3 days

Today I get to go home and begin the weekend festivities. It shall commence with a family dinner, the likes of which we haven't seen since Christmastime last year. It will be awesome.

Tomorrow is a party with my bridesmaids, and arranging flowers and playing with my dear little Katie.


Friday begins with a massage from my first regular masseuse (I started at 18 with massive back tension problems), then is followed by breakfast with the girls, church decorating, more flower arranging, backyard decorating, perhaps some nails and other relaxing things, the rehearsal in the evening, and then the dinner with a lot of fun people making it in.

Saturday is the day. Kyle & I have to be ready in our get-up for pictures at 11:30am. Oof. That seems early. Considering the prep necessary to make a girl look ready for her wedding.

But I suspect it shall be a lovely day. A lovely weekend.

Can't wait to see many of you there. For those of you who can't join us, we're sorry for that, but do promise pictures sometime.

Today I begin to leave my past behind me for good. Though I won't become a new person, I'm beginning a new life. Which is so very thrilling to me.

5 days

I shed my first tear today in terms of life-change emotional goodness.

Sara W., my dear, you're words were beautiful.


I'm doing well, and even got quite a bit of actual work done today (for my job, you know).

But, as I told Cara, what I really want is to be home making space for my husband. I want to be home, throwing out my junk, and putting wedding and shower gifts in places that make sense, instead of on all the furniture in the living room. I want to clean off the guest bed, to have places for all of Kyle's things, his books, his movies, his CDs, his clothes, his plethora of coats. I want him to feel at home when we return from our Costa Rican adventure next week, but I'm afraid he'll just go crazy with the chaos that is our home right now.

I hope he knows how much I wish I had energy and time to make space for him. But I just don't. I can't do it.
Sorry, honey.


Not apprehensive. Not sick. Not totally exhausted (though, perhaps, close). Not anxious. Not nervous. Not experiencing cold feet.

Just excited to see my family all together after so long, excited to be adding to my family numbers in several ways, excited to finally get to be with the man I love all the time.

Only five days stand between me and the realization of so many dreams I've had, so many things I've always wanted and never even known. Five days, friends. That is not very long.

On a posting spree

So I've been posting quite a bit in the last few days. Lots to say, apparently. And lots going on.

Today, the weekly edition of the campus paper, The ECHO, came out. One of my friends always brings me a copy, as she's a budding contributor to the paper, and as we perused it this morning I came across this article by the Opinions Editor, Steve.

I've heard stories about his very dry sense of humor. But this article captures it better than the stories could. Please read it. You will laugh.

Free Music

For anyone who knows how much I love music (which is hopefully anyone who knows anything about me, thus, most of you who read this), you probably know how much I adore artist JJ Heller.

I ran into her at my sister's church in Arizona a few years ago, just before JJ and her husband, Dave, moved to Tennessee to pursue music full-time. The two of them were leading worship and the songs they played haunted me (in the best way possible). I could not get her lyrics out of my head, so I decided to use my mad librarian skills and find out more about her.

You, too, can read more about her here: http://www.jjheller.com

I have gotten two of her CDs since I first heard her, and this past weekend while waiting for my small group to start, I realized I was hearing new JJ music from their stereo.

"What is this?" I asked Jenn. She said, "I think it's JJ Heller or something. I don't know ask Tower."

I immediately asked Tower and she alerted me to this





Until November 1st, you can download JJ's newest album and she encourages you to tell everyone about it.

I can't express to you just how much this woman's music has impacted my life, but she speaks Truth, her words are full of Grace, and her music is superb. I hope it can speak to you as it has me.

A year ago...

Today is the 18th. Yesterday was a Wednesday.

A year ago on Wed., Sept. 19th was Nick's funeral. When I think of him still, my chest constricts a little. On facebook this week, I noticed one of his best friends has a profile picture of several of "the guys". Nick is among them. His smile, the biggest.

A year ago on this day, a Thursday, we had a birthday party at work and I broke down crying in front of all of my coworkers. I didn't understand, saw no hope, couldn't grasp the goodness that was lost to the world in this accident.

My ultimatum to God that week (something I wouldn't recommend doing) was this: "Something good had better come of this...You can't fix it, but you'd better do something."

That attitude obviously reeks of bitterness and grief. I was torn between knowing God is good and seeing the pain of a 4-year-old child now fatherless, a widowed 24-year-old, and the loss of a great man from our small community.

A year later, I still don't know the reason for Nick's death. Maybe there wasn't one. Maybe there is no moral lesson to be learned. Maybe it just was an accident.

But good has come of this tragedy, at least in my life. And that's the confusing and awesome and, at the same time, disturbing part.

You see, in the aftermath of Nick's funeral, a large group of my high school friends, which consisted mostly of guys in the graduating class after mine, spent the afternoon recovering at a local restaurant. Elizabeth and I sat down with some old friends and alternately shared stories and stared in silence.

Kyle W. was among that group, someone I hadn't seen in seven years. He sat at our 4-person table--Elizabeth, Kyle, Adam, and myself. I hadn't thought of him in years. And I guess it was that afternoon that he decided he wanted to get to know me.

Now, I would never presume to think that God wanted it all to happen this way. But I do believe that He orchestrates events, people, and timing so that good can come from evil. I didn't have to run into Kyle for the first time in seven years at Nick's funeral. But I did. And having something great happen in my life that was tied to that deep sadness was very much a part of my healing process.

We can never know the why's. Why is she so sick from that disease? Why did they die so young? Why do people suffer and why, God, am I so tremendously blessed?
We don't have these answers. But "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required" (Luke 12:48). I have been blessed...far beyond anything I could hope to deserve. I deserve nothing.

