June: Done

The beginning of June feels like it was 850 years ago. CRAZY. It's been one full and beautiful month!

Started the Experiencing God study with my Sunday School class at church. The daily homework is a discipline to complete, but God is definitely using the study to teach me!

Had the privilege to interview Bruce Marchiano, about his role of portraying Jesus in a few movies...and that interview was an honor!!

Attended my friend Lisa's baby shower and had a blast catching up with friends I made during Olivia's wedding!

Spent an afternoon with my buddies James and Liam - which was fun unbridled...and also exhausting! Two boys wear a person out!

Crashed one of the station's Sticker Stops to hang out with my friends Sheryl, Amy, and Anna. You know you love your job when you voluntarily go see your work buds OFF the clock.

Went to Savannah and Liam's art show and got to see some of their creativity unleashed. Not gonna lie - they did great. Much better than I would have. :)

Went swimming at Rachel's house which reminded me how grateful I am to have A) friends and 2) friends with pools.

Rented a car for the first time in my life for my trip to visit Lynnette in Asheville, North Carolina. Fell in love with little Sammy the Civic and decided I wanted to keep him. (I didn't.)

Drove BY MYSELF to Asheville and back, making it my first ever solo trip of that distance AND my first time in the mountains. Fell in love with those, too!

Visited the Biltmore Estate, traveled on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and attended a Shakespeare play all as part of Lynnette's birthday weekend adventure!

First trip to Lake Webster for the season - resulted in a crazy ridiculous sunburn but so much fun o the side!!

Visited my college roommate and my sister on one of my vacation days! Great to see both of them.

Served dinner at the PARTY PALOOZA winner's party in Fort Wayne - a luau theme! And yes. I wore a grass skirt, thankyouverymuch.

Rounding out the month with a game night with my high school buddies!

Biltmore, Baby!

Lynnette and I declared Friday our Biltmore day. We got up early (read: before noon) and headed to "the big castle." Lynnette had done her research well (this really WAS a vacation for me...she even did the research!) and knew the place wasn't air conditioned. Have mercy. She figured if we went early in the day, we would avoid the bulk of the crowds and the worst of the heat.

GOOD THINKING. This is why we're friends. She's a smart one.

So we drove to the Biltmore and bought our tickets which granted us access to the grounds for the day. We parked Sammy and caught a shuttle over to the house. (We weren't lazy. We were WISE. We did a LOT of walking that day.) This is Lynnette (and Aslan) before we began our tour of the house. 

Real quick factoids for ya, just in case you're not familiar with the Biltmore: it has four acres of floor space, 250 rooms 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces. PRAISE THE LORD I'm not preparing THAT house to show.

Anyway. All that to say, this house tour goes a LITTLE longer than than a real estate showing. Lynnette and I bought the audio tour on the good advice of her mother-in-law, and it turned out to be a great decision. The audio tour lets you rent little mp3 players with headphones and as you walk through each room (each ALLOWED room - you don't go to all 250) you enter the number and the narrator gives you some information about what you're seeing and what it signifies. We were able to go at our own pace without keeping up with a tour guide. That was fun.

There aren't any pictures allowed inside the house, so...you're spared! :)

We did get to take pictures on this little porch on the back side of the house. It was off the tapestry gallery, you know. (What? You don't have a porch off YOUR tapestry gallery???)

We were going to ask this lady on the porch to take our picture but she went into a 35 sneeze fit right about then and we thought perhaps we'd just self-photograph. Turned out to be my favorite picture of the whole trip! 

It took about 2 hours to get through our tour, and by the end of it, the crowds had REALLY picked up, and so had the HEAT! So we were glad to be back outside to enjoy sun and breeze for a bit!

My favorite room? Well since you asked...it was the swimming pool. Per the handy dandy guide book, "The 70,000 gallon indoor pool was heated and still has its original underwater lighting. Swimmers could push call buttons, located on the wall near the doors, to order refreshments or to signal they were ready to leave and needed help changing." I would consider that room a luxury in a house NOW. To think they did that in the 1890's...blew my mind.

We did find a nice lady who took our picture outside...this isn't the front. Just over to the side. (Reminded me a lot of "over to the side" outside my own house.) 

The back of the house. (And some wind. Good night nurse.) Right behind  my left shoulder is the porch where we'd had the other pictures taken earlier.

We walked the gardens (more on that another day) and then came back...and by that, I mean RUSHED...to take pictures of the outside of the house before the storm rumbling in the distance showed up. We weren't far ahead of it. Whew!!

Anyway. My official photo with the Biltmore.

