Date, Part 2

I thought you might be so tired after reading all the horseback riding business...so I saved the second part of the date for today.

Oh yes. There was a part 2. 

We sat in our car staring at the horse corrals for a while, and I later discovered he was scoping out a spot to have a picnic!! Alas, it had quite an...aroma...of horses, so he opted for plan B. We drove back toward Logansport and into a park that has a beach! THAT was when I found out he'd hidden a picnic in the back of the car!

{He has such an advantage in hiding things like this, because it takes me so blessed long to do my hair, he has all kinds of time to hide food in cars!}

While he prepared lunch, I got to work on some sand drawing. It was the closest I could come to recreating our honeymoon.

This guy knows the way to my heart. Chicken salad {the good kind}, chips, COKE!!!!, and strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

I said, "I LOVE COKE!!" He said, "I know. Any day that ends in Y is a good day for you to have a Coke." {I really only have them about once a week.}

There were some folks out on the beach who um...well...perhaps could have chosen swimsuits with more coverage. Like a LOT more coverage. We tried not to stare. That didn't go well.

After our leisurely lunch on the beach, it was time for our next stop on our big date!!

I'm a good wife.

But then again. He's a good husband.

After all our shopping, we headed to his parents' house to try to help them out a bit in prepping their home for the big Father's Day shindig the next day. They had been working SO HARD on all the landscaping and cleaning, and a lot of it was done by the time we got there. While I waited for instructions, I checked out a possible future ride.

Ryan actually drove the thing. :)

We were pretty tired when we got home, but man, what a great date!!

Worth It Wednesday #10

Ten weeks ago...okay, so really eleven weeks ago...I sat on the couch with Ryan and told him I felt compelled to do a series of blog posts about worth. I did it partly because I felt lousy about myself and partly because I could tell a lot of you felt lousy about yourselves.

And over these ten weeks together, we've talked about it all - from body image to spiritual worth to just about every other arena. And last week, when Ryan read the Worth it Wednesday blog post, he said to me, "This is the first one in the whole group that you've written that comes from the perspective of someone who is encouraging others rather than still caught up in it herself."

I love his perspective. He sees what I don't, and that's why we're a good team.


I stared at the post on the screen and knew. I'd accomplished what I set out to accomplish with the series of posts. Not that I have begun to ooze with annoying amounts of worth, but I have grown. I do more quickly see in myself what God wants me to see.

And oh, how very much I hope you've done the same. I hope, if you think back to that first post I wrote in this little series, that you've come a long way in knowing, you're worth so much.

Here's the thing.

I'm a girl who likes moments of definition. Like the moment I sat in a chair and went from girlfriend to fiancee in a matter of five minutes. I can point back to that event and say "this happened there."

But some things don't come in a moment like that. Some things are just a slow change and one day you realize it happened, though you don't know when or where or how.

I don't think I've mentioned this on the blog, but about a month ago, I joined up with our morning guys for the last hour of their show, and we hang out together, laughing, talking, and telling stories. {Translation: they pick on me.} {All in good fun.} And yesterday Ryan got to hear part of our show, so we were chatting about it on the phone after work.

He said these words: "Who ever would have thought that all the crazy things that happen to you would be such good story material? The wallflower isn't a wallflower anymore."

Whenever I describe myself in my high school days, the fastest way I know to explain it is: I was a wallflower. I was invisible to a lot of people...and it was hard. Most people want to be at least noticed.

And if you'd told me back then that one day I'd sit behind a mic at a radio station and tell stories and make people laugh - I would have insisted you had the wrong girl. Wallflowers aren't worth microphones and air time.

But somewhere, somehow, sometime, in an undefined moment, this wallflower found her worth. And is continuing to find her worth. A long, hard, slow, occasionally painful road has taken a turn into some beautiful country that is a joy to travel.

And seriously, dear bloggy friends, I hope, hope, hope that it's the same for you. That in this ten week journey, you've taken a turn into some beautiful country - or at the very least, you've gotten on the road in search of beautiful country.

Today is the end of this series. Not the end of the blog - good grief, I talk way too much to quit blogging. But it's the end of the series. God has put something else on my heart to write about and I'll be getting to that next week.

But I wanted to leave you with the encouragement that you are worth so much...and if you still aren't convinced, please keep walking forward, a step at a time, and know that one day, you'll look back and realized that somewhere, somehow, sometime you discovered what God knew all along.

