Perspective

"Freedom is sometimes just simply another perspective away. " ~Kutless

Life's felt overwhelming lately...it's usually that way for me when my to-do list is longer than I can keep mental track of.

But I had a change in perspective...and suddenly my life is good and simple again.

It started last night...Clay and I sat down to think through every possible thing we can imagine we need to do between now and August 2nd. Clay was typing up the list as I was thinking out loud...but much to my chagrin, instead of typing what I asked, he was inserting his own amusing, creative embellishments. I apparently was not in the mood for amusing, creative embellishments, because dang it, wedding planning is WORK!

He told me to chill out, and he told me to relax, and he reminded me that wedding planning is supposed to be fun. I wasn't in the mood for correction...but for whatever reason, I heard the truth in what he was saying. So when he added an exclamation point to, "Buy a cake topper!" I emitted a giggle and relaxed.

And this evening, I read an update from my YD friends Mikey and Bonnie, who today, being only six months into their marriage went to Mikey's first day of chemotherapy. And as they share their story, they are certainly nervous, but they have so much hope and joy too.

I suddenly feel like I have no reason to be overwhelmed...in seven weeks I will be surrounded by friends and family, celebrating being united in marriage with Clay...the to-do list is a trite thing...and it really should not be running my life.

I Am the Victor

In the battle of Me v. Invitations, I am the victor. 193 of them went in the mail today, having been compiled, addressed, stamped and sealed over the last few days. An additional 183 made their way to Texas, where they are being addressed, stamped and sealed by Clay's mom.

Now that it's all done...I'm very proud of them and don't even mind the many long nights of my life that they soaked up. We did save a few dollars, and the finished product is very Clay and Heather...clean, simple and a bit eccentric.

I would post a picture, but I wouldn't want that to spoil the fun of opening your envelope yourself. So, you will just have to wait.

This week, Clay is moving into our new apartment, where he will work very hard to keep it clean while he lives there alone for the next two months...and I go back to Ohio to visit the family, enjoy my first wedding shower, visit some bridesmaids and friends, and enjoy exciting appointments with the caterer, hairdresser, florist, tux shop and rental shop...woo-wee!

Did I mention that I can't wait for the honeymoon in Belize? Seriously...I need a Belize paper chain titled, "Countdown to Nothing-to-do."

Me v. Invitations

For the past month, the lack of blogging has mostly been due to the fact that I've spent about every available moment of free time creating 400 wedding invitations. Oh my!

I have several regrets about this already:

1. That I decided we'd save a great deal of money by making invitations, which is not necessarily true.
2. That I was so sure I would enjoy making invitations, which was true for about a week and untrue for about four weeks.
3. That I decided to mat the white invitation on black paper, which took a great deal of time to trim.

Several things I do not regret, however, are the amazing Hatch Show Print-inspired design I created, the choice to put them in white sparkly #10 envelopes, choosing to use a postcard as a reply card to save $.15 on each reply stamp, choosing an amazing engagement photographer who gave us permission to make prints of our engagement photos, and making the choice to send them as many people as we possibly could.

It is very true that making 400 invitations is extremely stressful...especially if you don't know what you're doing...and I do know what I'm doing, because I order and create printed things all the time for work, and it's still extremely stressful for me.

But yesterday, I packed up 200 ready-to-go invitations and mailed them to Clay's mom, who will address them...and I'm finishing the other 200 this weekend and sticking them in the mail on Tuesday. The end is in sight, and I will be so thankful for invitation month to be over, so I can just rejoice in having them move out of my living room and into your mailboxes.

Engagement Photos are Online!

Our engagement photos are now available for viewing online:

http://gabrielboone.com/showit/Heather

Free Time? Huh?

Apparently I've been pretty busy lately. I didn't realize it until this morning when our engagement photographer asked, "What do you do in your free time?" and I responded, "Huh?"

