47th Monthiversary

Two days ago, we crossed the line of 47 months of marriage. You know what that means, right? NEXT MONTH is four years. What in the world!?!? How has this happened?

I posted a picture of the two of us on Instagram and said I still can't get over the idea that this marriage thing is my real life. True story. I also said I don't take it for granted. Also a true story. I know some of you are waiting and praying and struggling with discouragement {especially heading into a fresh round of major holidays}, so I want to pause to say I still remember.

This week, I was wrestling with another desire of my heart that hasn't quite looked how I maybe hoped or dreamed it would, and as I unloaded that frustration on Ryan during lunch, I was freshly aware that the feelings are not new. They're the same ones I had as a single girl longing for love. The details of the longing are different, but the feelings are the same. And that realization did two things for me. First, it made me stop and pray for you who are waiting for love, because it was a fresh reminder of how much those days hurt when I lived there. Secondly, it reminded me that just as God handled those details in His timing, He will handle these details in His timing too. He's proven that to me through our history of journeying together, so this is a great time for me to, you know...be still. {Gulp.}

So if you're single and waiting, I'm sending a hug your way today. I'm happy to pray for you if you want to shoot me a message and let me know you need a boost! And regardless of where you are in the single/dating/engaged/married spectrum, I want to also encourage you that reaching almost four years does not mean boredom has set in. Not by a long shot. :)

We did something we NEVER do, and started off the day with apple pie for breakfast. WHAT!?!!?!? We'd hosted Tuesdays at the Table the night before, and our guests/friends Wayne and Shari brought us apple pie. Ryan joked about us having it for breakfast Wednesday morning and then said something about having yogurt. I stopped him and said, "You can't joke about food like that. My heart is already set on rebelling and having apple pie for breakfast." HA!!!! Anyone else take their food that seriously? So apple pie for breakfast it was. {Two scoops = Ryan's piece.}

Ryan actually had a long work meeting in Indianapolis that day, so he had asked if I would be willing to make a brunch for him and the co-workers traveling with him. So after my carpool run, I scurried home and finished making brunch for about a dozen people, and I drove it over to the hospital so they could eat before they left for the meeting. Ham, egg, and cheese sliders, a fruit bowl, and homemade pumpkin bread...and they cleaned it up!

Before he left, we did our monthly photo:

And then he was gone. :(

I worked at home while he was gone for the day, and although he had planned to mow the yard when he got home, it was raining, so we went to plan B.

Voting.

I wanted to be sure we got that done early, because I'm not great with being trapped in long lines. Anxiety sets in over that. So we were in and out in no time, and on to the place we almost always go on our monthiversary: Lowe's. HA!

And...Starbucks. Because of course.

Kokomo has this longstanding tradition called We Care, which is an annual fundraiser to help the underprivileged at Christmastime. {You can read the history of how it started here.} Anyway, back in the 90's, they added the Trim-a-Tree festival to the fundraiser. People/businesses donate fully decorated trees {and gifts, in some cases}, and they are on display in the mall for a couple of weeks before they're auctioned off.

The trees are up for another few days, so we went by the mall to peruse them.

You guys. I laughed until I cried. Not at the trees. The trees were lovely.

AT RYAN!!!!!!

Every tree is named, and most of the names are a play-on-words of a Christmas song. He sang every song when we got to that tree. Serenaded me the entire way through the mall. I was cracking up. {Well. Until we got to the Joy to the World tree and he stood at full height and belted from the bottom of his feet, JOY TO THE WORLD!!!! Then I elbowed him to bring it down a few decibels.} It was so funny! You've not looked at a tree display until you've looked with Ryan.

After the tree fun, we came home had dinner, and watched as much of the final game of the World Series as my stress and his tiredness could take. At midnight, I hid in bed with the covers over my head , because I just could not take it anymore! {PRETTY EXCITED to wake up to the news that the Cubs won!!!}

So that was monthiversary 47. Unique, fun, and thankfulness-inducing!

Halloween 2016

I know everyone has an opinion on Halloween...to celebrate or not to celebrate...to dress up or not to dress up...on and on it goes.

I've never been super-into Halloween. Yes, I was allowed to dress up when I was a kid, and I did for all my elementary school years. Our church always had a party {before Trunk or Treat was a thing}, and I'd trick or treat at trusted people's houses. I wasn't ever allowed to be a witch or ghost or anything evil or controversial. I am actually quite a scaredy cat, so I also don't do scary movies or haunted houses. But I mean, for real: it's a candy-centered holiday, so I cannot ignore it entirely, you know?

The first couple of years we were married, I don't think we did a thing for Halloween. In 2014, it fell on a Friday, which was our date night, and we went to Indianapolis to eat. That was when we learned Halloween is THE BEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR to go to a sit-down restaurant. They're empty! Everyone is either taking kids out to trick-or-treat OR they're home passing out candy/protecting their property. So there's just a little PSA for you on the merits of eating out on Halloween. You're welcome. Anyway. That night, it SNOWED, so we named it snow-loween.

