Hello, Sunshine!

Can you handle some more vacation talk? I hope so, because I have several days' worth of stories for you!

We cruised aboard the Carnival Sunshine, and we got our first glimpse of it when we arrived at the port in our shuttle!

We weren't scheduled to board until 1:30 p.m. but we had to show up when the shuttle took us, so we actually were able to get right on board! I think it was a little after 11:00 when we stepped on the ship.

We still couldn't get in our room until 1:30, so we hauled our carry-on luggage around with us and explored the ship a little bit. 

Our room was on the spa deck, which is something we would absolutely do again. Ryan discovered several cruises ago (before we were married) that he really enjoys having a private balcony. We've talked to many people who think it's a waste of money, and we absolutely understand that for some, it would be. If we had kids who always wanted to be out at the pool or playing on the sports deck, we would probably feel the same way. But we really enjoyed the chance to have a little privacy while enjoying the sunshine and the sound of the waves. 

Originally, we just had a balcony room, but Ryan was able to upgrade to a spa deck room, which meant there weren't any kids allowed on that deck. (To be fair, there weren't a ton of kids on the ship at all. Other than 90% of the state of North Carolina being on board for their spring break, most kids were in school and the cruise was mostly filled with adults.) Our deck was so quiet - SO quiet! - and our room and balcony were a little bit bigger because of where we were located. (We decided by the end of the week we could handle tiny house/RV living just fine. We never felt crowded!) We also got a handful of extras for being on the spa deck. (Slippers, access to some spa amenities, upgrades on shampoo and conditioner, fluffier robes, etc.)

We had all the first-day kind of safety drills to attend...

And we said goodbye to Port Canaveral from our very own balcony!

If you heard the podcast yesterday, you heard about seeing the Miss Juanita as we left port. (Juanita was Ryan's mom's actual name.) The name is on the lower left side of the picture, right at the front of the boat. If you click on the picture, you should be able to see it better! 

See you later, Florida!

As you can see, the weather wasn't great. And it continued to not be great the rest of that night. In fact, that was the night the captain decided to detour the boat to try to avoid the worst of the storms. I didn't feel great at all, but we powered through and dressed up for dinner!

We chose to do the anytime seating again this time, and it worked out so well for us. We could go to dinner whenever we wanted, but we never had the same seat twice. 

After dinner, I was done for the night. I could not keep my eyes open for anything! I felt lousy and sleep sounded like the best remedy!

What I Learned in April

Before I tell you what I learned this month, I have a whole stack of stories just for you! The vacation edition of Spill the Beans is HERE!

Listen here

And now, I'm interrupting my recently-started vacation coverage to report on the things I learned in April. I feel like I learned more than this, but I failed to write down some of them, and then I promptly forgot them. Sigh. But here are the things I do remember!

1. I kind of like white paint after all.

I've never used white paint on any walls in any of my houses. I've painted trim white, but never walls. I have always gone for some version of color, even if it's very faint. But this month, I've been painting Ryan's dad and step-mom's old house so they can put it up for sale, and they picked out white for all the walls. I totally understood, since they're selling, but I figured I would become bored by it. I have not! I actually love how fresh it makes the whole place look and feel. Who knew?

2. Murphy chest beds are a thing.

I've heard of Murphy beds. (You know...the beds that pop down off the wall and then pop back up for efficient storage?) But a Murphy chest bed? That was a new one for me this month. One of my friends got one, and I think it's the most adorable piece of furniture. When in storage mode, it looks kind of a chest of drawers, but it folds out kind of like a hide-a-bed. Genius!

3. The sternocleidomastoid muscle is a thing.

I carry all my tension (and help others carry theirs...as a free service) in my neck and shoulders. While I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm always in pain, I will say I'm always very tight and sore through my upper back and neck. Ryan worked on my neck this month and said to me, "I've never felt a tighter sternocleidomastoid in all my life." Ummmmm what? Is it a dinosaur? A disease? WHAT IS THAT? Turns out it's a neck muscle. And mine is the tightest one on the whole planet. Is there a prize for that?

4. Sinkholes can offer warning signals.

Ryan and I caught a documentary on sinkholes this month. (WOW! Are we exciting or what?) I think we were interested mostly because we have had these potholes in front of our house that have taken on a life of their own and we fear one day they may just open right up! We had no idea that you can find warning signs of sinkholes before they actually occur (or whatever the proper word is...drop? form?) Who knew??

5. I do not have a future as a flight attendant.

I already figured it. But my flights to and from Florida this month confirmed that I have not grown more graceful with age. (Remember that one time I gasped loudly at the turbulence? Remember the times all my neighbors kept leaning around Ryan to check on me?) Yeah, I'm not cut out to be a flight attendant.