Giddy-Up!

So a couple of weeks ago, Ryan told me he was going to take me on a date. A mystery date. Here's the information I was given ahead of time. It's an hour and twenty minutes from home. We have a buy-one-get-one-free coupon. The event takes an hour to complete. It's important that the weather is decent. A reservation is possible, but not required. And he couldn't promise me I wouldn't die or end up with helmet head.

I. Had. No. Idea.

So Saturday morning, after getting home from work at 1:30 a.m. the night before, we got up bright and early, I straightened my hair {taking no chances with the helmet hair} and we set out for date day!

We started with breakfast - trying out a restaurant we'd not been to before. {Well, I'd been there once, years ago, with Olivia, before Indiana had a smoke-free restaurant policy. It's considerably better now. You can actually taste the food, not just the smoke.}

 We found a little table near the front window and ordered up! We found it very interesting that the waitresses there wear scrub tops!

 Can you TELL I'd pretty much gotten zero sleep?

 After breakfast {which included drinking out of mugs that advertised for home health care, funeral homes, and sewer companies...giving away the standard demographic of the regular diners...} we hopped in the car and got ready to go! At this point, I still did not know where we were going.

 Then he told me to look under the visor:

 We drove and drove and drove and ended up here...in the middle of nowhere....

 Okay, let's pause for a moment, shall we? I'm pretty much terrified of horses. I mean, have you SEEN Little House on the Prairie? That episode where Nellie gets thrown into the water and has to fake her paralysis to get all the attention??

So we went into the little barn and with no time to prepare, I was ushered up a step stool and onto the back of Peaches. Peaches, who would hold my very life and hopefully-lack-of-paralysis in her hands for the next hour. No offering of a helmet for helmet hair, which both relieved and terrified me. I was issued a quick lesson on driving a horse. Pull the reins left and right to turn left and right just like a turn signal. Pull back to stop. Relax to let her walk. Obviously these people had not seen me in driver's ed when I was fifteen. I curbed the car. I fully anticipated completing the equestrian equivalent of that without much delay.

I was so nervous, that I don't even remember our guide's name. She was decked out in jeans and cowboy boots. I was in capris, and Ryan forgot the bug spray. {He never forgets ANYTHING.} {Mosquitoes LOVE me.} But I digress. We started out on this nice wide trail, and I was remembering our instructions to stay in a single file line.

Problem.

Peaches likes to head to the front of the line. I asked what to do, and the guide said, "You have to remember to drive her. Guide her back to the left." And there it is. Equestrian driver's ed FAILURE.

 We went by all the little corrals and stables and such, and while I clung to the reins and tried to ever-so-gingerly guide l'il Peaches in the straight and narrow {okay, wide}, Ryan snapped pictures with his phone. Seriously. Nothing scares him.

And then, the uh, straight and wide became curvy, narrow and QUITE TRAILY. Feel free to use that word. Traily. We were instructed in the art of leaning forward to ride uphill and leaning back to ride downhill.

 It was somewhere in here that I began to wonder what my l'il Peaches would do if she saw a snake. I mean, I knew what I would do if I saw a snake, and Peaches had JUST enough Bekah-esque attitude in her that I feared she would not handle such a thing well. And that whole Nellie Oleson thing came back into my head with a vengeance.

It was also somewhere in here that a lovely family of mosquitoes created the perfect scheme: let's attack her ankles. They're wide open in those capris and everyone knows she can't kick us off while she's riding a horse!!

In the end, we saw no snakes, and I managed to Lamaze my way through the mosquito bites. 

 I actually began to relax and have fun and dared to take my hands off of 9 and 3 long enough to whip around for this picture. {From my best side.}

 Yeah, this is my husband, Mr. Cool. Mr. I'm-Not-Even-Close-To-Nervous. Sorry there aren't more pictures of him. We found my photography handicap. Horseback riding.

 

 When we got back in the stable, Ryan probably gracefully exited his saddle in one smooth move. I resembled a hippo trying to pole vault in the two person effort required to extract me from Peaches.

That Ryan Shaffer. He pushes me right out of my comfort zone on a regular basis - and I love it. He proves to me I'm capable of things I never thought I could conquer. Thanks, Baby, for our mystery date! Thanks for loving me and showing me I'm brave when I only see a wimp.

