Brittany Rae turns 18...

doesn't even seem right. Here she is holding cousin Miracle Joy

and here's mom, Jennifer Lynn.

more pictures later :)

prayer

please pray for my friend Olivia. When I say she's my friend, I mean it. Like, my mom and her grandpa hang out. My sister fixed her mom's hair for her wedding, before she even had her or her brother. I sometimes clean and paint and do laundry for them. Last time I did laundry for them, Olivia sat near my feet for 3 hours playing legos while I did 3 hours worth of laundry and sang quietly to myself. From what I understand, she is in pain that is equal to a woman who is 10 centimeters dilated and in full blown labor, even on 3 IV pain meds. She's 8 years old.
Please pray for Olivia.

music

I've seen two videos this week that have stopped me in my tracks.

The first one was coming to the end of my walk/jog/run (the cardio equipment at my gym has t.v.s, thank you Jesus, I switch between CMT and VH1 to keep myself going). Now, I'm not a big Daughtry fan, but I think he's alright. I had not seen this song, but I'd heard it on the radio. To be honest, I just did not have the energy to change the channel so I watched. Not only did it energize me to finish, but it got me thinking about the rest of my life, our (as in me and Bruce) lives. I thought about Deb and Hanna and Troy and Jeney and Troy. I thought about a lot of things. I appreciated that he spent as much time on our Country as other countries and that he spoke to the heart, and healing from within. I just really loved it. Maybe I read too much into things, but really, how much do we heal ourselves when we reach out to others?

The embedding has been disabled for this video (What about Now), but if you haven't seen it, and read the words that go across the screen during the song... I HIGHLY encourage you go to you tube and watch it. The full video is included there


The other one is this Kid Rock Video, Warrior. Now, I know he's controversial, but I love him. He doesn't pretend to be anything that he isn't. There are several other good songs that deal with the same issues, this was just so powerful. We saw this video at the movies yesterday, it gave me goosebumps and made me cry. I don't think this is the full version, but you can watch it at the National Guard website.

wedding preparations

sorry I haven't figured how to put things behind a cut on here yet!

If you've seen the move Fool's Rush In (a favorite of both of ours), we are trying to recreate the poles that they used for the wedding at the end of the movie. In our own fashion of course! We are also making miniature ones to go around the cake. 4 for the wedding, 6 for the cake. And when I say "we", I mean Bruce. I help (a little) but mostly in a consulting fashion and with little things. He's the brains of this part of the operation.


early stages of the miniatures. I wish I had taken pictures of when these were all just pieces of wood!

in various stages of completion. There is a beer bottle behind them for scale, but it's hard to see

finished!

bucket of autumn

practicing the bigger version...the poles still have to be painted, etc...

Bruce, working on the stands for the big ones


invitations

Bruce saved my butt. He came home from work at almost midnight and found me all emotional and exhausted putting these things together, and sat down and helped me until we were finished.

that's all for now....

off to clean my house, maybe....

this and that

-I have been very sick this last week, and Bruce has helped me on two big jobs that I was working on. Getting up in the morning and going to my job with me, spackeling, sanding, painting, until it was time for him to go to his own job and work till midnight.

-He's a goofball. We were both painting in the same room the other day and Meatloaf was singing "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" in the living room (well, it was really coming from the stereo, but you know)and Bruce said, "you know, he's a lazy man, it takes a lot of energy to sleep all day". And I said "what are you talking about?" he proceeded to tell me how Meatloaf was telling the girl that he wanted to "sleep all day, baby baby let me sleep all day". I went into a dissertation about how he was saying Let me sleep on IT, and I'll give you an answer in the morning because the girl wanted a promise of love and marriage before she would *ahem*, because you know, why buy the cow if the milk is free? But he insisted I was wrong, and continued to sing "Let me sleep all day" for the rest of the song, and talk about lazy people even while Linda, the lady we were working for was singing the right words in the other room. I have a strong suspicion he was pulling my leg and singing these lyrics just for fun. Which it was, it made me laugh.

-Well, it's been one month since the big work out, BFL diet started. I tried on the dress, and it still doesn't fit. So, it has to be sent back. I won't lie. I am very, VERY, sad. I will not be defeated though, the workout and BFL will continue. I will look pretty on my wedding day.

-Bruce's outfit is complete except for the shoes. We got an exceptional deal on the slacks, so we went a little overboard and bought him the most beautiful Tommy Bahama shirt I've ever seen. I can't wait to see him wearing it with a pair of blue jeans on our honeymoon. -sigh-

-I took some pictures of the wedding preparations in their various stages, Bruce says it looks like we have buckets of autumn. that makes me smile. It makes me happy that we are doing so much of it together and so much of it will be reuseable. will post some pics soon.

-Oh yeah, the wedding cake is finally picked out, bought and paid for. Italian cream with butter cream frosting. Our first big disaster averted. The cake lady got ill, but the hairdresser directed us elsewhere and we got a great deal from well respected shoppe.

off to work on invitations.