The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy last day of April!! It's been a cold and rainy weekend here, so I'm looking forward to these April showers bringing along some May flowers!!

* Last Sunday, we went to lunch with the Shaffer side of the family to celebrate the April birthdays: Ryan and his brother, Nick. We ate at Chili's and it was most delicious!

* Monday was Ryan's actual birthday (I'll finish telling you about our celebration tomorrow) and he had parties all day long! His work people brought treats for him and we had a date that evening. It was a fun day!

* Tuesday was hair day for this girl. Long overdue upgrade to the old color, and I'm pretty sure I pulled in radio waves with all this foil! After we both got home that evening, we had salad for dinner, but it was one of those nights when a salad didn't cut it. Dessert needed. We tried to get a Frosty, but the line was insane, so we splurged on Blizzards!!!! YUM!!!

* Wednesday evening was a kiddo-watching night for me, which was fun, and then Ryan and I hurried to the end of a viewing for the grandmother of some of our friends. On the way home, it got super crazy stormy in a hurry, and here are my thoughts on being out in that! We were fortunate - no hail damage. Some people got extensive damage! WE were also fortunate to get this gorgeous rainbow!!

 * Thursday was a busy work day, and when I went to get the mail, I found this blanket featuring Ryan's face. LOL!!! (It was something a friend of ours ordered - a photo collage - and she wanted a picture of us included. It's odd to see yourself on a blanket!) We had NO food in the house, so Subway made our dinner, and then it was an office-working night. All my favorite things in one space: Ryan and books!

* Friday I narrowly escaped setting off our fire alarm while cooking chicken at lunch. The whole house was thick with haze, but the alarm never went off. WHEW! In the land of new things we have tried this month, we went on a double-date mani-pedi with our friends on Friday night. Yes. You read that right. Oh my. Ryan's first pedi. He wasn't sure what to think of it, but he was a great sport! I got pretty coral fingernails, and we had fun with our friends.

* And then there was yesterday. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yesterday. Ryan was gone from early, early morning until evening at an all day continuing education course with one of his co-workers. In his absence, I began a 3 day detox cleanse that very well may kill me. No meat. No dessert. No coffee. Pray for us both.

The Saturday Six

One.

Listen here.

This week marked a debut book release for my new friend, Christy Cabe. My review of the book is below, but here is a link to our conversation about Brownie Crumbs and Other Life Morsels. (How can you NOT love a book with that title?) Christy's book is a memoir, but it also offers wonderful, non-preachy life advice, and to talk with her further about her experiences of losing her mother when she was young and walking through three years of cancer treatments with her toddler son was a privilege. Christy is a great story-teller; take a listen!

Two.

 I've shared with you before (on the blog and on a podcast) about the RAD-JOY Surrender Crosses and why I love them so much. Ryan and I have one of these crosses hanging in our home, and I love nailing my burdens to it! The creators of these crosses just released a new item in their shop: a set of prayer cards with 31 little cards on a ring to give you one prayer focus per day. I always love passing along new finds that might help you increase your prayer life, so I wanted to share these with you! 

Three.

 The season of outdoor entertaining has returned, and KariAnne has some great tips for how to do it well. Her ideas remind me very much of my cousin's graduation party last summer, which was much fun. (I especially loved the dish towel tip. Genius!)

Four.

Oh my. A wood wick candle with Be Still on the jar? All my happy places colliding. Great job, Dayspring!

Five.

This blogger writes for one of the same websites I do, and she recently had quite a scary health situation. She writes about it here, and her perspective on illness and the Lord is so beautiful. 


Six.

A few weeks ago, a whole big group of my friends started chatting on social media about a soon-to-be released book written by their friend. Obviously I was interested immediately, and a couple of them connected me with the author, Christy Cabe, who sent me an advance copy of the book, so I could read it, too!


After I read the book, one of my friends, who has known Christy for years, asked if I laughed and cried like she did when she read it. Here's the great news: I did! I just met Christy, so all her stories were new to me. I wasn't there walking alongside her through the real-time ups and downs of her life, but her manner of story-telling was so inviting that I crawled right into the stories with her, and I did laugh and cry. And immediately, I felt like Christy was my new friend.

