The Saturday Six

One.

You are well aware that I love a good home tour. I mean, remember Monday? I took you through a little cabin I found that is so adorable! Well I happened upon this post this week that isn't a home tour, but it is a gorgeous neighborhood tour. We have a neighborhood here in town that is filled with old, character-laden homes, and sometimes I like to drive through it just to appreciate their beauty. (And I get really excited anytime one goes up for sale because then I know I can see inside pictures online!) Anyway. The blogger toured a gorgeous neighborhood one afternoon and shares pictures of her favorite houses. So pretty.

Two.

Some wise words written by Jackie at Rad-Joy, exploring what it means to follow God's calling on our lives. If you're in a place of searching right now, you might find some encouragement as you read over this!

Three.

I declared yesterday to be "cute food Friday," and I made individual 7 layer salads from Dashing Dish. We use canning jars for our drinking glasses, so I just made the salads in those. It's a free recipe, and Ryan and I both liked it, so check it out if you need a new idea!

Four.

Some of you know that I occasionally link to Lindsay Sherbondy's hand-lettered art. Ryan and I have several of her art pieces in our home, and when she had a storefront for a time in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, we actually stopped in to meet her in person (while we were en route to one of my speaking engagements). If you follow Lindsay on social media, you already know this, but if you don't, her 7 year old daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury this week in a strange and seemingly random fall out of a golf cart. Here is a link to her Caring Bridge page if you'd like to see updates or know how to pray with and for them. I can't even imagine! 

Five.

Here is a list of over 50 freezer meals you can make for yourself/your family/your friends! If the return of the school year has made your meal prep time a bit short, or if you want to bless some busy or recovering-from-illness friends, take a look and see if you can find an idea or two!

Six.

In closing today, I will share with you another recent Etsy find of mine. For the last few years, I've been using Lemongrass Spa for all my skin care, and while I love the products, I simply can't keep up with the minimum monthly order requirements anymore. So I've been on the hunt for all-natural products that I can order at my own leisure. In my hunt, I looked for a new body wash, and this one seems to be working well! I like that it has a little bit of bubble and a decent amount of aroma WITHOUT turning me into suds-ville or making me smell like a giant cookie. And a fun bonus? They personalize the labels for you, so my bottle says it was made just for me! (I suppose this keeps Ryan from digging into the berries and cream body wash!) I also liked having the option to choose whether I wanted a pump top or a flat cap top. And if you're not a fan of berries and cream, there are a variety of other scents available. The shop owner is from Illinois, and shipping is free (at least in the US, I believe.)

What I Learned in August

Ryan glanced out the window during the Colts game last night and told me that it was dark...at 8:30. Sadness indeed. August has come and gone - or at least as of tomorrow it will have come and gone - and believe it or not, I did learn a few things while it was here! Take a look!

1. I did not miss my calling when I decided not to become an actress.

As I blogged about earlier this month, I had a very small (smaller than miniscule, really) part in a skit at church, and it completely stressed me out. I was terrified of forgetting all my lines. All four of them, you know. It wasn't being in front of people that scared me. I do that all the time when I speak. It was the actual acting and the attempts to be seamless with the others in the skit that terrified me. So skipping out on acting was, it turns out, one of my better life decisions.

2. If you're going to ride a bike for the first time in five years, don't try to do twenty miles in one day.

I am really proud of myself FOR doing just that, but WHEW! (Trivia: when I did the laundry after our bike ride, I discovered Ryan owns biking shorts with a padded behind. WHAT?! No wonder he wasn't hurting on that trip!) Also, as a subpoint to this item, if you haven't jumped rope in a while, maybe start back up with something less ambitious than six hundred jumps.

3. There is such a thing as a leap second app.

Have you heard of it? I learned about it because one of my Facebook friends has used it every single day for the last year. She has recorded exactly one second of video to represent her days over the last year and it made a 6 minute and 6 second video that was pretty fun to watch. (If I am the last person on earth to learn about this app, just move along and say "Bless her heart.")


4. The initials M and M (like of the candy?) represented people's names.

Ryan watched a documentary (that was way more interesting than the name "documentary" would lead you to believe) on how food shaped America. Part of the documentary focused on the chocolate industry, which obviously covered Hershey and Mars...but that's where we learned that both of the Ms stood for a last name of the candy creators. WHO KNEW!?

