Need a friar?

So here's an entertaining story that I found on Aggie Catholic, and if you would like to read the whole story, go here.

"They've been mistaken for Jedi-wannabes headed to a Star Wars convention. They've been investigated by police, approached by strangers, gawked at from cars and offered gifts of crumpled dollar bills and Little Debbie snacks.

After trekking along more than 300 miles of dusty Virginia country roads and suburban highways, six Franciscan friars reached Washington on Tuesday, having seen it all during an offbeat modern-day quest for God.

For six weeks, the brothers walked from Roanoke with only their brown robes, sandals and a belief in the kindness of strangers to feed and shelter them.

The sight of six men in flowing habits, trudging single file on the side of the road, prompted many to pull over and talk, even confess. People on their way to work described their loneliness. College students wanted help figuring out what to do with their lives. Children, mistaking them for the Shaolin monks in movies, ran up to ask the friars if they knew how to beat up bullies.

"Dressed like we are in our habits, it's like a walking sign that says, 'Tell us your life's problems,' " explained Cliff Hennings, the youngest of the friars at 23.

In every instance, the friars made time for conversation. They shot the breeze with a gang of drunk bikers, dispensed relationship advice to the brokenhearted commuters and bore witness to one and all, yea, even to the Chik-fil-A employee dressed as a cow.

The pilgrimage was the idea of four young friars just finishing their training in Chicago and working toward taking lifelong vows. Seeking to emulate the wanderings of their founder, Saint Francis of Assisi, they wanted to journey together as a fraternity, ministering to one another and to strangers, while depending on God for every meal and place to sleep.

Joined by two older friars supervising their training, they picked as their destination a friary in Washington, D.C., called the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land -- a symbolic gesture, because the actual Holy Land was too far away.

Then last month they drove from Chicago to Salem, just outside Roanoke, parked their van at a church and set out on foot.

They tried to live by the ascetic rules Jesus laid out for his 12 disciples: "Take nothing for the journey -- no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic." The less they brought, they reasoned, the more room they could leave for God. The friars did make a few modifications, carrying a toothbrush, a wool blanket, water and a change of underwear ("a summer essential," one explained), as well as one cellphone in case of emergency.

Some rules, however, had to be made on the fly. They had agreed not to carry any money, but just minutes into their first day, strangers were pressing dollar bills into their hands. So they made a pact to spend what they received each day on food, often high-protein Clif bars, and to give the rest to the needy.

They walked 15 miles their first day and found themselves at dusk in front of a fire station just outside Roanoke. One of the friars, Roger Lopez, a former fireman himself, knocked on the station door and asked whether there was somewhere they could sleep. As they talked, the friars spotted a giant trampoline out back.

"It seemed like such a good idea at the time," said Lopez, 30.

The six spread out on the trampoline as if they were spokes on a wheel. But soon they realized gravity was against them, pulling everyone toward the center. Some tried to sleep clutching the side railing. When one person rolled over, the rest bobbed uncontrollably like buoys. No one got much sleep, but the firefighters did send them off the next morning with corned beef sandwiches.

Since then, they have slept on picnic tables outside Lynchburg, basement floors in Charlottesville, even on office tables at a food pantry.

One night they were hosted by a man with tattoos on his arms, an unkempt ponytail and all of his front teeth missing. He had pulled up in his beat-up Jeep and offered to let the friars stay with him in an old one-room schoolhouse in Nelson County.

"He looked like he had just gotten out of prison," said Hennings, but the man turned out to be a Native American healer. The friars stayed up all night talking to him. He told them Native stories and played his double flute. They chanted Latin hymns in return and told him stories from the Gospel.

Such moments of grace became a daily occurrence for the friars. Sure, some passersby gave them the finger. One guy even leaned out the window to add a sprinkling of Nietzsche ("God is dead!") to his vulgarities. But most encounters were meaningful, even profound.

Just outside Harrisonburg, a woman in her 40s with a young daughter pulled over in her old Dodge sedan to talk to 25-year-old friar Richard Goodin.

