Will life ever slow down?

Well, another week has quickly flown by!! I stay SUPER busy and love every minute of it... because each day that passes brings us closer to the time of the wedding ;) 90 days and counting!

I'm going to keep this short because I have a couple other things to do before going to bed. I'm really bummed I don't have more time to blog. The choice seem to be between time with Mark, time sleeping, or time wedding planning. I normally choose one of those 3 over blogging and try and reserve the weekends for a little down time. Although it's minimal. But everything going on right now is very fun, so I can't complain ;)

This weekend is a half marathon (Helvetia) on Saturday, 4 graduation parties between Saturday and Sunday, helping a friend move, church and whatever else comes up.

Last weekend mom was in town and we had a great time!! The day I took off to spend doing a long run (10 miles) and then wedding planning, was a blast! I wore a cute pink skirt because I decided that I wanted to look pretty and about to get married. We enjoyed tasting cake, talking flowers, and walking through the church.

Here are some pics from the family weekend trip to Maupin for my cousin Annie's graduation (sorry about the color in the first shot). I love the last picture of me and Mark, but I'm not sure what wall decor item was behind him that made his hair look funny ;)

95 days and counting...

I forgot!! - Barb and I talked about hitting the gym tomorrow morning. I like to go with someone, otherwise I can't seem to make it out of bed. She needed to go at 5am and I wouldn't need to go until like 6, but for the sake of being able to get up, I decided I could manage a 5am gym session. I suggested to her that I wouldn't have anything I needed to do when I got home before work and she said I could spend time with God. I'm rather ashamed to say that idea hadn't even entered my head... am I slipping???

Sometimes it's hard to remember that different seasons of life are focused on different things. Not that they can't all be grounded in a God-focus, but sometimes it comes out in different ways. Right now it might be in continuing to learn to communicate in a loving way with others during what can a tense season of wedding planning. So far so good!!

I finished 1 Samuel today. That's always a good feeling.

Only 95 days! 3 months from Saturday!! It still feels like forever away, but the last month sure flew by fast so I'm hoping the next 3 do the same.

Here's what we did this weekend:
- I ran 10 miles (the rest of the list 'we' did)
- moved Mark's belongings from his old apartment to the new one
- ate pizza
- saw Pirates of the Caribbean
- had our first pre-marital counseling appointment
- got the new place mostly unpacked
- finished our registries
- played DDR and Guitar Hero with our friends Trisha and Peter

Mom flys in town tomorrow. Yippee!! For a weekend of wedding planning. We have 3 appointments arranged on Thursday, which we'll do after running 10 miles, Yikes!!

Exciting times!!

AAAAHHHHHH

Tonight marked the LAST night of packing at Mark's place. We've been there every night this week (except for Tuesday). I was pooped! From running and from packing. Mark was great and let me lay on the couch and rested while he put some of the last few items in totes to transport to the new apartment. I guess that's the great thing about him moving only half a mile down the road, you don't really have to pack as much as you might normally ;)

Here are some little update tidbits:
- I am arranging for us to get a table (for cheap) from someone who posted on craigslist. Yippee!! I feel like a grown up, owning a table and couch and stuff ;)
- I also found someone who can do flowers for our wedding, within my super low cheapie budget! Also from craigslist. I'm posting all the vendors we are working with on our wedding website, so you can check there for updates and where we are getting different elements.
- Did I previously mention that my cousin Courtney is doing my hair? That will be great! Fun!!
- Today during a quick trip to the mall, I think I found THE shoes ;)
- We rented a U-haul to help us move on Saturday. I've never helped rent a U-Haul. Another thing that makes me feel like a grown up.
- This is probably THE biggest thing that makes me feel like a grown up... I called PGE to get the power for the new apartment "hooked up". Since I was the one calling, I had to put it in my name. Weird!!
- I got mail today (none bills). I love getting mail!!
- I don't think I should run hilly Terwilliger 2 nights in a row. I've noticed lately that by the second night (tonight), my legs protest the hills and like to stop running. Tonight I didn't care and tried to walk fast.
- Mom flyies into town next Wednesday for what I am calling the Wedding Planning Weekend Blitz. I'm SUPER stoked!! Although we are also visiting Maupin for a cousin's graduation. So it's not all wedding planning.