Brownie Crumbs and Other Life Morsels tells snippets of stories from Christy's life - going all the way back to her younger days, when (at age eleven) she had to say goodbye to her mother, who passed away unexpectedly in her 30's. Already wise and rooted in the Lord (much more so than most her age), Christy recognized the deep gift she had been given in even those few short years with her mom, and she opened her heart to love a second mother, who married her dad just a few months later.

After Christy grew up and got married, she faced another life-altering storm when her two-year-old son, Karson, was diagnosed with leukemia. Christy and her husband spent the next three years fighting alongside Karson, and learning a whole new language of medical jargon as they waited to see if the years of treatments would bring health and healing to their son. (He is now a thriving young man, praise the Lord!)

Maybe you didn't lose your mom when you were a kid, and maybe you've never heard a cancer diagnosis for your child. But I'm certain you've faced trials of some kind, and that is enough to allow you to relate to Christy's journey and to learn from the morsels of wisdom she offers throughout the pages of her book. Christy doesn't water down the hard parts of her story, but the book isn't heavy all the way through. She intersperses humor with the hard, giving healthy glimpses into both sides of life.

Unlike many similar books, Christy's pages are filled with pictures, so you can get to know her and the family members she loves. There's a discussion guide at the end, making it perfect for book clubs and small groups.

Bake a pan of brownies before you start reading; you'll want a snack to munch on while you read and make a new friend in Christy Cabe.

* Christy provided a digital advance copy of this book to me, but all opinions are my own! *

What I Learned in April

WOW. So April ends on Sunday. WHAT? I realized about two days ago that a new month is looming RIGHT NOW and I need to hurry to make sure I have my goals made, my birthday cards ordered, and my schedule set, because May is fixin' to be one cuh-ra-zay busy month in Shafferland. So while I anticipate that what I'll learn next month is to hang onto my hat, here's a peek at what I learned in April!

1. I am so glad we did a tiny destination wedding.

Ryan's sister is getting married this year and is in the throes of heavy wedding planning. This month, I was invited to a few of the meetings with a bunch of the family girls, and while it was fun (because hello! Wedding!), I realized I'm so glad we had a tiny little wedding that was far, far away. I know we hurt and disappointed a lot of people who wanted to attend our wedding and couldn't, because it was too far, but for my anxious personality, that itty bitty wedding was so perfect, and I'm glad we did it that way. I don't think I realized just how much until I was reminded of the enormity of traditional wedding planning!

2. Cozy mysteries are an actual genre.

I probably shouldn't be admitting out loud that I did not know that, because it probably reveals a giant flaw in my literature-loving understanding. But when I interviewed Ann Gabhart earlier this month about her Hidden Springs Mystery series, we talked about how they had such a lightheartedness about them, compared to the dark, heavy suspense of other crime novels I've read. And that's where I learned about cozy mysteries. In these books, the violence is written in a much more toned-down manner to allow the reader a more comfortable experience, while still getting to participate in a mystery.

3. You can purchase riced cauliflower.

Am I the only one who didn't know about this? I found a recipe to try this month that made "breadsticks" out of cauliflower. The instructions said to grind up the cauliflower in a blender until it was the size of pieces of rice. Someone had commented and asked if she could just use frozen riced cauliflower. What? You can buy it already processed? For a girl who has the worst blender ever made, this was very exciting news! Save time and headache? OKAY!!!!!

4. I drink water better if it's cold.

I'm not a bad water-drinker. I'm thankful for that because I hated water when I was a kid and pretty much refused to drink it. But as an adult, I started enjoying it and it's all we have here at home, really. We don't keep pop in the house and I don't even make tea all that often. But I had noticed that even though I'm pretty good at drinking water, I wasn't getting in as much as I wanted. And that's when I discovered that I drink it much better if it's cold. How did I not know this about myself until just now? 

