~wedding dress shopping~

My niecy-poo, Colleen, is getting married this summer. In Florida. On the beach. A wedding and vacation all rolled into one? I'm digging it!

This past Sunday we went shopping for wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses. {I ♥ being included in all this girly stuff!!}

Six of us {Sister Carla - MOB, Niece Hannah (cousin to the bride) - Maid of Honor, Niece Katrina (Lil sis to the bride), Sister Jill, and Me} squeezed into my Ford four door and headed to the "big" city!

{Bride Colleen, Maid of Honor Hannah}

{Hannah and Katrina found dresses in the wedding colors...but didn't want these styles}


{A little more looking and they each picked out a style. There are two more bridesmaids. Each will chose their own style of dress, but all will be in the color "pool."}

{Next, the bride tried on several dresses.}

{And we have a winner!}

~robbers cave~

For Christmas, Virgil's parents gave us money for a weekend getaway. This is one of our favorite things to do. To set out on a Friday evening after work or an early Saturday morning and explore the part of the world we live in.

This time we stayed in a cabin at Robbers Cave State Park near Wilburton, OK. It was a cold weekend. The guys did some hiking and fishing, and I did a lot of sitting my the fireplace and crocheting. It was what we all needed after several weeks of illness in our household.

Aren't my in-laws cool?!

~meditating on this~

I came across this bible verse this morning. The Lord gets his point across even when we're not looking for an answer! The words of this verse hit me "right where I live" and took my breath away.

If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we do
not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we
have not seen. And he has given us this command: Those who love God must
also love one another. ~I John 4:20-21

You see, I struggle with loving some people. Whether I think they are too loud, or too selfish, or passive-aggressive, not authentic, self-absorbed, petty...you get the idea. It is so easy for me to pin a label on someone and never convict myself of the same afflictions. So, rather than nurturing others, accepting others, praying for others, I write them off. Dismiss them. Move on to the person that is easier to love. The ones that don't challenge me or my style or my view of the world. It's hard to admit. But how can I claim to love God, and then so willingly judge my "brothers and sisters", whom He loves just as much as He loves me and whom He has commanded me to love?

I'll be praying on this for a while, for I have a long way to go.

Thank you Lord, for opening my eyes a little this morning.

~another one! ~ can't HELP myself~

I'm addicted to making printables now. Let me give some credit on where I learned HOW to do this.

I love the printables and subway art I see around blogland that contain various names for our God. I want to make one with wood and vinyl, but time is limited at the moment. SO, why not create a printable? I went for it:



Absolutely ADORE how this turned out! Now I need to get it printed for my photo wall!

~printable {free from me}~

I love all the printables I'm seeing around the internet lately!

So, I decided to give it a try myself.

I have no idea how to put it on my blog and make it easily printable for you, but if by clicking on the image you can get a high resolution print...and if you want it, please feel free to print away! :)

(If you print, be sure to set your page to portrait. It should print in 8 X 10 size.)
I think it would make a nice wedding gift all framed up!

~various and sundry~

I've been taking lots of pictures this week. I'm very pleased with some of them. I don't know what or if I did anything right, but they are pleasing to the eye....at least to MY eye!

Lots on my mind today!

Let's start with snow. Is there anything more anxiously anticipated, yet eventually despised than snow? I look forward to snow every year. Pray for it, meditate on it, cross my fingers, toes, eyes that I'll wake up to snow and lots more falling. {And let's be real, that I'll get an alert that the University is closed and I get a day off with pay...WOOT!}

We don't typically get much snow here. Sometimes we go a whole winter season without snow. And then it snows in April.

Anyway, back to my point. I always want it to snow, but I don't want it to be cold enough for the snow to stick around for too long. :) This week it snowed on Sunday. And it didn't get warm enough to melt it all away until yesterday. Friday. Six days. TOO COLD FOR TOO LONG. ;)

One thing that is implicitly true? Snow is beautiful.





Now, coffee. I ♥ coffee. I love to drink coffee, smell coffee, and even dip my finger into the grounds and eat them. I'm a complete freak for the stuff.



My Mom's mothers ring. I've loved it since I was a little girl. I remember sitting in the church pew on Sundays, twisting the ring off my mom's finger and trying it on each of my own fingers. It was always too big for mine.

And now I've been wearing the ring daily for about a month. It fits greats. It makes me feel close to her. Like maybe time melts away and only the feelings remain, undiminished by years that have passed. When I look at the ring, I think about the people each of those stones represent. My brothers and sisters. Their individual personalities and my memories of growing up with them. I love them so.



This is an outbuilding I drive past daily on my way to and from work. I love it. The simplicity of a white metal building with a red metal roof. It stands alone. No house is nearby and I love that whomever it belongs to decided it should have a red roof for no obvious purpose other than, perhaps, they liked the look.



Another fixture of my commute is Lake Ray Roberts. I cross seven (I think that's right) bridges over this lake each morning and evening. This photo is of a sunrise this past week.


and this is from the same bridge, shooting a tiny bit further west, at sunset.


Oh the wildlife I've seen in the area! Turkey, Cormarants, Geese, Herons, Deer, Hogs, Bobcats, and Coyotes. And skunks...too many skunks!

~@my

~i need~

I need this camera bag.

And they are currently sold out.

Perhaps an opportunity to practice my goal of 'consume less?'

Hmmmmm........

~backyard sunset~

I came home to a gorgeous sunset this evening.



And I just had to take the opportunity to practice with my camera.



God is AWESOME!

~starting out behind~

This illness that has decided to settle down in my lungs and make me feel exhausted all the time has me starting out 2011 BEHIND!

So quickly - I don't have one word for the New Year, although I like that idea immensely, I do not have the energy to condense my goal down to one word. I have, however, come up with four words for 2011. My goals and my desires for the year can be attained within these four words:


Do more. Consume less.

~new year's blah~

2011.

You've started out ick.

Not nearly like heaven.

Cuz we are all sick.

bleh

So, yeah, we're all sickly. I've been filling us up with water and citrus fruit. Hoping it all passes quickly.

And that picture? Those lovlies were supposed to be sticking into some Sparking Cider cupcakes to celebrate the New Year. But, I didn't feel like cooking them and my guys didn't feel like eating them.

Yep. We're sick.