Still over here

Ok, so I haven't actually set up this blog. You can still find me here:

Rambling Rose

tardy (or Heather should have posted something by now!)

Yes, yes. I know. It has been a month since the wedding. I should have posted something by now. I haven't. I haven't wanted to touch the computer when I get home from work. I will post something of a little more substance later, but for now, here is a picture from the wedding:

Three Word Thursday

Red Wedding Shoes


& a bonus for good measure:

9 Days Left.

the apartment

Ok, so here are pictures of the apartment as promised!

Our stairs leading up to our door:



Looking out our picture window into the stairwell:



Looking out our front door from the kitchen:



Our kitchen from one angle:



And another:



And yet another or "Look! There's a dishwasher!":



Dining room:



Another view of the dining room:



Dining room into the kitchen:



Living room:



Bathroom:



Guest room/Office:



Guest room/Office again:



Hallway from guest room to master bedroom (bathroom on the right):



Master bedroom:



The fun-sized closets:



More to come once we start adding our own touches!

"small" is relative

So, Ben and I now have a place to live after we get married! Yeah! Ben will be moving in next week and we are already trying to think logically about where to place things. It is a two bedroom/one bath apartment with a large living room/dining room area and a fair-sized kitchen with washer/dryer hookups. The problem: storage. There is only one closet in the master bedroom and even that it fairly small. (And as Ben likes to remind me, it is made for someone like me -a very short person- because of the placement of the doorknob, which is about at his kneecaps!) The kitchen is lacking in storage space if you think about the fact that if all of our dishes & other such things go in the cabinets, there won't be any space for pantry items and the same is true if we do it the other way around. Since I love looking at magazines, I thought, "Hey, I'm sure that there is something out there for living in small spaces!" Lo and behold, I found something! It was then that I realized that "small" is a relative term. Most of the "small" rooms would take up the majority of our apartment. When did that become small?!? I guess I've always known that small is relative, but I've always looked at it in the other direction. I look at these rooms and say, "Well, the second bedroom doesn't have a closet, but at least it's larger than the length of a bed. I didn't have that in the second half of my junior year!" or "At least I don't have to walk across the hall in a house full of girls to get to my dresser and closet like I did the first half of my junior year!" (Rest in peace, Music House...)

So, now I'm on the hunt for creative storage. My friend, Patty, just told me that I need to look at it as a European would. So, now I think that I need to set out to find some sort of "European Apartment Living" magazine or book. Anyone know of any? Our other plan of action is to head to Ikea on Saturday. We were headed there with my mom already to buy decorations for our reception, but this gives us just one more reason to scour the store! Number 1 on the list is a wardrobe to put in the second bedroom. Number 2 is some sort of cabinet for either dishes or to act as a pantry. Number 3 is a filing system for the second bedroom/office. We've got some work to do!

I'll try to get some pictures up of the apartment and of what we are looking at as far as storage goes. Thank goodness there are only 20 minutes left of the workday today and tomorrow is Friday!

Three Word Thursday

Taking a cue from Just Something I Made, here is my Three Word Thursday:

Fifty-one days left.

Mrs. Darcy says chill

I just found a little gem thanks to one of my favorite websites, Snippet & Ink. This post is from The Future Mrs. Darcy. I absolutely love Pride & Prejudice. For a short time I even considered using music from the new movie in my wedding. This is a good reminder for me:

So here we find ourselves. Smack in the middle of wedding season. Let's take a deep breath.
Read more...

60 days

60 days until the wedding. Crazy. I'll post some of my inspirations and decisions in the next few days!

they're giving it away!

Who doesn't like free things?!? The Design Girl Blog is having a month of give-aways and you could be one of the lucky winners! I have entered to win one of Monogram Chick's Preppy Travel Mugs. You should enter too! Also, it is totally worth it to check out the rest of the stuff that Monogram Chick has to offer. I'm thinking about getting a few things once I have my new last name! *grin* You can also check out the Monogram Chick Blog for ideas!

busy weekends

I keep looking forward to a weekend that isn't completely booked. I really don't think that they exist. The last few weekends have consisted of many tasks such as:

moving everything that I own out of my apartment into a storage unit and into the house where I was house-sitting

cleaning said apartment

picking out bridesmaids' dresses and tuxes

moving everything from the one house where I was house-sitting to the house where I am now dog-sitting

All very necessary things, but also very time-consuming and enery-sucking things!