Lately, free time has consisted of premarital counseling, driving around Arlington checking out rental units, a bit of wedding planning, and applying to Grad School. Apparently what I do in my free time is nothing that could or should be considered leisurely. You should know that I don't prefer to live my life this way. I love free time...vast spaces of nothingness that can be filled with whatever desire happens to be floating by at that moment.

However, even if life right now is a bit more busy than I'd like, I'm still stubbornly convinced my life should not be classified as busy, so here is a list of interesting things I have done recently that are not about weddings, grad schools or leases:

1. Watching Seasons 1-7 of Friends (on my second series watch-through). Mostly, I watch it while I'm doing my taxes or updating Quicken. Joey is a very funny man, even moreso when you've been doing a budget analysis for the past 45 minutes.
   
2. Reading my Better than Oprah book club book for the month: The Hero and the Crown. This book is actually a fantastical biography of the life of my maid of honor, Renee, who makes a very good fictional character.
   
3. Cooking fabulous dishes. Recently, I made a fantastic asian noodle soup (with bok choy!), a healthy bean dip (with homemade whole wheat tortilla chips) and a ginger pear cheesecake. I cannot wait for my Pampered Chef Bridal Shower in Ohio next month!
   
4. Listening to my latest set of purchases at Best Buy and iTunes:
   Derek and Sandra's Ampersand EP
   Natasha Bedingfield's Pocketful of Sunshine
   Anna Nalick's Shine EP
   Sara Bareilles' Little Voice
   Jon Foreman's Fall EP, Spring EP, and Winter EP
   Caedmon Call's Overdressed
   Also, I'm still enjoying some Christmas gift/purchases:
   Allison Krauss and Robert Plant's Raising Sand
   Levon Helm's Dirt Farmer
   Shawn Colvin's These Four Walls
   Gillian Welch's Soul Journey
   (n.b. Recently, I discovered that in Clay and I's shared music tastes, female pop singer/songwriters don't really make his cut...thus many of these purchases have been either reactionary, or to fill in a void in my life. It neglects to inform you how much Counting Crows and Ryan Adams I've soaked in over the last few months.)
5. Purchasing tickets to see Radiohead in Seattle the week after we return from our Honeymoon! I'm so pumped! Thom Yorke, the lead singer for Radiohead, looks very much like Clay's very good friend DeJon. If you want, I can get DeJon's autograph for you.
   

Okay, honestly, I feel a lot better about myself now. I was seriously beginning to worry that my life was no longer in my own hands, but apparently, through music and cooking, and the occasional book and episode of Friends, there is my sweet respite.

Thank you sweet respite. You are being good to me these days.

I Love to Tell the Story

I don't know if I'll ever get tired of telling people the story of the way Clay and I met.

Last week, we were looking at a condo to rent, and the real estate agent asked off-hand where we'd met, and we breezily replied, "Oh--we were at a convention in Austin, and Clay posted an ad on the convention bulletin board looking for people to go to a concert with him, and I just happened to see his ad and call." We turned sheepishly to see her eyes wide, and her jaw a bit dropped, and we laughed a bit, because although it's a bit surreal at times still, it's what happened. We love telling our story.

Yesterday morning, we went and spent a few hours standing (freezing) in the middle of a bright red tulip field telling our story. We hired my coworker Aaron, who runs Hands On Films, to create a video documentary of us telling our story. It's a piece we're putting together to share at our wedding--so that for those who don't know Clay so well or for those who haven't seen Heather and Clay together at all--they can feel more a part of our story.

It might seem a little taxing to stand in a field talking to a video camera for 2 hours, but it really wasn't. Just being able to look out at a hazy Northwest gray sky, across acres of bright red, pink, and purple tulips, and green, green grass...and tell someone how we got together, how we got engaged, why we're getting married, and why we love each other, it was such a blessing. We loved telling our story.

And telling our story was energizing. At the end of it all, we were able to just look at each other and say, "I love you so much" because we'd been so reminded of where we'd come from these past 18 months.

Growing up, we'd sing the old hymn, I Love to Tell the Story:

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

It's been awhile since I told the story of how Christ has worked in my life...how we met, how I fell in love with Him. I don't even remember the last time I told my story of meeting Christ. But when I see how energized I was to tell Aaron and the video camera how much I love Clay, and how satisfying it was to share that love...well... I think it's a story I should share more than I do.

