That Kind of Love. 13 days (10-10-10)

I have always had a soft heart for adoption. There's a deep and painful beauty in it. There are a handful of families in our Church who have taken children into their families and as they dedicate them to the service of the Lord I am always moved. What a profound picture of the Love of our Father for us. He chooses to adopt us into His Family even though He sees the future pain we will bring Him. He sees the cost of bringing us sin-ravaged, helpless, afraid children under His roof. He knows that we will reject Him and argue with Him. And yet He still wants us. He still longs to share His Name with us, to give us all of the benefits that come from being His kin.
A little boy, Micah, was dedicated in the Cafe today, and his story was that he was left unwanted in a gutter, left for dead. This couple took him into their home knowing that for the rest of his life, they will be probably caring for him hand-and-foot. He has been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, and he has had a ton of medical issues. And yet...KNOWING this, they still chose him. I can't find the word for how this hits me...It's beautiful, but not in the way that the world defines beauty. It's the kind of love that you read about in stories. The kind of love I wish I could give, day-in and day-out. But deep down I know that it's "too uncomfortable" for me.

Petra introduced me to a new show called World of Jenks. I didn't expect to like it, being that it's on MTV...But she showed me three episodes and I can't stop thinking about it. This guy, Jenks, is a movie maker of some type...maybe a video journalist. But every week he goes and spends life in a different environment by entering the life of another person. The first episode I saw was one where he spent the week with an autistic guy about his age. He lived with his family and went to classes with him, took him to the city, and to the beach. None of this was to be a charity worker or to make himself look good... actually most of the time he confronted with his own prejudices or presumptions about "that kind of person." Every time he lets go of his own world and opens his eyes to see the uniqueness and depth of other humans, he is blown away by their lives and is deeply touched by them. I want to approach friendships like that! That is beautiful! "I want to know you" is such a rare thought in daily interactions and I think we're missing out. I am anyways. That's the kind of love Jesus had as he spent time with tax collectors and prostitutes! That's the kind of love we SHOULD be pursuing!

These things seem unattainable right now. I know I want to love like the couple who took that baby into their lives. I want to love like the man who spends a week living "houseless" on the streets of California. How God?

We got a LOT done for the wedding today! We bought all of our cups, plates, cake plates, silverware, serving utensils, cleaning supplies for scouring the park bathrooms the day before, hat for the ring bearer, shoes for the flower girl, pants for the last groomsman, table cloth for the food table, and serving plates for the dinner. I can't believe how many hours we were on our feet. My shoes are made of wood and leather with no arches. Ouch. Fells good to get that done. We literally had to go to ALL of the store's locations around fresno to get all of the plates and napkins we needed. Cleaned the stores out.

Wendy and Andres got married last night, and it was a beautiful wedding! It's fun to go to wedding after having planned one. That was the last wedding we will have to chase bouquets or garters! Yeah! :)

I already know how fast the work week goes, and that means that at the end of this week we will have only one more week left! I'm not worried though. We'll square away the rentals and order flowers tomorrow. Everything's falling into place. Janet's coming the Wednesday before, and I am SOOOO happy to see her!! It's been almost three years since I saw her at HER wedding!

15 days and I'm doin fine :)

God bless Excel.
I have not been stressed AT ALL in a couple of days!! And I don't think I will! It feels SO good to know I am not forgetting anything!
I bought a few things I needed from Michael's today. My garter, some hair stuff, floral tape, and I looked at a few second hand stores to try and find a vintage suitcase and some giant curtains for decorating. No luck though.

Marie has been doing some research on rental places and she suggested we go with a different place than we had already decided. The only reason is that Walker-Lewis Rents does not do Saturday deliveries, but Expo does for a tiny fee of $30!! I will pay thirty dollars to not have to coordinate getting a trailer and making sure it all gets returned the following monday. Heck yes!! AND their prices are a tiny bit better. We will confirm on monday. I can't believe there are only two weeks left!! That's amazing! Time has seriously FLOWN by!

Wendy and Andres are getting married tomorrow and Wendy is REALLY stressed. I really don't want to be freaking out the last couple of days, so I hope everything just happens and I can wipe my hands of it all as I pass off responsibility to my coordinator at the rehearsal.

My planned wedding party transportation cancelled on me so I now need to find a 12-passenger van to rent, or ideally to borrow. I am praying that there is just someone in the Church who has one sitting around that we can use for the day and just have someone take back sunday, otherwise we will have to rent a car from saturday to monday because most car rental places are not open sunday. actually I think none are. No problem though. That's something that takes like a few minutes to set up.

I think the next major thing to do is the programs or the music.