She'd recently caught her husband cheating on her. He had kicked her and her daughter out of their house, she told Goodin. Now, like the friars, they were wandering through the wilderness, unsure of their next meal or their next move.

As they talked, the woman's daughter rummaged through the car and gave the friars a soda. Then she found a chocolate bar and offered that. As the conversation began winding down, the daughter said there was nothing more in the car. The woman reached for her purse and told Goodin, "I want to give you what we have left."

She pressed $3.52 into his hand, which he accepted reluctantly.

"I realized she wasn't giving this to us or to me," Goodin said. "I think she heard us talk about trusting in God and she wanted to try to trust in the same way. She was giving that money to God.""

Another giveaway link!

For all of you who like pink and green, or just need a new calendar and planner for 2010, head on over to Mrs. Newlywed!! Her giveaway ends Aug. 4:

HaHa! I love my life.

This will be totally random, so just bear with me. I had an incredibly busy weekend this past weekend, as evidenced by the fact that I'm just now blogging at 11:30 Monday night.

It really started last Wednesday with my travels to visit friends. Thursday was spent hanging out with more friends and me driving, as well as getting to see the Diamonds exhibit and the Terra Cotta Warriors. Both were fantastic, except for a minor incident with stormy weather that turned the lights out in the "diamonds" exhibit. We were in the vault part of the place, and that room has no windows. Just a tad scary. Oh well, we decided to try and follow the super-fast walking guard with the flashlight and as soon as we cleared the door to the next room, the lights came back on. We just decided to skip through the rest of the exhibit and leave to deal with Houston traffic in rain. Upon getting back in the car, I realized I had left my coupon for the place in my car's console. Anyone in need of coupon that wants to see the show before the 9th of August? I still want to make it back to see the Genghis Khan exhibit.

Friday was spent driving some more and having my hair trial that morning, followed by picking up my soon-to-be sister-in-law, then driving down to Houston to pick up a friend who had been with me the previous night at the museum. Once that was done, we drove to Austin for my bridal pictures. I love the photographers! Some of the pictures were taken in front of a wall of graffiti art next to Homeslice pizza! Can't wait to see them! Once I unpack, I may include some photos of the hair trial as well in a follow-up post. After pictures, we drove to FBG for my bachelorette party!!

I have amazing friends! One found the cutest little B & B to have us stay the weekend, and we went wine-tasting at four wineries around the area. It was a good weekend, and I enjoyed getting to catch up with several friends I hadn't been able to see recently. Hopefully pictures will follow in a later post, as my camera was not used. I just remembered one of the wineries added a picture of me and my maid of honor to their website while we were there.



Thats right, I was given a pink cowboy hat to wear. I'm a huge fan! You know you love it.

Today, I went around town(FBG) with my soon to be mother-in-law and handled SEVERAL details for the wedding weekend! Paid for the cake; met with the church's pianist/wedding coordinator extraordinaire to finish up planning for the ceremony and wedding programs; then went by and handed in the flower order (later realized I need to call her back and change it up bit). Then I separated out the wedding party gifts (sorry, no pics, just on the off-chance they read this), and decided on the final bit to go with them! Then I drove back home.

Came home to more amazing-ness: two wedding presents and a flood of RSVPS!! > with a couple exceptions that really make me laugh more than anything else. I designed our RSVPS to be postcards and decided to change the M line to a line that has a space for actual names...and yet we got two today with no names. HAHA!! I am actually still kind of laughing, more to the fact that I can narrow down one of them to two guests based on the postmark, but the other one has the postmark half cut-off. Why am I laughing? It's probably just entertaing to me as they are two "no" responses, so it doesn't really matter.

Last note to add: R and I will officially have all four weekends in September booked. Thats right. We have our wedding, then were notified this weekend of a wedding the following Saturday, next I have a sorority sister's wedding the following Saturday after that, and then after that we have a wedding in Houston of more mutual friends!! As a huge fan of weddings, (still kinda thinking of that long ago idea of being a wedding planner) I am really excited to see all the creativity and to see my friends get married!!

