all because of Buddy

There is a dog in the Witzer family who can lay a large claim to the culture of our family today. Ever the epitome of "forever young," he was laid to rest on Friday July 14th, at almost 14.5 years old.

Being on the west coast, with the Witzers on the east coast, events like this don't hit as hard as they would if I were knee deep in with everyone else. But they still hit hard, and I shed some tears for Buddy, for Emili, and for the rest of my family. He was one of the sweetest, most intentionally friendly dogs I have ever known. He was smart and cuddly, sassy and dopey, loving, loving, loving, eternally loyal, and everyone's best friend. He desperately wanted to be a lap dog, despite his larger size, and constantly got as close as he could to you just to sit on your feet. He loved car rides and going on adventures in the woods/creek/hills with Emili or anyone else who would take him. As he got older, he would often fall asleep in Emili's car when it was parked in the driveway- his happy place. In his younger and older days he would sometimes wander off on his own, to be found by a neighbor or stranger, and whoever called the phone number on his collar always made mention of "how sweet and friendly he is, take your time coming to get him." Despite having some issues with chasing (and, well, sinking his teeth into) small animals when he was younger, Buddy came out the other side of a middle-life health issue friendlier to all living things, and could then often be found eating his food or napping alongside a newfound chicken friend, Harriet.

Buddy and Harriet

Buddy was a gift to my sister Emili for her 13th birthday. He was picked out at Jack's Dog Farm, not too far from where my family lives. Emili went with the intent of picking out a female, but she left with Buddy, due to the uniqueness of his one white leg and paw. Buddy happened to be a mix between an Eskimo dog and a Border Collie- and that is where our story really begins.

brand new Buddy

puppy Buddy making new friends

Of course, when you get a 13-year-old a puppy, much of the work falls to the parents. Don't get me wrong, Buddy was ALWAYS Emili's dog through and through, but Dad also spent quite a bit of time with him. On his 40th birthday, when Buddy was six months old, Dad took Buddy to High Rocks Park and they spent a few hours together with Buddy off leash, hiking, bouldering, being explorers together. As Buddy continued to grow up and Dad spent more and more time with him, Dad began to notice a different type of intelligence than he had ever seen in a dog (and he was rarely without a dog in his childhood or beyond). Buddy had a sharpness to him, and he would zero in on small animals and stalk them. This intelligence and herding instinct- which came from the Border Collie part of Buddy's lineage- really interested Dad. He took Buddy to upstate Pennsylvania to be evaluated for sheep herding, unaware at the time that he was probably being joked about behind his back, seeing as how Buddy's mixed breed stats made him a very poor candidate for herding- but this is how Dad ended up on the path to get a full-bred Border Collie puppy, Ty. (I would be remiss to not include the detail that my sister Kirstyn is the one who ultimately came up with Ty's name.)

Puppy Ty with Dad and with Kirstyn

Buddy and Ty

My Dad these days is jokingly and seriously referred to as the dog whisperer, but a Border Collie puppy proved to initially be over his head. Ty was moody and withdrawn and not good around people. He thought he was top dog, and was extremely aggressive if you tried to exert dominance over him. In one specific instance, this made it near impossible for Dad to apply medicinal cream on Ty after routine surgery- and that led Dad to sort out how to express to Ty that he was the dominant one, not Ty. Dad can tell the story better than me, but he got Ty rolled over on his back with a lot of aggression on Ty's part (Dad says he was literally acting like a wild animal), and after about a minute of realizing Dad wasn't going to back down, Dad was able to visibly see Ty take a breath and calm down and release all the tension from his body. It was a big step forward that immediately made things easier between Dad and Ty.

Ty's first birthday

It was quickly realized that in order to be happy, Ty needed to WORK. Border Collies are too smart to laze their days away as pets, they need something to do. About a month after the dominance issues were sorted out, Dad sent Ty away to a friend to be properly trained and he came back home a different dog- well behaved, well-adjusted, happy, and ready to work. Dad got some ducks to practice running Ty on. I'm sure a novice handler + a novice dog + a small flock of ducks was a sight to behold; both my Dad and Ty were eager to learn, and the ducks were run all over our 2 acres while Dad guided Ty with "Come by, away to me, lie down, walk on, that'll do." Remind you of anything?

