Random Facts for the Friday of Share Week

Today is Friday. {Just in case you weren't sure.}

And not only is it Friday...it's the Friday of Share week, which means I have been MIA from life since Monday. That makes for very poor blogging material.  So...I shall share a few totally useless tidbits from my head, and if nothing else, today's post will hopefully make you grateful for the return to typical posts next week!!

* I did my first Shellac manicure by myself last week, hoping I would do it well enough to get me through this week without a chipped nail. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! Best investment of the Christmas season: that Shellac light!!

* We've had volunteers in and out of the station this week, and the number one comment I hear from them is: I pictured you as a blonde. I was...two Shares ago. Here is the slow morphing of Bekah over the three Share span:

* Though Ryan has been kind enough to remind me I am not an ACTUAL sports fan, I have gotten my blood pressure WAY out of balance over this whole Richard Sherman thing. {You remember him, right? The Seahawks player who spouted off at the mouth to the reporter in the playoffs?} {I wrote that sentence mostly because I've never really written a sports sentence before.} Anyway. Ryan told me they finally fined him for that little debacle - just over $7,000. I shot back - should have been $700,000. I submit to you that this may be WHY I am not an actual sports fan. I'd have to go to therapy. UPDATE: He informed me that the fine was for unsportsmanlike conduct. Nothing for the interview debacle. Well it should have been $700,000 for each. And now the BP's up AGAIN.

* Back to Share...we see a LOT of food in our station during this week. Therefore I have developed a strategy for clothing for this week: tightest clothes on Monday, fat clothes by Friday. I do my best to not overeat...but I learned the hard way that fitted button-down shirts after a solid week of eating = bad news.

* I am not sure I can survive another snowfall. Mentally speaking. I definitely hope I survive the snowfall, as...you know...it's snowing again. I long for flip flops.

* Had my first experience with a Vine video this week. You know...the under-ten-second videos?? Took a half hour from start to finish to successfully make and post one. I was exhausted. And disturbed that I'm apparently getting VERY old. {I can hear myself now: These whippersnappers...with these video whatchamacalits...}

And I am now out of random facts. {You are probably relieved.}

Today is our last day of Share and it's sure to be busy and exciting - for those of you praying for us - thank you!! Can't wait to be back to my mental normal {whatever that is!} next week!! Thanks for hanging in there with me this week!!

Faith and Such

My heart and mind have been so very heavy lately.

Life is so good. It really is. The stuff I post on here isn't a lie. I love Ryan; he loves me. We are happy...we have fun...and this life is always an adventure. {One we really love sharing with you.} But it is life. And it's the same for us as it is for you. It has its hard spots. And I don't think it would be fair to only tell you the fun parts without also telling you the hard parts. Because we're all in this life together, right?

What I'm about to say is one of those things that has two parts to it...so I hope you'll hear me on both of them.

We've encountered a situation lately that breaks our hearts. Our hearts are broken by the details, but the details aren't important. What matters to us more than the details is that we trusted someone as a fellow believer in Christ and now we sit feeling that we weren't treated in Christlike ways. That hurts far more than the specific details.

When I worked in the Financial Aid Office, I noticed a disturbing and heartbreaking trend: people who worked in ministry were usually the most difficult. It's not a complete generalization, of course. I worked with some dear, dear ministers who treated me very well. But many were difficult. They could be demanding and came to me with a sense of entitlement - as though serving the Lord for a vocation put them in a special category. And I won't lie - on more than one occasion, I'd hang up the phone after a call and say "If I ever move to that town, I could never attend that church. Not if that's the way the pastor treats people outside of the pulpit."

Broke my heart. Broke my heart because I wanted to pick up the phone again, call back and say, "Do you know that you don't ever get a vacation from being a witness? And if I weren't already a believer, I sure wouldn't want to try now because if you're the only example I have, I'm just not interested."

And that's kind of how we feel right now. Ryan made the remark to me the other day that he is so thankful we are strong in our faith because if we weren't we might flat out walk away from any type of faith over this.

So I say this for two reasons:

* First...if you are reading this and you don't have a relationship with the Lord because you've seen how some Christians behave...let me just tell you {straight from Scripture}: God is not human, that he should lie, not like a human being that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19)

God is not like us. God tells Christians to be more like Him, but sadly, we are not always good ambassadors for him. It breaks my heart to think of the times that I have failed him - times I'm sure I don't even know about - when someone was watching, and my words or my behavior didn't draw someone closer to God...or closer to wanting to know God.

I am sorry for the times I've failed, and I am sorry for the times you've perhaps seen someone acting in a way that doesn't accurately represent God. But if you're searching for the Lord, know that while people disappoint, HE doesn't.

