Let the countdown begin!

I'll be honest... the countdown did not just "begin" as my title may have misinformed you. I've actually had this countdown going on my phone since 503 days until the wedding. Seriously, I'm so excited and the days are flying by.

There's really not that much planning to be done just yet because, well we have a whole year and four months! There is only so much we can do this far in advance. Still, God's blessings are overwhelming. Its not even wedding shower time yet, and God is already "showering" us with gifts (haha). Since being engaged (a whole month and 16 days) Joseph and I have been given a bedroom suit, a set of dishes, and we've had our save-the-dates and invitations paid for. Now that's what I call God taking care of his children. AHHHH!!! Hallelujah!!!!

Besides that, we're still blessed. Even without the gifts or anything, I am just so excited to have found (as the Song of Solomon says) the one whom my soul loves. People ask me if I get tired of telling the story or talking about wedding stuff, and I will admit, after I told the story over 500 times the first week back at school, I was a tiny bit tired. But not of the story, I just have this "painter" mentality that I can't get over. I have to tell every little detail, and when there are so many important details a girl gets worn out! All of that to say, I'm not tired yet! It's my favorite story, which explains why I've dedicated practically this whole post just to rambling about rambling.

Anyways, I know you want to know... so here's all the details on the wedding I have right now. The colors are pink (very light pink) and tan (as in we're using burlap) and its going to be so country chic. And that's all. That's all I can tell you right now :)

One to Seventy

This past weekend I attended two birthday parties, one for a young 'un in the church who turns one on Tuesday, and another for my Papaw, who turns seventy today. My Grandaddy also turned seventy this month. My sister turned seventeen. My uncle turned forty-something (how horrible am I for not knowing exactly how old???) And honestly, they are all the same as they were the day before their birthdays. 364-days-old to 365-days-old did not change baby Isaac, nor did sixty nine years to seventy years change either of my grandparents. But somewhere along the line, all of these people aged and nobody saw it happening, not really. I turned twenty on my last birthday, but I feel like I just turned 14 the year before. I mean I remember the birthday party in great detail. All of the girls from the church came over for a sleepover and my mom and dad gave me a white teddy bear and my mom cried more than she did when I became a teenager, and I was the first to fall asleep because as it turns out I've always been the old lady in the group. 

I guess I've said all this to say, time flies. With all of these birthdays, such a wide variety of ages, my head is spinning. Sometimes I like to be all philosophical and think about how time doesn't really exist, that its just something humans invented and how no wonder time flies if it doesn't even exist! But then, my head hurts so badly. So I have to stop thinking about it.But if time passes so quickly and we don't feel any different from one day to another, when do we change? When did I stop feeling like a fourteen year old and start feeling like a twenty year old? (Ha. I rarely feel twenty, most of the time its eighty or sixteen ;))

I'm just thinking, I have five semesters of college under my belt and one week of the sixth semester and I want to quit so badly I think it would blow all of your minds if you knew how badly I want to quit. (No worries though! I'm just dreaming, I would never quit). I'm just burnt out, and the first week of Block I was enough to send anyone (I believe) into absolute emotional distress. When I realize though, how quickly the past two and a half years have gone by, I am quick to come to the conclusion that the next year and a half will be just a blink of the eye. Which is awesome, but.....

How fickle can I be? I want the next year and a half to fly by! I don't even want to know it happens, but I want time to slow down too. I want to enjoy this next year and a half. I want to have fun. I want to spend time with my family and with the people I love. I want to enjoy being engaged. (I feel a really good argument for me quitting school coming on haha). I don't want to miss out on everything good that is going to happen just to get to the next great thing. Life shouldn't work like that. But how do you stop it?

Because before you even realize that you are one-year-old, you are seventy.

Back

Its back to the grind here at WKU. Day one of classes is done. I spent six hours in a rather small room with 21 other aspiring educators talking about how to "woo" men (we're all girls), our fears of spiders, and who all got engaged over break. Oh, and teaching, of course. 

I actually can say that its not all that bad being back here. Every day is a step closer to turning the tassel and, then, marrying my best friend. 

I am so thankful to God for the break that I had. I mean, I had a break from everything. There were really no youth services (not that I'm glad to have a break from that), I didn't have to work, do homework, or anything really. I got caught up on episodes of Grey's Anatomy, got new furniture in my room, cleaned out my closet, and looked at a million bridal magazines. However, as soon as school starts, so does everything else. Life is picking back up again, and I can't say I'm not excited about it. 

