The Beauty and the Mess

YOU GUYS.

You are TOO MUCH.

I arrived for dinner with Alanna last night and noticed she was carrying a box. She said she was making a delivery for someone. I was confused at first and thought she knew someone who worked at the Huey's (because I can be extremely dense about these things). LOL. But it was a birthday box for ME!!! From YOU!!! I loved everything - the cards, the fun presents, the snacks, the McAlister's Deli Dollars!!!, even the box itself. I loved how well many of the items represented the givers. I was thrilled, but I was so nervous about not losing anything that I didn't even see the Amazon giftcard until I got home and went through the box again. :D :D :D I was/am so overwhelmed.

THANK YOU to aftondays, augustine, borboletalanna, canticles and fettman, danialand, dantheman23, glori, hestergray, kellchecker, kiwiria, lajea, mandajanie, mattiescottage, my_everafter, victoriaeremita, and MOST of all moredetails, who put this together and has been such a wonderful friend to me for the past 7 years. (I think that's everyone - please speak up if I missed you!) You guys are too good to me and made me feel very loved and special! Thank you SO much. :) I love you all.

(Sorry I didn't post about this last night - I meant to, but Evan turned the computer off while I was in the shower, and then I decided it was pretty late to get a post together anyway. But I will have pictures eventually! Alanna has better ones, though, I think.)

ETA: It's not even my birthday until Sunday! :)

Happy birthday Rebecca!!!

You're a great friend, a great wife and mom, a talented musician and a general fun person. You inspire me in so many ways. I'm glad to know you and really want to meet you. :) I hope you have a WONDERFUL birthday!

Very busy (and happy) day today, but I wanted to say Happy Wedding Day tomorrow to helenangel and poormattie. Helen, I am SO GLAD that you're marrying someone who knows and loves you for your wonderful, unique self. I pray you will have a very happy, blessed marriage! Love you!

YAY!

Happy wedding day to Shana and Phillip! Shana's life and my life have parallelled in sometimes-scary ways since we've known each other, so it's not very surprising that we're getting married less than two weeks apart. I pray God will bring her and Phillip many blessings! I'm so excited.

Let me tell you how awesome my husband is. :) (Husband! Woo!) He was off work yesterday and spent the whole day organizing and shopping for things we needed for the apartment. When I came home and didn't have time to make dinner, since I had to leave almost immediately for a flute practice, he cooked Hamburger Helper for both of us. While I was gone, he completely rebuilt our back-door doorjamb and installed a new chain (it needed to be done...long story). Then he cleaned up the whole mess himself. Today he gets off early and is going to put up a new cabinet in our bathroom. Am I blessed or what?

One frustrating thing is that, since the wedding, I have no idea what's happening in the world. I can't watch the news in the mornings anymore because Evan is usually still sleeping. Then I forget to check in at another time. Someone mentioned terrible fires in Chicago...not only do I have no clue what that's all about, but I am also too busy to even look it up online or something. And Christmas? What the heck? When did this happen? I haven't bought any presents yet and don't have a clue what anyone wants. My Christmas card list will have to be so short this year, and that makes me sad. Of the (literally) 100 or so thank-you notes I need to write, I have completed exactly six. Our apartment is in a nightmarish state. Almost every spare surface is covered with mail and boxes and stuff. I want to decorate for Christmas, but adding more clutter to already mind-boggling clutter goes against everything I believe in. We have a tiny tree that Kathy gave me a long time ago. I think I'll put that one up somewhere, and maybe a wreath, and call it good.

Oh, and even bigger proof that Evan is wonderful: while I was at practice, he found out the Clay Christmas special was on and taped it for me! I didn't even know there was going to BE a Clay Christmas special, and he doesn't even LIKE Clay (though he admits to liking his version of "Mary Did You Know"), but he hurried to tape it just to make me happy. That's love. *cartoon hearts*

Okay, I'll get to work on wedding entry #2 soon. I just needed a break from the recapping. :)

For those of you who know Stacy, I just got an e-mail from someone in her department, saying that she was admitted to the hospital last night with pneumonia! She had been feeling bad and went to the doctor a couple of days ago, but I didn't think it was that serious. :(

Please pray for her, especially since her husband is working in Virginia right now and she doesn't have too many people around to help her. Helen, I think her department is sending something. I'll keep you in the loop.

Today was a momentous day for my journal - I have been added by the famous amandagrace, as well as the friendly glori and schip2mylou, whom I don't know much about but who seems like fun. I'm suspicious. Did someone make a post promoting me or something? :) I feel loved. Anyway, this is the first time today I've even been able to think about posting, so please be patient with me, all. I've had one project after another all day, as well as various frantic phone calls about various wedding things. Thursday seems to be a consistently rough day for me lately. At least I get to end it by going to Bible study, seeing friends, and having a free tasty dinner (tonight, pizza). Our movie series continues. Tonight we're discussing Bruce Almighty. It's cool taking lessons from movie clips, but it's also frustrating because then I want to watch the whole thing.

Stacy came to our weekly lunch today, and it was fun having her there. We missed Helen, though - or, as she's apparently known around our office, "that weird girl who used to work here." :)

I like my new cubicle on the corner of the row, but it can be annoying at the end of the day, when people tend to have really loud, shrieky conversations right outside it. I should get some headphones.