Learning the basics of running a Border Collie led Dad to the world of sheep trials. And yes, they are precisely what you can find in the original Babe movie (pig excluded). Dad started attending trials and grew his community of friends in the Border Collie world. He tried to do some trials with Ty, but they never worked out- being a novice dog plus being his own special brand of crazy, Ty was all over the field, chasing the sheep more than herding them, running them into the fence, not listening to Dad. But these trials eventually led Dad to get his second Border Collie, Hemp, a dog who had lineage from Scotland and was a Pro dog well known in the sheep trial world. She was Dad's dog through and through, they did everything together. With Hemp, Dad won the "Most Promising Novice Handler" award at a trial in 2006.

happy Hemp

Dad and with Ty and Hemp

During this time Dad also attempted to start a new business with Hemp at the helm- "Wild Geese Solutions." The premise of this business was to bring the dogs to public land that was inundated with geese, and run the dogs at them to make them fly away. You bring the dogs multiple times a day for a while, never at the same time, and eventually the geese stop coming back because they are under the impression that there are always predators there. Places like parks, schools, golf courses, and airfields can greatly benefit from this because cute as they are, geese are dirty, carry disease, and leave their poop and feathers everywhere- having them constantly on your land can be a lot of work. Unfortunately, even with the great idea behind this business and the tools to make it happen, Bucks County did not have the market for such a service, so Wild Geese Solutions never gained momentum.

serious Hemp

Hemp and Ty did a lot of work and a lot of play together

Dad wasn't having much success with the sheep trials, and his practical mindset wanted to find something with more purpose. Being at the trials led him to become interested in the sheep that were used, and soon enough the Witzer family had our own little flock of sheep. Dad chose to get Katahdins since they are hair sheep and do not require any shearing- much less maintenance, as shearing sheep is a time consuming, back-breaking job. Katahdins grow thick, rough hair in the winter months and shed it when the weather warms up.

Dad and his sheep, with Ty looking on in the background

working Ty

These sheep were used to practice running the dogs on, and to breed and sell. This led both of my parents into a whole new world of learning, even taking a pasture management class together at a local school. Lambing season became my favorite time of year, and I was always happy to be around and assist when the baby sheep were being born.

Mama in the process of birthing quadruplets!

Keeping the littlest quad warm

About as brand new as they come

The flock grew, but living on only two acres made the logistics of livestock farming difficult. Our next door neighbors had a large open field and they were always happy for it to be used for the sheep, which was very kind. Dad cared for the sheep on the field next door, and at his new friend Harry's farm a half hour away. He was constantly moving portable fencing and taking care to keep the fields extra clean since he was using borrowed property. It was a lot of work on top of a lot of work, but it was just what needed to be done.

always moving the fence

Hemp wishing to be on the other side of the fence

ram lambs

Addie, Ty, Hemp, and Buddy

Walking the dogs was often a family affair

Dad with his dogs

Somewhere in all of this Dad got another dog, a Border Collie/English Shepherd mix named Addie, from Harry. Also, as he was spending more time at Harry's farm, he got to know Josh and Jane, Harry's two Percheron horses. Harry used the horses to log, and soon he was teaching Dad how to ground-drive the team. Through that work, Dad became connected to another friend, Hutch, of Better Way Belgians, and that friendship led to Dad working wagon rides at various events. Dad became involved in different events around Bucks County, small and large- if there was a team of horses working, Dad was either there or he was friends with the people who were. When I got married in 2013, Dad drove us in on a white carriage pulled by Jane before he walked me down the aisle.

Jane and Josh

wedding day

with Jane at my wedding

working with Jane

Dad working for Better Way Belgians at the Middletown Grange Fair

Ground driving Josh and Jane

This peak interest in all the livestock led my parents to start searching for the farm that maybe they always knew they wanted anyway. In 2014 they moved to a stone house with a barn that sat on 11 acres. Fun fact- this farm is within walking distance of High Rocks- the park Dad took Buddy to on his 40th birthday. They call their home Sweetwater Farm.