6. I am "that girl" when it comes to adventure.

If you listen to the podcast, you'll hear this story. Ohhhhh the waterfalls. I was an embarrassment to my own self and probably to Ryan as well. Womp womp. (More photos to come on this one.)

7. Ox tongue isn't so bad.

Cruising always offers us opportunities to try foods we wouldn't otherwise eat. Ox tongue was on the menu one evening, and Ryan decided to try it. He liked the flavor, but the texture reminded him too much of liver, and it freaked him out. He did convince me to try it, and while I wouldn't want to feast on it, I didn't hate it!

So there's what I learned in April (that I remember anyway). How about you? Learn anything?

Heading Out for Vacation!

Last Friday was the end of the "Freshening Up" series I did throughout the month of April. Thanks so much for hanging with me while I tried something different here on the blog. It was a good discipline for me in writing!

But now I'm ready to talk about VACATION!!!!

Last year, right after Ryan put together my amazing 40th surprise party, he said to me, "By the way...I do NOT want a surprise party - or a party of any kind - when I turn 40. I just want to go on a cruise."

Okay!

He immediately began researching, and for the last solid YEAR, he has been researching, watching YouTube videos, reading THOUSANDS of reviews, and planning every corner of this vacation. It's been kind of weird, because I'm typically the resident vacation planner, but he wanted to do all the work, so who was I to argue?? (I did feel a little guilty that he planned all of his own birthday, but it's what he wanted to do.)

We booked it months ago, long before his mom ever got sick, and then in the height of her illness, we had to figure out if we should still plan to go. We told her about it one day (when it was about ten weeks away) and she burst into tears, saying she missed us already. Then we really worried about whether or not we should go! After she passed away, we realized the timing of it all was perfect. More than ever, we just needed to get away, be alone, be off the grid, and rest. And that's just what we did, as you'll see in the posts to come!

We left home on a Thursday, with allllllllllllllll our luggage. (My sister made fun of us for the sheer volume of baggage needed by two people for just over a week. We did agree that if we had kids, we had no idea how we would have juggled all the suitcases.)

Our flight from Indianapolis to Orlando didn't leave until late afternoon, so we left home in the late morning and drove to my sister's house, where we left our car for the week. (The price of her driveway beat the airport parking lot rental by a long shot! And a bonus? She drove us to the airport and dropped us off at the curb.)

I did get stopped in security to have my ankle checked. It's always something with me. Never the same thing twice, but always something. I don't know if my ankle is fat, or what, but they had to check it.

Once we got to our gate, there were a couple of guys entertaining the crowd with a giant Jenga game. They were pretty impressive!

Ryan made his own fun:

By the time we were able to board, we had to sit in the very back row. But you know what Mark Lowry says!! "Get my tail on the tail and save my tail!"

I haven't flown in six years. I didn't love flying six years ago. The combo made for some pretty severe anxiety. This is Ryan's favorite picture. (I'm in full-blown panic mode here.)

My prayer life increased A LOT on that flight. Hello, turbulence. You're not my friend. Also not my friend? The people near me who thought dog-food-smelling jerky was a good idea to bring out right after takeoff. Ugh.

This, though....

Oh, but yes.

We purchased a "Fly, Snooze, Cruise" package, so when we arrived in Orlando, a shuttle from our hotel came to pick us up and transport us. We spent the night at a huge hotel there in Orlando, and then the next morning, we were bused to the port. The package also included a bus picking us up at the port at the end of the cruise and taking us back to the airport. We had a really great experience with this package, so we would recommend it! We didn't have to track down taxis, Uber drivers, or anything else. All covered!

Our hotel wasn't far from the airport, and our room was very nice - with a lovely pool view!

We hadn't eaten much all day, so we were pretty hungry by the time we got to our hotel! There was a Fridays right across the highway from our hotel, so we walked over for some dinner!

We slept well and though the forecast had said it would be rainy all day Friday, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise Friday morning! We had breakfast at the hotel and then repacked our bags a bit and prepared to catch our shuttle!

We had a really funny driver on the way to the ship! Kept us laughing!

The bus ride from the hotel to the ship was about 45 minutes - taking us to Port Canaveral, which was ship central that day!

And so our adventure began!

The Shafferland Shuffle

And it's a newsy one!

I'm actually going to back up a day in starting this post, because some of you might remember there wasn't a photo for last Saturday!

That's because...we were on a cruise! Yes indeedy! Ryan wanted to go on a cruise for his 40th birthday (something about not wanting a Beauty and the Beast party??) so that's exactly what we did!

* So our view last Saturday looked a lot like this! We actually left on the cruise Friday afternoon, and it was nasty when we left and continued to be rainy with SUPER choppy waters for the first almost two days at sea. So in truth, last Saturday wasn't our finest day. We were both dizzy and sick to our stomachs, so we stayed in our room a lot and took MANY naps. But we had hope for (literally) brighter days ahead!

