Peaceful Rose of Sharon

   When you feel peaceful, does that feeling have a color? Or a texture, or a fragrance, or a sound? Does your inner peace taste like anything you can describe? When you remember your peace at a needful moment, do you contrast it against a certain pain to enhance the pleasure, or is it strong enough on its own?

  Gardens personify peace and beauty for me, as do both sparkling cleanliness and coconut cream pie. And also perfect coffee. Sunsets, especially when they can be enjoyed at leisure, following plenty of satisfying work, are symphonic in their expression of peace. Feeling and savoring that sweet, buttery, succulent, breezy, warm, perfumed, humming, musical, sparkling nucleus of peacefulness is a gift. Peace is a gift I do not take lightly in the face of so many storms in life.

   For a while I felt incredible guilt in celebrating sensuality so much, in noticing, craving, and magnifying the physical details of this world as much as I loved to do, as if they could somehow steal richness and gravity from the spiritual rivers that run around and through us. But then I felt and accepted that every spiritual urging seemed to have a physical parallel, or at least a physical expression. A sensual translation exists for every unseen emotion I have ever felt, how about you? 

   And so it goes with peace. Thankfully, the spectrum of colors and flavors and other wonderful expressions of peace are vast. Tonight, as I watched the sun sink behind the back field and the dense storm clouds gathered for a second night in a row, I caught a glimpse of  the dark pink Rose of Sharon right outside my kitchen window. Despite the storm, she stands here resolutely, gracefully, in full bloom. 

   Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace, to be real, must be unaffected by outside circumstances." Clearly we are not islands. We are very much affected by outside circumstances and we also can be or bring about the outside circumstances that affect others. But finding and celebrating inner peace that flows and radiates despite difficulties, this is beautiful.

   The Lazy W is not without storms, both meteorological and spiritual. But we have been blessed with an abundance of beauty and peace. We have our eyes open to the ocean of grace and creation from which we came ourselves. And we know that while storms are always brewing, so is life and so is peace. I don't have to look very far to be reminded and comforted by a thousand physical expressions of Love.

"Peace is its own reward."

~Gandhi

xoxoxo

Wedding in Instagram

 Hey you guys! Remember how we had no personal photos of the wedding we hosted here two Saturdays ago? Well, thanks to my friend Marci, who along with her darling offspring and gentleman beau also helped a ton with Brian & Rebecca's wedding, we have a few more photos at our disposal. She shared her Instagram snap shots with me, and I am sharing them with you. Thanks again Marci!!

   Incidentally, these are some of the best visuals of a few of the Pinterest projects we chose as a group.

   This sign is cool because the picket itself came from my Dad. Mysti stenciled the lettering. Susan painted over the stenciling in white. Handsome nailed it all together and sank it into the rock hard earth. Juliana helped me decorate it after sunset the night before the wedding. And now Brian, the new groom, has placed it in the happy couple's new garden! A team effort if ever there was one.

   Here is the beautiful bride making her gentle way down the aisle. Rebecca looked incredible and treated everyone with love and warmth, from the first wedding conversation a month ago till the last minute of the wild reception. And do you see the blue hydrangeas? Debbie brought two such gorgeous arrangements to mark the aisle. The day was so windy that we had to place a thousand rocks at the base of each one but everything turned out just fine. Also, you can see Luis, the talented photographer in the background. Have you watched his artistic slideshow yet? Beautiful.

   

   Here we have the precious 8-year-old Juliana and the slightly less precious 38-year-old me. The previous night we had agreed to both wear sock buns, a'la Pinterest of course. This little girl was not only a LOT of help; she was also a true joy to have flitting around the farm, and I think she made fast friends with Madison, Rebecca's sweet little girl. Hey there's Luis again!

   Who has two thumbs and is a sucker for blurred white twinkle lights??? This guy. Oh, and here is one way we used the four million coffee-filter poms sewn and fluffed out by Jacqueline, Susan, Rebecca, Marci, and probably more wonderful ladies. 

   

   This was hands down my personal favorite part of the wedding decor. Our exuberant Oklahoma wind really made the most out of these free-form blue and white tree streamers, wildly installed by Juliana and her big brother Koby. Later that Saturday night, we had some pretty hefty thunderstorms, and so these fluffy tissue beauties became shrunken, pasted beauties. But the effect was wonderful for the special day, and I will definitely be doing this again.

   Rebecca's nephew cut dozens of sheet music triangles, and Debbie and Susan constructed yards and yards of these paper pennants for decorating the reception trees. 

   

   We placed various succulents and potted ivies along with sand-and-candle-filled mason jars throughout the reception. The tables were all dressed in old linens and lace, borrowed from so many generous ladies.

   Dusty was feeling amorous that day.

   And apparently he was rubbing off on Daphne.

   What a relief to have a few more photos. What a fun collection of projects. And most importantly, what a memory-rich day. 

Whew!

xoxoxo

Roses After the Rain

http://instagr.am/p/JBFJ1OOZuu/

   This fire-and-ice rose bush was one of the first gifts Handsome ever gave me, before we were married. It's been through many transplants and lots of extreme weather over the years. I am so happy to see it bursting with fresh new blooms today!

   Plus I just got Instagram for Android, so... this is just about the funnest thing ever. I may never use a real camera again.

Fire and Ice...
Kind of Like Romance ...
XOXOXO

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