a wedding poem

Happy is the day together
friends and family here to gather
celebrating life no matter
what the fortune or the weather

To become a close-knit team
here we realize our dream
that two are one and one can scheme
many a thought, or plan, or theme

We will spend our lives together
this will be our wedded theme
and rejoice with those who gather
with us in our wedding dream

Tomorrow we fly to England. What a great adventure.
We have so many adventures in our near future: there is Autscape, and our wedding, and my finishing school (yipee!), and who knows what else?

On the Eve of 37 Days

For those of y'all who are counting, which is probably only Emilia and I, it is 37 days after today when we are geting maried. Who Hoo!!!! :-) We got our postcard invites back from the printers yesterday, which are pictured abouve, and we have started sending invites to people in far away places. For those of y'all reading this blog, everyone is invited, and please feel free to bring guests with you. As to the visit of Emilia's father, it got delayed a bit. When he was driving to our neck of the woods, from Bozeman, MT., the head-gasket blew on Emilia's car as it was going over Lola Pass (Dad was driving Emilia's care from Bozeman to here so that we could take ownership of the vehicle in question), and it is currently in Lola, awaiting a decision on what to do. Dad caught a greyhound bus home to Bozeman and will fly out here a week before the wedding. I wish the Dad unit well, and look forward to our next interaction, along with the rest of the Squyres clan. :-) See y'all at the end of August!!!

Jody John Ramey

family visit

Tomorrow my father will be driving here from Montana with Pinkerton (the car), and staying through the weekend. He is mostly coming for the race at Washoogal (sp?) that runs Saturday and Sunday. Last we talked he was complaining how it was in the low 90's there in MT, but felt like it was over a hundred. It felt like it was over a hundred here too, and I found out later that it really was (104). According to the forecast, it will cool down a bit- and I sure hope it does!
It will be nice to have Dad in town a few days, I am looking forward to our visit.

Dreams

This is going to be (somewhat) the wax philosophical post for me. I had my first dream last night, or rather, early this morning, of my grandmother's house, since her death, that was not looking like it was before her death. My subconcious finally accepts she is dead? Who knows. One of my friends Katee (I have multiple katee people in my life)and I yesterday had a discussion of my years of musing on being married. ("Not gonna mess this one up eh?"..."After years of you listining to my dreams of mariage, do ya think I'm gonna...") I had made a bad joke, and she was giving me a bad time. The vocalics are impossible to put in with email. I also had a dream discussion yesterday with Emilia regarding moving out of the country for a couple of years, something we have both dreamed about in a wake-ing-like sense. It is interesting out this word dream gets used for so many things, and in so many ways, how it is a signifyer of the forces that govern our lives to a point, and how it reveals much of who we are as people. Okay, maybe I just felt like talking and did not want to call someone so early in the morning. It still is ineresting, maybe, to some of y'all.

42 days after today!!!!

On July 9th, 2006, Emilia and I went out on a little adventure after church with Jon, a former roomate of mine, Tammy, Jon's significant other, and their plastic pig. It was the first time Jon and Tammy got to meet Emilia, and it seems they had a good impression. :-) We took several pictures that day, two of which are displayed in this post. The lower image is of Tammy, Emilia, myself, and of course, the pig, on the skywalk between the education building and the University Services Building at Portland State University. (photo by Jon) The upper image is of Jon, Emilia, myself and the pig in front of the doorway of St Michael Catholic Parish, where Em and I will say "I do" on September 2nd, 2006 @ 9:00 A.M. (Photo by Tammy) Come one, come all!!! Consider yourself invited!!!! Oh..by the way, for those who have not heard, Jon and Tammy got engaged a couple of days ago. Luv is in the air. :-) Tell us if you are getting maried and we'll lift you up in prayer too.

a biblical encouragement

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
"Therefore do not worry, saying,'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' for after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Mathew 6:25-34
A good reminder to myself to stop worrying! If you need it, its for you too!

Wedding flyer and more art

Hello humans. Happy Saturday. Shabat Shalom. Mahalo.

