Pray Without Ceasing

Today I was having a not-so-great day. One of those 'I feel sad and just want to curl up on the couch and watch Sex & the City' kind of days. With everything going on around here, and life feeling like one thing after the other keeps slapping me in the face, my fiance finally woke me up last night and made me realize that I need to be practicing what I preach, that "happiness is a choice." So then, I looked up the Verse of the Day, and it read...

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer."- Romans 12:12.

Amen to that, big man. 

How appropriate. 3 lessons I'm learning right now, and 3 lessons I think everyone is continually learning. 

I've decided that job hunting is one of the biggest lessons on patience. In my mind, as soon as I submit a resume, I should receive a call within 5 minutes telling me how amazing I am and how my resume just blew everyone else out of the water and how they would be crazy not to hire me. Hmmph. That hasn't happened yet. But really, the time is takes to hear back from an employer is pain staking. I need immediate gratification and when all you get back is a confirmation email that says "we got your resume, we'll contact you if you're good enough" it's nerve wracking! I just wish I could march into these employers and say "here I am, I'm ready to work, I'm passionate about what I do, I WANT to work for you, hire me now."

Adam and I have been very blessed with Adam's new job, and I am anxious to see what's in store for myself. I should have no reason to doubt that God has a plan and it's already figured out for me, I just haven't gotten that phone call yet. Keep those prayers coming, I hear they work pretty well :-)

On a lighter note, Adam, in reference to my little drawing of us from my last post, asked me why he was holding hands with Nicki Minaj. Probably the best compliment ever! Apparently I need to work on my stick figure drawings. Bahahaha

I've been racking my brain for ways to decorate our new home! We lucked out and at our shower last weekend we got everything we need for our bathroom! Donzo! It's a grey & white patterned curtain, and then all of our towels are grey as well. I LOVE grey. Does that make me boring?? Grey is just so pretty and simple and romantic! I figure at a future time I can accent with a fun bright color, or change out the curtain easier and it will still match all our towels! Our apartment is separated into a front living room (where the front door/deck/and window that faces the street is), second living room, bathroom/hallway, kitchen, bedroom, then back sun-room/man-cave/back door. Picture a long rectangle sectioned off. We're thinking that front room by the front door will be a less formal living room/ welcome to our home room/ mini office for me, and then the next living room will actually be where we put the couches and make it all cozy :-) I think one of the biggest challenges in getting married and moving into your MARRIED home, is that you suddenly grow up and have to decorate accordingly :-) This isn't a dorm room, and it's not an apartment with a girlfriend. This is going to be my home with my husband. Our home. Our parents' homes will no longer be our homes. Such a weird and sweet concept at once. Once we're moved in and have everything set up perfectly, I'll be sure and blog our new decor, although no judging the hand-me-down-non-matching furniture :-)

37 days! And I get to see Mr Adam tomorrow! Can. Not. Wait. I think I will cry like a baby on our wedding day simply because it will mean we never have to do long distance ever again. I can't even comprehend that.

Back to Sex & the City, working on wedding crafts! I refuse to submit to this ugly, rainy day. I'm getting off the couch, getting out of my slouchy clothes, and being productive and HAPPY. 

I have no reason not to be!

-the Future Mrs.

It's Gonna Be May

We're back! I have lots to update all of you dear blog stalkers on!

Since last time I posted...get ready...

That's right! We officially have a new address, together! To say we're excited would be an understatement. God continues to bless us and lift stresses off our shoulders just in the nick of time. Our new home is located in downtown Little Rock, just blocks from Adam's new job: Stephens Inc. Several weeks ago I mentioned that we had gotten in contact with a sweet couple whose side job is remodeling and revamping historic homes in the downtown Little Rock area. Well, we got one! Our apartment is located in an old home that's been remodeled into four super cute apartments. We lucked out and got a second floor unit, and it has so much charm and character we can barely stand it! Two fireplaces, original hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, custom cabinets, charming windows, a deck, and two sets of french doors! It's adorable! It's still in the renovation phase so it's really a huge mess right now, but I can't wait to get it decorated and post some pictures! Fingers crossed it will be ready extra early and Adam can move in in a couple weeks! Don't worry though, it's guaranteed to be finished by June 1 :-)

With that said, we're 38 days out!! 5 weeks from this Saturday!

And on Saturday...ADAM GRADUATES!!!!

I am so proud of him! He's been working so hard and now he's finally done! If you see him, give him a pat on the back because he deserves it :-)

The Ingle ladies and nieces came to stay with us last weekend for our Berry's Chapel shower. Here's a few pictures from the shower. We were wonderfully blessed, and overwhelmed!!