Fall weather has finally arrived. We haven't seen the sun in a week, but at least it's appropriately cool outside. Now I have nothing to wear, and I'm afraid to take my winter clothes out, lest it all be a trick and I need summer clothes again. It might be a good idea to just wait until after the honeymoon, since I'll need those warm-weather clothes for Jamaica anyway. :) In the midst of all this I keep forgetting about the Jamaica thing - like wait, I get to have a vacation when all this is over? Imagine.

Happy birthday, alissamarie! I hope this next year is wonderful for you.

I am very, VERY excited to welcome Em's husband, Daniel, to the LJ fold. :)

We're doing another data-checking project at work. It's boring and endless and I'm about to go nuts. I feel like a robot.

On Friday night I went to a fish fry and bonfire with Myla. It was with the group from my Thursday night Bible study. I hadn't talked to most of the people before, so it was nice to get to know some of them. Plus, Alli and Casey were there. Also, the unstable girl I mentioned last week. After she'd spent all of Thursday's study giving me icy glares, I was prepared for a showdown at the bonfire. First she ignored me, taking Alli aside to tell her that she was so mad at me and that "we aren't speaking." Several minutes later she walked up to me and began a normal conversation like nothing had happened. I will never, ever understand how her mind works. Anyway, other than that I had a fun social time.

I spent Saturday afternoon finishing the wedding invitations, and then Evan and I went to Robin and John's wedding. It was so beautiful! The wedding was in the rose garden at the Botanic Gardens, which is where I once dreamed of getting married. :) The reception room was set up beautifully and the food was great. I even got Evan to practice dancing a little. We did a good job of stepping on each other's feet. It's a good thing our lesson is tonight. :P

Sunday was the close of our missions conference at church. The keynote speaker was Richard Pratt, whom some of you may have heard of - he has several books out, including Pray With Your Eyes Open. He spoke on the passage in Isaiah about beautiful feet bringing the gospel to others. I'd like to post more about it later, because it was good. After church I felt totally lethargic and knew that if I didn't get a nap, I'd never make it through the day. So I went home and slept, then went back to church to help get ready for the Taste of Grace dinner. Taste of Grace is my favorite thing that we do all year. The Sunday School classes make different foods and there's a "contest" to see whose food is the best (my pastor is the only judge, so it's really not a contest). I can't think of any other time when everyone mixes and fellowships on such a large scale. I got to talk to admael and eat some catfish tacos. It was fun. I love my church.

Tash wrote a really insightful entry that was encouraging to me. Go read it. :)

Stacy is Teh Coolest! She has a T-Mobile phone that she's not using. She's bringing it in tomorrow, and Evan will have a phone on our trip! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Thanks Stacy!

What would I do without my LJ friends? You guys are all awesome.

Okay, sorry for the barrage of posts today. I'm done now.

Happy late birthday to Shana, with whom I share a brain. I guess the synapses aren't working so well, though, since I forgot to say anything until today! Sorry, Shana! I'm glad it was good.

Spending time with my family last night was great. I heard all about their cruise; they had some hilarious stories, one involving a flying fish that smacked my brother in the head (while he was driving a boat!). They brought me some presents, the best of which was a piece of cake from the Publix bakery which survived in the cooler all the way from Miami! It was a big piece, so I could only finish half. Then I forgot the rest when I left their house. :( I'll be back tomorrow, though, so I can eat the other half then. It's almost as good as being there. LOL.

I'm finally doing that friends-list survey that Jessica made. I was amused that almost everyone chose me as being very social. I don't think of myself as very outgoing, but maybe I am. I do have cool and fun friends, but that's by grace, it doesn't have anything to do with me. :) ( My Buddies )

Here are some of my pictures from Emily's wedding! Evan took most of the ceremony ones, so send any compliments or complaints his way. :)

Last night Evan and I hung out with Casey and had a great time. As it sinks in more and more that we're really getting married, I worry more and more about finances. As usual, Casey had wise words to say on that topic. She reminded me that we'll be taking vows for richer or poorer, and that's a sign that money will always be an issue. If we had a lot of money, we'd still be struggling about how to spend it wisely. What's important is the marriage. I really needed to hear that. Also, after talking with her, we decided to scale down our honeymoon. We've really wanted to go to Hawaii, but with the rates I'm looking at, it would cost me half my savings. So we're reorganizing our priorities in order to afford more important things (more on that tomorrow!) and will probably just drive down to the Gulf Coast or something. I feel relieved now that we've made that decision.

Today I'm leaving work early and we're going with my parents to check out a nearby country club. My dad has heard nothing but good things about it. If all goes well, we'll go ahead and book it for the reception. We don't have time for hall-shopping or lists of pros and cons. :P I'm so thankful for my parents; they're being very generous. I am also thankful to the authors of Bridal Bargains, from whom I have already learned a lot.

I am still completely undecided on bridesmaid colors and flowers.

( I finally got this best friend generator to work! )

Oh, and happy birthday Jeremy! :D And happy fiscal new year to everyone else. Especially the accountants.