5.  Lawn rollers can be filled with water.

When I was a kid, I remember every spring, my dad would hire a guy from town to come out to their property with his big heavy roller. I'd be instructed to stay far away while the man drove his tractor slowly through the massive yard, leveling the ground so Dad could proceed with the first mowing of the season. This year, Ryan borrowed a roller from a friend of his, with the intent of rolling our yard and one of his co-worker's yards. When I asked how he planned to heft that thing into his truck and drive it to her house, he just stared at me funny and said, "Just empty it?" Empty it? That's when I found out that these modern, newfangled rollers are plastic and hollow, and you just fill them up with water to create the weight. When you're done, you empty it out and you could lift the whole thing one-handed. Who knew? 

6. My husband can rock a flamingo suit like you wouldn't believe.

 This absolutely falls under "sentences I never expected to type" and also is entirely self-explanatory.

7. Traction isn't as scary as I thought.

I tried it for the first time this month. I have a lot of tightness and discomfort (we'll stop short of calling it pain, because it's really not pain) in my neck, which I'm sure comes from a combination of carrying all my stress there and sitting in front of a computer for pretty much every waking hour of my life. I always thought traction was like some horrible immobilizing thing you were stuck in for life if you broke your back or something. But I found this very relaxing and helpful in stretching out my poor strained neck!

So that's what I learned. What about you? Any April revelations?

More Birthday Fun

Thought I would give you a peek at more of Ryan's birthday fun!

Sunday, Ryan's dad and step-mom took the whole Shaffer side of the family out to lunch to celebrate Ryan's birthday and also his brother Nick's birthday. (They are 10 years and 2 days apart.) I apologize that some of these pictures are a little wonky. Doggone the bright windows, right?

We went to Chili's, because Ryan has been unable to stop thinking about the loaded wings he saw one of his sister's bridesmaids get the day we all went wedding dress shopping. So this was Ryan's turn!

 Free desserts for the birthday boys!

A million husbandly points to Ryan for sharing a few bites of THAT deliciousness with me!

The morning of Ryan's birthday, he asked me why he hadn't taken the day off work.

I. Have. No. Idea.

NO ONE should have to work a birthday. I firmly believe this. So why he went, I'm sure I'll never know.

I didn't make breakfast for him because his co-workers brought treats to work! I went with him to document (and eat).

 Breakfast casserole and his FAVORITE breakfast pizza. (Notice how I'm not letting go of the coffee.)

He was too busy to get a lunch, so I went back to work at lunch time to eat with him in his cloffice.

 Lemon cake, courtesy of a co-worker. I literally did NOTHING for this birthday.

Nothing says happy birthday like hospital coffee in a closet, right?

After work, we had a fun date, which I'll tell you more about in another post, but meanwhile, I'll leave you with his birthday gift photos!

 Fun fact: he forgot this bow was on his head and nearly left home in it. And I would have let him! LOL!

 Fake surprised face. Why, you ask? Because he picked out his own gift. Yeah, I didn't even pick out the gift. Fail, fail, fail.

 New shoes. He really wanted and needed them, so they were his gift!

One more little piece of his birthday to come, but this is the bulk of the party!! Happy birthday, Ryan!

The Beginnings of a Birthday

If you heard yesterday's podcast, you know that Ryan sort of had a weekend-long birthday celebration! (And isn't that how every birthday SHOULD be???)

Saturday, we helped a friend move to a new house, which is pretty much Ryan's happy place. (Helping, I mean.) He organized the whole moving party, because that is also his happy place, and he chose SEVEN IN THE MORNING for a move time. So here are the movers, trying to be awake.

I'm pretty sure we all just rolled out of bed and went. And please note that I am NOT letting go of that coffee. Not for a minute.

My participation in this move lasted about an hour, but Ryan stayed with it until about 1:30 in the afternoon. (He was helping hook up appliances and all manner of things I'm not equipped to do.)

And THEN we started the actual celebration part of the birthday. We picked up our friends Mike and Angie, so we could head out for a little shopping and Ryan's birthday dinner.