Stay tuned for later in the week, as I print out the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner invites- crazy excited for that party, as my soon to be mother-in-law found some quite entertaining items that flow very nicely with the reception place. Hint: Hawaiian Tiki Bar.

I will also be printing out the programs and should be putting those pictures on here as well. My apologies for the insanely long post, and hope you had as wonderful a weekend as I did!

Awesomeness

Can I just say how awesome this is?! I love the creativity!



Last summer at a friend's wedding, she had two groomswomen, and I skipped back down the aisle after the ceremony with one of the ladies, while another friend of mine (and my MOH) danced and twirled down the aisle with the other one.

Dress and Moon Anniversary

I got to go pick up my wedding dress today! SO excited....now to find somewhere in town to have the train steamed before my bridal pictures on Friday. On that note, I get to do a lot of traveling this week: College Station/Houston Wed-Friday morning, then to Fredericksburg for bachelorette party! It's going to be a good week!

I found a wedding gift for a friend today! I'm pretty excited for September to get here, as it starts the second half of wedding season (we get to go to 3 weddings, not including our own, within a month and a half)!

On a shoppng note, I found a dress I have been eyeing for almost a year now, except it has gone down in price (can't beat $15)! S0 I purchased it to wear to one of said weddings, possibly? not totally sure about that one yet.

I love checking mail. I know its random, but I always get wierdly excited when I see the mailbox has actual items in it. I still send actual cards to friends and family for different events/ holidays. Anyway, when I checked it this morning, there were RSVP cards there!! 5 of them!

And lastly, on this part of the random post, yay for the 40th anniversary of going to the moon! I just got done watching a segment on the History channel that was a replay of the exact same footage from when it was first aired in 1969. My dad was telling me that at the time, my aunt and he were upset they had to come inside when my grandmother called them in to watch the original broadcast. Apparently they were lighting Blackjack firecrackers under Tonka trucks or something to that effect, and sending them down the driveway.

Passport, anyone?

So, I found an amazing tool online. It's called epassportphoto.com! Instead of paying the average price of $10-15 to go have them done at CVS/ Walgreens/ Kinkos, etc. you can take the photo and print for free! Just go to the website and follow the directions, then send them in!

Dedication

If you have not caught on by now, I'm Catholic. Even though I wasn't always, I am now and I love it! (In fact my two year Catholic anniversary will be in October) Yesterday, I was able to go to a new church dedication in my hometown for a Catholic church that has been worshipping in the same building since they opened in the '50s. Granted, when I think of how old the church I will be getting married in, that's a pretty small amount of years. Anyway, it was fun. The new church is beautiful, and it was a wonderful ceremony, especially the part where Bishop Vann used the homily to read a letter written by "St. Paul." It was the parish's own version of Paul's letter to the Corinthians (i.e. the Book of Corinthians in the Bible). I put his name in quotations because obviously Paul hasn't written an actual letter in 2000 years. I like bishops with a sense of humor.

The following is a notice to anyone who is a current politician or anyone with aspirations of such a "career." Don't get me started on that last part, though.

Notice:

Dear Mr. Texas state senator,
I suggest in the future when you want to hobnob with your constituents you pick an alternative location than a church dedication where there may (just maybe)be someone in the crowd that knows fully well you are not Catholic. Didn't you get caught by our pastor at First Presbyterian when I was in high school for politicking during our "Sign of Peace" handshakes? You would think you would have learned your lesson, but apparently you wanted to be Catholic for a day so you could drum up more votes. Don't even get me started with how you walked in halfway through the two hour service, and not from the back door of the church.

Ok now I'm off the rant box, Happy Monday!! I'll post a note later about my awesome friends and family who are throwing me a total of 3 showers, and coming to a town for a bachelorette party next weekend!! The town is at least an average of 3-5 hour drive for everyone making it.