5. Concrete stamping is FASCINATING to watch.

We had some work done on our front and back patios this month, and I had never seen concrete stamping before. It was so cool to watch them place the texture and color designs in the fresh slab of concrete. I was kind of like a toddler watching through the window! I'm sure the guys were eager to finish the job at our house and return to working at places where scrapbookers-in-residence do not hover.

6. I found out what dill looks like...outside of the spice jar.

Since I don't have an herb garden of my own, I typically use a lot of dried spices in my cooking. When I was on our family vacation this month, I saw dill for the first time in plant form. It's like a tiny green (not hot) firework!

7. Andrew Luck retired.

And so marks the thing we all learned this month, right? As you know, I'm not really what one might call a die-hard sports fan. (One might just as easily call me a complete sports idiot and be absolutely correct.) I'm not really a credible sports commentator. But that doesn't stop me from having a comment! :) I am actually more of a Jacoby Brissett fan than I am an Andrew Luck fan, but I have incredible respect for what Andrew did. In all likelihood, we only heard a fraction of the reasons that factored into his decision, but if a man of his talent and caliber can see beyond the game and the paycheck to consider the full scope of life, health, and family, I applaud that. It's rare and impressive.


So what about you? What did you learn?

And Just a Little Bit More...

Can you handle just a few more pictures from our time away with my parents?

I forgot to show you what we got them! We all went together to get them some gift cards to their favorite restaurants. :)

(Dad was allowed to have them too, but alas, he was on the other side of the table.)

Found a new hair pretty!

And a lighthouse!

Found a pretzel place!

We had another family dinner, and this time it was at the Blue Gate. We ate from the buffet there, and my seat was directly across from the soft serve machine. My. Happy. Place.

Mom and Dad got a free dessert...and an extra person in their picture.

And the highest meringue I've ever seen in my life...

Who thinks swimsuits after buffets are a good idea?

And one more picture of the lovebirds....HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

More Family Fun!

If I can say one thing for this trip...we ate well. :)

It started with our dinner last Thursday evening, when the whole crowd came together at the Essenhaus in Middlebury. If you've never been there, then my advice is to imagine the biggest restaurant you've ever seen and multiply that by...a lot.

We ate from the buffet that night, and you may remember (if you heard the podcast) that Ryan really got his money's worth.

If you heard the podcast, you may also remember that I had an awkward photo with my mom and one of my sisters...where it looks like I'm just squishing in between two random people. Here are the pictures from that photo opp...

Anyway! The buffet was really good! Here are the lovebirds:

After dinner, we did a little browsing around the nearby shops, but it was so late that they weren't open too long.

And check out this SUNSET!!!!

Me, when everyone else was watching Dr. Pimple Popper:

We did a little shopping, and Ryan thought he would test out the slides...

And we tried a little swing/hammock thing:

I think I'll save the rest for tomorrow. I don't want this post to be too buffet-heavy! :)

Lovin' the Lake

We're reminiscing on some of our favorite moments from our weekend family trip...enjoy!

Listen here

And now on to some photo sharing from our weekend. For those of you who may not have seen, last week was my parents' 65th wedding anniversary. What they wanted most for their anniversary was to have the family all together, which is something that pretty much never happens, given our geographical distance. My niece wasn't able to come, but all the kids were there.

We started the trip with a boat ride. One of my sisters has a pontoon and she and her husband towed it up to Lake Wawasee, and they gave us a cruise around the lake.

(That lake, though not the one we usually go to, is very dear to me. Years and years ago, in my early blogging days, I went to a couple of women's retreats at the resort on that lake. God and I had some really pivotal moments on the pier outside the resort, and it was good to be back in that same spot so many years later.)

 (When Ryan got ski goggles earlier this year, I sent a picture to my family of him trying them on in our kitchen. My sister joked that he must have gotten them for the lake, so I made sure we packed them and used them during the cruise!)

 Here we are! :)

If you heard the podcast, you know that this was the first time Ryan had ever seen me IN the lake.

(I loved the swimming hole at this lake. There was a sand bar, so you could touch the bottom way out in the middle of the lake. The swimming hole at the lake we normally go to requires more skill. Ha!)

It was the perfect day for being on the lake. It was sunny and warm, but not unbearably hot. There was a good breeze, and the water was actually really pleasant!