This weekend will be much like the rest:

picking out flowers at the florist

taking engagement pictures with our fabulous friend, Karis! (Ok, this part will be fun, but also a bit energy-sucking.)

hopefully starting to slowly move a few things over to my friends' house where I will actually be living for the next few months (until the wedding)

At least it is a 3-day weekend.

Oh! And in more exciting news, I won a book!

sassy red

My traveling Lizzy Bennet brought me back a present from Austin:



It's a matchbox! How cool is that?

wisdom from the rabbit room

Once again, Ron Block hits it home: (italics mine)

This is why mere mental process and logical thought can’t get me through even a single day. Trying to do it all right isn’t the same as living in the Now. “Trying to get it right” involves the underlying opposite assumption: “I am going to get it wrong unless I try really hard.”

Now, what we take by faith takes us. We manifest that which we really believe. If I believe something is going to be hard, say, parenting, or a gig, or some household job like fixing a door, it will be. My seeing will drive the circumstance, and so my experience will reflect my negative faith. In that sense we often do create our own reality. I believe wrongly, and then strive in my effort against the reality I have created by my wrong believing.

But here’s the crossroads choice. I can live in the Now, in the moment, and expect God’s revelation for that moment. I can see my kids fighting and contact that place inside me where God is love, where Christ is faith, and rest, and wisdom and understanding, and I can know exactly what my children need in that moment without my mind short-circuiting on dozens of options.

In any situation I can throw negativity out on the trash heap and know I can do all things through Christ. All it takes is to get out of the future of “what might happen” and into the Now of “What is the need of this moment?”

I’m all for reading books. I love to read. But the inner attitude I allow determines what I do with all that information, determines whether it short-circuits me or is used by God as a means of opening my mind to deeper revelation, deeper life, and a deeper and more joyous Now.

(Read the whole post here.)

I really needed to read that.

quotes

Two quotes from this week so far:

"I always get Xanax and Zantac mixed up"
~Patty

"They didn't understand Jesus and he was the greatest teacher that ever lived! The only thing that he was lacking was PowerPoint."
~Timo Strawbridge

jeannie

My afternoon is looking up...

Mitchell's "I Dream of Jeannie" (frozen)

Thank you, Mitchell's.

abide in ME (part 3)

Chapter 5: As You Came to Him, by Faith
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith...abounding therein. -Colossians 2:6-7

Not less essential than for the commencement, is faith for the progress of the spiritual life. Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith.

The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last. It is only as he daily comes, all empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive His life and strength, that he can bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God.

Simply by the Word of God, That Word, as it were, compelled you to believe that, notwithstanding guilt in the past, and weakness in the present, and unfaithfulness in the future, the promise was sure that Jesus would accept and save you.

Do not think so much of yourself as a branch, nor of the abiding as your duty, until you have first had your soul filled with the faith of what Christ as the Vine is.

Ask the Father by the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what a glorious, loving, mighty Christ this is, in whom you have your place and your life; it is the faith in what Christ is, more than anything else, that will keep you abiding in Him.

And then, when faith can well say, "He is my Vine," let it further say, "I am His branch; I am in Him."

Chapter 6: God Himself Has United You to Him
Of [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. -1 Corinthians 1:30
My Father is the husbandman. -John 15:1

As the believer enters into this, the divine side of the work of salvation, he will learn to praise and to worship with new exultation, and to rejoice more than ever in the divineness of the salvation he has been made partaker of. At each step he reviews, the song will come, "This is the Lord's doing" - divine Omnipotence working out what eternal Love had devised. Of God I am in Christ Jesus.

The words will lead him even further and higher, even to the depths of eternity. "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called" (Rom 8:30). The calling in time is the manifestation of the purpose in eternity. Before the world was, God had fixed the eye of His sovereign love on you in the election of grace and chosen you in Christ. That you know yourself to be in Christ is the stepping-stone by which you rise to understand in its full meaning the word, "Of God I am in Christ Jesus."