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's see, what's new in the wedding planning? All of the big things are totally done, and now it's just down to the tedious craft projects! I'm almost done making our favors, and...well everything will be a surprise! Last week I had my practice hair trial, practice makeup, and bridal portraits taken! They were so much fun!!!! My mom, and two of my best friends came with us to help with fluffing, reapplying makeup, bringing me water, and putting down a white sheet to keep my dress from getting dirty. They were so helpful, and I can't wait to see the results!! It was like a dream. I felt like I was having an out of body experience and I was sitting somewhere watching myself in my wedding dress having my portraits taken. I think it almost hasn't 100% hit me that I'm getting married. I mean, it has, but it's just something I've been waiting and waiting for and dreaming and dreaming about and now it's almost here and it's so crazy!! I'm trying to savor every moment of the next month because I know I'm going to blink and I'll already be married and living in Little Rock! Sometimes I think I have a problem living in reality hahaha and I feel like I'm just dreaming. That probably makes me sound a little insane though. I promise I'm not. 

I'm just planning a wedding!

Seeing how it's May now (WHOA!), a friend of mine mentioned last night a certain hilarious old school video she saw posted on FB simply in honor of it being May. If you were ever as crazy about 'Nsync as we were, you'll completely get this joke.

"It's Gonna Be Me" = "It's Gonna Be May" 

Sorry Justin, you're just not saying it right!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rfuirYiKWc

Remember to Thank God for the people in your life that you love. These past few weeks have taught me so much. 

Over & out! 

-The Future Mrs.

A Girl's Best Friends

So now that I've had a few days to recover from my jam-packed day of lingerie, best friends, good food, and bachelorette fun, I'm ready to post a few pictures from said events!

First, let me introduce my maid of honor & matron of honor who threw me this AMAZING combination shower day. 

Meet: Lauren.

 

We've been friends for a hot minute! In fact, we actually started going to school together in 6th grade, but didn't actually become friends until our freshman year of high school. We ran in the same small crowd all 4 years, then ended up living together during my time at Lipscomb, working together during two summers, and now she's helping me plan my wedding! This picture is from July 2009, right before I made the switch back to Harding to go get my prince charming :-)

Meet: Jennifer

 

 My sister-in-law has definitely been a huge blessing! I always wanted a sister, and when my brother married Jennifer, it was fate. The stars aligned, and the universe was forced to learn how to deal with not just one, but two Pence gals! I feel like I've known Jennifer my whole life, and I couldn't have imagined Daniel marrying anyone else! She's hilarious, and fits perfectly into our family. This picture is from their wedding almost 3 years ago! I can't wait to take a picture like this on my own wedding day!

The lingerie shower was A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E. Here were some of the decorations:

 

 

 

It was a blast. We played several fun girlie games, that I will forever archive those embarrassing pictures from, opened presents, and ate cake! I LOVE MY FRIENDS. I can't even explain how blessed I was at this shower, more than I could have ever dreamed! I don't want to post any pictures of all my pretty presents hanging up behind me, because that would be no fun :-)

 

 

A few of my Lipscomb girlies were finally able to reunite at the shower!

 

Arkansas roomie came in from Jonesboro! Just this time last year we were wondering when he was going to propose!!

 

MRS Sawyer came too!! I can't believe we'll both be married!!!

So many of my best, best friends were sweet enough to spend most of Saturday celebrating with me. I wish I could post every picture we took!! It was so fun having my high school friends meet my Lipscomb friends and meet my Harding friends and meet my childhood friends. Whew. So many amazing friendships from so many different stages of life!

Later that night we all met back up at Urban Flats in downtown Nashville for an entertaining & delicious dinner, then enjoyed the rest of the night together. Here's the only two pictures I snapped!

 

 I think this picture has pretty much all the girls from the shower, plus or minus 2 or 3 :-)

How special to be surrounded by so much love. 

Not to mention surrounded by all the memories formed that day & night.

 I can't wait to start going to my friends' showers! Bring it on shower season!!

 But with all that said, lingerie showers & bachelorette parties seem so trivial when there are good people dealing with some of the worst things imaginable.

 Please, please continue for pray for my friend Jason & his precious wife, Ashley. A lot of us went to high school with him, and several of my best friends are still very close to him and his wife. He was critically wounded in Afghanistan 3 days ago and the family has gone to be with him at a military hospital in Germany. It's a very serious situation, and they need prayers for the outcome that God knows is best. He's a tough guy, and his wife is even tougher. Stay strong, Jason! So many people are praying for you!

http://www.wsmv.com/story/17543484/franklin-soldier-critically-injured-in-afghanistan

It's always a good thing to be humbled and brought back to the fact that we're not in control. Only God knows what each day holds.

God is good, All the time

Today is April 9, 2012.

Which can only mean one thing...

I know, I know. 