I don't know why exactly God chose this venue for Kyle and I to meet up after years of not thinking about each other. I don't know why this was the catalyst for our fantastic relationship. I don't know why, only a year later, we're getting married except that God saw a way to use our present circumstances for something great.

The last month has been so stressful and not, as one might presume, because of wedding details. Life and work have been unbelievably overwhelming. Crazy little things--both bad and just annoying--have continually plagued me. Sickness, a car accident, technology issues at work, etc. I have felt attacked and unprepared to deal with all of this.

Till Sara W. reminded me of this passage from our favorite author, Anne Lamott:

"So I've been on the lookout for something wonderful to happen because of this story I heard recently. Carolyn Myss, the medical intuitive who writes and lectures people about why people don't heal, flew to Russia a few years ago to give some lectures. Everything that could go wrong did--flights were canceled or overbooked, connections missed, her reserved room at the hotel given to someone else. She kept trying to be a good sport, but finally, two mornings later, on the train to her conference on healing, she began to whine the man sitting beside her about how infuriating her journey had been thus far. "

"It turned out that this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And he said --gently--that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born--and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible."

(Traveling Mercies, pg. 107)

I'm excited to marry Kyle because I know, for once in my life, that this is the absolute Right thing to do. God has blessed it. Our families have blessed it. And we have no doubts that this is our next step. Everything that I've dealt with, all the hassles and irritations in the last six weeks, have been distractions from this one, most beautiful thing that is about to come into existence.

And so, you can see that I have a lot on my mind. My silence here does not mean that I am floating by on some disillusioned rose-colored cloud. I have a week until I'm married. I don't even know the half of how this is going to greatly impact and change my world. But I'm anxiously awaiting the day, the event, the symbolism and reality of two lives joining up for the rest of their journeys on Earth.

All in the course of a week

• I discovered an attic in my house (er...well...Kyle did).
  
  
• I developed a rare tongue-ear-throat-nose issue that laid me up for a day.
  
  
• I took my first sick day of the year (and since passing out in March).
  
  
• Had the carpet removed from my kitchen (and soon to be from the bathroom) and replaced with vinyl. Who ever thought I'd be happy to have vinyl?!
  
  
• We began rearranging my house to become our house.
  
  
• He began moving his stuff in.
  
  
• I shared my favorite movie with him.
  
  
• Visited the chiropractor twice (to fix the pinched nerve from last week).
  
  
• Attended a shower in my honor with people from work: a lovely event.
  
  

Despite the chaos, confusion, lack of concentration, and frustrations of the last month, I am content. I am happy to be so close and continually moving toward this marriage and life with Kyle.

A bangin' birthday (shout out to Calli)

I love that historically my birthday lasts several days, in the very least, and a week or two at the very best. This time around, I had a full week-long celebration. Well, not every day, but the festivities were spread out over a week. It may have also seemed longer because I keep receiving presents. I unwrapped one shower's worth of wedding gifts, a few actual wedding gifts, and then had my first birthday party (a combo affair with my sister-in-law, who's special day precedes mine by twenty-four hours). I kept receiving birthday gifts and cards in the mail all week, along with wedding packages left outside my door by the UPS guy. Although Kyle didn't wrap my gift, per se, it was still somewhat like opening a present, and Cat had a beautifully packaged gift for me, as well (this past weekend). Sunday, I came home to a surprise wedding shower at my Bible study. God bless those girls. So you see, it's been an entire week of gift getting.

This marks the beginning of my 26th year. Twenty-five was so daggone good that I have feared 26 cannot keep up or top it. But truth be told, very shortly into my 26th year, every other year will be topped. We have 3 weeks, less than, actually, until our wedding day. I realized yesterday that every day I can't be with Kyle is now simply annoying. It's lame. But there's still plenty to keep me busy -- what with the dress steaming fiasco, the pinched nerve in my back and subsequent pain that causes me to gimp and hobble around, the car accident I was involved in on Saturday (it was not my fault--she backed into us and we were not moving), and the picture order not going through. I have itineraries to write and people to contact because they didn't RSVP and a billion thank you notes to write (already...geesh! Thank you everyone...that's the precursor.).

Kyle has proven in the last year that his surprises are worth having, so I continue to let him make plans and I try not to be too nosy. As is typical, the day of the event or plan, he makes me take guesses as to what these things could be. Being one who hates guessing (I think it ruins the surprise), I started making stuff up. "What did you get me?" I asked, "well, I'm sure it's a baby tiger." He thought that set the bar a little too high. "If that's not it, I'm sure you're taking me flying somewhere" (you know he flies planes, or he can anyway). He didn't like that one, either. More realistically, on the last guess, I thought maybe a concert -- we love music. But that wasn't it either.

Turns out, we went to a great bistro/diner in Fountain Square (Shelbi or something like that) and had the most amazing smoked dinner ever. Smoked portobello mushroom with goat cheese and I got the best smoked pork loin ever. The veggies were perfectly al dente. Post dinner, we walked a bit and then headed down to an underground Duckpin Bowling alley below the restaurant. In 1950's decor, this place was incredibly old -- restored wood, retro wall hangings, and funny guys behind the counter. Although bowling with a 10 lb. ball is no longer feasible for my broken wrists, this was perfect. The balls are the size of a shotput, I would guess, and while you might think it'd be easier than regular bowling, my scores were oddly parallel to the "real" game.

The weekend was full of laziness and laughter -- two of my favorite weekend activities, thus even better on a birthday weekend.

If I wanted to be honest, I'd say my birthday rocked this year. There's just nothing quite like being with the one you love. And having him surprise you multiple times in a few days.

It's going to be a fantabulous year.