Black Swamp Jam Benefit Concert

Friday evening, I worked the Black Swamp Jam Benefit Concert in Wauseon, Ohio. It was my inaugural trip to Wauseon, and I was thrilled to discover they have a Cato there! What a great place! :) The concert was held at the Fulton County Fairgrounds - and they were one welcoming bunch! Jim Barron and I worked this one together, and when we arrived, an army of guys in bright orange shirts swarmed our van and carried all our things for us!! What service!

We got to have our tables right next to the artist merch tables, and Jim wasted no time in posing with the Citizen Way posters. See what I work with, people?? {Kidding...Jim is quite fun!}

Oh. I forgot to mention he also posed with the frog. :)

I, on the other hand, posed with my milkshake. I was told they were world famous. It seemed rude to not try out a famous milkshake. So. Yummy.

The opening act was actually a guy who has roots in that part of the country. Seth Abram is his name - and he was really good! Really nice guy, too. Jim and I enjoyed talking to him. {His parents listen to our station and call in to chat with the morning guys sometimes, so it was fun to meet them!}

His band members for this particular night were all friends of his who live in Indiana - friends he used to play with often when he lived here. They were great together!

This is Ben Calhoun from Citizen Way. I'd met him earlier this year when I worked the Big Daddy Weave concert and Citizen Way was there too. But this was the first time I'd had my picture taken with him. Ben is possibly the nicest artist I've ever met. He spent the entire evening talking with all the people who came - genuinely investing in each of them.

The band is made up of two sets of brothers - this is Ben with his brother.

They did "Should've Been Me" - which is a song I love, love, love.

And the main act for the evening was Brandon Heath. I didn't actually get to meet him but he put on a great show for everyone!

We didn't get to see much of his concert but we heard it and it was great!

After the concert, Jim and I started home, but it was really late, so we stopped at an Arby's to get coffee. I walked up to the counter and said to the girl, "I just need coffee." She yelled out, "SENIOR COFFEE!!!"

SERIOUSLY!?!??!!??! I just did my roots!!!!!

I didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning, and I was exhausted. But Ryan met me at the door, took my hand, and led me out into the yard. He'd worked so hard all evening {HATED it that he couldn't work this event with me} to string lights in the pirogi!!! It was like walking into the end of a movie. We stood out there in the yard and danced and enjoyed the gorgeous night. It was the perfect end to the night:

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday evening, we went to Ryan's niece's birthday party - which was a Hawaiian themed shindig. We didn't know that before we went, so I missed my opportunity to pull out my grass skirt {ha!} but we found some leis when we arrived and we fit right in. It was a fun party - with extremely good food - and a chance for a photo opp, which only took about 7 tries.

* Monday evening we worked on some projects around the house {the recent story of our lives - but it's been so good to watch this place take shape!!} and had just enough time at the end of the day to take a nice long walk and enjoy the gorgeous views out at IWU.

* Tuesday was, as you already saw, the sticker stop I worked with Lynne in Fort Wayne. I had a great time working the event, and I won't rehash that since you already saw all the pics, but I will show you the fabulous v-neck sunburn I brought home. This one will be fun to fix. {Excuse the hair. It had been a long, humid day.}

* Wednesday we spent the day hearing about the derecho that was supposed to hit the midwest. I confess I still am not sure what the thing is, but no one likes seeing a map that looks like this one settled over their state.

 Ryan and I typically try not to overreact about weather, but just to be safe, we carted all our pirogi furniture to safety in hopes that we wouldn't lose any of our patio treasures! And in the end, we slept in the living room just to be safe. Worst. Night. Of. Sleep. Ever.

* Thursday night we stayed home and put everything back where it had been after the storm...and then I had to do some major overhauls on the old looks department. Manicure, pedicure and time to color the roots. MAN they were out of control!

* Friday was a long work day - but a lot of fun! Jim Barron and I headed to Wauseon, Ohio Friday afternoon to work the Black Swamp Jam Benefit Concert featuring Citizen Way and Brandon Heath. I have so much more to tell you about that one next week! I didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning, but it was a great day, INCLUDING - this fabulous world famous milkshake {thank you, Fulton County, for creating such a treat}!

* And then there was yesterday. After getting to bed at 2 in the morning, we got up early and headed out on a very special mystery date...one I'd been hearing clues about for several days. I was going to play this whole big game with you so you could guess what it was, but I can't wait to tell you. They say a picture's worth 1000 words...

 Hope you were sitting down!!

The Saturday Six

One.