*Secondly...if you are reading this and you DO have a relationship with the Lord, don't get so comfortable in it that you forget...you're representing Him. Whether or not you serve the Lord for a vocation, if you serve Him with your life, someone is always watching you. Someone knows that you profess a love for Him and they're watching to see how you live. And chances are good they're watching your weekday life more than your Sunday life. They don't care how high you raise your hands in church if you're living differently when you run into them in the everyday world.

What if we lived in such a way that we made people WANT to know Jesus...not wary of Him?

Through the disappointment we've faced lately, our hearts have been freshly convicted that it's in THIS everyday living that we need to be good ambassadors. And I'm actually thankful for that reminder!

Sorry for such a heavy topic on a Thursday - but my heart is burdened. Thanks for listening to my {perhaps somewhat jumbled} thoughts. Hope they give you a nugget to chew on today.

Share 2014

We are smack in the middle of Share 2014 at work. And I'm not talking about sharing cookies. {Because as we all know, Bekah - much like Joey on Friends - doesn't share food!!} I'm talking about our annual fundraiser at WBCL, where we spend the week raising money to keep the ministry going for the next year.

Not even lying...before I worked at the station, Share was one of my favorite things. I loved tuning in every year during Share week and hearing the stories listeners would call and write in about...stories of how God used the station in their lives. And it's still one of my favorite things...to hear all the stories. When I was a listener, Share week made me feel like I belonged to the actual family...because I got to hear the stories. So now that I'm on the other side of the fence, I thought maybe you might like to feel like part of the family and see some of the behind-the-scenes Share happenings. Wanna??

Monday was our Cyber Monday...and to celebrate the kickoff of Share, we had a chili cook-off! Do you know how hard it is to sample  one tablespoon of seven kinds of chili and make a decision on the best? I took one for the team, people.

Guess who won? Lynne. :) She's seriously good at everything.

Lynne and I shared the Mid-Morning hour - some really neat stories from long-time listeners. And yes. I write with a daisy pen.

Little picture I sent to Ryan in case he started to miss me.

And then Tuesday...we started taking phone call pledges! Here's the lovely Lynne in her seat!

During Share week, Ken is part of the Mid-Morning hour:

These two are so much fun to share a studio with!

You know, when I'm not taking headphone-head selfies:

 

Or taking more pictures for Ryan:

 I spent most of the day {and will spend most of the rest of the week} here...on the phones:

Would love for you to pray for us this week; it's an amazing week, for sure, but also full of long hours and crazy weather driving {potentially} for the staff. Excited to see what God will do! Tune in and join us anytime!

Double Date!

What should the Shaffers do when there's a crazy blowing snow/drifting snow advisory in the future?

HEAD TO INDY FOR A DATE!!!!

And that's just what we did this past Friday night. We had plans to meet up with our friends Mike and Angie for a double date to Fogo de Chao in Indianapolis.

So...I packed the car with a blanket, extra food and water, and my warmest coat, and we set out to pick up our friends. {This is the look of sheer terror in my face, by the way.}

 Fogo de Chao {if you are not familiar} is a Brazilian restaurant and is normally far, far, far out of our price range. But a couple of times a year, they participate in a thing called "Devour Downtown," which results in...crazy great specials! So that's how this date came about. Oh...and I should mention that we couldn't get a reservation until 9:00 p.m. - about an hour and a half from home. Sweet mercy.

So here's how this works:

They give you a little coaster that has two sides...red and green. When you want more food, you turn the green side up. When you are set {at least for the moment}, you turn the red side up.

And when I say "more food," I mean more meat. I'm a self-proclaimed meatatarian and have NEVER in my life seen this much meat in one place. The skewers of meat to end all skewers of meat are brought to your table and a piece shaved off onto your plate. {You pick the "doneness" of the meat and if that server doesn't have it, he finds the one that does.} And there are about a dozen kinds to choose from.

Yeah. You thought I was kidding. Look at that meat skewer up there!

Mike was in meat heaven!! {He is SO funny!!!}

And his lovely date, Angie:

Ryan was a pretty happy boy himself:

I promise I ate more than this:

The place was absolutely PACKED - and the servers were really good about getting around quickly to fill up our plates. My favorite piece of meat was the Parmesan pork. It was SO tasty.

And then...we had dessert. Key lime pie and coffee. My mouth waters even now, just thinking about it.

Love being out on the town with this guy:

And I have come to really enjoy spending time with these two:

We had a fun night - but MAN was I nervous for the drive home!

I ended up sleeping most of the way from Indianapolis to Kokomo because I was SO nervous about the white-outs. But then I helped navigate the rest of the way home - through THIS mess:

{That would be us driving through the opposite lane because ours was full of drifted snow.}

We got home at 1:30 in the morning and I was so relieved to be safe in our driveway!!

