Book Giveaway!

When I put together my fundraising site for Murphy-Harpst, I reached out to Karen Spears Zacharias on Twitter to ask if she would please share the link. Well, being the awesome person that she is, she said that not only would she share it, but that she would send me an autographed book to raffle off as part of my fundraiser. So, the first person to donate $100 to Murphy-Harpst Children's Home, will receive a signed copy of her book A Silence of Mockingbirds.

Please give! There are children who need your help! Click here to go to the donation page!

Running for the Forgotten Among Us

Yesterday the running community took a giant blow to the gut. I was not in Boston, and I can't really speak on the pain that those associated with this tragedy are experiencing. But I do know that I will keep running, every single week, just like I always have, because I possess the same spirit that all my fellow runners possess...a spirit that is not afraid.

This year, I am running the Peachtree Road Race for the third time. The first year I ran the race, I was right in the middle of my divorce and I needed something to focus on that would keep me sane. Running was that something for me. Last year, Jeremy and I both ran the Peachtree, but I was near the middle and he was near the end. This year, we worked really hard and pushed ourselves in a qualifying race so that we could start together. We're pretty darn excited about it. However, this year, I'm not just running with someone, I'm running for someone (or something, since it is a not-for-profit). This year, I am running for the Murphy-Harpst Children's Home.  Murphy-Harpst is a children's home in Georgia that seeks to provide a safe and nurturing environment where severely abused and neglected children can thrive and heal. Severely abused and neglected children. Can you even wrap your head around that? Here are some statistics from Child Help:

• A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
• *More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.
• Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4. 
• It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates. 
• More than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way. 
• Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education.
• About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse. 
• About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder. 
• The estimated annual cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States for 2008 is $124 billion. 

Five children die every day from child abuse. Every. single. day. Murphy-Harpst is working to stop that. When I approached their giving department to make sure that I wasn't stepping on anyone's toes by making Murphy-Harpst my fundraiser, this is the reply I got from their VP of Development: Thank you for caring about children whom the rest of the world has not only abused, but often forgotten.  Our prayers will be with you.

Let's make this happen y'all. I've made my fundraising goal $5,000. I know it's lofty, but why aim low when there are so many children who can be helped. If you can help, please check out my fundraising page at http://www.crowdrise.com/Murphy-Harpst.

Thank you in advance. You are all beautiful people!

Feeling Feelings

Saturday night as I was driving home, Jason Isbell's song Dress Blues came on my ipod. I heard this song for the first time in 2007 when Jason first started touring on his own after leaving the Drive-By Truckers. It's a song about a friend of his who was a Marine, went overseas, and didn't come back. That first time I heard it I stood in the middle of the 40 Watt in Athens, GA, and sobbed. I've cried every time I've heard the song since then. I even skip it sometimes because I don't want to go into work/the gym/etc with a tear stained face. Every time I listen to it, I think, "surely this time I'll make it through without crying." And every time I don't. This past Saturday, my aunt and uncle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a couple of months early, because my uncle isn't expected to live to see the actual date. And as I was driving home, listening to the song, I thought, "you know, I never want to be the kind of person who doesn't cry listening to this song." I don't want to be the kind of person who can hear about someone dying and not cry just a little. I never want my heart to be so hard that I don't feel things deeply. Life is short. Tell someone you love them. Spend a little extra time talking to your parents or your best friend or some stranger. Live life full of feelings. It's the only way to live.

In a Fever

"We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout." - Johnny Cash

Yep, we sang that song the entire time on our honeymoon...but technically only that line as neither of us really knew the rest of the song by heart. If you've been following along, you probably know we were engaged on September 19. And then we got married on December 1. And yes, I did plan a wedding in two months. Which is really kind of a short time period for planning a wedding, but we were trying to keep the stress to a minimum (hahahahahahasob). So, two months to plan a wedding may seem like a very short amount of time, but it was the perfect amount of time for us. By not having a lot of wiggle room, there's no time for hemming and hawing. You make a decision and it stays made because there's just no time left to do anything else.

