The Shafferland Shuffle

Before I tell you about our week, I thought I'd share this link with you, since I'd asked you to pray for my friend Michelle. Maybe you'd like a face to put with the name! The Fox affiliate in their area featured her on the news this week, and this is a link to that story. (Note for any of you who may live in that area: I read on her prayer support Facebook page that they have an abundance of breastmilk offers now, so they're covered!)

The most recent update I have seen indicated that she is making impressive improvements beyond the doctors' expectations, but they have put her name on a heart transplant list. They are trusting God with the timing of it all, believing if He intends to heal her heart, He will do so before a transplant becomes available, and if not, then one will become available at the right time.

Now...on to the week!

* We ended up not spending the night in Berne after we spoke last weekend, because we heard some snow/ice/wintry mix messiness was headed our way. We were so glad we went with our gut on that, because it did indeed arrive in the middle of the night, and our church canceled services Sunday morning. We were able to rest, which I think we really needed! Ryan made waffles for us, and we had a leisurely day at home. Check out this pretty delicious thank you gift we received that day from one of our friends! Three cheers for chocolate covered strawberries! And to round out our day of food, apparently, I baked cut out sugar cookies so the kids could decorate them the next day!

* Monday, as you already saw, was the day we had our niece and nephews all day. It was a full, full day of busyness! We made plaster handprints, decorated cookies, made breakfast for lunch, went to visit Ryan at work, watched some Olympic coverage, did homeschool, and the boys took simultaneous naps. Win, win, win, win, win!

* Tuesday, my brand spankin' new sparkly shoes arrived in the mail. I was so excited! (They're for one of my speaking events coming up.) Because Ryan had a meeting the next day and couldn't come home for the Valentine's lunch I had planned, I baked his white chocolate raspberry cake that night and we shared it with our small group! And he brought home my Valentine's roses (which, by the way, I'm still enjoying to the fullest).

* Wednesday was Valentine's Day, and I already told you about that, too! But in the spirit of the Shuffle, I'll remind you that we had dinner at Red Robin and then a surprise, impromptu dessert stop at the Cake Bake Shop. For the record, my piece of cake ended up lasting four meals. LOL!!! I was determined to make it stretch!

* Thursday was a cold, rainy, yucky day around here. A good stay-at-home kind of day. I was excited to get more fun mail: more things for speaking. I love it when prepping to speak means getting presents, even if I don't get to keep them! My fun was short lived...that night, I was down for the count with a relapse of my stupid cold/yuck. It wasn't nearly as bad this time, but that night was not fun. (I've read that this year's adventures in cold and flu often come back a second time. Lucky!)

* Miss Phoebe came to stay with us on Friday! Her people had some things to attend this weekend and asked if they could leave her with us for a couple of days. Let me think. OKAY!!! We spent a lot of time cuddling on the couch, and then when Ryan came home, they had fun playing together, too! Ryan and I began rehearsing for the next round of speaking (he's running my Power Point), and Phoebe slept through the whole thing. I wasn't sure how to feel about that!

* Ryan worked yesterday, so Pheebs and I stayed home, working on projects in the office. We did go visit him a couple of times because it's one of our favorite things to do. Since he had a long work day, it was nice to have Phoebe hanging out with me! (Braeya was in her usual spot underneath the comforter on our bed. HA!) We were glad to have a night at home: pretty snow falling outside, Olympics on TV and coffee in our cups! (Yes, Phoebe is trying to read my journal.)