Hope and Fairy Garden Dreams

Six weeks from tonight I will be married. My name will be Rachel Dobler. I will wake up the next morning and every morning after next to my very best friend. Mm, I can hardly believe it!! 

Over the weekend, I had some interesting thoughts about hope and how it's so easy to lose. That's an odd thing for a young bride to say with her whole life before her, but be honest. Doesn't hope feel like an illusive thing sometimes? Even when plans are going smoothly, it's hard not to wonder what might go wrong or even to get complacent in that secure rhythm. And when circumstances are hard, it's difficult to keep one's chin up and remember to breathe. What I felt in my spirit was this awakening to the responsibility to keep hope alive. In relationship and in life, it is vital that we engage in order to grow and to fulfill ourselves and one another. But the price to be paid for hope is creating, wishing, waiting. Really, it's like preparing one's heart and laying a foundation for faith. It is costly to risk, but is it not more costly to sacrifice my joy in the smoke of cynicism and fear? Phrases from Scripture echo like "love, power, and a sound mind" and "do not be anxious" and "faith is the assurance of things unseen." Hold on to hope.

As for the wedding, it's taking form, becoming less idea and more reality with every day of option-exchange and planning and decisions. Two weeks ago we officially set the venue for Lockheart Gables. The week after that, we picked up the invitations from the printers. And hopefully soon, one may show up in a mailbox near you. Lockheart Gables is really going to be ideal. When Mom first showed me the website I thought, "B&B? Does it GET cornier than that?" I went and saw it having already written it off but praying that it would be the right one just so we could stop searching. Sure enough, they let us tour two days before our appointment, we talked to the owner David (my dad's name) and heard about his wife Marilyn (my Grandma's real non-Grandma name) and how she collects teacups (like my Nana did). I really liked the place immensely despite the house's very frilly contrast to my earthy vision and let my eye imagine what could be. Once I saw the outside area under the harboring shade of full, leafy trees, I knew we'd found it. With a waterfall as a backdrop and green grass for my to-be bare feet, my earthy garden fairy-like dreams could come true.

Now, I'm scheming up decorations to accent the natural beauty and centerpieces to coordinate with the very influential help of friends. It's the minute details that I have such a hard time with... how to get it all done by that day and on that day is the real challenge. Mom remembers everything I forget and if she doesn't, someone else does. So the chaos of the unknown is giving away to deposits, deadlines, and dress alterations.

Peace, love, and centerpieces.

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us."

--Ephesians 4:13-20

Listen Up.

There once was time in my life to just sit down and write. Write thoughts, write poetry, write stories, papers, even single lines that could develop into anything. And the words must not have stopped; it was most certainly me. The passion still lies there within, dormant, but there. It flares up every now and again when I write a letter or even in the occasional blog, but I feel like it is all shadows of those inner staircases that lead to libraries of things I should be writing.

Tonight I realized that much of that is because I have nothing to write for... no homework, no audience, no critique, no assignment. I'm too critical to be my own audience so I shut myself down before I can finish. I've deleted this entry three times already, exited the browser, and come back simply to have something to say.

And that something is this: I have nothing to say but wish I did.

Exeunt.

And The Plans Are Rolling

I put this on my wedding blog and figured I might as well spread it out around my silly little blogging world. I need to make a note that I am going to switch blogs whenever Joshua and I get married in order to make that fun transition, plus I've been wanting to change my email address (I'm getting too much spam 'cause it's an old one) and it's a good time to do that as well. I'll spread the info sufficiently around whenever it happens.

**

Let me preface this paragraph with a minor disclaimer: I am absolutely thrilled to be getting married! I never realized what a difficult season engagement was going to be. Of course it is not due to the engagement itself but all that comes with it. Essentially, we are starting life over together and all of our expectations our coming up, being verbalized, having plans put to them, and making compromises here and there. The hand of God is so obvious when we have these vision-based conversations about our life, our family, our hopes and our hearts resound together and just as much so when there are variances in opinion but we work through with grace and communication.

Everything from apartment hunting to phone plans to car insurance has been a decision factor lately and I've been on the job hunt here all the while knowing I'll be doing this again in 6 months or so in California. Wedding plans have been reinstated post-holidays and I'm looking at another location this week to find out if I want to seal the deal at the gardens or move on. We are more than ready to get an official date set and hoping against hope to bump it up to May. I'm working on designing a monogram to potentially be used on invitations and definitely on the program (that I've already finished).

We've been updating the Bed, Bath, and Beyond registry, going over our picks, making adjustments where needed. Last night Joshua did his "man registry" at Lowe's and was the most fired up I've seen him about any plans so far. My favorite thing though is our cash registry we're supposed to modify soon at OurWishingWell.com. It is really going to help us considering that we will be moving across the country and will not want to carry more with us than necessary.

In other news, it will be absolute heaven to roll over and say "good night" instead of grabbing my keys and saying "goodbye." One of my friends once described her first year of marriage as "one big slumber party." I laughed (both of us knowing it's more challenging than that) but as much fun as Joshua and I have, I believe it.

Peace and 81 degree January days.