16 days (that's 2x8) I LOVE EXCEL!!!!

I am not quite sure why I never caught on to it earlier. I knew about it all along. Used it in high school.

Today I sat down and organized my wedding thoughts into an Excel spreadsheet. It feels SO NICE to have all of my "worries" in one place!! Karen sent me hers she used for her planning, and so I kind of went from there and got it all together.

It's pretty great. Now I have a pretty concrete list of the remaining things i have to do for the wedding. You know those Paint-By-Number posters? When I think of all I have to do I picture that. When you start filling in the colors it just looks like chaos, but as the little circles slowly fill in as they were mean to the picture begins to emerge in all it's complexity and beauty. That's what it looks like in my heat...Just a few more circles to paint in and we will have a WEDDING!! :)

17 days. Tired of saying goodbye...

Goodness. I am really looking forward to spending evenings and nights with Caleb. It's tough to only see him for 15 minutes in the morning, and three hours or less after he gets off work. So lame.

I'm looking forward to not stressing anymore. I noticed today that even if I can't do enything for the wedding, I am still stressing about it. SO unfair. I can't take a day off because then I worry all day that there is something I am missing.

I need a vacation.

I found out that my mom has enough money to come to my wedding!! I'm really excited. I knew everyone would make it somehow, but they are all broke, so I knew it would probably be a stretch.

Still not sure if my sis and Natasha will make it to the bachelorette party. I really hope so.

I am pretty excited because my emotions seem to be under control a lot more than they have been for four months. I have not even cried in over a week! That is impressive.

17 days is really short. 16 is shorter. That's insane...

19 days. shut. up. 18 days is only two nines!!

This morning I had jury duty. Yes. 19 days before my wedding. I have never served on a jury so I didn't know what to expect. But, it wasn't much different than I thought. Cranky people who don't want to be there. The most "educated" of all of them make SURE to loudly proclaim why they should not have to be there, because they are a dentist, or a retired lawyer, or a manager of 35 workers.
It entailed a lot of sitting around. I had to be there early because of the whole car-sharing thing. I got released by 11:30 because of "economic hardship," which is actually a legitimate excuse. I'm only getting about 6 hours a week, and without that I will not be able to pay rent.

Petra picked me up and we went to go jump start her car battery. When we got there we realized her back window was busted in. Someone had broken in to her car sometime between 2am and noon. We called the cops and they said they would not come out because they are too short staffed. Beautiful...

Petra and I picked Jason up from Table Mountain around four. We almost got in an accident in the garage. Both cars skidded. I hate that feeling after adrenaline.

Caleb picked me up after 430 for our chiropractic appointment at 5. We almost hit a trash can lid, then a trash can that someone lost from their truck on the way there. I have never done the chiropractic thing. I popped a lot! I felt SO much taller afterward. :)

We went to Chipotle for dinner. I love chipotle.

After that we went and picked up two of our Young Life kids for club. They make me laugh a lot. One is named Anthony, and the other is Chris, but he goes by "Beaver," which I guess is his middle name.
Twenty minutes later we arrived at club. Christen Morrow was there!!! I was SO happy to see her.

Club was a "hang-out night" so we just did games. There were a couple of new boys, and they made me laugh. One of them had brought his "robo-kitty" named Sophie.

After club my body started aching. I think there was too much adrenaline in this day...that and I think there is too much lactic acid in my body from the shocker machine at our appointment.

I could really use a hot bath. SO glad I don't have jury duty tomorrow!

20 days. Garage, favors, & tempur cloud- supreme

Yesterday was a long day. Care connections started at 8:15, and immediately afterwords Marie and I headed over to the house to clean out Grandpa Leo's garage. The day was SO HOT!! and we got a LOT done. The plan was to set out a pile of garage junk to take to goodwill. We did and the neighbors came and took literally all of it! That saved us a LOT of trouble. It looks GOOD!! :)
Today Caleb and I finished the wedding favors! That feels nice.
I remember when Wendy posted a status saying "only 20 more days!!" I remember thinking that was REALLY SOON. Now we are there. Geeze. 20 days. I am SO excited to be done planning...but I'm not sure all of the strings are tied.
We have decided we really like the new tempur-pedic cloud supreme. It's AMAZING!! I love just laying on it for like 5 minutes, because even that short amount of time makes my back feel considerably better. 
Really. I can't believe it. 20 days!!

22 days and getting crazier by the day

I showed up to work today at 8:15, thinking I had to have Joel ready by nine. My boss came out confused. Then I remembered. 1) I had told Lisa she could have this morning, and 2) today is NOT a normal schedule, therefore Joel does not need to be ready until 10! Two strikes against me before nine...