knew."

On July 5th, Matt came to visit my family for a week in Cimarron. He fit right into our family like a missing piece of a puzzle ( my puzzle). After 29 years my heart finally felt complete.


Four days later, we got engaged over looking Morrow Point on our way to Crested Butte from Cimarron. After, I readily agreed to marry him, he said " we have to find you a ring!". That became our mission for the day. Now, as some of you know, Crested Butte is a very small town of 1,500 people so the chance of finding a ring that I wanted was nearly impossible. I told Matt, I wanted a delicate, antique style platinum ring with a cushion cut diamond. I also told him that I was going to be very picky.

As I expected the only jewelry store in Crested Butte had a limited ( and ugly) selection of rings. Over lunch, Matt pulled out his iPhone to find where the nearest Zales was. The nearest place came up as Aspen. I didn't think that was right ( Cartier or Tiffany yes... but Zales in Aspen? Not so much....) non the less I accompanied my future husband to Aspen. A two and a half hour drive later we pulled up to where Zales in Aspen was supposed to be and lo and behold it was a clothing store called B'Jewel.

I said, "Matt, there isn't going to be anything in Aspen and we can't spend $30,000 on a ring. This place is too expensive. " He said, " God has your ring here, we just have to find it." Mind you, we had a time constraint as we had to be back in CB for dinner with the family so we had 45 minutes to find the ring.

We started walking up the street and saw a jewelry store. We went in and described to the woman what we were looking for. She said she didn't have that kind of ring at her store but knew of a great jeweler who sold estate jewelery. She gave us directions and we embarked on a quest up streets and thru alleys to find his tiny little hole in the wall jewelery store.

The jeweler, Frank, (who we got to know quite well in a small amount of time) was a kind old man who had been in the same spot for over 25 years. The third ring I tried on was beautiful and it fit my tiny finger ( I wear a 4.25 ring size) perfectly. I asked him what the cut was and he said cushion. I asked him what the band was and he said platinum. It was the ring of my dreams. Frank gave us a very expensive bottle of wine as a gift. We took it home and celebrated with my family.

There are so many other details that I can't even get into or this email would become a novel. But this is the basic time line of events. I cannot begin to explain how floored and grateful I am that God answered not only my prayers but the prayers of all of you who have been praying for Matt and me.