Dream cottage: I love ivy-covered walls.

Temporary option for my dream library: faux-library wallpaper.

There is famine in Afghanistan, and drought in Kenya.

And in Liberia, the president is directly involved in torture.

And the war in the Congo has stopped only long enough for tens of thousands of people to literally run over the border with nothing but their children.

Pakistanis are freezing with no aid after a massive earthquake.

Bombs killed innocent, unsuspecting civilians going about their everyday business today in Afghanistan, India, and Thailand.

Many of the 350,000 children who Buckner serves everyday are hungry, because food prices have doubled or tripled in the world's poorest places.

We are so, so very lucky. I need to be more generous, and more grateful.

Happy Halloween

Thank you, Coco .

I love good design ideas so much. This shows a good solution for what to do when you have the back of a couch facing the door (from the vantage point of this picture, the front door is on the right). Just put a classroom table behind your couch, adorn with fiesty books and lamp, and voila!, you have a great focal point for your first impression through the door.

Wisdom from the Rink

My fiance is very into sports. His favorite sport is hockey, which is not the norm in Texas. Earlier this year he responded to a post by his favorite hockey writer for ESPN, and now they email back and forth. Today B emailed me this:

This is a paragraph from John Buccigross' weekly column. John is my favorite ESPN personality. He write so well, providing hockey insight and sage wisdom at the same time. I love the way he makes hockey bleed into real life.

"Sometimes your life and your team have flow, and suddenly it all seems very easy with a building momentum. These moments are rare. Mostly, hockey and life are about grinding. You need to outwill your fellow applicant, employee or opponent and wait for those smooth times. If you are persistent and patient, they will come. A large number of people don't do this. By the way, you also can do all of this with grace and simple repetition. It's not that hard to be good to yourself and good to others while living and competing." - J. Buccigross

Lady in Red

I just can't help myself. My eye always goes to the red option- in hair, in shoes, anything.

Above is a really cute wedding idea: put your place cards on the chair. I'm thinking...The chair above is a chiavari chair, the same kind we're having, except ours are blonde wood. They are my least favorite part of our reception decor, because light colored wood sticks out against all the deep, rich reds. I wonder, could we hide some of the chair by putting some sort of card tied with ribbon on each one? With a monogram, or picture, or something? Even if there were only, say, three per table, that could still have an impact. Something to consider.

I feel a trip to Hobby Lobby coming on.

French and pheasant feathers? Say that three times fast. And yes, please!

King Tut & My Dream House

This weekend B and I went to see King Tut at the DMA! I cannot believe that this empire allowed a 9-year-old to sit on the throne, much less to lead a revolutionary religious overhaul. He changed the gods of the nation. We are very lucky that our leaders have lots of checks on their power, and that we get to choose them.

In other news, I move into our new apartment on Wednesday! I am dreaming of my new home:

I like the idea of pushing several short, wide dressers together on a bedroom wall. Ben currently has one of these Ikea dressers:

So maybe we could buy another and put them side-by-side on a wall?
Secondly, I LOVE this idea, of putting the bookshelves in the dining room. It's like dining in the library, which we all know I would love, since I am obsessed with libraries.

This weekend I also participated in Early Voting, and it was so easy! I have only voted in Waco before, so this was my first time in Dallas County. Two differences:

1) In Waco, the campaign volunteers have to stand a certain distance away. In Dallas, mind you, they can jump up in your face, shove flyers at you, stop you to tell you things about their candidate, and hand you a nail file decorated with Tony Goolsby 's face. What?!

2) In Waco, you get an adorable little "I Voted" sticker.

In Dallas, you do not get this sticker. Even if you ask. I know.

The reason I really needed, not only wanted, this sticker, is that B & I are going to a party on Election Night, and I get in free with the sticker, and now I'll have to take my stamped voter card instead, which is not nearly as cute. If anyone wants to join us, you are welcome to.

This week's wedding to-do's:

-Move into Newlywed Love Nest, set up house

-Choose bridal portrait

-Make stickers for candy bags

-Find perfect color of satin ribbon

-Decide on videographer or not

-Proof wedding program

-Book wedding-day makeup

-Schedule last meeting with florist

-Finish rehearsal dinner slideshow, give to Best Man

26 days to go.