 And Lynnette's official photo with the Biltmore.

If you look left of Lynnette in the picture above, you'll see a couple of people walking away from the shuttle and toward us. They were this darling couple who flagged us down and asked us if we'd take their picture. We said no. I'm KIDDING!

We took their picture and then they asked if we'd like them to take ours! Well sure!!!! So they did:

 And then they held hands and walked away...and I heard the girl say "Hey let's run!" so they took off running hand in hand. Like I said. DARLING.

And one more view...for the road!!!!

We took these pictures while dodging some sort of photo shoot involving two 16ish age girls, a LOT of curls and hairspray, lethally high heels, and honest-to-goodness hoop skirts. (And did I mention it was almost a billion degrees outside with equal humidity?)

Welcome to Asheville!!!

Thanks to my 45 minute wait in construction, thankyouverymuch, Lynnette beat me to Asheville, so she got all settled in the room, and then Sammy and I showed up with allllllllll the luggage.  (You remember the luggage.)

We rested for a bit (driving so wears a person out....) and then decided to explore the heart of downtown Asheville for dinner. Lynnette asked the lovely hotel lady where we should go for some local food and she suggested the Early Girl Eatery. So we went! It was an artsy little place, and we got to hide away in a corner and catch up on life. (Translated: Bekah talked Lynnette's poor ear right off.)

You already saw this one on the recap - but the cobb salad I had really was very good. I've recently developed a strange love for avocado (?????) so I was really excited that this salad had that. In fact, it's pretty much why I ordered it.

And um...we might have ordered dessert. Couldn't finish the salad, but you can better believe I did everything short of LICK THIS PLATE.

After dinner, we walked around downtown Asheville for a while and then came back to the hotel, where we had my birthday party!!! CUTEST orange flip flops (and later in the week I may or may not have purchased a DARLING dress to match) - and pedicure stuff and (be still my beating heart) orange Essie polish.

And this part CRACKED us up. When we got back to the hotel for the night, I came in toting the massive suitcase, because I'd not lugged it in yet. We passed a guy walking OUT of the very busy lobby, and as he moved past me, he tossed over a "Lotsa luck" in a REALLY disgusted voice. Lynnette and I just looked at each other...what in the world? All we could figure was that he didn't make a reservation and they were full. We didn't bother to mention we'd had this room for a couple of months...because we're girls and we PLAN AHEAD.

Brave, Take 2

Remember last week when I posted about my secret hunger to be brave? It "just so happened" (read: God ordained it) that the bravery post occurred the same day I made the long part of my drive from Indiana to North Carolina to meet up with Lynnette.

The first part of the trip went flawlessly, and then I hit a 45 minute construction delay, which made me panic. (My car overheated during a construction delay on my Wisconsin vacation a couple of years ago, so I'm a little sensitive to that.) It took a while for me to calm back down. Seriously. I passed a Sonic without stopping for a treat. (Hope you were sitting down for that.)

I got into the last couple of hours of the trip and found myself in the middle of an ENORMOUS mountain. Quite a change in scenery from the flatlands of Indiana.

The road was so winding and curvy that I pulled the old 10 and 2 trick from driver's ed and focused ahead. And speaking of driver's ed...it was right about then that it occurred to me that I was really doing this! The girl who curbed the car the first time she drove it in driver's ed...the girl who refused to drive on interstates until 2 years ago...the girl who was PETRIFIED of cities...was driving through a crazy mountain. Alone.

Then I thought back to 2 years ago when I went to see Lynnette for my birthday...and it took every ounce of strength I had to put myself on a plane and stand up and walk back off when it landed. When I couldn't eat or sleep or care. I couldn't have driven that year. And two years later...I was driving by myself through the mountains for a new vacation.

And God whispered to my heart: This is brave. You are DOING bravery. You're doing it. Right now. You're in a mountain all by yourself with only a GPS to lead you along and you're DOING IT.

You.  Are.  Brave.

Of course I started crying. I cried because the song on the CD player blasted out Praise My Soul the King of Glory and that's exactly what I was doing as I thought about the healing He's worked in my heart. And then I cried because the song switched to America the Beautiful and there I was...smack in the middle of breathtaking scenery I'd ever laid eyes on before...and it was indeed beautiful. And I cried because I'm Bekah and that's what I do.

I remember once reading that Beth Moore had a little church moment in her car one day in the middle of downtown Houston. Hands up, praising, with traffic passing by and people staring. I felt a bit like that twisting through the mountains. Crying and giggling and catching my breath and embracing bravery and the smile of Abba...

