i keep waking up in a city that never sleeps

random thoughts in no particular order…

ever since alice made a delicious kale salad last weekend, i have been all about kale.
in-law’s are coming for a long memorial day weekend.
the rain needs to go away though, it’s quite a drag.
it’s memorial day weekend and i have a half day tomorrow at work, too.
i foresee a lot of good food in our future, starting with reservations at butter tomorrow night.
pedicures this evening with liz.
i’m thinking a hot pink to brighten things up around here.
starting a new book soon.
almost one year of marriage to my wonderful hubs.

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reminder of God’s faithfulness!

About this time last year (+ a couple of weeks before) there were massive rains happening in my hometown of Harrison, Arkansas. We were about a month away from our wedding, which was supposed to be entirely outdoors at my parents’ house. We had a meager rain plan in place, but I was less than thrilled about that and could not imagine my wedding being anywhere except for the backyard that I grew up in.

 When I say massive rain, I truly mean that. That entire region of the US was just getting pounded day after day with storms and bad weather and flash-flood amounts of rain. In fact, the disastrous Joplin tornado, which is about two hours northwest of Harrison, happened just two weeks before our wedding. My parents had worked incredibly hard for months to build a beautiful waterfall next to the ceremony site, with lots of flowers and huge, beautiful rocks that they transported from a rock quarry outside of town. The rains washed it almost completely away and one side of the foundation that my dad had built for the ceremony site completely collapsed. One afternoon my mom called to tell me that the basement was flooding. The water had gotten so high and out of control and it was coming into the house… at that point I started to panic. I had bridesmaids coming to stay at the house and we needed the bedrooms in the basement. The carpet had to be completely ripped out and my mom worked for hours to get fans put up that would dry out the space. It honestly seemed like the rain was never going to stop. I went home to Harrison about 2 ½ weeks before the wedding and even then it continued to rain daily. I remember waking up and running to the window, only to see dark skies each and every morning.

 Backtracking to the day that Clif and I got engaged, chose the date of June 4^th and decided officially we were getting married in my parents’ backyard. We started praying then and there for no rain and for a beautiful, sunny wedding day! Over Christmas break when we were home, six months before the wedding, we went out to the ceremony site, stood where we would stand to take our vows, and prayed that God would not let it rain. I continued to pray that prayer daily, as did Clif and our families. I trusted the Lord and I knew that the day was going to be just right, no matter what the weather turned out to be. But I have to admit, the month leading up to our wedding with it raining non-stop, I freaked out…

 And then one day, maybe a week before our wedding, I was in Harrison and running errands. I happened to look up and saw the most beautiful double-rainbow ever. I was so amazed that I pulled over in a parking lot and took this photo. And then I just stood there… I felt like this rainbow was just for me. Not only is the rainbow a sign of God’s promise to us, but it’s a sign of his promise to never flood the earth ever again. There in that moment I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I felt the Lord calming my heart and saying to me, I have heard your prayers and I will give you a beautiful wedding day.

When our wedding date was within the “five day wedding forecast” range I nervously pulled up the weather.com page for Harrison. I almost wanted to shield my eyes for fear of what I was going to see. But, I kid you not, the weather read like this:

 May 31 – chance of rain 50%

June 1 – chance of rain 40%

June 2 – chance of rain 40%

June 3 – chance of rain 30%

June 4 – chance of rain 0%

 Y’all – it did not rain one drop the five days leading up to our wedding. And not only that, but just to give me an extra boost of confidence in the weather report, it literally showed ZERO PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIN on June 4^th.

Anyway, I came across the picture I took of the double rainbow on that afternoon and was just reminded of how FAITHFUL our God is. He gave us the most beautiful day we could’ve ever imagined. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was not too hot and not too cold. The sun set at the perfect time just a bit after our ceremony. I am thankful for this reminder today. How quickly we can praise God for his faithfulness and then turn around and worry about everything that is yet to come. The Lord hears our prayers; He knows our desires, and as Tim Keller always says, He gives us exactly what we would’ve asked for if we knew and understood everything that He does. In this case, God answered our prayers in the exact way we had prayed. In other instances, it is not always so. But we can believe and know that our God cares for us

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HAPPY MAY 22ND TO…

we’ve got a double-bill here today on lauren-nabors.tumblr.com with many special people to celebrate.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO MY WONDERFUL PARENTS

…AND HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LAUREN ROSS!