Thankfully, I had some really amazing people in my life helping me plan. I work in a very small office with mostly women my age, so they were all to willing to help me. Two of them even went with me to try on wedding dresses and even helped pick out the dress that I wore for the wedding. The dress was easily the easiest part of the entire wedding planning. Thankfully one of the few J. Crew shops that have wedding dresses on site just happens to be in Atlanta, so I was able to try on dresses there. And yes, I wore a grey dress. Several people have asked, why grey. For one, I didn't want to do the whole "white dress" thing again. It obviously didn't work out so well for me the first time. And, honestly, this might be the most important part, but the grey one was about $600 less than the white one in the same version. I think it worked out pretty well to be honest:

Wedding Bells

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ― Robert Fulghum

On the walking tour of the inn property

A year ago today, I would have never thought I would be planning a wedding. I was still so shell shocked from the divorce that even the thought of being married again was terrifying. But here I am, planning a wedding. I am marrying my best friend. In two months no less. I mean, shoot, we are going to get married anyway, why wait until next year sometime. Plus, 12/1/2012 just has such a great ring to it.

So, by this point, pretty much everyone knows we're getting married thanks to the wonderfulness that is social media. Jeremy wrote a beautiful post about our relationship that you should go read as well. But, I get to tell the story of the proposal. It's a sweet story, because Jeremy is the sweetest. I would like to preface the story by saying that I had informed Jeremy that when he proposed that it needed to be very romantic. I read a lot. I have high expectations. Also, I tend to micro-manage. I try to not do it, but alas, I frequently fail.

Back in the spring I purchased a Google offer for a bed-and-breakfast just outside of Charlottesville, VA. Due to work being crazy with the audit (I'm the finance director), we weren't able to use the coupon until a couple of weeks ago. We got up early on a Wednesday and flew to Richmond. Yes, it was almost two hours away from Charlottesville, but when you're flying stand-by, you take what you can get. After finally getting to the inn after a long day on the road, we pretty much crashed for a couple of hours. After we finally had enough energy to move, we took a tour of the property. The inn was pretty spectacular. There were chickens there, so we felt right at home. We took a hike through the woods,  sat for a while with the resident cats, and then decided to head into town for dinner. 

As the aforementioned micro-manager, I had prepared a list of approved restaurants for the trip. I do not enjoy eating at chain restaurants and I try to frequent restaurants that purchase their meats and produce from local farms. I'm a food snob. I can't help it. We headed to the first restaurant on the list...The Whiskey Jar. To say that it was the best food we've had in a long time would be an understatement. We had oysters wrapped in Virginia ham and covered with Gruyere for the appetizer. Then we shared the fried chicken and collard greens plate and the sweet potato dumplings plate. We also split a bottle of the best hard cider I've ever tasted.  After the amazing dinner, we headed down the road for some ice cream before making the trek back to the inn. 

Once we got back to the inn, we decided we would sit out under the stars for a while. The benches were all wet from the dew so we had to find an alternative to the bench. Jeremy found a log on the wood pile that was long enough for both of us and placed it on the bench. We used my stargazing app on my cell phone to find constellations  We couldn't really see them though because when you're in the country away from the city lights, there are millions upon millions of stars. We quickly gave up and decided to just talk and kiss and hold hands. We talked about how much we loved each other. We talked about how we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. Finally, Jeremy asked, "are you sure you want to be with me the rest of your life?". I answered that of course I did. He stood up and said "well, let's do this right then." He got down on one knee and asked me to "put this ring on your finger". And of course I did. I teared up a little and we had the sweetest kiss with him still on one knee. It was perfect.

Later back in the hotel room, I asked him if he had been nervous. He said that he knew I would say yes, but he was a little worried that it wouldn't be romantic enough. But being proposed to underneath the stars on a farm, yeah, that's pretty much perfection in my books.

Since we were on vacation, we decided we would wait about telling anyone because we knew we'd be overrun with Facebook posts, texts, phone calls, and emails once the cat was out of the bag. It was so lovely just being able to revel in the fact that we were going to get married. We spent two more glorious days together before we called "the mamas". I think my mama was prepared for it seeing as how Jeremy had asked my daddy if he could marry me. Jeremy's mama was over the moon. And his daddy was too, to tell the truth. 

So we're pretty excited. Jeremy would be happy to just go down to the courthouse tomorrow and get married. And I understand his urgency. I'm so excited to be married to someone who has filled me with so much love, someone who has already been there for me through ups and downs, someone who shares my values and my upbringing, someone who listens to everything that I say and even remembers most of it, someone who I want to stand beside until my last day. I love him. He is already my better half. I can't wait to make it official.

The boy boo, right after we called the mamas.