Top of the morning to you all!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I unfortunately came down with a nasty cold when I was out with the pastor’s wives this weekend. We went to IKEA on Friday morning and I started feeling sluggish. By late afternoon all I could think about what laying down in a dark cool room. Even though I hadn’t seen Eric in a week since he had been in South Carolina visiting friends, I just couldn’t wait to sleep. When I got home, Eric wasn’t home. I figured he was either out on a call (he’s a volunteer firefighter) or had run an errand. Just as I was about to hop in my comfy bed and lay my head down on a soft pillow, I got a call from my dad. He told me he and my mom were with Eric was in the Emergency Room. My dad let me know that Eric had gone to fight a fire and gotten heat exhaustion and was dehydrated. The medics had taken him on in to the hospital because of an elevated heart beat and wanted to give him some fluids, but he was doing just fine.

I have to admit that for a few minutes I felt very selfish. After all, I WAS feeling terrible and shouldn’t Eric know better than to not drink enough water? Didn’t he know his limits when he was fighting fires? It was JUST my luck to have just gotten home from driving through the worst TRAFFIC - in the POURING RAIN - with my nose dripping like the Niagra Falls & my head feeling like it could be somewhere in OUTER SPACE. Oh no… I couldn’t possibly just have ONE night for Eric to feel sorry for me, to take care of me, and to tuck me tightly into my bed before the sun went down. Poor me.

And then I realized that none of that brought glory to God. I had a decision to make. I could either: A.) Be mad at Eric for being at the hospital from his lack of hydrating his own body, which was making me stay out of bed when I’m ACTUALLY sick  - also from knowing that we will have a  HUGE bill from the emergency room - and also from the fact that I’d been looking forward to running into the house to his open arms for the first time in a week… and now he was laying on a rolly-bed hooked up to 3 different machines with a dress on (not romantic)

or

B.) I could choose to bring God glory in an non-ideal situation. I quickly chose B and repented for being so selfish. I thanked God for keeping my husband safe and the fact that the only thing that happened to him was dehydration and that he would be able to come home with me that night when many people around the world lost someone they loved that day. I then prayed for God to provide the finances that we needed to pay for the medical bills. I knew we did not have the money for it, so it would need to be supernatural provision from the Lord. Finally, I chose to be excited to see my husband despite the circumstances and stay positive throughout the evening all for the Glory of God.

After staying at the hospital until 12:30Am, eating Whataburger (sans my Diet Dr. Pepper Eric dropped while getting out of the car) around 1AM,  and finally getting into bed well into the wee hours of the morning, I looked back on the evening able to boast in the Lord. It was SO good to see all that God did because I allowed Him the room to move. During the 5 hours at the hospital, Eric and I had amazing conversation about all he learned on his trip and all that the Lord had been doing in his life last week. He also shared how the Fire Marshall came up to the ER and told him that the county would cover the medical bill (hello supernatural provision) and I felt closer to my husband than I had felt in weeks. What a neat time for God to bless us despite the circumstances.

I pray that I can give God more permission in my life by choosing B. more often!

Even though my illness escalated on Saturday and I ended up having to give over the Worship Leading for Sunday to my husband (who is amazing at planning on a whim and did a superb job in worship), I felt good enough to put together all the goodies I bought from IKEA! Eric and I spent yesterday afternoon pretty-ing up the house a bit. I always enjoy just being with him and it was double awesome to spiff up the house together!

I thought y’all might want to see some pictures. Am I right?

Here is the front room before (ish):

And now with a little redecorating…

I bought 3 new canvases to put on our walls. This one is a 20X30.

Close up! Pictures taken by the talented Erin Woolsey.

The other 20X30 canvas of our family!

Our living room before (ish):

And now:

A 30X30 Canvas! LOVE IT!

Our bedroom before (ish):

With the help of IKEA:

Love this lamp shade!

And here is the bedside table that Eric put together from IKEA. If you don’t know, IKEA uses pictures ONLY for instructions. Poor Eric had quite a time putting it together, but he did it! It looks awesome!

Here’s the upstairs guest room before we moved into the house:

And now it’s a full fledge guest room (or Micah’s room):

Got that little bench for $5 at a garage sale. So proud.

Don’t even pretend like this isn’t the cutest thing ever.

