Fantastic Five Meme

Here's how it works:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by e-mailing you 5 questions.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview others.
5. When you receive the comment from another, you will send them 5 questions.

Colleen, from Martinfamilymoments was kind enough to send me my five great questions, which I have answered below. Please let me know if you would like me to interview you...it's fun!

1) If you could vacation anywhere, where would it be?

oh, now that is a tough one. At this very moment I would love to be in Belgium with my mother. I also have had this lifelong desire to lay on a beach and drink something silly out of a coconut shell. Aside from that I might want to go back to Lourdes with my husband, or perhaps visit Asisi. Or go on a long tour of the USA to get to know more of my new country. *laughs*

2) What is your favorite movie and why?

Oh, I think I have a hard time chosing. I think the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? Does that count as a movie?

3) Do you have any hobbies?

Many! I am a proud medieval roleplayer, I love embroidery though I do not have the time for it at the moment, I knit and I am a speed reader. If I had more time I would develop more hobbies, I would like to learn to make cards, spend more time stamping. Oh, and I love cooking, so I would do some more creative cooking!

4) Tell us about your love story...

I have the greatest love story of all times! My husband and I actually met over the internet through Catholicmatch. In his profile he mentioned being interested in people that lived in a 100 mile radius from either Stanford or St Louis. Hmm... I lived in Belgium. I decided to write him anyhow, since he seemed like a nice, interesting man and I thought that if we were meant for eachother, he would change his mind. So I mailed and mentioned that while I lived further away, we might be able to just become friends. We did. And we exchanged emails. And then we exchanged daily emails. We started to talk on msn as well as getting to know eachother better in our interaction with others by posting on christianforums. It was early december 2004 when I met him, and I would turn 29 in march 2005. It was funny. He intended to send flowers for my birthday, but they arrived three days late. The florist called to tell me he wanted to deliver flowers and if I was at home. I would not be until the evening and I had no idea who would send me flowers a few days before my birthday. So I called my mother, I called my best friend, but neither of them new of anything and of course they were incredibly curious and when the flowers arrived they wanted to see them and know who they were from!
The flowers were for me the first sign that we were definitely on the road to more than friendship and we began courting, finding out if a marriage between us could work.
In the summer, Bill traveled to Ireland with his family and flew over to Belgium to meet me for the first time in all reality. I was so nervous throughout that entire visit, but I fell for him completely when we were playing trivial persuit. I fell for his nerdy brain and his kindness. Saying goodbye was hard. My mother and I went to meet his family over Thankgiving. Things were getting serious so fast. I would not recommend it to anyone on a rational level. In fact I have in the past (and continue to) council anyone against it. We were very, very serious in what we talked about, from atitudes to cooking, finances, to philosophical topics. I am not saying we were not lovey dovey, but... we were not JUST lovey dovey. And we were incredibly honest, which is the only way any relationship, but especially a long distance relationship can work. We tried to go on 'dates' now and again where we would go see a movie at the same time, each on our own continent, which was around noon for him and in the evening for me. We talked about who would move where, what we wanted from a family, how we wanted to stand in life. There was a whole lot of talking and on the day after Christmas in 2005, Bill proposed at the side altar of Saint Joseph in the Cathedral of our Lady in Antwerpen. He said there was one more gift he had for me for Christmas and one thing he wanted for the new year, me as his wife. I asked him if he was certain I could make him happy as his wife, and then said yes. He had selected a magnificent ring with a saphire, remembering I didn't want a diamond.


We organized an international wedding in 6 months time and were married in that same cathedral on July the 8th 2006, after a civil wedding on July the 7th. It was one of the most wonderful days of my life. We walked to the cathedral instead of cars or anything. After the wedding we went to take pictures for about half an hour just in the city around us. And then we went and had a happy wedding dinner and dancing with our friends and family.




I followed Bill to America a few weeks after the wedding, while he went ahead to prepare our new home in South Carolina where he had just accepted a job at the university. Most love stories would end here. It's where the fairy tale said: and they lived happily ever after, and where the reality often ends the romance. I have been married less than three years, so perhaps I do not have mucht to say yet. But my marriage has been even more magically romantic than the international courtship that went before it. There is not a day that has past in which I have not felt blessed to have married my husband. We have had some more difficult days to go through together in the 9 months of sleep deprivation after the birth of our son, and we have exhausted days as well as good days. We have days of clean kitchens, great meals and a happy and accomplished feeling. And we have days of 'ugh'. But my husband left a note on my keyboard the other day, with a kiss on it. Just because. I call him once a day at work just to see if he has a good day and tell him something funny Joseph has done. But there also is the sacrificial love that prompts him to do things he probably does not like or forgo things he probably would love to do, to make life more wonderful and easy for me. And I try to do the same to him.
The romance before marriage was wonderful. The reality of married life is ten times more sweet and poignant.
pfiew, aren't you glad you asked, hm?

5) Do you have any great regrets or successes you'd like to share?

My greatest succes story probably is the one mentioned just above. Regrets... hmm... I auditioned to get in theater school and managed to get through all selection rounds except the last. I was heartbroken at the time, but quickly realised it had been for the best. I wish I had known more about the working of academics when I went to university, I would have probably attempted to get my Phd.