Last year, I found out Ryan was allowed to dress up for work, so of course, I was ALL OVER THAT. We transformed him into Mr. Clean, and we also carved pumpkins and ate a festive Papa Murphy's pumpkin shaped pizza and totally-not-clean-eating orange chocolate chip cookies. {This was also before we started eating clean.}

This year's Halloween was hodge-podged over a couple of days, starting with the making of the costume:

 Because of course....

 ISN'T HE THE CUTEST CHARLIE BROWN???

{I was also floored at the number of people who didn't know who he was!}

I sent him off to work with his costume and his eyeliner-pencil hair, which I had to go over and reapply by 10 a.m. because he kept forgetting he was wearing it and rubbed it off. Whoopsie!!!

Our niece and nephews came to trick-or-treat during the day, so we all met at the hospital so Ryan could see them too. {My sister-in-law is the one with Ryan. One of the kiddos refused a picture unless she could be in it too.}

And yes. The littlest one is happily munching on the candy WRAPPER. Never asked for it to be opened. Just content to mash it to death through the wrapper. And also, yes, their mom is holding the key pieces of each of their costumes. I never said it was a well crafted photo. It's just a photo. LOL!

Lest I be left out, I tried to get a little festive. {Wanted to be Lucy to match Charlie, but I couldn't find the right blue dress.}

 Forgot my lips. Sorry about that.

Anyway.

We went to work at my parents' house that evening, so we didn't receive any trick-or-treaters, other than the kiddos at work. Maybe next year!

BUT!! We did have a little more fun. We had planned to carve pumpkins, but the truth is, we were just too tired to deal with a mess of that magnitude {plus Ryan couldn't find anything he wanted to carve}, so we went to plan B instead.

COOKIES!!!!!

I made regular sugar cookies and also clean eating cookies from the Dashing Dish website, and we had so much fun decorating them with the limited collection of supplies we had on hand for this last-minute adventure.

 {What...do you not stretch before baking adventures?}

AND!!!

Made taco stuffed jack-o-lantern peppers for dinner.

So that was our Halloween! Ryan already dropped a suggestion of what he wants to be next year, so I am ON IT!!! I will make it happen!

92 County Tour: Delaware County

Our quest to tour all 92 counties in Indiana continues! Guess what!?!?! Only 78 to go! It may not be the quickest project we've ever done, but we are having a blast doing it!! {To see the rest of our tours, scroll to the bottom of this page.}

I'm admittedly not great with geography. I knew Ryan and I had an appointment in Muncie, Indiana last Saturday, but I was just certain we had already toured the county where Muncie sits. I would have bet more money than I have that it was in the same county with Anderson and Alexandria, and I knew we'd gone there last summer. It turns out {PSA here} that just because towns are on the same interstate sign does not necessarily mean they are in the same county. Take a moment to let that sink in!

I finally realized my mistake about 10:00 last Friday night and flew through the pages of the internet to assemble what I hoped would be a proper tour of Delaware County, the actual home of Muncie, Indiana.

Delaware County was named for a Native American group that used to live in the area where the county is located. The county had a huge economic boom after the Civil War, because natural gas was discovered on the land. The county is also well known for its glass industry, and it was the home of the Ball brothers...of Ball jars. This may have also had something to do with the naming of a little university known as...Ball State.

We went to this county because we had a photo shoot scheduled there. Annual photo time!!! {We told that whole story in yesterday's podcast, so I won't rehash it here.} The photographer suggested doing our photos at Minnetrista, so that's where we began our day! The word "Minnetrista" means "a gathering place by the water," and the land originally held the home of the aforementioned Ball brothers. There are beautiful grounds that are free to explore, and there are also indoor activities, many educational, that we did not explore the day we were there. {Workshops, classes, farmer's markets, and much more.}

Our pictures are currently in editing, so I can't sneak peek any of those to you, but the photographer certainly picked an enchanting location to serve as a backdrop! When we were done with the shoot, we went back through the grounds and snapped some pictures just to have, reminding us of the natural beauty and the architectural beauty of this area:

By the time we had explored this area {twice, really}, we had worked up an appetite, so we made our way over to Cammack Station, just west of Muncie, near the little burg of Yorktown, to eat lunch. The photographer had actually told us about this place; she takes pictures there sometimes, and it was definitely a cool place. The restaurant is housed in an old fueling station, and it's completely loaded with character. The decor is themed around old station memorabilia, and they play oldies music, which makes it so fun. The food is classic diner food - burgers and ice cream sundaes and shakes.