Source

As you might imagine, Ryan and I don't have a ton of time to watch TV, but now and then we find a show we really love watching together. Our newest is America's Got Talent. Any of y'all watching that this season?


Two.

Lynne has a straw hat she wears out in the sun. I felt that to be grown up and "just like her," I needed one too. Therefore...I present, my straw hat.



Three.

You know that whole thing about how only her hairdresser knows for sure? Well apparently you are now all my hairdressers. I'm so gray that I need color about every three weeks. I cannot afford this in $$ OR time, so I have started using these root touch up kits. LOVE THEM. They cost about $8 and can last a couple of weeks on my head. Saves me a lot of cash at the salon!

Four.

A few weeks ago, Lynne talked about a chocolate chip cookie recipe she'd read that cuts some butter by adding avocado. After some serious challenging by yours-truly, she made a batch and brought them to work to share. I confess I adored them. They didn't really taste like a regular chocolate chip cookie, but they tasted SO GOOD and were very filling. I think they look like too much work to make, but I loved eating them!! 

Five.

Source

Who knew I'd be posting about sports again SO SOON? :) Read this article this week...about some twins from Greentown {my hometown} who have overcome a lot in their own lives to become fantastic athletes, students, and young women. Though I don't know them personally, this is the sort of thing that I'm proud to see come out of my hometown. 

Six.

Ryan and I have a closet door that doesn't latch, and the door is always popping open, leaving a cat to explore the contents and two OCD people very betrothed {our word for annoyed, if you're new here} at the look of the thing. We had a vase up against it, with some river rocks inside, but the vase broke, so I found this fishbowl at the Goodwill {on 50% off day} for less than $2.00 and it works GREAT! The flat side of the bowl fits nicely up against the door and the glass is heavy enough to support the rocks.  

A Little Friday Fun...

I found this list on Pinterest yesterday...a journaling prompt of sorts. Thought it might be fun to blog!

CURRENTLY I'M.....

Reading...the book Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist. This is her third book, I think, but the first I've read and I'm IN LOVE with it. I love reading how she weaves food, recipes, memories, and life lessons.

Playing...catch-up!! At least at work. Lynne is off all next week, and I've been preparing encore shows to air, which has put me dreadfully behind on paperwork. I'm sure somewhere under all of it is a desk surface.

Watching...America's Got Talent. Ryan and I are so excited that we've found another show we both love to watch, and we're recording it so we don't miss anything!

Trying...to work out three days a week. Finding a workout routine/time to do it that actually FITS my new, married life is so hard. But I'm working hard to defeat the temptation to give it up completely.

Cooking...exclusively from the Dashing Dish website. I love making new recipes, cooking with real, normal food, and finding treasure after treasure on Katie's site!

Eating...a lot of Kind bars. One every single day for my snack. Oh Lynne Ford. Why did you get me so hooked on those???

Drinking...a lot of iced tea. Thank you for arriving, summer!! I love the excuse to "need a tea."

Calling...Ryan. Even though we're married, we still talk to each other for our entire commutes. Unapologetically sappy, we are.

Texting...Ryan. That's shocking to you, isn't it? I love the messages that flood my phone every chance he gets. Just little words of love to let me know I'm not forgotten.

Pinning...everything under the sun! Finding new ideas for across the board is one of my favorite things in every single day. I. Heart. Pinterest.

Tweeting...much better for work than I am for personal use. I'm a Facebooker much more than a Tweeter, I'm afraid.

Crafting...well, I'm a bit behind on this one too, but I do have a couple of Pinterest-inspired projects waiting in the wings.

Scrapping...a cool scrapbook sort of inspired by Shauna Niequist's book I'm reading. I'll have to tell you more about it sometime.

Doing...a lot of driving. And these days...in construction. Ahhh how I love construction zones. And I've finally started to remember about the cop that hides under the overpass at the one end....

Loving...my new haircut. SO GLAD I gave up the need to try to look 20 and got it all chopped off.

Hating...my recently acquired farmer's tan. I try SO HARD to get tan lines that look okay with all outfits. Shot that one on the first burn of the season!!

Discovering...that vegetables aren't so bad. Don't you DARE tell anyone I said so.

Enjoying...our pirogi and the chance to sit out there often with Ryan. LOVE eating outside.

Thinking...about how to celebrate our first anniversary. Yes. It is just under six months away.

Feeling...grateful it's THIS year at this time and not LAST year at this time. God has done so much in one year!