I'm so glad I drove. That's a moment I never would have had in plane.

 

The moment I was brave.

Leavin...In a Honda Civic!

So... several months ago, Lynnette asked me if I'd be willing to take a little road trip for her birthday. She really wanted to visit the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, and she wondered if I would come with her. Sure!!! So I took a few days off work (my first time off work since starting my job, actually!) and the great road trip of 2012 began!! :)

I worked on Wednesday before leaving that night, and when I got to work that morning, the lovely Sheryl left this present on my desk. I loved it because HELLO...it's food! and I loved it because she was so thoughtful in planning it (lime chips...my fave...a Kind bar...yum!...chocolate and peanut butter...yummy...and a Starbucks card!!) AND I loved it because she even got THIS bag because it looks like my Easter dress!!

Of course that evening, someone ELSE thought it was for her. Shaking head.

And this, my dear people, is why I don't fly.

My precious little car gets so much abuse every day, and he's old. He's 10 years old now. He's had a lot of work done lately and I just kinda wanted to keep everything new for him. So I rented this little guy and named him Sammy. Sammy the Civic. He was a GREAT car for a road trip!

I left home between 6 and 7 Wednesday evening and of COURSE...first stop?? STARBUCKS, BABY!!!

I drove until I was just about a half hour from Cincinnati and stopped for the night in good old Batesville, Indiana. Stopped there based on my mother's recommendation. Know what I found out? Batesville is 1) where they make caskets and B) where the movie Psycho was set. SERIOUSLY, MOM????? THIS IS WHERE YOU SUGGEST I STAY??????

Best part of being a grown up? You can eat cookies in bed at 11 p.m. and no one yells at you.

And that's how the trip began.

What Do These Things Have in Common?

* Pulling up on the wrong side of the gas pump.

* Phone screen freezing up, rendering all use impossible.

* Forgetting scissors and tweezers.

* Missing hairbrush.

* Forgetting flat iron cooler.

* Found hairbrush.

* Key stuck in ignition.

* Key stuck in ignition again (five minutes later).

* Frustrated dude muttering "lotsa luck" as he leaves hotel lobby.

* Lost in a parking garage.

* Getting in the WRONG CAR.

* Funny sixty-something ladies in room 401.

* Missing box of matches.

* Pulling up on the wrong side of the gas pump (again).

Give up? Well maybe THIS will help you.

This girl...

...plus this little guy...

...plus this best friend...

EQUALS.....a girls' vacation!!!!

To here!!!!!!

STAY TUNED!!!!!!!

It's the Weekly Recap!

* Last Sunday was Father's Day, but you already saw all those pictures! Had fun hanging out with my parents after church. And remember how I told you Olivia gave me that birthday present where I do something every week to celebrate? Well Sunday's instruction was to "Put on a dress that makes you feel beautiful, curl your hair or put it up, and add some makeup or high heels! Just dress up for the fun of it!" Well. I kind of stink at feeling beautiful, but here was my best attempt! Complete with flower in hair.

* Monday night, Rachel invited me to go swimming at her house. I hadn't been swimming all summer and it was too good an opportunity to pass up...so I went for a little bit!

Then I went for a walk/run and went home and did some crunches. I like to call it my own personal triathalon. :) Oh stop laughing.

* Tuesday at work, a listener brought Lynne these beautiful flowers and I've gotten to enjoy them ever since. LOVE them!! Such a sucker for pretty flowers.

* Wednesday, Lynne and I did a show on...are you ready for this? DUCK TAPE!!! And before you leave a comment about duck tape vs. duct tape - we were interviewing the actual DUCK tape people. And then we talked to listeners all hour about the things they've made (or want to make) with Duck Tape! Silly as it sounds - one of my favorite shows we've ever done.

* Thursday evening I got to have dinner with my best friend, Lynnette, who came to visit! Now THIS, my friends, is how a salad goes. (Please make note of all the meat. I'm a meatatarian.)

* Lynnette actually stayed for the weekend, and Friday I took the day off work and enjoyed a day out in the wild (nature trails...it's as wild as this girl gets) with her. Um. I really need to learn what to wear when I hit the trails.

* Yesterday was Lynnette's actual birthday, and we got to spend the whole day together AGAIN! (I'll give you longer stories later.) But this was our favorite sight from the entire day. CRACKED us up.

One Thousand Gifts. I love hugs. LOVE them. And frankly, Braeya kind of stinks at giving them. But this week, a few different times, I got filled up on hugs, and it was just lovely. I know there are people who love hugs as much as I do...and never get them...so it's something I'm just grateful for!