Maybe it's a bit excessive to be counting down as much as I am. 

But, I believe I would be worried if I wasn't this overly, and extremely, and annoyingly excited. 

So you only have to put up with this for approximately 61 more days! WOOHOO!!!!

In other news...

ADAM GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!

And in case you missed the fine print of my previous status update...

That's right...Arkansas can't get rid of me that easily!

I never would have thought, not in a million years, that A. I would attend college in Arkansas, and B. I would end up married, in Arkansas. 

God has a funny sense of humor. 

I couldn't be more happy with how things worked out, though. Little Rock is almost EXACTLY in the middle of both our families, 5 from mine and about 6 from Adam's, and Andrew & Anna will be about 45 minutes. It was a perfect compromise, and is just the right distance for a weekend trip home to either. We've both always loved Little Rock, and we've already started making a list of places we need to "re-date." A few of our really close friends from school won't be too far either, which we're super pumped about!

Get ready Arkansas, looks like you're going to have 2 sets of Ingles to deal with now!

We've also started looking at places to live, now that Adam has his job secured and we can sleep a little better at night :-)

Right now we're looking into an old historic home that's been renovated into 4 large apartments. It's about 2 miles from downtown LR, so super convenient for Adam's job. In fact, he could probably ride his bike if he wanted to. We're going to look at it in two weeks when I'm in Searcy, so we're excited to finally apartment shop together for our first place! 

These next few weeks are going to be jam-packed with craziness, and then hopefully May we can focus on finishing up wedding details and getting me packed up and ready to fly the coop. 

This weekend is my lingerie shower & bachelorette party. I'm SO excited. I've been needing some good girl-time for a while now and I can't wait to have so many of my closest friends together at once!

Then nexxxt weekend I'll be in Searcy for our last premarital counseling session and our apartment hunting excursion. 

Weekend after that is my half marathon with my sister-in-law, and Adam & his sister, sister-in-law, mom, and 2 nieces are coming to stay with us, and it's our wedding shower with my church!

Then weekend after that, is ADAM'S GRADUATION!!!!

So excited for him. I know he is more than ready to get out of there and I am so proud of how hard he's been working!

Then the next 5 weeks is smooth sailing until the wedding festivities begin! 

Whew, I'm worn out just thinking about it! My to-do list is growing daily! 

I just can't get over how incredibly blessed we've been with Adam's job. It's a great company, and I know Adam will do great things through it. He is so smart, (though nerdy at times :-) ) and I can't wait to call him my husband. We've been praying and praying for months and weeks and days and nights that something good would work out before the wedding and for this huge burden of stress to be lifted. I think I almost cried when he called and told me the good news. Bless his heart, I can only imagine how relieved he was. Growing up we're always taught that the husband is to be the provider, and it was so important to him for him to be able to fill that role. It's so hard to fake the "I'm not stressed, something will work out, don't worry about it mom & dad..." look, and a few weeks ago I think we both were just at the end of our ropes about it and knew that there was nothing more we could do than pray, and pray hard. I think I've only prayed for one other thing more than this in my life, and God delivered on both. I'm not usually overly outward about religious things, but when God proves me wrong and answers prayers and knows exactly what I need, and when I need it, it blows my mind away. So with that said, God is good, all the time.

-the Future Mrs.

Our First Headboard!!

So seeing how the weather has been absolutely GORGEOUS recently, I decided to finally take advantage of it and get to work on our headboard!

I actually bought this headboard at a garage sale back in October. My original plan was to make my own tufted headboard, but when I stumbled upon this at a garage sale I decided it would match our rustic decor much better! I think I paid $20? It's a queen size headboard, real wood. 

Here is the original:

It was a reddish brown color and had previously sustained water damage so it was peeling off in areas. The color just made it look cheap and I knew it would never match anything in our house. 

So first thing I did was sand off the original stain...which took forever and way more muscle power than I was anticipating. Me plus a power sander equals exhaustion. It took almost 2 hours to get it completely sanded off, here's a halfway picture.

After I got it completely sanded down to the original wood, for the most part, dad suggested I carve something into it before I stained it. So we dug out his Dremel and I carved our wedding date into the top of it! (obviously the backside didn't get sanded)

Next, I wanted it to still look destructed so dad and I took some tools out of the garage and gave it a few good whacks!

Next, it was time to apply the stain. I picked out a 'dark walnut' color, knowing that some of the original stain would probably still show through a little bit but hoping it would cover most of it pretty well. I love the look of dark wood furniture!

Once the color dried, it darkened and evened out a little more, and then I applied a layer of flat polyurethane. (I didn't want it super shiny)

Here's two pictures from my cell phone the next morning after it dried overnight.