This space allowed Dad to finally care for his livestock in the efficient way he always dreamed of. He had permanent fencing put in, separated out various enclosures for rotating the animals, all of his equipment was always right where he needed it, and he didn't have to trailer his sheep from place to place anymore (though Harry is now only 5 minutes down the road!) Jane and Josh became Dad's horses, and they moved into the barn at home. Taking care of a farm was a lot of work, but it was nice to finally have everything in one place.

Jane and Josh happy in the field at their new home

Ty and Buddy relaxing on the farm

Hemp in the barn

lambing season at Sweetwater farm

It's been three years since my parents moved to their farm, and naturally a lot has changed since then. Hemp passed away in 2015, and she and Buddy are resting together under some shade trees at the farm. Jane had some health issues and ultimately couldn't handle consistent work anymore, so she and Josh are now living out their best days retired together, being pampered on a farm in Louisville, Kentucky. A new Percheron team, Rex and Rocky, joined the family a few months ago- young and spry and happy to do whatever is asked of them. The sheep flock was culled down to simplify their upkeep, and lambing season isn't as large of an event as it once was. My parents are now looking to add some goats to the farm, for the purpose of starting an eco-friendly and sustainable brush-clearing business. (A service used in many places, even in Washington DC!)

Dad with Rex and Rocky

While learning about the sheep and becoming a shepherd in his own right, Dad found a deeper connection with the principle behind Biblical shepherding: that Christ is often referred to in the Bible as our Shepherd- He protects and guides us and we lean on Him for dependence- much like Dad's sheep have learned to know him and trust him as he cares for them. Dad has gone to a few churches with the sheep and dogs to do demonstrations and speak on that; he finds great enjoyment and purpose in it and hopes to continue to have opportunities for it.

Dad spending time with the lambs on his birthday

Dad has a new right-hand dog, a young Border Collie named Sue who is never far from his side; she will be four years old on January 22nd- Buddy's birthday too! Only time will tell the richness she'll add to the family.

spunky Sue

And to think that all of this exists in my parent's world thanks to a birthday gift they got for my sister 14 years ago. In my Dad's words- he'd be a cranky and tired old well pump man right now, but instead, all because of Buddy, he has sheep, and horses, and a farm.

Moving forward, here are Dad's thoughts- "Rex and Rocky are really my main focus at the moment. I will always have ewes and always lamb, but the horses will be the primary focus. I guess you can say my biggest thrill and joy is being in the woods with the horses, logging alone. The quiet solitude and working as a team with a faithful animal. The future might look like working horses primarily with wagon rides, which I do enjoy and I like to engage with the people, and if anything can come out of the brush clearing with a herd of goats that would be a real focus with my girl Sue. Perhaps the only option would be to move forward with one of these less physical occupations as I am getting older!"

Sue loves Dad

driving Rex and Rocky

I love this story because it shows so clearly how much you can grow a dream if you just keep pursuing- and how you maybe don't even know what that dream is while you're in the thick of it. All of these events took place in a span of fourteen years. It makes me wonder where I will be fourteen years from now, and if there's a present catalyst in my life that will take me on a journey I'm not yet aware of- on my way to my own Sweetwater Farm.

Thank you Buddy, for your life and your legacy. Rest In Peace, sweet sweet pup.

Making friends with baby Harrison, November 2016

Mom and Buddy at Peddler's Villiage

Buddy enjoying a bone on June 16, 2017

--- --- ---

--- --- --- ---

--- --- ---

The pictures in this post are from a variety of sources (some are pictures of pictures, so don't mind the quality), but I can basically guarantee that any of them that look professionally taken were shot by Emili, who in fact was inspired to start taking photos because of Buddy! Thanks to Dad and Em for all the input in writing this and getting relevant photos together.

Hummus is my Love Language

I was sitting at the table with Harrison yesterday, he was eating some combination of chicken and chickpeas and sweet potato and cheese, and I was munching away on raw carrots with a hefty amount of hummus. He asked for hummus, and I gave him some- on my finger, into his mouth, as usual- but he quickly made it known that he wanted the carrots, not the hummus. And once he had a carrot, he held it back out to me and very clearly communicated that he wanted the hummus ON the carrot.