If you're wondering about the wedding... Joseph and I agreed not to talk about it until January. Well, its January, and honestly we haven't made any real plans. I mean, we have a year and four months left! I'm sure the more homework that accumulates though, the more planning I will do. It seems to work that way. Speaking of homework, I already have a ton. Two chapters to read and complete reading guides on, a poem to write, and something else... I think.

Crafty Christmas

 One thing I really enjoyed about this Christmas was all the fun gifts I got to make. Right, MAKE. I'm telling you, if you have a crafty bone in your whole body, its the way to go. 

This one, to the left, I made for my Grandmama. It's just basic paint on canvas. If you use a sponge, you can make the canvas look like wood. (I figured that out on accident, I'm not that artistic.) The one below I made for my sister, Rebekah. It is a verse from Proverbs 31. I loved this one, it was one of my favorites. I also, finally, got my mom's old sewing machine set up in my room. I was super pumped about this! Rebekah and I used it so much in the first few days that I had to wind a couple of bobbins and she broke the needle, so we had to get a new one of those. I must say, my sewing skills aren't all I thought they would be. Sewing is no easy task. My first project was a camera strap for my new camera that I got on Black Friday with Joseph (yay! it took the best pictures over the break!) I was going for a quilted look... and well, whatever. It looks good in the picture, but up close its kind of ragged, I need more practice I suppose. 

The Proposal

Finally, the story you have all been waiting for, I'm sure ;)
After a day of museums, good food, and ice sculptures, Joseph and I had only one stop left (of course, I didn't know what it was). So I put the blindfold on for one last time (and was not happy about it). We drove... and drove... and drove... and when I finally asked "How much longer?" Joseph said, "Oh, just thirty minutes." WHAT? Where on earth could we be going? However, the longer we drove, the more aware I became of what was happening. These roads were familiar. I recognized the curves. He was taking me home... or somewhere close to it. I thought of every place close to home that we might have been going. If you know where I live, you know there aren't that many places. Actually, there is just one: my church. When the truck finally came to a stop in the gravel lot, I didn't rip my blindfold off. Instead, Joseph helped me out of the truck and led me up the steps. When I took the blindfold off, we were standing on the porch at the church. Of course, I immediately asked, "Um, what are we doing here?" I knew, but I didn't know... surely not today!

But then, Joseph told me he had brought me to the church to give me... a Bible? It was small and white and really really pretty. I just looked at it. So, he told me to open it, and I did, to the first page. So he told me to keep opening it, to where the page was marked. There, I found a ring, tied to the ribbon, next to the verse that says "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord." Whoa. When I looked up, Joseph was on one knee and asked me to marry him.



Of course, I said yes.

And, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME???" hahahaha I was totally not expecting it.

Its a pretty good looking ring, eh?

The Day of the Proposal

The day began unlike any other day... haha. Joseph told me he wanted to take me out for the day (December 15) to treat me like a princess as a reward for all the hard work I had done all semester. It was my first day of Winter Break. However, that little sneaky would NOT tell me where we were going. So I had to wear a blindfold.

Its actually a sleeping mask, as I am sure you can see. And, I must admit, I have only slept with it on once since that day, and I woke up to find it under my bed. So from now on, it will remain the special sleeping mask that I wore ALL DAY on the day Joseph proposed to me.

Our first stop was (SURPRISE!) the FRIST Center of Fine Arts in Nashville. There was an Egyptian Exhibit there that Joseph and I had been wanting to see (nerds). I was super pumped... and felt really smart, I think Joseph did too. Plus he looked really spiffy.

 

After visiting the Museum, we hopped back in the truck and I was forced to put the blindfold back on. There were more surprises to be had! Our next stop was lunch at Maggiano's Little Italy (sorry, no pictures there, I was too busy stuffing my face with the best chicken and spinach manicotti of all time). After lunch, Joseph took me (blindfolded again) to see ICE! at Opryland. Now, of this I do have pictures :)

ICE! was incredibly fun... and cold! Afterward, we went to a frozen yogurt place in Hendersonville. I don't remember the name, but the yogurt was gooooood. By this time, I was getting tired and had a headache. But we had one more stop, a stop that deserves its very own post....

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Since I last blogged, life has been awesome! I mean, a proposal, Christmas, family, New Years, wedding planning. THAT'S RIGHT! I included proposal and wedding planning in that list! And yes, I was talking about my own. Honestly, I do not think I could write words that would accurately describe the day and how I felt and how happy Joseph makes me and even how great absolutely everything has been since that day. So, since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I am going to give you pictures... and just a few words.

This is me, the day after, being SUPER excited.