i am not a good decision maker

So what's next? I find that my life in general seems much more complete when I am halfway through a good book. It should seem easy to go onto my next choice because I love to read and I have so many books that I know are good on my list to read. Well, somehow I think it would be easier if I had no idea of what to read and someone just told me, read this (like Redeeming Love) and then I read it. I am a horrible decision maker. It's so bad that I semi-freeze up when someone makes me decide on what fast food restaurant to have lunch at or what movie to rent. So when it comes to commiting a couple weeks of my life to a book, well, you can imagine...So I have narrowed down my next choice from my monstrous list. Any votes? I've gotten some hints that I might like a little Amish reading by Beverly Lewis (I wonder why people think I would like these?!?!)...it looks like she has about a thousand books but this series looks familiar so I'm assuming it's the most popular one and they have them all available at the library...The Abram's Daughters series by Beverly Lewis

I love Jane Austen but haven't read any of these 3...Mansfield Park, Persuasion, & Emma. I hinted to Matt that I would really appreciate a "gift for no reason" of The Complete Works of Jane Austen because I don't feel like checking them all out at the library. I wonder if he'll take the hint because my birthday is still well over a month away and I think that's too long to wait when I've decided I really want it right now. Aside from being a poor decision maker I am very impatient.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
I went to the library last week to get a book and was beyond annoyed that someone had managed to check out every Jane Austen and Edith Wharton book in the place so I was out of classic ideas and picked this one up because I've heard it's really really good but I'm in such a classic/typical me mood right now that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get psyched about reading this one even though I know eventually I'll read it and probably kick myself for not having read it earlier (that was one long run on sentence)....The Master Butcher's Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
So what shall it be?

redeeming love

I've been a little MIA from my blog recently as I've been using my free time to read "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. Now when I first saw this book a few years ago it screemed cliche cheesy romance novel to me so I never gave it a chance. Then my mother-in-law told me a couple weeks ago that she had read it in one day, that Kelly was reading it, that Travis was reading it, that pretty much all of her friends were reading it. I'm thinking...okay, fine, I'll read it.
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Redeeming Love is the retelling of the story of Hosea in the Bible where God tells Hosea, a righteous and godly man, to marry Gomer, a prostitute. This retelling takes place in 19th century gold mining California between a farmer, Michael Hosea, and Angel, an unwanted child sold into prostitution when she was only 8 years old.
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While at times you can tell that Francine Rivers must have been a cheesy romance novelist before she became a Christian, this story is really beautiful and gave me such a real life picture of what God's love is like for us every day. Regardless of if we are a prostitute, a murderer or just a white liar, God's love is unrelentless and completely beautiful.
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It doesn't hurt that this book takes place in the old times, which everyone obviously knows I'm obsessed with. But regardless, I definitely recommend this one. If anyone wants to read it, let me know and you can borrow my extra copy :)
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God is Love.

in plenty or in want

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Philippians 4:12

To live my life being open to the truth and consequences of such a secret.

And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19

When He becomes mine the Love becomes so much more real.

edited to add below...

I had a little bit of a duh moment from my post below. I started that post as a result of going through some photos I took of Kelly from last winter to promote her music career. Kelly is Matt's little sister making her my sister in law even though I feel like we're way too young to have those kind of "grown up" titles. So anyway, Kelly also recently started a blog so of course she is included as a friend below as well :) I have kind of watched Kelly grow up as I started dating Matt when she was only like 12 or something. To me, she was a cute little kid when I met her and now she's growing into a beautiful young woman that I am excited to get to know more and more as we grow up together :) Now she is off to college studying contemporary Christian singing and I can't wait to see all the awesome things she will do for God in her life.

hi blog friends

Meet my blog friends from the links on the left. In no particular order :)

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This is my friend Katie. I knew her new husband's family well but I didn't know her until she asked us to come down to Florida with them to photograph their wedding on New Years Eve. Her husband Jonny & her are going to have a baby in March and she blogs (not often enough ;) about being a newlywed and now...a momma :) She is my buddy :) This is my crazy friend Ashley. Like Katie above, I didn't know Ashley until she asked us to come down to the Bahamas to photograph her wedding. We clicked right away with our insane love for travel and our love of no B.S. :) Oh, and she understands what it's like to be married to someone in the aviation industry because she went to college for the same thing. She blogs about everything travel and my Matt & I are in a silent battle to try to beat them in taking cooler and more vacations, bring it :) The only sad thing about Ashley is that she likes the Vikings. She'll find a rehab center sooner or later.
Meet my silly sister and beautiful friend, Alyssa. She is a crazy weirdo like me and we like to prove everyday that it's in our genes. This hypothesis is tested daily by making our parents seriously worried that they might have dropped us as babies...oh wait, I did drop Alyssa as a baby. Now I'm just wondering what happened to me.
Hello, Travis. I think anyone who reads my blog already knows that Travis is from Antarctica and he came down to Mexico to marry us. Or uh...maybe I'm getting some of my facts mixed up. But he does like LOST and now he is starting Relevant in Williamsburg, VA and I'm along for the crazy ride that is glorifying Jesus and making him known to the world.
Meet the lovely Christina who everyone thinks is Asian. She is the worship leader at Relevant and I'm really excited to get to know her better as the years go on! She kicks my butt at blogging...if I wasn't so anal about having pretty pictures in all my posts I could blog everyday too :P
And here is my new good buddy, Brad. Brad is the Creative Arts Pastor at Relevant which means I call him pretty much every day with more questions and things to do so we can make Relevant look as awesome as it already is. It's been amazing getting to know Brad and his story and zeal for loving Jesus is inspiring every day. I love being blessed with such awesome people to work around.
Alli Rogers is originally from my hometown but moved to Nashville to become a Christian singer and she's so good. She is Katie's sister in law (first blogger at the top) so through family connections I've gotten to know her and through her music and singing in the shower I feel like I know her pretty well :)
Clare & I went to high school together but never really got to know each other very well. Now that we are both married and seem to hang out at the gym at the same time I'm enjoying getting to know her through her travels and similar interests.
I went to high school with Calais' sister so I don't really know her but I stumbled upon her blog randomly as she was taking a walking pilgrimage through Spain. There is no way for that kind of adventure to not be interesting.
Nate from The Image is Found is a ridiculously innovative photographer in California. I've never met him and I'm sure he doesn't know I exist but he's inspirational and he has 2 really funny kids so I have to be a stalker :)
I met Jess through church and I think that the way she is raising her family to love Christ is awesome. I love reading about her life even though I'm definitely not at the stage of making homemade baby food or talking about nap time, it's all beautiful anyway. And she loves the simple lifestyle of the Amish too, so she has a special place in my heart :)
Becky & Luke helped start up a church small group that Matt & I were in. Now they have a baby and I love reading about their adventures...especially the "there there" story of Luke's displays of affection and understanding!
Here is little Addelyn. She does not blog but her mom Kris does and I love this picture that we took of little Addelyn this last winter, what a cutie :) Kris is the high school youth director at our church and I've really enjoyed getting to know her from when Matt & I volunteered at Big House. She's a great one-on-one talker at Panera :)