I had to laugh. Lately he's been eating chips and salsa, because it's a staple of mine, and now he wants carrots and hummus, the same way I eat them every single day.

So we sat at the table together for a while longer, Harrison licking/biting the hummus off the partially eaten carrot stick with his eight teeth, and handing the carrot back to me to ask for more hummus. That's my son.

I could eat hummus all day long. I don't love raw carrot sticks, but pair them with hummus and I can eat them all day long as well. Healthy raw carrots, healthy homemade (of course) hummus. You can eat hummus all day long too- if you have a food processor, just take five minutes and follow this general recipe.

(Also, my food processor is one of the most used gadgets in my kitchen. When the day comes that it dies, it will be replaced immediately, no time for mourning. I use this one, thanks to the recommendation of this blog. I've had it for at least three years and it still works great.)

Ingredients
-1-3 garlic cloves
-2 lemons (+ more to taste)
-1/2 cup tahini
-salt to taste
-a teaspoon or so of cumin
-3 cups chickpeas
-olive oil
-water as needed

Process
Peel and roughly chop the garlic cloves, then throw them in the food processor and run it for a few seconds to finish the garlic job. Scrape the garlic down off the sides, add the juice of the lemons and the tahini, and the salt and cumin, run the food processor again for a bit to blend everything together. Add about half the chickpeas and a swirl of olive oil, blend for a bit, then add the rest of the chickpeas and some more olive oil. Blend. If the chickpeas aren't breaking down enough, add more oil, or water. I like my hummus to be very strongly flavored, so I go light on the water since it thins the consistency AND the flavor. It's a matter of taste, find the balance you prefer. If the finished product is missing a zing, try adding more lemon juice and/or salt.

Once you've found the texture and flavor you like, scrape into a bowl and top with more olive oil and some paprika for taste and aesthetic value.

This recipe can be easily halved. If you're using cans of chickpeas, one 15oz can is 1.5 cups.

If you want a different flavor- try making pizza hummus!

-1-3 cloves of garlic
-1/4 cup tomato paste
-4 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese
-1 teaspoon oregano
-salt to taste
-1 cup chickpeas
-olive oil
-water as needed

Use the same method of garlic first, then tomato paste, cheese, oregano, and salt, then the chickpeas, with oil and water as needed. So tasty, you'll want to eat it with a spoon!

Happy hummus making!

Recovering Vegetarian

I stopped eating meat during my senior year of college. It was a long time coming really; I've never enjoyed seafood, and I have memories of dousing steak in A1 just to get it down. Thanksgiving turkey always tasted too dry. Ham and bacon were (and are) still delicious, and chicken was a great base for almost any meal, but I was at the beginning of my plunge into well-sourced foods, and I didn't have the money to shell out for happy, healthy meats. So I decided to try it for my last semester of college.

I really can't tell you what I ate that semester, I'm fairly certain I had yet to discover my love for all things garbanzo beans, but my exploration into vegetarianism went well enough that I stuck with it after that.

For the next few years I ate strictly vegetarian, still for the purpose of saving money. My stance was, and has always been, the following:

Animals were created for us to care for- to respect, treat kindly, and see them as part of God's creation. They were created for us to use in our day-to-day lives as well- for companionship and work, as well as to nourish us. From their first day of life to their last breath, we need to respect these creatures and care for them in a way that shows that.

With that little manifesto, I continued to choose to not eat meat, while being understanding of the choices of others. Somewhere along the line my choice turned more into an ethical decision rather than purely financial- I just didn't have the heart for a while to think about all the details of meat. I even attempted eating vegan for a short bit, though that attempt did not last too long because cheese.

Over my years of vegetarianism, I have gone farther and farther down the rabbit hole of what healthy eating really and truly means to me. These days, and probably forever more, healthy eating means consuming real, whole food, free from insecticides, free from preservatives, free from unnatural alterations. It also means avoiding refined sugar (aside from the occasional dark chocolate bar or ice cream or muffin because who wants to live without those??) (oh also I love pizza, any pizza, and don't often turn it down) and being mindful of my natural sugar intake. I also do my best to avoid soy products and most corn products (aside from my favorite tortilla chips.)