Hoping...to complete all our renovation/update projects soon so we can sit back and ENJOY!

Listening to...the radio! What else!! :)

Celebrating...life. There were too many years when I merely tolerated it. I'm celebrating it now.

Smelling...coffee. Story of my life. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thanking...God for protection in the crazy storms that hit our area this week.

Considering...retirement. Okay not really. But doesn't it SOUND fun???

Finishing...the encore shows we'll air during Lynne's vacation next week.

Starting...a writing idea in my head. Hope it transitions to paper soon.

So, bloggy friends...you up to any of these things above? I'd love to hear!!!!

Sticker Stops

I posted on my Facebook page this week that Lynne and I worked a Sticker Stop in the Hobby Lobby parking lot, and I think I thoroughly confused some people! The event and the location have nothing to do with one another. Sticker stops are fun events the station does throughout the summer, where we travel to various locations in our listening area and meet listeners while we put window stickers on their cars. They're so much fun!

This was the first time I got to work one of these with Lynne, and it became like a little Mid-Morning palooza! We had SO MUCH FUN meeting people. I thought you might like to peek into our afternoon!

Here we are...the sun-hat sporting duo, ready to head out to our afternoon of fun! Really, one's job SHOULD NOT be this much fun, but I am thankful to the Lord DAILY that He's given me such a great co-worker/friend/supervisor/counselor/you-name-it with whom to spend my work days.

We were sent to the parking lot of the Hobby Lobby on the north side of Fort Wayne. Oh the level of trust they place in us! Y'all, your Bits Girl was sitting in a parking lot with a Hobby Lobby on one side, a Cato on another side, and a DeBrand Chocolate store on a third side - and I was a good girl and did not spend one single dime. Miracles abound.

We took with us our intern, the lovely Annie, and the three of us set up camp in that Hobby Lobby parking lot and set out meeting all sorts of new friends, and come to find out, so many of them are YOU!!! I cannot tell you how many of you paused to take a minute to thank me for the blog - and it was a joy to put faces with the sea of mystery readers I have. THANK YOU for taking time to encourage me!

The very first visitor we had was Shari. She was there right when we opened up shop and she hopped out of her car and asked for me and said she's my biggest fan!! I didn't even know I had fans, so that was pretty cool. :) Shari, you are a JOY. You just are. Thank you for finding life in Shafferland riveting enough that it merits a visit before coffee every morning. Wowsa. That's about the biggest honor I can think of. Not much trumps coffee. I get that. Thank you, thank you, thank you for loving Ryan and me and considering us friends - family, even? - and blessing us the way you did. And thanks for letting me share our pic on the old blogaroo here. You're so fun!

This is our intern, Annie, dutifully applying a window sticker. It was her first sticker stop ever and she rocked it. I really, really enjoy having her at the station.

Lynne chatting it up with a friend who came to see us. In the background - the mother ship. Ahhh sweet Hobby Lobby. How I love you.

Lynne and Annie during the one break they had to sit. Seriously - we were so busy the whole afternoon. It was so great!

Lynne - back to work, chatting with another friend. I said it's a wonder she and I successfully convey ANYTHING over radio waves, the way we have to use our hands to talk. Good grief.

Sunscreen on my feet. The rest of me earned a complete farmer's burn, and I am NOT HAPPY about that detail.

WINDEX FIGHT!!!

This is our new friend, Denise. She has a southern accent TO DIE FOR. {Secret wish of mine has always been to have a cool southern accent.}

I also had a visit from my friend Nikki - who is my rival for David Phelps'  #1 fan. Turns out she just went to a concert of his in Kentucky {and we will NOT discuss the points this earned her in moving up a slot in the #1 fan contest} and while in a meet n greet line, she recorded him giving Ryan and me a happy wedding greeting. SHUT UP!!! Are you serious?? Thank you, Nikki! YOU ROCK!!!!!!

Our friend Daniel, who is a good friend to Mid-Morning came to visit - and picked up a bottle of Windex and even helped us out! Thanks, Daniel!

And I cannot close out this post without giving a big shout out to my new friend Polly, who always leaves such fun, encouraging comments to me and drove out just to meet Lynne n me. Polly, you are a gem, and such an encourager to me. I appreciate you and am excited to have met you in person!

And that was our fun afternoon! I came home pretty sweaty, awfully red, and quite full of joy for our listeners, our friends, and a great, great day!