It was actually SO NICE the day we visited, we were able to eat outside. They pipe the music outside, too, so it was just a fun day to soak up some sunshine, eat a delicious {clean-eating-contraband} burger, and listen told old tunes. For the record, I did not eat ALL of mine. HUGE!!!!

After that, we definitely needed to walk around for a bit, so we went to Ed's Glass and More Factory Outlet. I'd been there several years ago with my mom, and I remembered it was just a fun, quirky place to find a deal if you wanted one. We ended up not buying anything, but it was fun to poke around and look at all the glassware and candles and see what they had!

I had seen online that one of the Muncie McDonald's locations had a vintage sign, so even though we didn't stop to get anything, we had to swing by and see it! Apparently this sign was put up when the location was built back in the 50's. Did you know there was a different McDonald's mascot before Ronald? His name was Speedee, and he's on the sign!

I had also been told, over the years, that if I ever went to Muncie, I shouldn't leave without stopping by Concannon's bakery. They have a couple different locations, but we went to the pastry shop, which the nice lady inside told us was the older of the two locations. Oh. My. Word. Bakery overload in the best possible way! Cookies, pies, cakes, donuts, the whole bit. Oh! And candy! It was hard to choose just one snack for later, but we powered through.

Concannon's is a family-run business, and that was one reason I wanted to stop by. I love seeing establishments that have a long history in any given town and still have family ties keeping them strong.

We each got a donut and ate them later. They were delicious. Ryan said his was so huge, he should have divided it and eaten it in two sittings. I had no problem with mine! HA!!!

Of course, we can't leave a county without trying out a coffee shop. I figured Muncie would be overrun with coffee shop options, given that it's a college town. But when I hunted online, the list wasn't incredibly long. Once I weeded out the chains and the gas stations {are those REALLY coffee shops???} I settled on a shop right near campus called "The Cup." 

It was quite a different atmosphere from the coffee shops we normally visit, and I was really thankful it was a nice day outside, or our experience might not have been so great. It was a super tiny shop, and navigating our way in and through the line was interesting. Not great for claustrophobics.

It was very simple inside - black chalkboard walls with the menus written on them, and the counters for the baristas to work. That was about it!

Ryan got fresh brew and a muffin, and I got a frozen cappuccino, and we took them out to the courtyard, and that was lovely. It sat right by a sidewalk, and we watched college students and parents strolling around, people walking their dogs, and we were under a collection of mature trees that dropped leaves...so pretty. Plenty of space out there, and we felt a bit like we were on a movie set, drinking our coffee and watching the crowds walk by. We were also painfully aware that we are not really close to college age anymore. {Though closer than the old guy in a complete sleeping coma behind us, mouth gaping open!!}

After our coffee, we made one last "stop"...through the Ball State Campus to view Shafer Tower. It just seemed appropriate. :)

The tower is 150 feet tall and has a chiming clock. Though it normally chimes through remotely programmed computers, there is a way for a person to climb into a control room at the top and play something live. I saw how tiny the stairway must be inside the tower. No thanks! BUT...good to know we have our own tower. :)

And that concluded our visit to Delaware County! A fun day...and I can't wait to see the official photos when our shoot is edited! :)

Advent Calendars

This world is kind of a heavy place right now, isn't it? Sometimes you just need a good belly laugh. And I have a little feeling you might get just that with this week's Spill the Beans. Enjoy!!

 Click here to listen.

And now...

I know, I know. Thanksgiving isn't here yet, and some of you don't want to talk about Christmas.

But some Christmas stuff requires preparation, so if you're going to prepare, now is the time!

Ryan mentioned in passing (a couple of years ago) that he really likes Advent calendars. I'm not sure if he likes the actual calendar and the countdown to celebrating the birth of Jesus, or if he just likes a free piece of candy every day. It probably could go either way.

But I made note of it and determined that one day...one day!!!...we would have an Advent calendar. But those who fail to plan, plan to fail, you know, and so far, I've been a wild success of an Advent-calendar-making failure.

I determined that this would be my year, and about a month ago, I went to a craft night to celebrate my friend Amber's birthday. I wasn't sure what craft to make, because anymore, I'm solely a scrapbooker and I do those online, but then I remembered my vow to make my husband an Advent calendar.

I wanted something that was meaningful in multiple ways, affordable, and perhaps, in some way, reusable. And I will tell you about ours in a moment, but meanwhile, I've compiled a few other ideas for you in case you're interested in other versions.

Pinterest is a great go-to for such ideas, and I've made a little board that offers some random ideas both of how to construct such a calendar and also what to put on/in it. Not an exhaustive list by any means, but a great start! And as I continue to find ideas, I'll add them!

Your calendar, should you choose to make/buy one, can take on a variety of purposes. In its simplest form, it can be a true countdown to Christmas. A way to answer the endless question from your kids: "HOW MANY MORE SLEEPS???" Go count the paper chain, Baby.