My office before we moved in:

Now:

Curtains from IKEA!

And the good ol’ college diploma. At least it’s good for decorations!

More pictures that I posted a while back of our house are here if you are bored.

Eric and I have some really awesome friends. Seriously, we feel SO blessed to have made some really great relationships with people in the last several years. Not only do we have amazing friends from our church here in Granbury, but we are so lucky to have a special relationship with some people over at Newspring Church in South Carolina - where we have been able to learn from and be encouraged by in the last few years. Every person that we’ve met from Newspring has been so incredibly humble and gracious in allowing us to come up there and hang out with them, learn from them, and even stay in their homes. The last time we made our way to South Carolina, we stayed with the Worship Leader, Lee McDerment, and his two roommates Joey and Craig (who both play in the Fuse Band - Newspring’s youth band). Apparently we aren’t TOO crazy - because when Joey found out his best friend was getting married in Dallas, he immediately thought of us and asked to stay out our house! Yay!

So this weekend was the wedding and we FINALLY got to see Joey! It was his first time to ride a plane and his first time in Texas and we wanted to make sure we showed him a good Texas time! So…. what do you do in a small town in Texas?

And then….. THIS. SO FUNNY.

This was at Jessie and Brandi, our amazing friends’, house. Jessie and Brandi let me shoot them for a mailer that we used for StoneWater Church a few months back! Don’t you want to see how cute they are? I knew it….

Brandi, you are GORGEOUS!

We are SO thankful for all of our incredible friends. Life just wouldn’t be the same without you!!

So. Working at home has it’s positives and negatives. I would say more positives than negatives…. but still. And then, there are some things that can be both positive AND negative, such as the puppy dogs. I LOVE my dogs. I mean it, there are the cutest little toots e-ver. Oh, you want to see them? Okay good…

Hazel (my Labradoodle) is on the left - Romeo (my Maltese) is on the right. You know they’re adorable.

They’re adorable MOST of the time. Sometimes, not so much. Such as - when it’s raining and they go outside clean and come back in muddy. OR when Hazel gets bored and decides it’s a good time to chew up my GLASSES (that was today). OR when Romeo gets jealous that I took Hazel for a jog and I come home to find that he’s escaped and 30 minutes later I find him 3 blocks down the road …… (BIG BREATH OF AIR)… but MOST of the time - they’re adorable.

Yesterday, they were on my “negatives” list of working at home. They wanted to go outside, so I let them out. I’d get upstairs and just in the rhythm of post processing, and then…. BARK! BARK!…. BARK! BARK!!! So I’d go down stairs, let them both in, go upstairs and get back to work. A few minutes later they would be downstairs by the backdoor barking to go out. Ahh. So - I did what any normal person who wanted to get ANY work done would do - I left the sliding glass door open for them to go in and out of. I mean - it’s 70 degrees - and sunny - why not?

I’ll tell you why not. Because around 1pm yesterday I was upstairs working and I heard a bunch of commotion downstairs. “Hello?” I yelled. Not that I expected anyone to answer… I figured it was the dogs - but it SURE sounded like a person in my house. I heard a bunch of chairs moving around and things being knocked over. Ummm… weird. So I creeped down the stairs to see who had invaded my house. By the way - I was SO ready for an attacker, with my leapord house shoes on - just saying. I walked in the living room to find no one but the dogs. Nothing was torn up and it didn’t seem like anything was knocked over.

Then I smelled it. It smelled like a skunk had sprayed in my living room. I thought, “There is no WAY a skunk just crawled its way up 2 stairs, onto my porch, into my house, and sprayed my two dogs.” I looked for a skunk in my house. I looked outside for a skunk. No skunk. Hmm… what the heck? I also noticed Romeo was rubbing his face on the hard wood floor. That was odd, he normally does that on the carpet, but not the hard floor!

I look outside again… then I walked around to the kitchen, and I saw it.

A HUGE. BLACK. SNAKE (I just shivered in disgust as I typed that). It was curled up  on the floor about a foot away from Romeo (who was still rubbing his face on the floor), and had his head up ready to attack again (I then knew Romeo had been bitten). I quickly hurried the dogs outside (so as not to get bit again…) and ran as fast as I could in my leapord print slippers to my 70 year old neighbor, Pat’s, house. I quickly rang the doorbell, told him the scenario, and a few minutes later we were back inside my house with a shovel to kill the beast.