When you eat like that ^ you basically avoid allllllll of the center aisles and freezer section of the grocery store. Most tomato sauce has sugar and canola oil in it. My favorite salsa had "natural flavors" in it, which is code for many nasty ingredients that aren't actually natural. Pre-packaged foods are made with so many things I can't even pronounce.

And so, homemade everything. It's been a process (I ate the last jar of my favorite salsa only a few weeks ago), but bit by bit over the past few years, and continuing on into the future, I've made subtle changes to my diet and lifestyle (and because I do all the cooking, Jer and Harrison's diets too), and it's just become a way of life.

Going farther and farther down the rabbit hole, I came across the Weston A. Price Foundation and found that I agreed with so many things they had to say about diet (how could you not when they promote all the butter?!)

My diet, and my family's diet, is far from WAP guidelines, but learning about them has helped me take a step in their direction. And they are All About Meat. Well sourced meat, to be more specific, as that is where you can find so many essential vitamins and nutrients that your body needs to thrive.

---

Being in charge of the nutrition of a tiny little being's is no easy task when you are as picky as I am prone to be. Harrison still breastfeeds (and often, these days, as we are in a bit of a transition and it is his comforting place), and he is getting great nutrition from my milk. But he is ever growing and at 14 months old I don't want his diet to consist of just breast milk and garbanzo beans. Additionally, Jer and I began realizing that he (Jer) wasn't functioning as well as he could or should be, and we attributed it to the lack of animal protein in his diet. So over the past few months, change has been in the air in the Kozeluh household. It's all been revving up to last Sunday, when we started a new routine that we intend to keep until it no longer works for us- we bought a whole chicken at the Farmers Market. We talked to the farmer, we looked at pictures of his ranch in Northern California, and we bought a chicken that was raised happy.

Hah. You guys, I went from cooking only vegetarian to looking at this fully intact fresh chicken on my kitchen counter. (Well let's be real we did buy a few chicken breasts from the grocery store over the past few months as well, but they are far less intimidating than a WHOLE CHICKEN.)

But intimidation be damned- Jeremy bought me an Instant Pot last month! It's really a good thing too, because who wants to turn the oven on when it's 85 degrees and you don't have an air conditioner? (Ugh and well the oven still does get turned on. Every Saturday morning. To bake sourdough bread. Which is important.)

So for the past two Sundays, we've gotten a chicken from the Farmers Market, covered it in salt and pepper and herbs. put it in the Instant Pot with some water and onion and carrots and garlic, cooked it for 35 minutes, carved it, put all the inedibles back in the pot with more water and parsley and salt and apple cider vinegar, and then cooked that for two hours. Voila- chicken for the week and for the freezer, and bone broth to last until the next Sunday!

Let's be honest here, I still haven't brought myself to actually eat the chicken (though I DID cook lentils in the broth and ate them). But Jeremy and Harrison are both now starting their days with a nourishing cup of bone broth, and fully enjoying chicken with their lunches. (And I have been adding gelatin to my green smoothies, so there's another step in that direction.)

When I prepare the chicken, each time I have thanked it for its life, and for the nourishment that it is going to bring to us. (Laugh all you want, I don't mind.) I think it's important for Harrison to understand what his food is and where it comes from, vegetables and meats alike, and I want him to not take any of it for granted.

So our household is slowly changing, again. Just another baby step on our path to what feels best for us to be happy and healthy, nourished and thriving.

Stream of Consciousness

We just spent two wonderful weeks in Lexington, Kentucky with Jeremy's family, many dear friends, and for a few days some my family as well. We crammed in delicious places to eat (Kentucky Native Cafe, Bourbon n' Toulouse, Mellow Mushroom, Bella Notte, Saul Good, West Sixth Brewery, and of course Chipotle), Harrison and his cousin Oliver had a blast playing together (and Harrison LOVED Oliver's extensive toy collection), we played (and won!) many hands of Canasta with Jer's parents (ok we lost some too), we celebrated the wedding of two beautiful souls (and Harrison slept through the ceremony!), we had a small birthday party for Harrison with our families (it was Totoro themed), we helped the masses clear out the Whole Foods at Lexington Green on its last day (75% off everything = yes please!), we drowned in what felt like 100% humidity (and plenty of downpours), and when we left, it was with full hearts (and a queasy stomach because unfortunately I chose my one sick day of the century to be our day of cross country plane travel with a 14-month-old). But for real, you guys, FULL HEARTS.