It's also a great way to unwrap a Scripture reading for each day, a treat for each day, or even an activity/act of service to put some purpose and meaning in a chaotic month. You can do any one or all of those things as you choose.

I will tell you straight up that ours is a bit over the top in size. I always get carried away by these things. It's a problem I should probably work on, but I haven't yet.

I wanted something coffee-ish, and if I even have to explain that to you, then I have failed as Shafferland's chief blogger. So after some Pinterest-stalking, I came up with this. Yes. This.

 Why, yes! That IS an entire counter covered in coffee cups. Twenty-four of them to be exact. Isn't it lovely?

For the record, I do not plan to put them there for the Christmas season. I plan to put them up above the cabinets in the back, there. Visible, yet out-of-the-way.

Inside each cup, I plan to put a treat for Ryan {because I love him!!!}, but I also plan to put in a little slip of paper with something else. I haven't decided yet what the something else will be, but my hope is that it pushes us to daily prepare our hearts for remembering the birth of Jesus!

I did find this idea on Pinterest, but the original blog didn't have a lot of detail and it was also written in a language I do not speak. So I was kind of on my own for creating the thing. Just in case there are any other coffee fanatics out there that would like a massive Advent calendar to match ours, I'll tell you how I made it.

{ALSO...there is a way to do this calendar without having 24 separate cups. I'll tell you that part too. Too bad I didn't figure that part out before making the whole set of them, huh?}

FIRST, I purchased the coffee cups. I tried to get them at just the regular store, but all the cups they had were printed with some random decoration, and I wanted plain cups. So I had to go to the party supply store and buy a big bag of white cups and white lids. This was the most expensive part of the project, but as a bonus, we now have some extra disposable coffee cups in case anyone drops by and needs a to-go cup. The party supply store also sold the cups in a variety of colors {all the lids were white}, so if you wanted a particular color of cup, you could switch it up that way.

NEXT STOP was Hobby Lobby for some decorative touches. I purchased six 12x12 scrapbook papers that all had a different Christmas/winter theme on them. I tried to get colors and designs that somewhat coordinated, since they would all be sitting together, and I could have gotten all matching ones, even, but I wanted a little variety. I looked at all kinds of decorative pieces to glue on the front, and finally decided on these little Christmas ornaments from the miniature tree aisle. They came in packs of six, so I got two packs of silver and two packs of gold. Some look more like stars and some look more like snowflakes, so I liked the combo of similarity without matchiness. {I hot glued the embellishment on the front once the paper was secured.} All these supplies were on sale, too, so YAY!!!!

I CUT EACH SCRAPBOOK PAPER into four equal pieces to make a "wrap" for the cups. Because the cups angle, I had to angle the paper in the back, but that was okay. I chose to use leftover silver tape from our moving extravaganza to secure the paper in the back. You could easily use clear tape or even glue to hold them together. This was just my choice. {And I already owned it, so it was FREE!!!!}

I WANTED TO MAKE THE NUMBER COUNTDOWN a little unique. I found this site, which is also a pin on the above Pinterest board, that allows you to print out an Advent countdown in a non-matching set. Different tag shapes, fonts, and numerals vs. words make for an interesting display. I printed the set out on a parchment looking paper, but you could use any design of paper - or cardstock to make it sturdier.

I decided to make the numbers like the little stoppers that coffee shops put in the coffee lids to trap the heat. Popsicle sticks seemed like the perfect method, but alas, they are smaller than the hole in the lid, so they fell right through. I decided to wrap the top 1/3 of the stick in twine to make it bigger than the hole in the lid. I hot glued the twine onto the stick, hot glued the number onto the twine, and put the stick down inside the hole.

NOTE!!!!! Make sure if you're hot gluing as much as I did in this project, that your gun is a COOL glue gun. I got a LOT of glue on my fingers, and if I had been using a full fledged hot gun, I would have had blisters everywhere. {I used to own one of those and definitely received some rough burns over the years. The cool gun is still hot, but tolerable if it gets on your skin. And with all the paper and twine, you'll definitely get some on your skin.}

BECAUSE OF THE EMBELLISHMENTS, these cups don't stack up neatly for storage, but Ryan got all 24 cups, lids and sticks in a copy paper box without smashing anything, so the storage isn't too terrible.

I am really excited to get these filled and start a new tradition with Ryan! I'm excited about EVERYTHING for our Christmas this year - first Christmas in a new house! But this will be a fun addition.

And as promised - if you don't have room to display 24 coffee cups, you could easily make one or two and just swap out the numbers every day after you "do" your Advent time. Refill the cup with the next day's contents, change the number, and have one cup on the counter!!

Happy Advent calendar creating. It doesn't have to be over the top {says the creator of over-the-top}, but I think it will add some memory-making and meaning to your Christmas season! :)