I LOVE IT!!!! It looks a lot darker in person, but some of the original color that we couldn't quite get sanded off came through in a few areas and I love how the two combined to make it look even more rustic. There's a perfect amount of destruction on it and pictures just don't do it justice. It's my new favorite craft :-)

I can't wait to pair it with our new bedding!!!

67 days!

-The Future Mrs.

Romans 8:28

Hello, friends!

These past few weeks have been one crazy roller-coaster! I'm sure our parents' heads are spinning!

One minute we think we're living in Dallas...then we think we'll just stay in Nashville...then we decide that no, Little Rock is ultimately the perfect compromise. 

And indeed it is. It's almost EXACTLY half-way between both of our families, is a somewhat familiar town to both of us, and we have some pretty special memories from dating during our Harding days. Little Rock is actually a pretty cool town, and has three of our favorite things...

1. Damgoode Pies

2. Anthropologie

3. The Rivermarket

Okay so maybe I slipped #2 in there...but maybe he won't notice ;) 

I'm sure all of you reading this think how crazy it is that we don't  know where we'll be living in 73 days. But trust me, we're fully aware of this, and it has been a daily prayer. We knew coming into this that Adam's job could be up in the air until May, maybe even early June. This whole process though has taught me so much about giving it all to God, and putting down my planner for once. I can't plan everything, and just when I think I have, He takes his holy white-out and scribbles something out. **ick, I can NOT stand to have scribbles in my planner!** I know that God has something great in store for us, and wherever we land will be perfectly figured out for us. In fact, it probably already is figured out for us, we just don't know it yet. 

But with all that said, we're starting to get the inkling that Little Rock just miiiight be that place. Good things are starting to come together, and we're praying fervently that the puzzle pieces keep matching up. So we'll see. We're both so ready to just land somewhere, find our first home, and start settling into the idea of our new town. It will come, but only with the Lord's perfect timing. 

-The Future Mrs.

It's getting so REAL!!

Last weekend my mom and I flew down to Dallas, TX (Southlake) and stayed with Adam's family for our first bridal shower! Friday was actually my birthday, so while we waited for Adam to get in town, my soon to be mother-in-law, myself, and my mom went to a fabulous lunch in Uptown Dallas, and then headed straight to the Arboretum! I've always wanted to go to the arboretum, but it isn't exactly on Adam's to-do list. It. Was. Beautiful. The flowers were to die for, and the sun came out making it even prettier. Here are a few flower pictures I snapped along our walk, okay maybe more than a few, but they're just so pretty! It amazes me how artistic God is! Check out these colors!

I've concluded I love flowers. 

But I think we all already knew this. 

On our way home we drove through downtown Dallas, and got to see the Grassy Knoll and the building JFK was assassinated from, and drove the same route they were taking that day. Talk about a strange feeling, but so historical and amazing. 

So Saturday, being St. Patrick's Day, Adam's parents cooked a traditional Irish meal of corned-beef and   cabbage. Sounds not to appetizing, eh?

It was delicious!! 

Ok maybe it didn't look exactly like this, but close enough! Well done St. Patty's Day, well done.

Sunday afternoon was our first bridal shower!!! WOOHOO!!!

A few of Adam's long-time church friends and family friends of the Ingles threw us a beautiful shower, and blessed us immensely. I can't even describe how much love we felt! It was more than wonderful. The hostesses gave us our Pottery Barn duvet cover and shams and I thought I was going to jump up and down in excitement!! So excited about our bedding no matter how silly that may be! Thank You Note Extravaganza will be commencing asap.

Here are a few pictures from our shower! I won't blog them all, just a few favorites :)

Ignore my glasses, TX allergies and my eyes do not get along!

All of the hostesses with the mosteses! 

Proud mom :)

Why yes that's a Star Wars lunch pail and a set of Star Wars cookie cutters.

Miss Layla was a little over the picture taking :)

Future Mr & Mrs!

78 days!!

Let's see, this week I picked out our ceremony music. 

Tear-Jerker. That's for sure!

So I guess next on the agenda is making our programs! Woo!

But is it bad that these are last on my priority list? I mean, it will really only be looked at for 20 minutes tops, right? Hmmph. The little things are easily losing importance the closer and closer we get to the big day. I just want to marry Adam and live happily ever after :)

JUNE 9th HURRY UP!!!!!

And of course I have an app on my phone counting down the days...but what bride doesn't??

I think I almost cried when I saw this in the church bulletin...so crazy!! I've grown up seeing everyone's showers listed and always wondered who I would be a "bride-elect of" :) I can't believe it's happening!

I can't wait to start going to showers for some of my other engaged friends...how fun!!! I'm so excited for them!! We're all growing up and I just love it!! Bring it on shower season!

-the Future Mrs.