The God who chose Christ to be the Vine fitted Him thoroughly for the work He had as the Vine to perform. The God who has chosen me and planted me in Christ has thereby engaged to secure, if I will but let Him, by yielding myself to Him, that I in every way be worthy of Jesus Christ.

How it would quicken the sense of dependence and make me see that praying without ceasing is indeed the one need of my life -an unceasing waiting, moment by moment, on the God who has united me to Christ, to perfect His own divine work, to work in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

abide in ME (part 2)

Chapter 3: Trusting Him to Keep You
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:12

Abiding in Him is not a work that we have to do as the condition for enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him do all for us, and in us, and through us. It is a work He does for us: the fruit and the power of His redeeming love. Our part is simply to yield, to trust, and to wait for what He has engaged to perform.

You are not under the law, with its inexorable do, but under grace, with its blessed believe what Christ will do for you.

Chapter 4: As the Branch in the Vine
I am the vine, ye are the branches -John 15:5

The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him.

How little have I understood how great my need of, but also how perfect my claim to, all His fullness! How little understood, how great His need of, but also how perfect His claim to, my emptiness! Let me, in its beautiful light, study the wondrous union between Jesus and His people, until it becomes to me the guide into full communion with my beloved Lord. Let me listen and believe, until my whole being cries out, "Jesus is indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing me, supplying me, using me, and filling me to the full to make me bring forth fruit abundantly."

abide in me (part 1)

I've just started to re-read Andrew Murray's Abide In Me, which I read for the first time about 6 years ago. I still can't believe that it has been that long, but apparently it has! There are so many little bits of wisdom to pull from the book. I'm trying to read a section every night before I go to bed, which was the thought when he wrote it. (31 sections, so that it could be read in a month.) The book as a whole is based off of John 15:1-12:

¹ "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ¹² "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

These are the nuggets that I've pulled so far:

Chapter 1: All You Who Have Come to Him
Come unto me. -Matthew 11:28
Abide in me. -John 15:4

He had destined you to something better than a short-lived blessedness, to be enjoyed only in times of special earnestness and prayer, and then to pass away, as you had to return to those duties in which the far greater part of life has to be spent.

Chapter 2: And You Shall Find Rest to Your Souls
Come unto me...and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your soul -Matthew 11:28-29

They did not know how, when Jesus said, "My yoke is easy" (Matt. 11:30), He spoke the truth; how just the yoke gives the rest because the moment the soul yields itself to obey, the Lord Himself gives the strength and joy to do it.

A full surrender is to obey as well as to trust, to trust as well as to obey.

That's all I've got for now. Stay tuned.

meow.

Thank you, Lindy. This is great.

http://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/99694.qna/category/pt/site/iiim

And in other news. I love the I Dream of Jeannie from Mitchell's Coffeehouse. Thanks for keeping me awake and thanks to Gina for bringing me one!

The evils found at work

I walked back into work after lunch and found this on the table.


The evils found at work.

Now that's just wrong. TWO boxes of my favorite Girl Scout cookies just sitting on the table.

once upon a time...

Ok, boys and girls. It is story time! I finally have two minutes together to write something out, so here goes...

I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!

And now, for my story.

Friday night, (February 13th- yes, Friday the 13th) Ben and I went to Pics on the Promenade down at Lake Mirror. It is an community event that our city puts on where we show a movie out by the lake. Lots of fun. Our church was sponsoring the movie Cinderella Man this month. We had a lovely picnic dinner with sandwiches, wine, cheese and crackers while we watched the movie. After the movie, we chatted with our friends Adam and Lindy and told them about our plans for the rest of the evening. I was really excited because Ben was going to take me to look at the moon through a telescope. (I'm still not sure how I've never seen the moon through a telescope considering how much I love the night sky and the fact that I'm a big nerd.) He had gotten a telescope with all of the Coke Rewards that we'd been saving, although I didn't know why we were saving them until after he ordered it. So, we walked back to my apartment to kill a little time before the moon started to rise.