One down, one to go!

Oh, I am so excited! Rick and I can now officially get married in the Catholic Church! Ha, and yes I realize the wedding is only a couple months away, now, but until today there was still quite an obstacle in our way.

One of the Church requirements, on top of Pre-Cana (marriage counseling with one of the deacons) is to take an NFP class and then pass the test, especially if you're doing the home study version, like we ended up doing. If you would like to know more information from a fellow blogger who practices NFP (and is WONDERFULLY hysterical) I advise you to head over to Mrs. Newlywed's.

Well, today, I passed the online test!!


Now, to just get our marriage license from the state next month. . .

Happy Sunday!!

Sorority

Reader, be warned: this is a very random post, so smile and enjoy :) !

I was a charter member of my sorority's chapter at my college (Texas A&M). I had quite a bit of fun during college, but ever since I became an alum two years ago, I've had a blast! So far, I've been lucky enough to be an advisor to two collegiate chapters at two VERY different campuses.

One of my favorite things of being an alum? Writing recommendation letters for upcoming college women! I got to do that the other day for a woman going to OK State and two going to Alabama. I like reading the letters these women write when they are asking for a recommendation, and visualizing all the potential they will enjoy in college. If these women do end up joining Gamma Phi Beta, I'm sure they will be wonderful additions to the sisterhood on each of their campuses, and ours in general.

Ok, random post of the day is now finished, I will leave you with regularly scheduled programming of your Saturday.

Presley's cake

So my dad's fiance's little girl came back today for a visit (she's spending a month with her dad). Dad's Fiance wanted to make her a "welcome back" cake, and I volunteered. I haven't made a cake like this since last summer when I made one for a friend's bachelorette party. This time I used a cake dome I was given as an engagement gift from a friend.

Ever seen one of these? It's a Dormeyer from 1946. It was my grandmother's first mixer, and it still works! The website is just a better picture reference, I'm not actually selling mine.








The cake dome turns into four different uses: punch bowl, dip and veggie plate, and just a display stand as well as the cake dome.

North Texas Heat

Oh how I love thee. I realize I can't even compare to the Houston area, as they have a bit more humidity than we do up here, but it's still oppressive. While I was working on an assignment for one of my graduate school classes, I took the liberty of taking a few other pictures. Enjoy!



And yes, that says 108*.


The next one is a picture of the paper informing us, again, that we have a heat advisory until the end of the weekend (or for eternity). As if this hasn't been the situation this entire past week.

Invitations

So I have to say I borrowed some inspiration from DIY Bride, the Weddding Bee boards (for the design idea of my RSVP postcards), and the information for the online shop to purchase the actual paper from Heather. However, the actual wording, and design of the map was all my work. If you would like directions on making your own wedding map, I highly suggest checking out wedding mapper!

Here are some pictures, along with two that show how Polly wanted to help me. I love my crazy cat.

The first photo is a third of the inserts ready to go in the pocketfold.



The next photo is a closer shot of the front sides of the inserts.



The next photo is of an invitation assembled without the stamping I later added.



The last two photos are of my cat Polly who decided she wanted to help us out a bit!(She got her name from when she was a kitten and climbed up on my dad's shoulder from the ground and sat there like the pirate parrot of her namesake.)

Another Giveaway!

Here's another giveaway I just found out about courtesy of Callie! She's got a sweet deal with UPrinting to give a reader 250 customized stickers. Go check it out!

A few things

So sorry I haven't written in a few days! I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! Later today I will add a post showing my invitations, as they are now out in the mail being sent to all our wonderful guests! So excited to start receiving those RSVP's!!

In the mean time, you should head over to Mrs. Newlywed's blog and enter her second giveaway of the month: This monogram makeup bag!

Giveaway Alert!

One of my favorite bloggers to read, Mrs. Newlywed, is hosting a month of giveaways on her blog in celebration of her blog-iversary! She's quite funny and entertaining with her daily stories. So head on over and look into the giveaway!