Mike makes AMAZING lattes, so he had these waiting for us when we arrived:

Funny story: Mike puts people in his phone with descriptions so he can remember who they are (like if he's just met them). When he first met Ryan (who worked with Mike's now-wife) he put Ryan in his phone as "ripped Ryan." LOL!!!! Isn't that great? I'm not sure if "Be-Kaww" is what he thinks of me or if he was just being creative with my cup.

We drove down toward Indy and did a little shopping, and then we met up at Ryan's restaurant happy place: Tucano's.

This is, I think, the third year in a row we've gone to Tucano's for Ryan's birthday. He loves it because he gets a free meal for his birthday (with the purchase of another meal, so that's how I get to go! HA!).

If you heard the podcast, you know the place was kind of on the struggle bus that night. Slow service, overcooked meat, and the guys especially had a rough time. But we made it! (I had a rough time too - right after we took this picture, I started feeling really sick and it took me OVER an hour to recover enough to eat anything!)

Ryan - ready for the meats!

And here is some of our evening fun:

 My tongs were mangled.

We have this same picture of Ryan last year, so we had to recreate it. Post-dinner coma.

Group photo opp!

Angie wanted some makeup from Ulta, so this was how Ryan stayed occupied during that shopping experience:

Mike and Angie needed to get home to relieve their babysitters, so we stayed for a bit to talk and drink more coffee with them!

A fun start to the birthday weekend! I'm glad the service finally came around at the restaurant and Ryan was able to enjoy lots of way-too-red-for-my-tastes meat!

Fun Night with Friends

To start off your Tuesday, I have a new episode of Spill the Beans for you! A virtual birthday party for Ryan! Hope you enjoy! :)

 Listen here!

While we have moved most of our entertaining to Tuesday nights (for Tuesdays at the Table), we do still have other occasional company on other nights of the week. We're not exclusive to Tuesdays. ;)

We have some dear friends that we made probably six months or so before we moved. We met them through church, and they just became fast good friends, and they were hard to leave! We've kept in contact with them all these many months since we've been gone, but their busy schedules and our busy schedules were such that we haven't been able to meet up like we used to!

They have four kids, so a weekend was a better fit for them to come see us, and this last Friday night, they did just that!

Our menu plan was a huge hit with the kids. It's one we have done before, but it was fun and I absolutely recommend it for having kids over for dinner: make your own pizza bar! (The only downside of this is getting everything cooked in a quick fashion. Trying to cook pizzas for 8 people in a single oven is a little tricky.)

For appetizers, I made pizza stuffed crescents (with extra marinara sauce to dip them in) - and for those trying to watch their carb intake, I made some of these Dashing Dish cauliflower breadsticks. (I LOVE THESE SO MUCH!!)

Then for the pizza, I set up this little buffet in a corner of the garage. 

I bought cans of pizza crust and cut most of them into quarters. (Halves for the guys.) I put them on parchment paper so we could write the pizza creator's names next to each square. I put out a bowl of sauce and then sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, spinach, onions, cheese, and black olives. Everyone could put whatever toppings they liked (and the amount they liked) on their square and then we baked them.

Food is more fun when you get to put your personal touch on it, right?

Sorry those pictures are dark and just all-around bad-quality. I was sort of doing a million things in that moment.

For those of you who might be new here and are not sure why we're fixing food in the garage, let me catch you up! Last summer, Ryan and I finished off our garage and we use it as a spare entertaining space now. We figured 8 people wouldn't fit neatly in our kitchen, so we set up tables and chairs in the garage where everyone could eat comfortably and spills didn't matter.

We kept it very casual - disposable plates, cups, and silverware. :)

AND we kept the pizza theme going with dessert: candy shop pizza!

After dinner, we broke out the Jenga game and played. I had never played that before, and I was truly terrible!

The kids were great and seemed to have a good time - and some even asked if I would give my recipes to their mom, a compliment I considered to be the ultimate win!

And just for fun, thought you might like this video. (It's slow-mo in the middle, so wait for it!)