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{the week of May 14th}

last week and this past weekend were super busy. the kind of week i simultaneously love and loathe because my heart always feels so full when i get to see lots of friends, but i also end up exhausted and get no rest before another week starts. alas.

last monday i took my tap class after work. tuesday nights we have our Redeemer community group. Wednesday we went to look at an apartment we were drooling over online. the apartment turned out to indeed be drool-worthy. unfortunately, the almost $3500 realtor fee that accompanied the apartment was, well…not so much. we had to walk away and pretend we had never seen it (i’m telling you, everything about this apartment was just right) and i was so bummed out about it that Clif felt he needed to treat me to a Toast burger just to rid myself of the memory. it didn’t work, as i am still thinking about that place days later, but the dinner and the company weren’t too shabby. on thursday we met up with Rebekah down in Chelsea, as mentioned below, to buy her a milkshake and bid her adieu. also, on thursday at work, we threw my boss a baby shower. she is due at the end of June and we had a lovely “breakfast & book” themed shower for her with lots of pastries and coffee. i ended up coordinating and planning almost the entire thing, which i kind of loved, although thursday ended up being a little stressful with the shower thrown into the mix of the rest of work duties.

by friday at 6pm i was worn out, but the activities didn’t stop there. i met up with my friends lauren & jacqui for a glass of wine on the east side. the weather was awesome and we grabbed an outdoor table at an italian restaurant on 2nd ave. i love the summers when all the sidewalk cafe’s open up! after that i rushed off to meet Clif for a concert. one of his colleagues from a school he teaches at was putting together and performing in a concert called “Ladies First.” we mainly went in support of her, but it turned out to be an interesting concept for a concert and a nice evening. it was three girls who put everything together (a violinist, singer and oboist) and a lot of the composers of the pieces they played were women. they hosted the concert at the Bohemian National Hall and had some sponsors that generously provided free food and drink.

saturday afternoon i went to meet up with my dear friend and original NYC roommate, Jen. she is also leaving new york city soon and we felt we needed an afternoon to commemorate our first days together here when we shared a studio apartment and used to sit on the floor in the dead of winter ordering chinese take-out and watching episode after episode of gilmore girls. on saturday i went over to her apartment and, just like old times, we ordered our favorite chinese take-out from Sunny’s and watched five episodes of Gilmore Girls (Jen owns all the seasons on DVD). i will miss Jen so much; we shared our first days in the city together and that is a special bond we will have forever. life here will not be the same once she is gone =/ saturday night our new friends Alice and Kyle had an apartment-warming party at their new digs. they generously invited us to join and we had such a fun night. they made pulled pork sandwiches that were delicious and Kyle used us all as guinea pigs to test out some cocktails he learned how to make. everything was super tasty and we had a great evening with lots of laughs. i am thankful for our new friendship with them! ps. their apartment is awesome and we are very seriously considering moving into the same building when our lease is up next month. more on the great apartment search of 2012 to come…

yesterday (sunday) was kind of the main event of the weekend. the Great Googa Mooga Festival, which we had been anxiously anticipating since i scored the tickets back in March. our friends Jim & Jaime came with us and we had an awesome day. i am sporting a nice sunburn but, oh well. lots more to come on this with pictures…i am going to let the googa mooga have its own post. it surely deserves it, so stay tuned!

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FreddyCat’s Diary - #1

Hi everyone,

My name is Fred Astaire Brown, but my mom calls me FreddyCat. She also calls me fat a lot, which is kind of rude, but I ignore it because she feeds me and scoops my poop and well…I am just a little on the obese side.

My favorite thing to do, besides being really lazy, sleeping all day and licking myself, is to climb up on the windowsill and watch the cars and the birds outside. My mom will never let me get on the other side of that window. I don’t know why, but if I ever get out there I would go after all those birds and show them who’s boss.

Speaking of things I am really good at, I love to kill flies. I am supremely awesome at stalking the flies and then grabbing them out of mid-air and playing with them until they’re nice and dead. I know my parents love it when I do that because I usually get some belly rubs after the fact. One time I even got a treat!

Speaking of treats, I don’t get those very often anymore. Seriously, what’s a cat got to do around here to get a treat every once in a while? I used to get them a lot, but then all this ‘fat’ talk started happening and now it’s like I’m on a diet or something. C’mon mom, I’m not that fat!

 FreddyCat out. Meow!

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