What Do You Blame the Dreams On...

...when you don't eat Mexican food before bed?

So here's the deal.

Two nights ago, I had a dream. One of those crazy, vivid, what in the WORLD dreams that mostly just made me mad because if my body had ONLY invested the energy into actually SLEEPING that it did into DREAMING...well, the day might have been better.

In my dream, the following occurred:

Ryan and I were on vacation and I got sick. Really, really sick. So sick that Ryan thought I needed to go to the emergency room. So he took me, and after my examination, the doctor said to me:

You're in labor.

Ummm...well, Doc, that's really not possible because, you see, I'm not pregnant.

Well, be that as it may, you are pregnant and in labor.

I can't be pregnant! I've never been more confident of anything in my life.

Nevertheless, I was apparently in labor and a short time later, we had a baby girl.

I wasn't happy about this. I sat in the hospital thinking about my crazy busy, crazy spontaneous life and knew THAT was all over.

In the dream, I suddenly jumped from being in the hospital to being at work, playing show and tell with the baby. I told my friend Cindy, "Well we don't have anything for this baby. I mean, we don't even have a car seat."

{How I got to work without a car seat, I don't know.}

"And I don't have more than one bottle, either. I only have the one the hospital gave me. I probably should get more of those."

Cindy asked me the baby's name, and I said, "Oh MAN!!!! We forgot to name her!"

I went in search of Ryan, who was apparently there at the station too...to ask for assistance in naming this baby, and upon finding him, discovered he already named her Josie.

So there I was, with a baby Josie that I had no idea was coming, and I said what any logical Bekah would: "Well, I better update Facebook."

My status read: You know those stories about people that have babies and don't know they're even pregnant? Apparently that can really happen. This is Josie.

And then I woke up. Not on vacation or at work. Just Ryan and Braeya in the house.

WHEW.

I have no idea what this dream means or how it came to be. I do know that last week I dreamed I had a stroke and that wasn't true either, so apparently I need to observe my bedtime routine a BIT more closely and make some kind of alteration.

Maybe I SHOULD eat Mexican food before bed.

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday morning, we walked to church in the cold and snow...if we ever move, we have decided we will miss walking to church! Even in the cold and snow! We spent the afternoon watching football {Ryan} and scrapbooking {me} {as if you needed those explanations}. I made stuffed crescent rolls in honor of the playoff game, and I tried to enjoy the beautiful sunset. We are looking forward to warmer spring evenings when we can take sunset walks again!

* Monday I spent the majority of the day at work settling into my new office...yes, still. We had so much stuff to sort and weed through! I purged many files and organized the bookcases. Ryan and I went to the gym that night and then came home to watch the Downton episode we missed on Sunday...and we ate some chocolate cookies! {Not enough to negate the gym.}

* Tuesday I did more settling at work and actually got to write some interview questions on a big, clean desk...heavenly. Loved it. We stayed home that night and Ryan grilled {yes, grilled! In the cold!} and I worked on some gift/craft projects. Oh! And we watched makeover week on the Biggest Loser. You guys - ugliest cry I've had in weeks. Two solid hours of near sobbing. Such. A. Sap.

* Wednesday. was. so. cold. And the bad news? It's only going to get colder!! Our new office at work still doesn't have all the heating bugs worked out, so I never ended up taking off my scarf the entire day, trying to stay warm! {And if I'm cold, that's bad news.} So that night Ryan and I layered up the clothes, warmed our hands over the oven after we made garlic bread and then I hunkered down by the fire to use my new Shellac polish to do my first French manicure in YEARS!!!!

* Thursday afternoon, I debated about whether to drive home the interstate or the back way. Picked the interstate. Thought it would be okay. Thought wrong! Passed a nasty accident and it took longer to come home than if I'd gone the back way. Lesson learned! It was national pie day, but we were too cold to go back out and celebrate, so we ate pie-shaped cake instead. That counts, right? And guess who got to be part of BLT? RYAN!! He called in and spent some time on the air with Lynne and me. Love it when he does that!

* Friday morning I was so excited to see the sun coming up DURING my commute! HURRY, SPRING!!!! I had a good day at work - complete with sharing chocolate chip cookies with my friends! That night, despite the crazy weather predictions, Ryan and I drove to Indianapolis to have a double date with our friends, Mike and Angie. We had dinner at Fogo de Chao - and got home in the blustry, white-out filled winter at 1:30 in the morning.