Post Secret. I started out reading these books at Barnes & Noble and now they have a blog to keep me updated with all the latest secrets. Post Secret started out as an art project where people sent in their secrets anonymously. It has grown into a worldwide phenomenon and they travel the country displaying these exhibits in museums everywhere.
Fail Blog is my husband and I's latest amusement. They update it multiple times a day with the pure ridiculousness that is humanity. So funny.
I'm not sure how I found out about this blog but a husband and wife were severly injured (badly burned) in a private plane crash recently and this is the blog of the wife's sister as she takes care of their 4 young children while they make a slow recovery. The wife who was injured is a famous blogger in the blogging world so her blog (Nie Nie) is equally as interesting.
Um, I read my own blog? This is the blog for my photography business that I have with my mom. It's colorful and full of what I do everyday :)
So who has a cool blog for me to read? Like I need to spend anymore time on the computer :)

our real wedding

So I've showed you all our beautiful wedding in Cancun, Mexico. Some of you may not know that this wasn't really our wedding. Because we wanted Travis (an American/Turkistan/Antarctic citizen) to marry us in Mexico and we didn't really want to go through the rigamarole of getting legally married in Mexico, we decided that we would just sign the papers for our legal marriage when we got back home. This is where little ridiculous lights go off in my husbands head and where my love for him outweighs my common sense. Hence, meet, our legal weddin'.

So we call up the court house and there is over a 2 month wait to go to the court house to sign the papers so we have to pay a judge to have a "private" ceremony. We decide to go to some random park suggested by her and as I discuss the details on the phone with her she starts asking things such as: "Do you want your dad to walk you down the "aisle", "Can I read this beautiful poem I have during the ceremony?" etc. etc. you get the idea, basically she was treating this as if we were really getting married. We had a little different vision in mind...
My sister & brothers' friends couldn't resist taking the opportunity to show up at a "wedding" wearing assorted paintball gear, hunting outfits, random work clothes from the garage, and in my sister's case, one boot, one barefoot. As hick as we could get.
I adorned my finest oversized Wal-Mart pharmacy tshirt and a lovely bouquet made by the above "guests"...A hunting decoy pheasant wrapped in weeds, duct tape, and ribbon.
The groom was lookin mighty fine in his huntin hat, cut off, and tooth pick.
The ceremony was very moving. Let's just say the vows & "lovely poem" involved Matt chugging a beer, a belch, me picking a wedgie, and Matt suggesting to the judge that we "hurry up & get to the I Do part."
We had to sign the license on the back of the Civic with those Tennessee plates.
We were so happy to finally be hitched.
One detail that can't be missed: the groom's foot attire.
Pics of guests at the reception in the parking lot.
So this is the real story of how we got married. I got my wedding and Matt got his!

gangsters and changes

We watched American Gangster last night. It was really good.

In other news, about 2 weeks ago I watched summer end. I was sitting on the porch talking to my mom about life and it was Iowa summer hot. As we continued to talk it got windier and windier and colder. And colder. In our hour or so long conversation the temperature dropped atleast 15 degrees. And it hasn't warmed up since. I think this is the first time in my life when I was actually conscious of a season changing in a single moment. Maybe I am simply more aware of change these days.

captain hogan, parkersburg & matthew 6:19-21

Meet my husband, Captain Hogan. Usually he looks a little more professional than this when he flies but every once in a while he takes my family up flying just for fun and looks like a hobo who knows how to fly a plane. A month or so ago we went up....
We all like to take our turn flying up front. Matt likes to make us feel like we really know what we're doing. Here is Johnathan learning the ropes.
While flying around the area we decided to fly over Parkersburg, IA where the tornado hit earlier this summer. It was devastating to see from the air.
I think this is the public school.

It leveled the center of the town. When I see something like this it reminds me of something I try to remind myself everyday.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21