* Sunday was, of course, Easter, which was a tiny detail we hadn't realized when we scheduled the cruise. We actually booked the trip almost a year ago, and we did it around Ryan's birthday, having no idea that Easter came so late this year! The ship did have an Easter service, and we went to that, and then we enjoyed a fun (though still fairly choppy!) day at sea. We played a lot of games on the sports deck, hung out a bit in the spa, and enjoyed the sun - finally!

* By Monday afternoon, we'd arrived in our first port, which was Aruba. We'd booked an excursion there that Ryan called the Granny tour. (Ha! He called it that because aside from the two of us and a couple of other people, all the folks on the bus WERE grannies.) It actually was a really wonderful and thorough tour of the island. Our guide was great and drove us all over so we got to see the highlights of Aruba. We didn't get to spend very long at each place, but we got the overview, and it was fun! The ship stayed in port until about 10:30 that night, but we didn't stay off the ship past our tour time, so we ended up catching an illusion show that evening, and it wasn't even crowded in there! Yay!

* Tuesday morning we woke up in Curacao, and we had our own day of fun there. We rented a car and explored on our own. I'll have to tell you more about my thoughts later - but for now, I'll show you some pictures from the beach (BEAUTIFUL waters there). I'll withhold (for now) the photos Ryan took of me NOT so gracefully exiting the water. Oh my. That evening, Ryan enjoyed a birthday trip to the spa, where he had his first salon shave/massage. I had as much fun watching him try to relax as he did getting it done.

* Wednesday was Ryan's official 40th birthday, and we were at sea that entire day. It actually made for a perfect, leisurely birthday! We didn't have anywhere we HAD to be, we took our time, rested on our balcony, walked around the ship, went to the coffee shop, took naps, played games...so much fun. And at the end of the day, we came back to our room all set up for a party! A very festive way to end the day!

* Thursday...ohhhhhhh, people. You know how in regular life, there are some days that just aren't your day, no matter what? That was our Thursday - at least for the first part of the day. We awakened as the ship came into port in the Dominican Republic, and we had an excursion waiting on us that would take us on a waterfall adventure. There isn't even room in this summary post to tell you all the happenings of that morning, but trust us: you do NOT want to miss that post/podcast when it comes around. We're almost to where we can laugh about it. Almost. The end of the day was much better, I'm happy to say! 

* Friday was our final day at sea, and what a lovely, restful, lazy day it was. We walked on the track, visited the pool, played some trivia, went to a Q&A about ship life, took LOTS of naps, and (sigh) reluctantly repacked our suitcases at the end of the day. It's always sad to think about coming back home, especially when you know you're going to lose about thirty degrees in the process. 

* We awakened yesterday as we sailed into Orlando, where the skies were sunny and the temps were in the 80s. After the lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngest series of hurry-up-and-waits, we arrived back home in Indiana, where it was in the low 50s and rainy. We were so sad to see our trip come to an end, but there is NOTHING like being back in your own home, with your own angry cat punishing you for leaving her behind. (She would have cried just as much if we'd taken her with us.) 

The Saturday Six

One.

I saw an Instagram post recently that featured some vintage Pyrex. The picture was posted by a girl who goes into people's homes and helps them redecorate/reorganize by shopping their home and figuring out how to make it work better using what they have. One of her clients loved vintage and had all these beautiful old Pyrex pieces on open shelving. I remember my mom's Pyrex pieces from when I grew up, but I had no idea how extensive the pieces can be until I read this post. Even if you don't own any yourself, it's interesting to read about!

Two.

Found my dream ice cream sundae. It's sold at an ice cream shop in New Jersey, and it's called the Bloatation Device. Thirty-two scoops of ice cream. You can read more about it here. I believe this dish might fall under the category my mom calls "your eyes are bigger than your stomach."

Three.

My friend, Stephanie Alton, wrote an article featured on Ann Voskamp's website. That's a pretty big deal! I am proud of her, and wanted to share her words with you!

Four.

With garage sale season rapidly approaching and thrift stores filling up with people's spring cleaning surplus, here's a guide for finding great secondhand deals. (And this has nothing to do with clothing; this all about home furnishings and décor!)

Five.

Need an idea to freshen up your to-do list? Not the items ON the list, but the actual presentation. Maybe it will help you actually pay better attention to what needs to be done! Whole bunch of ideas for you right here!

Six.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of endorsing a book for my friend, Christy Cabe. This is her second book, and it releases NEXT WEEK. I was going to write the whole review today, but since it isn't officially out yet, I'll just tease you with this.!