birds of hope

my dear friends kim and rachel pepper have set this beautiful website up for me to sell these adorable onesies to raise money for my surgery! honestly when i first saw the website i started crying so hard...i was so deeply touched that these girls would go thru all this trouble to do something like this for me!  it truly blows my mind!  when i read the sweet things she had to say i honestly didnt know who she was talking about!!! it was so undeserved!  i have been completely blown away by the thoughtfulness and generosity of our friends and our community! i am completely convinced that i have the GREATEST friends in the world! the Lord has so blessed me with such tenderness in giving me these wonderful people in my life....check out this website when you get a chance.  kim is so so talented! she makes the most precious clothing for children...if you want to order anything her email is on the left side of the page and you just email her what you want:) thanks for taking time to read this! much love, ruthie

http://www.birdofhope.blogspot.com

update

hey guys! sorry it has been a while since i have written..it has been a very full week! last thur will and i went to see his grandma in gatlinburg...she is so precious! she lives on the main strip of g-town right next to Ripley's Believe It or Not!! its so awesome! will has so many great memories growing up going to visit his grandparents, so its always so fun to go visit his family in east tenn. they are all such precious people...it was a fun, laid back long weekend~ 

wed. was such a neat day, i had lunch with my girls leslie and abby then i got a message from my sweet friends kellyann and claire indie at anthropology to come on over. when i got there they had already picked out about 15-20 dresses for me to try on in my size...they ended up buying my favorite dress for me to wear to my benefit show!!! we were all in tears, it was seriously one of the MOST thoughtful sweet gifts i could ever imagine! they both made me feel so pretty and so loved!! it has been such a treat in the midst of everything to have such fun things to look forward to and to do! THANK YOU SWEET FRIENDS!!! i seriously have the greatest friends in the world!  

the latest with dr visits is: a friend that lives in rochester, mn sent me a message last week saying that her husband is a pastor of a church there and they have an elder in their church who is a dr at the Mayo clinic...she has told him my story and he is going to try and help me get in with a good neck dr there...i sent my friend kellie my scans this week so she can give them to the elder...we are really hoping and praying that this works out...i have been told over and over that mayo is the best and that i should try and get in there~ i feel so blessed to have this chance bc it is SO hard to get in...i have another friend that was on a wait list for a whole year before she got in! so please pray that the Lord would open doors for me to go and that He would chose the right dr for my case...thanks so much! love, ruthie

benefit show june 4th

i forgot to mention earlier about the benefit show my precious friends are putting on here in nashville for me.  reason being, my insurance has a pre existing condition on it with my neck and back so they wont cover anything that has to do either~ pretty crazy!  the show is going to be so amazing, so far the artists playing are landon pigg, brooke waggoner, sixpence none the richer, griffin house,  mindy smith and erin mccarley! im beyond floored and honored! the show is going to be on june 4th at rocket town.  i believe there is also going to be a silent auction during the show.  kristen dabbs, talitha moak, kellie lutito and matthew morgan are all working so hard on this and it means so much to me to have these friends and artists doing this for me!  what a gift! im truly honored~ 

another dr visit

i had another dr visit in nashville today that was also very hard.  this dr agreed that the wire needed to come out soon, but what was confusing was he thinks i may need to also get the sort of fusion that will connect my neck to my skull, i would have no movement whatsoever up, down, left or right.  he also said that the wire removal is really risky and hard and he also has never seen it.  i know all of the dangers and how rare it is but it still doesnt make it any easier to hear again.   i had also been told previously that i could possibly need another fusion but i never heard that it would be such a drastic one...im so scared and sad about the whole thing.  its also so hard to hear different things from different dr's and to know who is right~ i have no clue!  it is all just too overwhelming for words~ all i could keep thinking while i was in the dr app was how much i wished my daddy was with me. somehow he could always make me feel safe, like everything would be ok.  i miss him so much it hurts. please just pray for wisdom to know what we are suppose to do and for me to not lose hope.  thanks again so much for taking time to read this. 

adventures~

wow, we had quite the adventure home and back! friday night was a really wonderful but sad night honoring my dad. he is now in the LSU hall of fame which is such a huge honor. saturday was a wonderful night celebrating the smart's wedding. it was quite beautiful!  sunday was my boy's birthday. we woke up and i told will to look out the front window of our room, there was a blow up slide that was about a story tall in our front yard! it was so fun to see lile, tim, will and all the kids going down this huge water slide! they had a blast:) it was pretty rainy but it didnt stop them~ 

tues was quite the adventure, will and i were driving home to nashville and we stopped to grab some lunch just outside of jackson, ms. when we started the car back up there was a huge popping sound and the car starting shaking~ we were outside of the food place for 6 hrs! such a mess! thank goodness wills best friend paul's dad lives there and he owns a car place. he sent the nicest guys to look and at our car and try and fix it. ended up having to tow it and having my sweet mom meet us to take us back home to st francisville to get my dad's truck.  we drove back to nash the next day...we had to stop and get the rest of our stuff out of wills car in jackson to put in my dads truck. one thing being this chair i was bringing back that i have had since i was a  little girl. literally 10 minutes outside of jackson it starts to rain so hard...my poor chair is probably ruined. its soaked thru and thru...i looked up and was like, "this black cloud just wont leave me alone! it follows me everywhere!" thats pretty much how this last season has felt... in the midst of all the yucky though i have been so amazed by everyones care and generosity~ it pretty much blows me away~ thanks everyone in jackson who offered us your cars to borrow, thanks sweet katie for taking us to meet my mom, and thanks so much to the moaks for all your help with getting our car taken care of! 

surprise!

will and i decided to drive down to La to surprise my mom last night. neither of us thought we would be able to be here this weekend so it was really fun to clear our schedules and get here to surprise her. she had been in new orleans for sweet elizabeth smarts's rehearsal dinner. when she saw us she just lost it, she was so excited! it was awesome! i know that coming home to a empty dark house is one of the harder things right now, so this made it so much better!
tonight we are going to LSU to a ceremony honoring my sweet daddy. he was suppose to host the event and now they are going to honor him and put him into some sort of hall of fame. im sure it will be very nice but also very hard.
tomorrow is the wedding of sarah and elizabeth smart. it will be such a wonderful celebration and im so thankful to be able to be here for it. the smarts have been such precious and dear friends of our family for as long as i can remember. my parents are also sweet lizzy's godparents. im excited to celebrate such a special day with them!
sunday is my boy's birthday. we have a really fun surprise planned for him~ its really nice to have some fun things to plan and to go to.
we are still trying to sort thru which dr's i should meet with. its very overwhelming to me. i have no clue who i should meet with or who i should go with to do my surgery! the hard part is no dr has ever seen a case like mine so we cant go with experience! so so scary. i am really struggling with feeling anxious and scared. actually i go from feeling deep sadness and loss to panic and anxiety..doesnt seem to be much of an in between~ it just feels like too much, i know the Lord says he wont give us more than we can handle but this feels like way too much to me...
thanks again for all the prayers, i believe that is what i need more than anything right now.
and thank you for taking the time to read this...