* Saturday was such a wildly disappointing day. We had plans to drive to the lake and attend the wedding of some of our friends, but the weather was still so bad and the drifting/white-out reports were rolling in, so we stayed home. I was SO sad! I've been looking forward to this wedding for months! Our plan B was to rest...to sleep until almost 11, to write and write and write in our book, and to enjoy a bit of a treat for dinner - ice cream!! It was great to spend the day with Ryan - wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in a Plan B sort of day.

The Saturday Six

One.

Source

I adored Melanie Shankle's first book - Sparkly Green Earrings and I was giddy to find out she's got a second memoir coming out at the beginning of February! This one is called The Antelope in the Living Room. Memoir on marriage. Oh yes, please.

Two.

Source

All I have to say about this decorative way to organize using clock-face clips is: SHUT UP. Why didn't I think of this?

Three.

Cried. My. Fool. Head. Off. at this week's Biggest Loser makeover show. I don't want to put a picture here, because I might put up a spoiler for someone who hasn't had a chance to watch the episode yet. But seriously. Go here to see the makeover pictures. One word. DAVID. Another word {this one to describe my reaction at his makeover}: SOBBED.

Four.
Need a toe-tapper? One of my favorite songs right now...Shake by MercyMe.

Five.

I'm sharing this one with you because per the comments, it resonated positively with a lot of people, so maybe it's something you need or want to see. Per my earlier post this month, I have to say this one isn't something I agree with at this season in my life, and I'm choosing to be confident in my decision to take a lot of pictures...but I still find this post so intriguing!

Six.

A little Pinterest-inspired gift I made for my friend Cindy, who has a birthday this week. I used the Sharpie-on-mug-and-bake method for the mug and added a Starbucks card to complete the gift!

Little Reminders

So I've not really made a secret of the fact that I HATE winter driving.

And this isn't really a great year to be in that position. You know - in the coldest, most snow-filled winter we've seen in a long time - when I work an hour from home. It's a bit of an interesting combo.

I refuse to drive the interstate in this kind of weather. It's too unpredictable. There's something about flying down a road at 70 miles an hour with semis all around and crazy drivers in "invincible" four wheel drive vehicles that just makes me squirm. I'd rather be on a smaller highway where folks are likely to drive more slowly and at least I can pull over or turn on a side road if I need to.

When I came home yesterday afternoon, I had every intention of coming home the back way. Every intention. I'd heard there was an accident on the interstate not far from where I enter, and I had no desire to sit in that traffic. But as I drove over the interstate, I noticed the traffic flowing freely - and I was so anxious to be home, so I pulled out my bravest inner Bekah and pointed my car toward the interstate.

The road seemed fine. It looked clear and cars flew along beside me. I settled in...and just about the time I got comfortable, I saw this:

The unmistakable sign of an issue.

Three miles from an exit...no idea what's ahead, how far away it is or how bad it is.

Why is it that NOTHING makes you have to use the bathroom like that particular situation?

I heard sirens on the other side of the interstate. Fire trucks made their way to the next exit so they could turn around and come back. That meant it had just happened...

Why, oh why  oh why had I not listened to my gut and gone home the back way?

I got closer and saw the mess:

 A camper on its top - and I never did see the vehicle that matched it.

And then another on its side - along with the accompanying vehicle.

No idea how it all happened, but I heard on the radio that black ice was probably a factor.

I slowed down...and as I made my way carefully forward, I saw this:

A beautiful end to a rainbow...a reminder of God's covenant with His people.

Thankful this day - and every day in this season - for His protection over this scared girl as she commutes.

And praying for the folks in this pile-up in northern Indiana:

 

Source

Be safe out there, my friends. It's a messy winter.

The Girlie

Last year, I felt like the worst cat parent in the world. In our mad dash of wedding..reception...renovation...commuting...vacationing...our poor girlie was not properly spoiled. And I believe she has yet to forgive me for that oversight.

So this year we are both trying to do better about including her and paying attention to her.

Give her an inch....

...and she takes about 100 miles.

So in case you've been wondering what she's up to these days, here is a glimpse into her daily life. Some of them you may have seen before, but I'm sure you won't hold it against me.

Everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day:

 ...followed by a careful {and thorough} investigation of the activity in the neighborhood.

 And then...back to bed. If the mama isn't up, no one needs to be up.

 Then rotate to the back of the couch and keep an eye on the porch. Porches are fascinating.

 Mid-morning snack. Milk.

 Help with the scrapbooking. {AKA thump tail against the scrapbooker's head until eventually losing interest and falling asleep.}

 Take a bath.

 Since it's the cleanest moment of the day, surely no one will care if there's a little bit of laundry invasion...

 Help with manicure time.

 Coffee and snuggles time.

 Small break to do some chores.

 Chores can induce nerves. Time to hold hands.

 And after all THAT? Time for bed.

And you think we're kidding about how her days go....