Hmm.

What is wrong with this picture?

http://www.harmlessasdoves.com/

Premiere & ReForm School

Last night I attended a Premiere house party at Eden's. Premiere is a jewelry company founded by the sweet Horner family in Dallas, and, like Avon or Mary Kay, is a great opportunity for lots of moms and young women to support themselves. I wish they had an online catalogue so I could show you their beautiful rings!

You can find these great cards by David Shrigly at my favorite new design shop, ReForm School Rules.

This poster has quite a history. It was originally designed by the British propaganda department during World War II to cheer up and strengthen the resolve of citizens facing the bombing of London. The crown is that of King George, QEII's father.

These adorable cloth mice are actually sachets, filled with organic lavendar. ReForm School also has an amazing library full of books on sustainable design and generally fabulous eco-chic living.

I am getting married in ONE MONTH! What a delightful season.

Coming soon: Bridal portraits, King Tut exhibit, ELECTION DAY, final floral consultation, final music consultation, move into the newlywed nest, Dad's 50th Birthday Bash, Baylor Homecoming, Sutton wedding, Bachelorette Party, Lingerie Shower, and the big wedding weekend.

A delightful season indeed.

Typical to my friends and I in this stage of life: the quarter-life-crisis that comes out of nowhere, such as while driving down 75 in rush hour on the way to get your flu shot (today).

Maybe I should get a Ph. D.? Like this hottie (see below). Maybe I should get a masters degree, and be a lecturer, loving the inspiration of college environs minus the tenure panic attack.

Maybe I should have a couple of kids, Nie Nie style? Be a stay-at-home mom, Stephanie style, loving field trips, play dates, and the craft-y life? Start my Brangelina-esque multi-racial, multi-continent brood, stump for adoption as an essential element of any serious pro-life position, and recruit? Maybe I should be a career woman. Maybe I should be a gypsy nomad and travel the world, Honeymoon With My Brother style? Life is short.
My Bioethics professor and general Life Guru / Master Splinter, Dr. Tran, says that if you do not live an examined and intentional life, you will simply follow the default plan ingrained in you by your family expectations, your small community norms, and the patterns you see repeated in lives around you. An intentional life.... what does that mean, for me? The search to implement this reminds me of a conversation my friends and I have been having for years... searching for "the intentional life" seems similar to yearning in vain for spiritual leadership on the part of our men: We all know we want it, but nobody can exactly pin down what that means, in practice, and where to draw the lines, and what checklist of duties it entails, and how it applies to co-piloting a joint life....

Whew!

Favorite Things, October Edition

1. La Madeleine tomato basil soup on a cold and rainy Dallas evening

2. Paper Source recycled paper and stamps:

3. Tarte gel cheek stain

4. Bobbi Brown sheer red lips

5. Jon & Kate plus 8

6. Pottery Barn Thanksgiving catalogue

7. Dallas Summer Musicals 2009 lineup (including Legally Blonde!)

8. Opening the mail each day to see the latest wedding RSVP cards :)

9. A first-cold-weekend-of-fall tradition: Two brand new, usher-in-the-season holiday candles. This year's picks: Pumpkin Spice and Mulled Cider. Mmmmm.....

10. The local college jazz radio station, 88.1

It's debate night in America.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
T.S. Elliot

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Frederick Buechner

Has is ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.
A.W. Tozer

This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see- brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians- and I am one of them.
Cyprian, c. 258

With every morn my life afresh must break
The crust of self, gathered about me fresh;
That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake
The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh
The spider-devils spin out of the flesh-
Eager to net the soul before it wake,
That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake.
George MacDonald

Roll it around on your tongue

40 days.

40 days left until the wedding. Here we go!

I once heard a fantastic lecture encouraging us all to taste each minute- really roll it around on your tongue. If I have one major regret of these past six month of wedding madness, it would be my constant focus on the to-do list.

Now, I vow to taste, and not to execute.