Pinterest Inspiration. Found this idea a while back:

Source: thirtyhandmadedays.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

...and did a version of that yesterday for Lynnette for her birthday. Because we were busy, she didn't open every gift on the hour, but she did open them and found inside all the things she needed for a luau birthday party!!

Hear Those Crickets?

Oh wait. That's just the writer's block in my head. I remember now. :)

I guess today is the day for randomness. My apologies.

* Listened to this song A LOT this week and got tears in my eyes almost every time...I really, really, really want this to be the story of my life. Most days I feel I fall dreadfully short of it. But I still hope it will be.


* I think I'll have curly hair for the rest of the summer. Humidity and I are bitter enemies. And so far, this year, it's humidity: 150, Bekah: 0.

* Hard question from the Experiencing God study from this week: "If you knew all you had was a relationship with God, would you be totally and completely satisfied?" Gulp. Seriously. Think about that one. It's had me in a state for a few days now.

* Typos REALLY make me giggle. My favorites from this week were: the Burger King sign advertising breakfast "burittos" and a Facebook status declaring all people who posted "fowl" language would be blocked.

* I want to get my ears pierced again. As in this summer.

* Doing so will probably give me a week of blog material. You know it'll turn into an "only Bekah" adventure.

Okay. That's all I got. I really am SO so sorry. I'll do better next week.

Show Us Your Life: Dining Rooms

Not surprising to anyone, I'm sure, I have discovered that a lot of life takes place in my dining room. Could this mean I eat too much?

My dining room is the least themed...most hodge-podged room in my entire house. But I still love it.

Yes. I have a bookshelf in my dining room. Doesn't everyone? It's here because it fits so nicely in this little corner. This is my fiction shelf...with all the stuff I grew up with: Anne of Green Gables. The Chronicles of Narnia. Everything by Lori Wick and Janette Oke and Francine Rivers. 

One of my first Pinterest projects from this year: the Nevertheless sign hangs in the dining room. I pass it as I walk into the kitchen...always a good reminder.

Hangs right above this - which is not only one of my favorite things in my house....but it also has a great lesson with it. (Told here and here.)

I bought these candle holders at Hobby Lobby after Christmas and am WELL aware that the candle display on them...is garish at best. Nothing matches. Some are burned, some are not. But they're the candles I had in the drawer. Note to self: go candle shopping.

Do you mean to tell me you don't have a coffee table in your dining room EITHER?? I got this for FREE, if you can believe it, from a friend of mine several years ago. It's one nicely constructed coffee table - and it's unique. Add the free factor, and what's not to love? But my living room isn't big enough to hold it, so until I move, it's stuck in the dining room, holding the mismatched candles and the kitty pictures.

Ahhhh there is something that belongs in the dining room. The TABLE!! I used to have a big extended-leaf dining table that seated anywhere from 6-12 people. But I rarely had big groups of people in, so I gave it away and bought this tall square table that has served me quite well. I put it together myself and it's still standing, which is a feat I'm VERY proud of! :) And on the table...another Pinterest project...the vase with burlap and ribbon.

The buffet that used to belong to my grandparents. I didn't give it away with the big table. It is much-needed storage for this, that, and the other...and since the table isn't big enough to hold plates AND all the food, this is where I put the food when I'm entertaining.

My $100 mirror - purchased for $20, thankyouverymuch. When I move, I'm spray painting the frame. I'm completely over the gold.

And now...a little walk down memory lane. This is the table of yore...the big one. It's also the Bekah of yore...with no hair and lotsa pounds!! This is where I spent HOURS organizing my first book. (Not the Advent book. Another book I wrote and gave for a Christmas gift one year.)

Wow. The hair gets worse!! This is also where I hosted hours and hours of scrapping with Faith and my friend Sarah...and probably many others along the way. We camped out for entire WEEKENDS.

The candle wax disaster, which took place one year while I was hosting Thanksgiving.

And consequently I spent the rest of the holiday ironing red wax out of the carpet. In festive shoes, no less.

Angela's open house to celebrate graduating with her masters in counseling was held in that room...

I signed the papers to purchase the house in that room. (See that utter fear on my face?)

And once upon a time...I even hosted Christmas in there. As in the family Christmas. Clearly we have a small family.

Game nights galore...which of course, translates to getting the snot beat out of me in most games - and definitely in Dutch Blitz!

And of course - hours of craft projects with the kiddos when they came to visit!!

Hoping the new house will hold as many fun entertaining memories...and with any luck - an actual THEME for the room!