I think this is how we are supposed to be sharing Christ with others anyways:

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5.)

The Engagement

I now have a fiance! It is true! And Clay now has a fiancee!

The fact that Clay moved up here to be with me in Washington in September seemed to tip off 95% of our close friends and families off that something serious was going on...but it didn't become official until December 27th, 2007.

Clay and I were in Texas in the midst of a hectic week. We'd been in North Carolina for my brother's wedding, driven back to Ohio to celebrate Christmas with my family, flown to San Antonio to celebrate Christmas with Clay's family, and were preparing for Clay's sister's wedding. For our second evening in Texas, Clay said, "Let's get away and have a date night." He had no problem convincing me!

"Where do you want to go?" I asked.

He replied, "How about Austin." Oooh this guy knows the key to my heart. Austin is where Clay and I met at the National Youth Worker's Convention in Fall 2006. We hadn't return to Austin since our initial meeting, but it's only a 90-minute or so drive from his parents' home in San Antonio. I was eager to take a sentimental journey of all the places we'd hung out on that first meeting.

So we hopped in the car and drove into downtown Austin on Cesar Chavez Drive. We headed straight to Waterloo Records and Book People, fantastic independent stores we'd spent hours in during Quasi-Date #2. When it was time for dinner, I again asked, "Where do you want to go?"

Clay responded, "Let's go to Threadgill's." Again, he knows the keys to my heart. I agreed, and we went to eat dinner at the restaurant/concert venue that sparked our first meeting of Not-Really-Even-A-Quasi-Date #1. We enjoyed a very home-cooked vegetable platter. And afterwards, we wanted to walk out to the Congress Street Bridge (aka the Bat Bridge)...which is where we officially first met, on our way to the Eliza Gilkyson concert at Threadgill's.

So--we walked out to the bridge, excited to be at "the spot" where we met. As we neared the middle of the bridge, we picked a spot next to a pole that had a Christmasy/guitar-type decoration attached to it. We're obviously not confident that this was "the spot." But it seemed as good as any other spot on the bridge. At this point, I was just ahead of Clay. I turned around to hug him, but he was already down on one knee. He said some nice things that neither of us really remember and pulled a ring out of his man-bag. I'm confident that at some point in there, he said he wanted to marry me, and I responded with, "Yes, I would love to marry you."

And there it was. He slipped the ring on my finger, and we went from being non-engaged to engaged.

We continued our walk on the bridge and had a celebratory dessert at TGI Friday's, which we had also originally visited during Quasi-Date #2. What amazed me was that when one goes from being non-engaged to engaged, the world does not actually stop turning on its axis, a corps of singer/dancers does not emerge to throw confetti into the air, and millions of doves do not fly in front of you, foreshadowing a spectacular fireworks display. It was all very normal. For the rest of the world, they wouldn't have really known that our lives were changing in that moment.

So now, Clay and I are engaged. We're getting married in Ohio on August 2, 2008, a mere 6 1/2 months from today. I looked the definition of engagement up on Wikipedia and discovered that engagements began so that people could have time to figure out if there were any "legitimate impediments" to this marriage. So, if you know of any of those, you're evidently supposed to let us know.

Thanks for journeying with us, and we'd appreciate your prayers over these next 7 months!

P.S. For those of you who wish to know if I was surprised, I will say, "Moderately so." Clay and I had already looked at rings, but I had no reason to suspect he'd have a ring by Christmas. He hadn't done much to tip me off during our date to Austin, mostly because he was so nonchalant all day. The only thing that tipped me off was his Jack Bauer man-bag, which he rarely carries unless we're going someplace to sit and read. I figured the only reason he'd have the man-bag was if he was carrying something special in it...which turned out to be true. I was still pretty surprised when he pulled out a ring, and so glad that Clay knows me well enough to know exactly how I'd hoped he'd propose.