Unfortunately, he was no longer there. Hm… unfortunately just DOESN’T seem to do this situation justice. It seems a little more than unfortunate to me. I had a snake in my house and we didn’t know where it was. A big snake. A HUGE snake. So… my legs were shaking and poor Pat was carefully looking under couches and tables while I stood in open areas that the snake was OBVIOUSLY not in. He looked for probably 15 minutes with no luck. I called Eric and my dad to come join the search and rescue destroy team. The men all looked for the snake for what seemed to be forever - it was probably an hour. No luck. We even let the bloodhounds back in to sniff the trail of the snake. Romeo just started eating and Hazel wanted to be rubbed. Fabulous.

*By the way - I knew the snake was a bullsnake (not poisonous) because Romeo got bit by one last year at my mom’s house and we took them both in to the vet for testing. Otherwise, I would have been at the vet at this time.

Finally, AND I MEAN FIIINAAALLLYYY, the boys pulled out the fridge and saw the snake curled up behind it. That little sucker was sneaky, though. Any time they moved the fridge, he slithered underneath it to protect himself. Here’s the boys trying to formulate a plan.

I think at this point, my dad had knocked the snake coo-coo and he crawled up under the fridge. So, then my dad unscrewed the back of the refridgerater and got the snake out and killed him. Oh, and for you PETA people, I’m sorry we killed a non-poisonous snake, but he deserved to die. He came right up onto MY porch, into MY house, and bit MY dog. He was SCARY, too. Say all you want, but if I see another one, he will also be a gonner.

And here is little snakey - I mean - HUGE snakey.

Lessons learned:

1: Snakes are only good if they are dead - and even then they are not good.

2: Leaving the backdoor open for extended periods of time is a no-no.

3: Twittering and event while it unfolds is always a must.

One day, that will make a great story. Oh wait, that’s today. Wasn’t that a good story?

Every day is a new day. Some days seem too hold more excitement than others, but really, every sunrise is unique and I’m thankful for a fresh start on each morning.

I think it’s possible to have an ESPECIALLY new morning every once in a while. I remember one particular morning exactly 3 years ago, when I woke up and things were very, VERY new.

I opened my eyes quickly, after remembering the events that took place the night before. Eric had picked me up from my parents’ house around 5pm. I was all dolled up for a Valentine’s Day dinner, and I was very excited to be wearing new clothes, to have my fingernails and toenails freshly painted, and to give Eric his favorite chocolate fudge that I’d made him earlier that day.

He looked so handsome in his leather jacket. I could tell that he’d recently gotten a haircut, which is an occasion worth documenting in my books. I gave my parents a quick hug and scurried out the door. Eric told me we were going to Granbury for dinner, and I was excited to go somewhere new.

I was a little confused when we pulled up to a Bed and Breakfast. I knew we weren’t staying the night there, so I assumed they were offering a Valentine’s dinner to locals. Again, I was surprised when he took me into an empty dining room, with a picnic basket on a table nearby. Eric pulled my chair out for me, and I sat down excitedly.

Little by little, he pulled out the courses of a delicious meal, complete with sparkling grape juice and a heart shaped cheesecake. I noticed that he kept his jacket on during dinner, so I asked him about it. “I’m still cold,” he replied nonchalantly. It was in the 40’s outside. I also noticed that he ate his dinner especially fast. I mean, he’s typically a fast eater, but not THAT fast. I called him on it. “Why don’t you slow down and enjoy this date? I mean, how often do you surprise me with a romantic dinner on Valentine’s day? This is awesome! Slow down and enjoy it!”

“Sorry,” he quickly replied.

No sooner did he announce that he wanted to read me something from Scripture and he left his Bible in the car. It was the same Bible that was taking my place in the passenger’s seat about 30 minutes earlier, and I had tossed to the back to make more room for myself.

I sat in the dining room alone, waiting on his return. I couldn’t believe how thoughtful he had been to make this such a special Valentine’s Day for me. As he walked back in, he walked to the corner to retrieve a bowl of water and a towel that I had not previously noticed. He drug it over to me, and told me to remove my new red heels. (Well, he just said “shoes”, but hey, why not take a moment to notice a new red pair of heels?)

