wisdom.

my granddad's famous (in our family) words. 

i believe him. 

he lives this way. 

this is his nature.

his treasure isn't of this world. 

i need reminding of this every once in a while and just felt like putting life to his words in the form of this little doodle.

love links

our church family: 

http://www.highlandcc.org/

our diving boards into a life of ministry:
http://avantiitalia.org/whatisavantiitalia

http://www.healthtalents.org/index.php
http://ihcf.net/index.html

our favorite places serving the community of memphis, tennessee: 

http://www.whyhopeworks.org/

http://revolutionsmemphis.wordpress.com/

our favorite places serving the community of florence, italy:
http://www.aurora-onlus.it/

our favorite places serving people worldwide:
http://www.iamsecond.com/

friendly blogs

blogs of my friends:


laura: http://onefortyfivepm.tumblr.com/
       http://xlegit.wordpress.com/
martha: http://marthacarter.blogspot.it/
kate: http://goodtimestaylor.blogspot.it/

arrivederci!

i feel bad that i'm just now blogging about this, but this week has consisted of nothing but packing and moving from sun up to sun down (with the occasional social activity sprinkled in).

so....this past sunday, our wonderful friends martha and tdud hosted a going away party for us and invited all of our favorite people! it was just a come and go fun time that consisted of oh so much fun, friends, family, photos, bbq, my family's 4 generation chocolate chip cookies (made perfectly by the hostess herself), and homemade shortbread with peach ice cream and hot homemade raspberry sauce. i'm such a sucker for homemade anything. i actually chose not to eat desserts if there is not some sort of homemade element in them. anyway, that is beside the point.

it was so great to be around all our closest friends and family all together one last time before we take off.

here are some photos from the joyous event (somehow we did not get one with the host and hostess).

moving out

even though we aren't leaving until september 8th, we have to pack and get moved out now in preparation for our 2 week training session in searcy, arkansas.

after returning sunday from a week in orange beach with ryan's family, we began this fun game called packing our home. we started monday "morning" working room to room. this packing is even more challenging than just packing to move from home to home. we are packing to store things at my parents house and marth and tdud's in a variety of climates for TWO years. we are having to take a lot of things into consideration when packing like, "what if i decide i want these shoes 3 months in?", "is this going to break?", "is this going to get eaten by moths?", "can someone else use this instead of packing it?", "what will the combination of non-use/sub-arctic cold/dessert heat do to this?"... needless to say it has been a experiment in patience and the true obsessive compulsive tendencies of my husband and i.

we've actually had a lot of fun jamming/dancing to 94.1 kqk and listening to quality films like "sideways" and "the big lebowski"... 2 of our family favorites.

so, for anyone who cares (probably only my grandmother) here are some photos of our progress thus far.

empty walls/windows and stuff everywhere

untouched but messy kitchen because i'm

attempting to cook everything in our fridge/pantry/freezer.

this room will be the last to be packed

the hubs diligently going through old magazines

our schnucks box collection

the guest bedroom has become the

holding area for packed stuff

this closet has affectionately become known as

the marth and dud closet because everything

in here will soon be at their house...plus more

the books we are taking on our journey

beginnings of the real packing for italia

simple project

not a major project at all, but very necessary considering our upcoming life change.

i stopped at target today, as i occasionally do when i have time to kill in east memphis, to buy some thank you notes. instead i found this:

box of 200 earth tone note cards with matching/not matching envelopes, depending on how i choose to pair them up

i figured i could use these for a multitude of purposes since they are blank, and there are so many so i hopefully won't have to buy anymore while in italy.

then i remembered i had a ton of blank return address labels from our wedding, so i made these:

happy little "thank you" and "i miss you" labels to stick in the middle of an appropriate note, and return address labels with our soon to be address at the bible school in florence.

so easy a first grader could do it, but i had fun and i love them. that's all that matters right?

i love...

sunflowers...well all flowers really...but especially sunflowers make me so happy! they are so gorgeous, and you can almost watch their heads follow the sun when they are growing. how amazing is that?!! these are from my mom's garden:

my mom has what we call an english garden, but really we just throw a variety of seeds at the ground every spring, sit back, and ENJOY beyond belief throughout the summer. it's a perfectly unorganized mix of happy happy plants and i love every inch of it! every time i go to her house we walk around her yard, laugh at how good certain underdog plants have done, and wonder why some haven't done so well. nevertheless, it's something i always look forward to and a habit that my grandmother and i formed a couple of years ago.

whenever i go to my grandparents lake house, i set my alarm to wake up before anyone else in the house, (except my grandparents because they wake up instinctively at 5am) grandmother and i get our coffee and walk through her extensive, legitimate "english garden". it is such a treasured ritual of ours and she has taught me more in the last 2 years (the time i have been infatuated with all things plant) than i could probably have learned in a lifetime of better homes and gardens. i don't know if i love gardening because i truly love the process and the plants or because the 2 most important women in my life value it so much. i'm sure it's a combination of both, but i can say i'm hooked for life. i have never even had my own garden because of our apt living, so when i get complete control of my first plot of land just watch out. i may get lost in it. until then, i will live vicariously through all the other "english gardens" in my life.