a place to call home

Having a Place to go is Home

Having Someone to Love is Family

Having Both is a Blessing

Laying in bed this morning I had an overwhelming feeling come over me. As I reached over and softly stroked Corts cheek, I once again felt so very blessed.  

Lately, life has been very busy.  Aside from working a lot, we found a beautiful home!  We moved in on the first of September. We have a fully fenced backyard which the dogs absolutely LOVE! We find them outside laying in the grass all the time.  One of our favorite things to do when we get home from work is to sit outside on our back patio steps and admire the stars while we watch the dogs play.  I've really enjoyed having a bigger kitchen to cook dinner in.  I love cooking for my girl and our friends. We have three bedrooms and two full baths. One of the rooms we turned in our office for the business and the other is a guest room until we have a baby.  The home is three levels with an unfinished basement.  

One of the great things about living in North Ogden is that we are right next to the beautiful mountains! Sunset makes those mountains glow and it is so majestic.  We have a lot of trails near our home which we have yet to explore. We have been very blessed to become great friends with people that live in this area.  We spend a lot of time hanging out, barbecuing, talking etc. It has been very nice to meet people who have your back 110%, people we can talk openly to about anything and feel comfortable, and most of all are very happy for us and excited for our future together and tell us that!  

Our future excites us!  We control our success, our happiness, our attitude. I am a firm believer in the 3 C's of life.  Choices, Chances, Changes.  You have to make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change. We want to be successful in our business and we are making it happen.  We want to be happy; so everyday we remind each other and ourselves how blessed we are.  When things get tough or we've had a bad day we have to decide if we want it to ruin our day or change our attitude and turn the day around.  Sometimes that is extremely difficult! But its always better than not.  

I love my girl! I love our pups! I love the child that is waiting in heaven for us! I love our friends! Life is beautiful and good because we have been blessed along with the choice to make it that way. So if you are reading this, just remember...

You have to make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change!

The birds and the bees

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." -Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

It has been a few weeks since my last post.  I'd like to think that I have good reason for it.  Lately all it feels like is we sleep, eat, work and do it all over again.  We are very happy with the direction our business is going with the latest addition of a very large account.  It takes all our time, but we work now so we can live how we want later.  Part of that motivation is to ensure a life we dream of for our family.

Cort and I have decided that we want to start our own family.  We want to have our own children.  We looked at a different options such as adoption or sperm donor and we have decided to use a sperm donor.  On the 24th of this month we had our first appointment with a fertility specialist.  Getting to that point wasn't easy.  We started with a phone call to my gynocologist to see if they would help us.  They said no and pointed us in a different direction.  After 4 or 5 different doctors we were finally given the name of Dr. Houlk in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  It was so comforting to call his office and have the whole staff be completely supportive and loving.  They seemed just as excited as us. 

The meeting with the doctor was very informative.  We basically had the "birds and bees" talk with him.  He explained that a normal, healthy womans chance at conceiving a baby is only 30%.  Thats with someone who is actively "trying".  So right from the get go we have the odds against us.  We know that it most likely won't happen on the first try, or the second or maybe the third.  But we are willing to put in the time and effort to have our own child. We have picked our sperm donor and now we have to wait.  The whole process is very exciting and stressful.  The prospect of having a child growing inside Cort makes me smile everytime I think about it. 

I just hope that I will be the kind of mother to our child as mine was to me. Unconditional love, comforting and sweet among many other things. 

Imagine

"Love is not a victory march, its a cold and broken hallelujah... hallelujah... Maybe there's a God above but all I've ever learned from love, was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.  And it's not a cry that you hear at night, It's not somebody who's seen the light, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah... Hallelujah"

Every relationship before this; family, friends, and significant others has shaped the way we approach our relationship today.  For that I don't regret past relationships. I'm thankful to them for helping me become the person I am today.  We both have been through a lot in our lives.  Plenty of heartache and pain.  Cort and I both come from "broken homes". Both of our parents divorced when we were young.   Anyone who has been through that, knows that it certainly influences the way you look at love and relationships. I, myself, have been through a divorce. It is one of the hardest things someone can go through. I have the tendency to generalize in my relationship.  "It was like this before you so it must be like that now". Cort has a tendency to be defensive.  We both know that the only way to really love, and be loved, is to let go of the past and embrace your future, our future.

I've never been in a relationship where I feel %100 comfortable that I am accepted as who I am.  I feel so blessed.  We both have moments where we feel a little in disbelief.  In those moments, are where the insecurities come through.  We aren't a perfect couple by any means and everyday we work at improving. We have to remind each other that we deserve to love and be loved.   Once we get past that we thrive.  Something that I love about our relationship is that we get over disagreements very fast.  We communicate well and that is so important. Most of all though, the thing I love most about Cortney is that she gives her whole heart and soul.  I love how much love I feel from her.   It took me a long time to let go and allow myself to follow my heart.