As he knelt down, I placed my feet in the water, and he searched for the verses he wanted to share. He began to nervously wash my feet with one hand, while he held his Bible with the other. He read Proverbs 31 to me. It talks about a wife of noble character.

I think this is when I first started to think something was up.

As he finished the last verse, he looked up at me and told me how he wanted me to be his wife. He said that he loved me so much, and I think a couple of other things I wish I could recall. All I know is that in the next split second, he was holding open the most beautiful diamond ring I’d ever seen. As he put it on my finger, I could not believe I was engaged to marry the most wonderful man in the world. Engaged?!?!

He made a quick phone call and told me that Jeremy and Misti (our friends and the Pastor/Pastor’s wife at StoneWater Church) were coming. When they arrived, they took pictures of and told us they had a surprise for us. We left the bed and breakfast and drove for what seemed like an hour. As we pulled up to an unfamiliar house, I recognized my parent’s car in the driveway.

We walked into a house full of people who had known for weeks about our engagement. My family, Eric’s family, friends from church, and even the youth group of our church were there. It was so amazing. Eric had planned that one too. I showed off my ring proudly to all who were willing to look.

Three years ago, I layed my bed in a house I shared with two other girls from college. I held up my hand, admiring the sparkle of a ring that signified so much. It was a new morning with new meaning. Soon, I would be Mrs. Wilkins.

Yes, every day is a new day. Thank you, Eric, for choosing me and creating an ESPECIALLY new morning.

P.S. If you or someone you know is ENGAGED… today is the LAST DAY to enter a contest for a FREE ENGAGEMENT SESSION at Double Knot Photography! Tell your friends!

You know what I’ve found out in the last few weeks? Your vocal chords are REALLY important. I mean, really important. Have you ever tried not to make a noise for a day? How about even an hour? Try just 5 minutes…. It’s HARD. No whispering. No talking to myself. No humming along with the music. Just silence.

I never really knew how hard my vocal chords were working, until they were overworked. A little over a month ago, I hit my breaking point (no, my vocal chords didn’t literally break… but they kinda felt like it). It was a normal Sunday. My hubby, the Worship Leader for StoneWater Church, along with me and the rest of the band, were doing run-through for our services that morning. I noticed that my voice had not recouperated from the previous weeks of singing (my vocal chords get a little tired after singing about 20 songs in a morning) and I felt like I was really pushing myself too hard for the notes to come out. By the end of the day, my voice was hoarse, my throat hurt, and I think my vocal chords were screaming “Don’t you dare sing another note!”

Unfortunately, I did sing another note. Lots of other notes. For the next couple of weeks, I continued to lead worship and sing. Although it hurt my throat, I figured it was just something that would go away. Bbbuuuttt, it didn’t. It got to the point where even when I talked, my vocal chords would hurt. I knew there was a problem.

So, Eric scheduled me an appointment at the ear, nose, and throat doctor for a little thing called a Laryngoscopy. Basically, the doctor sticks a scope up your nose, through your sinus cavity, down your throat, and looks at your vocal chords. As you can imagine, I was a WEE bit nervous. I had some serious fear to fight off before the “procedure.” With a lot of people’s prayers and moral support from both my husband and my mom, I went and had my vocal chords checked.

Good news! My vocal chords look good, but really swollen. So, I’m on vocal rest for TWO WEEKS! No singing. No talking. No whispering. No humming. Nothing. I can’t say that I’ve been 100% silent, but I’ve been trying really hard. I realized that I do things that I didn’t know about myself before… such as, I talk to my dogs. Frequently. Yeah… I know… I’m weird.

Anyway, I’m doing my best to be quiet, so if you can help me by giving me a friendly wave instead of trying to strike up a conversation, that would make me feel a lot better about feeling like I’m ignoring you by not talking. LOL! I cannot WAIT to get back to singing and leading worship at StoneWater. Well, actually, I’m just ready to be able to talk to my hubby when we’re sitting together in the living room! Continue to keep me in your prayers, that my vocal chords would completely heal and I will be able to sing like normal when it’s all said and done.

Here’s StoneWater Band a couple months ago. Just thought I would share our joy for the Lord! Have a great day!