Love Can Be

These Harry Potter movies get scarier and scarier:

http://news.aol.com/entertainment/movies/article/let-the-potter-hysteria-begin-again/108108

But it looks very good :)

Ten Feet Tall

Time flies. Even when I try to stop it by filling my days with fun activities and remembering every moment, it still goes fast. It's almost the end of July! Crazy!

I've been cleaning out my new office, trying to get everything ready for the new girl coming to the office and it's amazing what can be thrown away. I think it's a good lesson to me, that the world doesn't end when I throw away a box of things I thought would be important. Just chunk it, get rid of it, cleanse your space. I should take notes and move this cleaning spree over to my apartment - or better yet, my room back at home.

I would create a new Top 3 things to do this week, but last week's to-do has rolled over.

Hello Dolly

As terrible and catastrophic as hurricanes are, I can't help but really like the moments right before the storm hits. It is very quiet, very eery and you can just feel the power of the storm on the horizon. Growing up in Louisiana, hurricanes became commonplace, always around, forcing plans to change, Homecomings or weddings to be moved. It's a familiar catastrophe. I was never truly threatened by them living far from the Gulf, but as we saw with the storms of 2005, hurricanes are not quiet things. They are strangely poetic, as close to a world-wide bath as you're going to get.

Leaves No Doubt

It's already Wednesday and it still feels like Monday. It's been a tough week. I feel one step behind at work, almost as if I can't keep up. I know I'm smart and can do my job well, but sometimes it gets to be too much.

I have cut back on my TV viewing this week. I have only turned it on when I'm going to bed, which I think is a vast improvement. It's amazing what you can get done when that thing is shut off.

Stephanie Top 3 Things to Do This Week:

3. Clean out my closet for goodwill
2. Go to LifeWay to buy a new devotional book
1. Re-budget my monthly expenses - I've only brought lunch once in two weeks!

In honor of Mamma Mia, here are my new favorite lyrics:

So I say thank you for the music,
the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty?
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me...

Since You Went Away

"There are people on this planet whom only you will be able to reach, because of where you live and what God has made you to be. If just one person will be in heaven because of you, your life will have made a difference for eternity."

--Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Life"

"The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it."

--William James

Absolutely Positively

More wedding time! Had another great weekend in New Orleans at yet another wedding, but thankfully no caught bouquet this time.

Friends are fun. Even though I complain about being out late a lot, and being sweaty in over-crowded bars or clubs, I know that I would rather be there with my good friends than alone in a cold apartment. I'm just bah-humbug too much, and I'm working on it.

Stephanie's Top 5 Things to Do This Week:

5. Dust
4. Buy trash bags (this one is getting interesting)
3. Organize my desk at home
2. Order personalized stationary
1. Go see Mamma Mia with Liza!!

Stephanie's Top 3 Things NOT to Do This Week:

3. Stress about wedding talk
2. Leave late for work
1. Skip breakfast - most important meal of the day!

Sometimes Gentle, Sometimes Wild

[Wildflowers in February, 7.13.08]

Like wild flowers, gentle in the sun
You stand taller than all the rest and
No sooner do I step forward for you
Do I realize that you are already there
Waiting for me at the end of the aisle
In the gentleness of the sun
And in the wildness of the flowers in my hand...