Being lesbian has been the most heart wrenching journey in my life. I grew up hearing "gay" jokes all the time.  It has been beat into my brain since I was little that homosexuality is inherently wrong and a choice.  For a long time, I believed it was and in turn believed I, myself, was bad.  I've had friends who came out to me throughout the years and I tried to explain to them why they should fight who they are. In reality, through them, I was trying to make myself believe that the right thing was to fight it.  My heart aches over the way I handled those people.  I have since made things right with them but I still hurt over the way I made them feel.  I grew up in the LDS church and was sealed in the temple when I was married.  I came out to my bishop and received a very warm response.  He was very loving. However, the counsel that I received and followed only made me feel more and more at odds with who I was as a person.  As a daughter of God.  If God created me and made me perfect in his eyes, then why did I feel like I needed to hide and change who I really was.   I went on a personal journey to study the gospel and search within my soul to figure out if God really loved me for who he created me to be.  This article that I am writing is only the tip of the iceberg into my journey as person to arrive at the place I am now.  To make a very long journey a short story, I found a peace within myself when I stopped hiding that I was gay and accepted that God made me the way I am and He loves me.  I can love myself and allow myself to love and be loved.  Thats a new feeling and I'm still dealing with it.

Now I know that the majority of you who are reading this have a different belief than we do.  That's okay! We have people in our lives, even family members, who have encouraged us to keep our relationship quiet.  Not that being an openly gay couple would be hard for us, but rather that it will be hard for them. We both know that our family members and those close to us definitely, in a way, go through this journey with us.  They face the opposition with us. For that I love them and thank them. However, more than anyone, Cort and I, feel the love or hate that comes our way for loving each other.  We feel the sting of every hurtful and hateful comment and stare. The thing that makes it easier though, is the overwhelming warmth we feel from the people who love and accept us.  I know that it probably at times would be easier to hide our relationship but I would never ask my own child to hide their family and so we have chosen not to as well.  My only hope is that we can all love each other for who we are.  That we can look past our gender and look at our actions and soul.  I believe whole heartedly in God and that he only wants the best for each of us. That his greatest commandment is to love thy neighbor as thyself.  The only thing we can do is love and hope that people will love in return.

As a Christian, I know that is the greatest thing I can do. To love.  I really like the way the Apostle Paul explained Charity.  He described charity as a pure love that excels and exceeds almost all else.

1st Corinthians 13:13
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Religion has been used in history as justification for a lot of evil acts.  Lets start using it for the opposite. Justification to do the right thing despite the opposition.  I love the song Imagine by John Lennon.  What a world it would be if people treated each other right!

I hope that everyone reading this is having a beautiful Sunday surrounded by their loved ones.  We have had a lazy day today.  Its been much needed before we hit it hard again with work tonight. Oh the joys of owning your own business.  Never a day off. :)  Thanks for reading!

The pups relaxing... Well Mick relaxing on Ron.

New Beginnings

Opening to a new chapter in your favorite book is how we are feeling. Everything we both have gone through have brought us together.  And now everything we have done together has brought us to a new  chapter in our book. 

I'm Annie.  The one who will be writing most of our posts.  Simply because Cort says I should. :) Gosh, I sure love that girl.  

I guess a little background is due.  Our little family consists of Cortney (the beautiful one), Annie (the most sweet and loving one.... Cort says ya right), Mickie (a yellow lab, the older sissy) and Ronnie (a german short hair, the little sissy).

 Ronnie, Cortney, Mickie

 I had to add this one of my girl... Isn't she so beautiful?

 Me! Annie, and the pups trying to get away from me...

 Us at my favorite place in the world!

If you know us, this picture basically shows our personalities :)

Cort and I were both born and raised in Utah.  We met through mutual friends and started dating after about 6 years of friendship. In April of 2012 after falling through the sky, (literally) I proposed to my girl in front of an intimate group of friends and family.  She said yes! 

Earlier in 2012 we started our own business.  It just keeps growing and growing and although we work long hours 7 days a week it has been the best decision we have made for our financial future. 

I feel like i'm on a first date with this blog... haha. What do you do for fun?  Where are you from? Etc.

So what do we do for fun? Well, as long as we are doing it together we can make anything fun.  Including work! As long as we are laughing, we have a pretty good time. We love to take the pups to the lake or hiking.  We are movie goers for sure.  I always pick the best movies... for Cort to take a nap through.  Ha! I'll be very intrigued and she'll be sleeping on my shoulder.  We occasionally like a good Modern Warfare 3 game.  We have a couple of good friends and family that we enjoy spending time with. Mick and Ron have a lot of doggy friends where we live and so we spend a lot of time outside hanging out with them.  There is so much more to us and our lives but not nearly enough space. So if you are reading this, you'll learn as you follow along.