We had our final class day yesterday. Yippeeeeeeee!!!! No more eight-hour-per-day classes for a Looooong while. I have included two art pieces that I did yesterday...again, to keep focused. I got a couple of good tips out of the class that I look forward to trying, and the teacher, Louise, was good. The other pic (click to make larger) is an invite flyer that we are starting to pass around for the weding. This will not be the only means of geting the word out. There will be emails, and some post cards. keep your eye out for any or all of the above. Also, keep in mind that if you are reading this blog, you are invited, so please come. We want a big party on the big day. :-)

Yesterday's Art

Emilia said that I should add another art piece to the blog, being that she liked the first one, so here it is. This was another pen work done in class to help get me through. I had a harder time yesterday, all around, so it was a little more flow-lke in the drawing. Hmmmmm. That is my hypothosis at the moment. Both drawings are people. figure that one out, eh? Thank you Em for being so cool with me this week. I will be more there next week. Luv ya darlin'. For all those counting--50 days after today...

52 days and a little art

I am taking a conflict resolution class this week, which is a class that is 9:15 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. every day for the entire week. the schedule is a bit demanding on the concentration, but it is interesting every so often. This is a drawing that I did in class to help me concentrate on the lecture when we hit hour four. This was the one I liked best for today. It is not great art, but it was fun. My life slipped away for a couple of moments during its conception, so that was good.

After class today, Em and I had a cool talk about stress, since we are both experiencing high amounts of that as of late, how we can deal with the stress, and how we can keep it from taking control of us. We prayed about it, and we ask all of you to do the same. We also ask for continued prayer on finding work, and for good recomendations to people whom y'all know that are hiring. 52 days till the 2nd. Hope alla y'all's can come to the wedding.

shopping

Yesterday I went shopping at the grocery store, and there were all kinds of fruit there- I bought raspberries, and strawberries, and watermelon, and nectarines, and mangoes. A veritable feast of goodies...
I also found some earplugs at Walgreens that claim to prevent ear pain from flying- so I picked some up, and I hope that they work as well as they say that they do! It would be wonderful for our trip to England if that is the case...

Saturday Market

Yesterday Jody and I got together with a couple of Jody's friends. We hung out for a while around Portland State University, and then wandered down to the Saturday Market- I hadn't been there in ages. There were many interesting craft booths and many snack booths as well. We saw several jewelers there, one of which had a nice selection of rings, and we found a nice simple one to serve as Jody's wedding band. So things are going well for the wedding planning- we have both rings, and have designed the wedding invites, and hopefully today we will have a chance to chat with the wedding coordinator at St. Michaels.

invites

This morning I started to work on invites to our wedding. I have three design ideas for Jody and I to decide between- so as soon as we pick one, we can get them printed and mailed out! It will happen soon...

58 Days After Today!!!!

Hello Humans, and those who choose not to identify as such. We had a wonderful time on the 4th, and to prove it, we have a pic of my mommy near the truck and Em and I sitting in the recycling truck. It is oh so cool to recycle. The photos were taken by my Aunt Penny at about 4:30 P.M. Don't we look happy? (Everybody say "awwwwwwwwww.") ;-)

On the weding front, we should have invites printed out by next week, or the week after at the very latest. Which means we will have them out by the end of the month. Some of y'all will recieve paper invites, those of you without internet connections, and the rest will recieve evites. If you go to one of the places that flyers will be displed, you wil see flyers. Hope y'all had fun on the 4th, and we'll chat at ya later.

Shalom

Happy 4th Day!!!!

Greetings to all. In the above pic you see the park area near Fort Vancouver. In this area alone, there will be about 1/4 of a million people. This is where Em and I are going to spend the afternoon. I am excited that she will have a chance to see a very profound location of youthful memory for me. I hope all of y'all reading this have a wonderful 4th, and Em and I hope to see all y'alls at the wedding in 60 days. Just a reminder:

The wedding is Saturday, September 2nd, 2006. 9:00 A.M. St. Michael Catholic Parish, 424 S.W. Mill Street, Portland, Oregon 97201. ALL ARE INVITED!!!!

Fourth of July

Happy fourth of July!
Jody and I are planning on being in Vancouver for the festivities today- it should be fun, I hear that the fourth is even bigger in Vancouver than in Portland. My first year here, I watched the fireworks on the Wilamett, and that was far beyond anything one would see in Montana.
Who knows where we will all be for the next fourth of July? I am sure that there will be a lot of changes and adventures between now and then...

This is a page I found with some fun pictures of fireworks:
http://www.dramainnature.com/pictures%20of%20fireworks.htm