That's all for now!

Adventures with two

The past week has been all about me and Mark!! It's been very fun! Barb has been gone and Mark and I have been concentrating on 2 things, wedding planning and getting him ready to move. The moving part started Wednesday night when we began by sorting through his spare room. We decided that since we planned to move into a 1 bedroom apartment, we should try and consolidate as much as possible.

Wednesday night led into all day Saturday. After my long run, breakfast, a quick shower and picking up boxes, we were at his place by 1pm and he started with continuing to sort through his school/work things, while I moved through the rest of the house. We worked HARD all day long!! After a couple trips to the garbage and 8 bags for Good Will, we finally left just before 10pm to grab a quick bite at Chili's before calling it a night. We were both dead tired!!

Today we did our traditional Noah's Bagel breakfast and church and then to Walgreen's to drop off a prescription refill, then back to my place (I had forgotten to put my ring back on after putting on lotion this morning :( then over to the new apartments Mark is moving into. It's very fun to be looking at OUR place and making decisions together!

After going through Mark's stuff, it was determined that even though we want to be aggressive about living minimal to pay off debt, perhaps we should at least consider a 2 bedroom, if it was available. It was and after looking through the 1 and 2 bedroom places, several times, we decided to pick size over view and snagged the 2 bedroom. We're both a little sad about the added expense and lack of something nice to see out the windows (parking lot), but think it's far more realistic for our life.

We then went to the offices at Mark's place to finalize the details for moving out, grabbed some pizza, my prescription refill, and headed back to my place for lunch and watching a moving and procrastinating before cleaning a little. And yes, WE cleaned my house :) Mark is very sweet and indulges my hatred for vacuuming. He did that while I cleaned the bathroom.

The sermon this morning at Sunset Pres was awesome!! If you didn't make it, or are curious, you can click on the link and then click on the 'Sunset Podcast' icon on the home page. The sermon was, "Life's Too Short To be Envious". I'm not sure how many others have struggled with this, but I sure have!! As we left church, I told Mark that I should have heard this sermon before we got engaged because I definitely wanted to be engaged to him bad enough that I felt envious of everyone who already was engaged or married. To the point where I had difficulty being "normal" with some of my friends because I was so sad for myself.

That's exactly how Ron described envy = being sad for ourselves over someone else's happiness.

Wanting to get married wasn't the only thing I was/am envious of. Ron also mentioned others' talents. I had a friend who I used to be so jealous of her God-given gifts and abilities and how she was able to serve others with them, that I almost had trouble liking her!

One of the points Ron mentioned for helping us get over our envious feelings, is to appreciate God's sovereignty. I think this is what is helping me right now. This is truly, for me, the answer to not being envious! Although it's hard when you are in a situation that doesn't seem like you are doing anything and others are doing so much. But I guess that's the trust part. And life goes up and down so much that even if you are up, you'll be down again some time. It's nothing to get depressed about, but to recognize and appreciate. Right now I'm UP!! And very much appreciate that!!

Random things from life today

Here's my newest entry of "random things from life today"

- Sometimes when I run Terwilliger it's disheartening when other runners don't seem to see me when I try and catch their eye to say 'hi'. I try not to take it personally.

- Mark and I spent last weekend with Steve, Michelle, and little Rian (his bro, sis-in-law and niece). It was awesome to hangout and relax and they were SUPER great to us!! I'm totally excited to be a part of the Peeples family!! I'm definitely blessed compared to what it could be!

- A couple weeks ago I accidentally purchased a base-coat nail polish instead of a top-coat (I never use a base coat). I couldn't return it and it wasn't cheap so decided to use it last Thursday night when I did my nails (I normally do them twice a week). The polish is STILL on with very minor chips and it's beena WEEK!! That stuff was worth every penny!

- Thank God for craigslist!! I found the perfect wedding dress, with the not-so-perfect price tag when shopping at Charlotte's on Monday night with some of my bridesmaids. Some random bride in Seattle decided to sell her dress, the exact one I want, in the exact size I need, hemmed to exactly my height, she's even including the under garments and shoes, for less than half the new price!! I'm waiting to find out for sure, but it's looking really good that I'll be able to get it!! My awesome future sister-in-law is going to look at the dress and if all is well, pick it up for me!! Yippee!!