And now we are back to "real life" for a week, and then an adjustment once again to a new "real life" is coming as I start working full time with Harrison in tow this coming Wednesday.

Lots of things going on this week and lots of things running through my mind. I'd really love to just binge watch Jane the Virgin season 3, and while admittedly I am already 5 episodes in, it is specifically because of that that there are so many things on my mental to do list right now. Day-to-day things have already piled up in the post-vacation sleepy haze, and I haven't quite kicked this stomach bug yet, though it's been ebbing a flowing, making me think that I have at certain points in time. My heart is still running on full from the past two weeks, and my brain keeps jumping from one thing to another, a constant stream of jumbled thoughts like what should I do with those lemons I got the other day (maybe this?) and how am I going to get all those mats out of Oscar's fur without sedating him? What should the meal plan be for my workweek and when am I going to have time for food prep? My friend Laci stayed at our place while we were gone and left us some seeds she started sprouting, therefore showing me how easy it is and now I want to sprout ALL THE THINGS with the same fervor I have for fermenting all the things. I ran some preliminary numbers a few months ago and found that with this job I am starting, we can pay down the rest of our student loans by the time it's over next September, if we continue to live frugally. But I haven't even updated June's expenses, or finished July's budget, and I don't see that as a great beginning to our debt takedown, and I want to run the numbers again to make a specific plan. But will the plan allow me to continue to have enough organic greens to make the green smoothie I've had for the past three days and am already obsessed with? And can I afford to buy our cats wet food? And what about our new old car that hopefully will last us until next year but in reality it needs some repairs and should we have just kept the Accord? And Harrison is really killing this elimination communication thing and I want to replace his cloth diapers with padded cotton underwear so he can play a more active role in pottying, and I love that at just shy of 14 months we are already able to think about underwear for him. And less diapers means not doing laundry every two days in our one-cubic-foot portable washer that has been so helpful but takes up the whole bathroom whenever we use it. And our bathroom is so dirty even when it is clean, and our landlord wasn't helpful when I asked about replacing the mildewed grout, and I really love our apartment because it is home (and it is rent controlled), but it was a bit of a weird thing to come home to it after being in a large clean house for two weeks, and visiting the large clean houses of our friends, and let's face it, our old apartment is a dump. A spacious, rent-controlled dump that works well for our purposes right now and we're staying for the unforeseeable future, but that doesn't make it any less of a dump. Can I use my 30th birthday in a few weeks to justify hiring someone to clean this place for me? It will probably still feel dirty. We're going to see a Beatles cover band on my birthday and I am so very excited about it. LA has so many opportunities that I've never had anywhere else, like seeing a Beatles cover band on my birthday (well in Lexington I saw Rain which was awesome, and in Louisville we went to Abbey Road on the River which was also awesome), and making the same full-time salary with my son as I did without my son, and being at the beach and the mountains on the same day and soaking in sunshine all the time and being surrounded by a diverse spectrum of humanity and being connected to the natural birthing community and all the same this place is so transient and it's hard after a trip away to not think about if I will someday be one of the masses that comes just to leave again like so many in my community already have. And there are things like SB277 that make me want to be transient more quickly than may be natural but there are things like illegal home births in other states that make me want to stay put, and how do you move out of state with three cats anyway? And SB277 makes me think of Nick Catone and the autopsy reports for his healthy dead child and his response. Healthy children don't die in their sleep for nothing and the whole thing makes me so frustrated. And sometimes I get down such a rabbit hole on the Internet that I need to put my phone away and do something else, but other times like yesterday I took a Buzzfeed quiz that told me I would be a House Elf if I lived in the Harry Potter world and I was all indignant about it so I took the quiz two more times and answered the questions differently but still truthfully and apparently I'm destined (doomed?) to be a house elf. Now where is that to do list?

