The "new" car:

I suggested the fiance buy this car:

Instead, he bought this car:

My option was cuter, his more practical (plus the red Honda wasn't actually for sale). As usual, practicality wins out. Soon I'll have my car back!

Weddings on my mind...

Always.

No matter what is going on, somewhere in the back of my mind I have wedding details (decided and undecided) floating.

Monday morning before work, Mom and I went to the church where J and I are being married to look at reception facilities. Tuesday evening after work I met with the violinist for the wedding to go over music possibilities. Today--my day off--Mom and I got together with my friend who's making my bridal gown. We picked patterns to combine, found fabric, etc. Then, Mom and I spent 4 hours wondering the major stores at the mall nearby looking for potential bridesmaid dresses and mother of the bride dress. In case anyone was wondering, Mom and I aren't particularly good shoppers; we tire easily. Today, we just plunged ahead and were quite successful! We found two possibilities for bridesmaid dress (both significantly on sale), a top for Mom, wedding shoes for me, and then I decided a also needed a couple of cute clearance sundresses. Next week we're tackling catering, church coordinator, and photography. Progress is being made.

In other news, I think the fiance may have a replacement car. We've been looking for something for 3 weeks--he's had my car in the interim. Also last week I bought a much needed table and chairs from a consignment shop in town. It was an amazing deal, the woman knocked $45 of the sticker price and threw in an extra, almost matching chair! Doesn't it look just right in the apartment?

How would you respond?

In the last half hour of my work day I actually had the following conversation:

Customer (he says the following like he is trying to be cool, granted he was mentally challenged, but it was still very casually strange): I have a teenager at home.

Me: Oh really?

Customer: His name's Huck Finn.

Me: Oh. Uh, huh.

Customer: He's a teenage lion cub.

I faltered something out, but my mind was scrambling to fit all these pieces together. What would you have said?

Recovery

So, remember how merely two posts ago I was commenting on continuing to hope despite circumstances that were less than ideal? Well, we've got new circumstances that are making hope a necessity.
With the deluge of rain we've been receiving recently, we finally got hit. The basement flooded (which is finished and very much lived in with brother 1's bedroom, Dad's office, play room, and family room) and we are now trying to figure out what to do with everything so we can tear up all the ruined carpet. We've already hauled up to a trash heap on the driveway one room's carpet, a mattress and box spring, and a disassembled cabinet that housed our board games. Poor Brother 1 has lost much of his earthly possessions--or at the very least they are quite water damaged. We are kind of at an impasse for the one room, now sans carpet, to dry so we can move more furniture in there to facilitate ripping up more carpet. It's quite disastrous and in the mean time, our house kind of stinks with all that water soaked into the carpets. Also, on the same night in which the basement flooded, part of a Cottonwood in the backyard broke and hit several other trees on the way down and that torrent of limbs managed to hit the neighbor's fence. Guess what we'll be replacing?
However, despite all of the unforeseen loss of goods and extra work, there is as always marks of God's Providences. Brother 1 got home sometime between 1 and 2 Tuesday morning and discovered the water pouring in through his window. Imagine if no one slept down there that night? Or even if he'd happened to be out even later? So much more could have been damaged. And that dang tree, well, if it had fallen other directions it could have hit and damaged the swing set, the boy's clubhouse they built themselves, the storage barn, and perhaps even our deck or our roof. A portion of the neighbor's fence sounds pretty good. Praise God for His protection!
So, my dear readers, this house is in a frenzy of cleaning and it looks as if the work will never end, it will, won't it? In all honestly, it kind of looks like we just moved in, everything is everywhere. It's a bit disheartening, but we carry on!

This is what I was doing yesterday:

Standing up with one of my oldest friends (I've known her for 17 1/2 years) at her wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and reception.

My dear fiance even made the 3-hour trip over which made my evening! This pic was taken late into the evening (some time after 9) and we were both zonked.

Hoping in the face of hopelessness and still smiling.

This past week was quite challenging for me as I felt each day brought a new circumstance that was less than desirable and trying to drive me to lose hope. However, God as my ever faithful Father has provided for 2 of the 3 occurrences and I continue to trust and pray that He will give guidance and provision for the final "trouble." (That being the demise of the fiance's car...he currently has mine until we can figure out what to do.)