When it got a little closer to moonrise, we headed out to Lake Hollingsworth where Ben had already picked out a spot for us to look at the moon. We also had his friends' (Brad & Ashley) telescope with us. We both carried a telescope out to Anchor Park. I had brought a blanket for us to sit on, so I set that up while he set up the telescopes. It was still a little cloudy and the moon and just started to rise, so we couldn't look at it just yet. I laid down on the blanket and closed my eyes while he continued to fiddle with the telescopes. He came and sat down with me for a few minutes and then it looked like the moon had cleared the clouds and would be in a good spot for us to look at it. He got up and checked and said, "Ok, I think I have it focused in on it." He had lowered the telescope so that it would be easier for me to look through. I walked over and looked into the telescope and written on the moon, I saw Heather, will you marry me?. I turned around and he was down on one knee and had the ring box in his hand. He opened it and told me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Apparently, I never actually got any words out. (I couldn't remember. I had to ask him if I did.) I nodded my head yes and kissed him and made sounds like "Mmmhmmm!" (Apparently, I also took forever to turn around from the telescope according to Ben!) We then started making phone calls to family and close friends. Well, close friends who were awake. It took a LONG time for me to get to sleep that night!

So, that is my story. Well, I guess it's really our story. And honestly, it is simply the beginning of the next chapter of our story. There is much more to come. Stay tuned...

"Stormy" Monday

I love it when Stormy visits the office. She brought a full tea set.

Tea at the Office

friday

This has been a LONG week. I feel like I have spent most of it here at the church. Probably because I have. Anyway, I am just glad that it is Friday. And that I'm going home in fifteen minutes. And that I'm going to go hang out with Ben tonight.

This week has been brought to you by the letter K (thanks to Melissa) and the number 542. (Which, if you put them together, gives you Mozart's Piano Trio in E Major which according to the Koechel system is K542) Yep, I'm that nerdy.

on radiant and being

My beautiful friend, Francine, just sent me a link to an article on Radiant Magazine's website. The article was entitled "Stop Acting Like a Christian." It was a great article. I was hungry for more, so I continued browsing on the site. What I found was an article called "Making Room for Solitude."

This hit me hard. I realized that I have been meaning to do this for weeks now. As I told Francine, I have put it off because of a) my busyness or b) my lazyness. Neither one is a good excuse. I really need to take time for me and God. Why is that such a hard thing for me to do? I need to go somewhere where I don't have a computer, a cell phone, an iPod, a television, or [insert any other distraction here]. I need to be instead of do.

the Lord will provide

On this quiet, dreary afternoon, I'm sitting in the office listening to my "Square Pegs & Friends" playlist and I felt compelled to post the lyrics to this song, written by John Newton and, in the case of my iPod, played by Matthew Smith.

The Lord Will Provide

Though troubles assail,
And dangers affright;
Though friends should all fail,
And foes all unite,
Yet one thing secures us,
Whatever betide:
The Scripture assures us,
“The Lord will provide.”

The birds, without barn
Or storehouse, are fed;
From them let us learn
To trust for our bread;
His saints what is fitting
Shall ne’er be denied,
So long as ’tis written,
“The Lord will provide.”

His call we obey,
Like Abram of old,
Not knowing our way,
But faith makes us bold;
For though we are strangers,
We have a good Guide;
And trust in all dangers:
“The Lord will provide.”

When Satan appears
To stop up our path,
And fills us with fears,
We triumph by faith;
He cannot take from us,
Though oft he has tried,
The heart-cheering promise,
“The Lord will provide.”

He tells us we’re weak,
Our hope is in vain;
The good that we seek
We ne’er shall obtain;
But when such suggestions
Our faith thus have tried,
This answers all questions,
“The Lord will provide.”

No strength of our own,
Nor goodness we claim;
Our trust is all thrown
On Jesus’ dear name.
In this our strong tower
For safety we hide;
The Lord is our power,
“The Lord will provide.”

When life sinks apace,
And death is in view,
The word of His grace
Shall comfort us through;
Not fearing or doubting,
With Christ on our side,
We hope to die shouting,
“The Lord will provide.”