A love story

Jer and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary last week. (And by "celebrated" I mean he made me pancakes in the morning and we both worked and came home and we ate ice cream in the evening.) We've known each other for almost twelve years now, and we dated for three years before we got married. That's a lot of numbers and a lot of time (and so very little time in the grand scheme of it all, I suppose.)

So what went on during all those years?

I was quite the boy crazy college freshman. (And sophomore. And junior. I like to think I leveled off and grew up a bit by senior year.) And would you know that Jeremy was the first boy in college that I had a cute little crush on? I don't actually have a strong recollection of the first time we met, but I remember that I ended up going to a Coldplay concert with friends a few weeks in, and I was so excited that the cute boy with the unpronounceable last name was also going.

We ended up chatting a lot before the concert started- not that I had anything to do with it. Boy crazy and frustratingly quiet, shy, and void of conversational topics- that was me in an awkward nutshell. Jeremy has always been good at trying to include anyone he sees on the fringes, and he saw me sitting on my own (probably journaling in an effort to look cool), and I became the subject of his friendly graces. We talked about music, he started a playlist on his iPod mini that he said he would burn to a CD for me, and I was overwhelmingly excited that the cute boy was engaging in (likely one-sided) conversation with me AND we had a reason to talk again if I wanted to get that CD.

babies

Fall semester continued on and we were in the same friend group, but anytime I tried to talk with him I didn't know what to say, and he had run out of conversation too. If we ever ended up alone, it was painstakingly awkward, and we both knew it. Regardless, my cute little crush continued, because he had great hair and great glasses and great jeans and he liked The Beatles.

Spring semester came upon us and I decided to volunteer to help with lighting in the theatre production of Marvin's Room. Jer happened to have a small role in it, and I honestly can't remember if I decided to volunteer before or after I knew that. Awkwardness still ensued anytime we were alone, but thankfully Marvin's Room meant we were mostly together in group settings.

Cast and crew of Marvin's Room, Jeremy ever the goofy one.

Alongside Marvin's Room, one of my best friend schemed up some time for me, her, and Jeremy to hang out together. We spent an evening running around campus, taking lots of pictures and ending up at the baseball fields. The two of them did most of the talking, and I watched, googly-eyed at the boy whose last name I probably still couldn't pronounce. We set up another time for the three of us to get together, and said best friend bailed shortly before it happened. So Jer and I found ourselves with an evening alone, and we were both terrified because we knew we wouldn't have anything to talk about. We spent some time together eating cereal in the dugouts at the baseball fields and stammering out some sentences in between long awkward pauses. We finally did find some conversation- emotionally unloading all the negativity in our lives- forging a connection that felt so strong but was so unhealthily shallow.

One of our first pictures together, a night charged with awkwardness and relentless flirting

In the weeks that followed, Marvin's Room was the main event, rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal. Jer and I remained awkward anytime we were together, and my crush only grew. After opening night we went for a walk and the best thing that could ever happen to an awkward girl who has an awkward crush on a cute boy happened- he kissed me. OH GLORY BE. I probably still couldn't pronounce his last name but I kissed the cute boy with great hair and great glasses and great jeans who liked The Beatles!

I went to bed that night with a goofy smile on my face and felt like I was in a fairy tale.

The fairy take came to a quick demise about 12 hours after THE KISS, when I saw him in the cafeteria and he pretended to not see me and walk the other direction. A classic move that happened for most of the rest of the semester. (I'm over it now, now worries.)

We made partial peace by the end of the semester and parted ways for the summer.

Sophomore year started and Jeremy and I were still in the same friend group and saw each other often. New freshman joined our group and I grew to be best friends with a lovely girl who I had actually met during the previous semester, when she was visiting as a prospective student and stayed in my dorm room ... the same night as THE KISS. Irony of all ironies, she and Jeremy began dating later that year.

So to recap:
1. Awkward crush on cute boy.
2. Kiss cute boy.
3. Cute boy pretends I don't exist.
4. Cute boy starts dating my best friend.

I don't dwell on those details much, it was a confusing time of life even without being boy crazy and heartbroken, and Jer and I formed a decent friendship through all of my third-wheeling over the next two years while they dated, and then after that as well. (You can be well assured that my Freshman year crush was long over.)

