The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy Easter, my friends! I hope you have a wonderful day today! I know it's going to look different than any of us imagined back at the start of the year, but it can still be beautiful. We are celebrating Jesus' resurrection today and hope you are doing the same, wherever you are!

And here's what we have been up to in what may be our busiest quarantine week yet!

* Last Sunday, Ryan went back on coffee after a 21 day fast, and I celebrated even more than he did, I think! I had missed getting to enjoy coffee dates with him. We watched church together in our living room, and later that day, I baked bread! Yes! Me!! I had been given a recipe to make bread in a slow cooker, and I tried it...and it was pretty delicious.

* Monday was such a pretty day here in Indiana, and Ryan got a great sunrise shot on his way to work! I worked in the office all day, and my #1 assistant napped all day. It was so pretty that night that after work, Ryan was able to squeeze in the first mowing of the season! And while he did that, I had a Zoom meeting for women's ministry.

* Tuesday was our Zoom staff meeting, and my assistant made an appearance at that too! That afternoon, for the first time in TWENTY-FIVE DAYS, I drove a car. I wasn't even sure I remembered how to do it. I had to pick up some masks that had been donated to the church, and it felt so strange to be behind the wheel again. We had small group that night, and it was an extra special meeting for me. I really appreciated what everyone had to say!

* Wednesday was a stunning weather day here, and that was the day our weeping cherry tree burst into bloom! We were so excited to see all the pink blossoms, and I had to do a full photo shoot with it! (The pear tree started blossoming the same day!) After my return to driving the day before, I got super adventurous and put on EYE MAKEUP for the first time in twenty-three days. Had to take a picture of that! That night, Ryan had to record a skit for our church's Easter service. He was supposed to do it live in the service, but since it's being livestreamed, he went in to record it ahead of time. It was a long process (and there's a whole blog post forthcoming about this) but he did it!

* Ryan had a lucky day of freebies on Thursday! He got a free latte AND a free lunch; people are being such generous donors for health care and he doesn't take it for granted!!! (Neither do I! I appreciate all the encouragement he gets from so many!) I cooked a proper dinner that night, too - lemon garlic chicken with summer squash and zucchini! It was yummy! And we enjoyed our first non-meeting night of the week while we ate. :)

* Speaking of free lattes, Friday was my day to get one! My favorite barista made me a latte before he went to work! I worked at home for part of the day and then found out the church wasn't even open on Good Friday. Oops!  So I worked on some scrapbooking (guess who is trying to meet a deadline again?) and had more coffee. Remember the free Crocs Ryan was trying to get when I did my day-in-the-life post last week? He finally got them and they arrived on Friday. We decided since we couldn't go to a Good Friday service, we'd watch one online. We "went" to the one where Max Lucado preached, and it was quite powerful.

* And that brings us to yesterday! In a story that I will reserve for a post this coming week, Ryan had to return to the church to do a little more work on that skit, and while he was gone, I did about half the cooking for our Easter lunch. I boiled the eggs for the deviled eggs, made the biscuits and dessert, and cleaned and sliced the strawberries for our salad. And last night, we had a Zoom game night with our regular game night buddies. It was pretty fun!