- I have something scheduled EVERY night (and then something after that) for the next 3 weeks. Literally. I have something every weekend from now through July! Although about half of the activities are wedding events for me or Stacey. Fun! Next month is mostly graduations.

- Speaking of graduats, I have about 10-15 students graduating in the next few weeks. The graduation announcements have started coming ;) I'm excited for them, and sad for me that they are leaving!

- Last night we started sorting through Mark's apartment, getting him ready to pack/move next weekend. I LOVE doing stuff like that so I had a blast! We trashed his spare room as we pulled everything from the closet, emptied a shelf, and went through some totes. I thought it was fun but he was disappointed a seemingly lack of progress. We have much more to do. It's exciting that he'll be moving into "our place" and we get to start setting up house, even though I won't be moving in until after we are married.

- My friend (and bridesmaid), Noell, sent me a "happy you're engaged" package! It was full of fun little stuff!! Mark's mom also sent me a beautiful Waterford Crystal ring holder with a note that said now I have a beautiful place to put my beautiful ring when I need to take it off ;) My friend Stacey also got us a "happy you're engaged" gift of these fun books with 100 questions to ask about how well you know your bride/groom. Mark and I did them on the drive to/from Seattle last week and got about 15 wrong each... not bad!! ;)

Now I'm off to work on wedding planning stuff before Mark gets here with dinner.

A few pics from this weekend:

More from the C-rizzle (as my bro calls me)

Life is plugging away!! Seems like things have been crazy busy for the past couple of weeks!

I have to keep this short because Mark is on his way over to watch Monday's 24 that we still haven't seen (yippee for DVR) and I still need to pack a little. We're leaving tomorrow after work to spend the weekend in Seattle with Mark's brother, sister-in-law, and niece. We haven't seen them much so far in 2007 (although Mark has more than me), so we're very excited!! It will also be nice to get away from our normal life for a few days. We feel like we haven't had hardly any alone time lately, so this weekend will be good.

Speaking of Mark, it's our 1 YEAR-since-we-started-dating anniversary today! Woot!! It's really neat to be engaged by the 1 year point! I'm just so madly in love with this man I can hardly contain myself most of the time!! 114 days until we get married (less than 4 months) seems not that far away and an eternity at the same time!!

Here's a little sneak peak on wedding planning so far:
- 1st dress shopping trip has happened, one more on Monday and then I might have my decision
- 1st plane tickets by family have been booked (I might have mentioned that in my last blog, but it's just SUPER exciting to me!!)
- My mom's plane ticket has been booked to come visit the first week of June for wedding planning!
- The invite list is coming along... S L O W L Y
- And more, but I can't think of those things at the moment

My time with God has been less consistent for the past couple weeks. I've still been hitting Starbucks every lunch session, but have also done 2 talks at the college group (the past 2 Tuesdays), so was spending time on that. Yesterday and today's lunches were a little shorter than normal. I think the time away from wedding planning and our usual people and routines this weekend will be a much needed little break.

I LOVE Mark!!! ;)

Day 6 of being engaged!

I think engagement suits me! I've been nothing but blissfully happy since Saturday ;) Although I'm sure married life will suit me even better!!

Mark and I are just SO excited and I'm having a BLAST making plans!! Seriously, I'm almost sad I don't have more that I can be doing right now.

We have a DATE, September 2nd. And a LOCATION, Sunset Pres. You can read all about our wedding plans and us, on our wedding website. Also, the first plane tickets have been booked!! My brother (Jared - groomsman) and his wife (Sara - bridesmaid) booked their plane tickets last night after we got off the phone. YIPPEE!!

I'm VERY excited because my friend Stacey is getting married 2 weeks after Mark and me, so we are VERY much looking forward to wedding planning together!! We decided that it works out well since the rest of our friends might have gotten tired of talking wedding details ;)

At the moment, I can't think of much else to write at the moment. Well, I could probably think of TONS to say, but Mark just walked in the door and I want to go hangout with my fiance!