My Little House On The Prairie

You. Guys.

I have to tell you about this house. I just do. I know I just got back from a family trip, and I should be telling you all about that - and I will! - but I teased you with this house on the Saturday Six, and I just have to tell you about it.

As you know, I'm a perpetual dreamer, which probably gets me in more trouble than actually serving me in productive ways, but I figure now and then a dream is bound to come true, so dream the things!

As you also know, one of my dreams that may or may not ever come to pass is traveling the country in an RV. I have researched hundreds (possibly thousands) of RV styles, layouts, options, and even actual travel routes. I've also dreamed of downsizing and living tiny.

But Ryan and I have begun to notice that living tiny in square footage land doesn't always mean living tiny in bank account land. Some tiny homes cost more than the house we live in. The full size house. Sure, all the cute little amenities are fascinating, but we can't justify selling a perfectly good, full-size house, to squeeze into something 1/10th the size for the same price. That just doesn't make any sense.

But this weekend, whilst we were on the family trip to celebrate my parents' 65th anniversary, I stumbled upon the most adorable little cabin that IS little, but it's not tiny. It's kind of like the just-right porridge for Miss Goldilocks. (The price tag was much more palatable than some of the palatial tiny homes.)

One of the stores in Shipshewana, where we spent the weekend, has a back lot filled with model cabins of all shapes and sizes. We went in them all and narrowed down our choices to two, and this one won.

First of all...the outside. Isn't it just cute as a little button?

I think Ryan fell in love with the metal roof as I was falling in love with that darling porch. (We saw a similar cabin there that had half the porch screened in! That was also intriguing to me.)

This one had an upstairs, which made it feel a little bit bigger on the inside, and in the end, that probably won our vote over the other one we really liked. :)

This is the living room, which isn't really our style in terms of décor, but if you take out all the furniture and wall hangings, I love every little bit of it. (Not a single bit of judgment for any of you who love lodge furnishings and bears...it's just not our favorite.)

I sat in this room for a long time - and may  have gone back the next day to sit in it again. It was super cozy and felt just like home.

This is the front door from the living room couch - and it shows the dining area into the little kitchen.

That table/island was also cute as a button! Ryan and I sat across from each other there on our second visit, and if we'd only had some coffee along for the ride, it would have been perfect

The kitchen wasn't our style cabinet-wise (again with the lodge look) but we did love the size of it. Big enough to store things, but not too huge. (Also...maybe not those exact appliances?)

The light coming through the doorway to the right of that picture was a blank room in this cabin, but it was marked on the info sheet as being a utility room for laundry/storage/etc. I thought it was a pretty decent size, actually, for a house of this size.

To the right of the utility room was the only bathroom in the house. I'd rather have a cabinet sink than a pedestal one, and somehow I'd have to add a bit more storage in there, but again, I thought the size of the bathroom was amazing for a smaller house! (The bathroom had a barn door, but somehow that doesn't show in any of the pictures. Sadness.)

And to the right of the bathroom was some great storage under the stairway. (Three cheers for an actual stairway and not ladders!)

And speaking of the staircase...can you not just see this wrapped in Christmas garland? (Only seasonally, of course...from October to February.)

By the way, that little door under this side of the stairs goes through to the storage area under the tall side. I do love a maximized space.

Upstairs was loft-like in that there were no walls and doors, so it was open-air to the downstairs, but it did have two distinct sides with a catwalk between. The cabin information indicated that the standard floor plan of this model is actually floor planks shorter than this one, but they raised the height (and the cost) to make it taller and easier to walk through. I'd say that was well worth the investment.

This is the catwalk and the side of the upstairs over the living room. I think it's pretty spacious!

And this is the side over the kitchen and utility area. (I didn't really notify anyone that a photo opp was in progress. However, the presence of people in this picture shows you how much headroom the loft had. My brother-in-law in the background there is pretty tall.)

Some views from above...

This was from the catwalk. I don't know that the skull over the door is our style either, but I mean I suppose it could be an accessory. :) But let's do talk about that screen door...

From the other side of the catwalk, looking down over the stairs:

I just loved every inch of this little place. The perfect size and layout, I thought! My very own little house on the prairie.

I'm sure cabins aren't everyone's style, so maybe you don't love it, or maybe even something this small/big isn't the right size for you. But I adored it. And I may never stop adoring it.