College graduation came and went, and there is photographic evidence of our friendship- see:

I love this picture for so many reasons. From left: Stephen and I have babies born on the exact same day (hooray May 3, 2016!), Dustin and I still see each other every year or two, I married Jeremy, Caleb and I remain long-distance friends and will be seeing each other for the first time in AGES in just a week, and Graham and I live in the same crazy city and see each other fairly regularly.

Fast-forward a year after graduation, and I found myself back in our little college town for a friend's wedding. Jeremy still lived in the area and arranged a reunion of our friend group, since many of us came back to town. He and I had not kept in touch since graduation but we were still friends by association.

I remember the moment I first saw him again, we were at a pizza place in downtown Lexington and the table was crowded, but for whatever reason he stuck out to me. I honestly hadn't even given him any thought in a year, but it was like a long-awaited meet-cute in the restaurant that day. The moment came and went quickly, we hugged and I got a little flutter in my stomach, and then we got caught up in conversations with other people, hardly even saying goodbye at the end of the evening.

I was surprised the next day when he texted me, mentioning that it had been great to see me and he was bummed we hadn't had the opportunity to chat the night before, and maybe he and I could get together that night?

Apparently our meet-cute had affected him as well.

So we did get together that night, and what did we do? We TALKED. For HOURS. Late into the night. About everything imaginable. A far cry from five years previous. Our conversation was fluid and enjoyable (and completely platonic). It was so much fun, we did the same thing the next night. And then I went back home, a few states away, and couldn't get our newfound friendship off my mind.

In the weeks that followed we sent email after email after email. Our friendship grew and deepened in a very healthy way, all the while staying platonic, but becoming very special. We were both figuring out what to do with our lives post-college, and we asked each other hard questions, gave encouragement, formed inside jokes, and got to really know who the other was. Sure maybe in hindsight that is when we started falling in love, but neither one of us was yet aware of it.

There was another wedding coming up, two months after our initial reunion. I was in the wedding party, and Jeremy was invited but unsure if he could get there. He ended up arranging to be there last minute and so there we were in northern Michigan in the summertime, after two months of intensely beautiful and connecting emails, and we finally realized what exactly was going on once we were face-to-face. I wasn't a very good bridesmaid that weekend (something I wish I could have a do-over with), my thoughts and every moment of spare time was with this boy, this man, who came back into my life unexpectedly and made me a better person. We were young and naive, but we (thankfully!) were so far removed from the awkward Freshmen we were when we first met.

At the wedding where it all began (again)

Sometime after that we were officially dating, though there is no "official" date for that. I travelled to Scotland and Northern Ireland and spent the bulk of both trips Skyping with Jer (we're taking hours upon hours at a time.) I had already been anticipating a big life change after that trip, and so I decided that life change would be moving to Lexington to be closer to Jeremy. A year after that I moved to Los Angeles for the same reason.

Where else do the dating wanna-be hippies go?

It was a beautiful beginning to our dating relationship, and of course there were rocky and ugly moments in the middle, but everything culminated to getting engaged by a creek near my parent's house in Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve 2012, two and a half years after that trip to northern Michigan, and I took his unpronounceable last name on a farm in PA on June 1, 2013.

December 24, 2012

If anyone would have pointed him out to me Freshman year and said "That's the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with," I'm not sure I would have believed it, and probably would have been terrified about the potential of a lifetime of poor conversation. It's a good thing that the normal trajectory of life is to always be growing up, always looking to better yourself. When we started dating we were very different people than those awkward Freshman at the Coldplay concert.

June 1, 2013

I love that one of my first memories of Jer, at that concert, is one that showcases one of his best qualities- still today, and probably forevermore, he is an includer. He can't see someone on their own or someone who needs help without going out of his way to strike up conversation and make them feel included, or offer a hand in whatever they need help with. Would we have even spoken that night if not for Jer's caring heart? Perhaps it's due to just that personality trait that I have a lifetime ahead of me with this man who still has great hair, and great glasses, and great jeans, and loves The Beatles.

April 2016

By the way, "Koz" rhymes with "Oz," like in the Wizard of Oz. The rest of it is pronounced "low."

The Kozeluh family, Easter 2017.

Koz-low.