It's been one crazy month! Here's the list of what I learned this month - and I'm joining up with Emily Freeman's list of other bloggers who learned much this month too!!
1. We feel called to "together" sorts of ministry.
This may fall more under the category of things affirmed to us this month rather than things we learned, but I think it still counts. When Ryan was gone at the beginning of the month to work on staff at a men's retreat, we both found ourselves challenged and growing and right where God wanted us for that moment. But we also learned {or felt affirmed} that our calling is to work in ministry together. Even if it's a moment in which one or the other of us is taking the lead, we both want to be there together, in support and in-person prayer. Being so far apart when the other was in need of support was probably the hardest part of the whole weekend.
2. Just because something isn't a big deal to you doesn't mean it's not the biggest deal ever to someone else.
We mentioned this on one of the podcasts, but I think it bears repeating. A friend of mine texted one evening early in the month and said her mom {who is currently recuperating from some pretty serious health issues} had a wall that needed to be painted in the next two days, before a Realtor came to take pictures to list her house. I had a free afternoon the next day, donned my paint clothes, and went over to help out. The woman's gratitude was off the charts. I love to paint, I had free time, and it was truly no big deal to me to put a little paint on one {not even big} wall. But to the woman who had the need but not the physical ability, my measly couple of hours wielding a paintbrush was the biggest gift ever.
3. It's called Insanity Max 30 for a reason.
Rather than going into a fourth round of the 21 Day Fix, Ryan and I switched up our workouts and launched into a different Beachbody workout: Insanity Max 30. Oh. My. Word. Insanity is a good word for it. Max is a good word for it. Pick me up off the floor is a good word for it. Talk about a challenge that shocks the body! Despite the unbelievable challenge, I have to say, I know I'm doing things I never could have done if I would have STARTED with this program. Growth!!
4. We need to offer more compliments.
Earlier this month, I wrote a letter of complaint to a chain store, because I felt one of the employees had treated me inappropriately. I think this is only the second or third time I've done that in my life, so I'm not a chronic store-complainer, but I felt it was warranted this time. Though I sent my words privately, I checked out their Facebook page just to see if this ever happened to anyone else at this store. Turns out, per the posts on the page, they ONLY get complaints. EVER. Now I cannot believe for one minute that this store has stayed in business for this long if they were only that bad. But I can believe for one minute that we are so quick to complain, but we never stop to pay a compliment. And I am 100% guilty. Perhaps it's time to start paying attention to GOOD service and rewarding it with our words.
5. We are small dog people.
You might remember reading a few days ago about our adventures in dog-sitting. Some good friends of ours have a Great Dane named Spencer, and we agreed to keep him for a few days while they went on a little get-away. Spencer is two and a good, gentle dog in many ways. But he is also bigger than I am, and that is intimidating to me. And our household atmosphere is different enough from what he's used to at home {six people live at his house} that we struggled to provide enough attention. {He likes to be with you every moment, and we were smack in the middle of trying to start work at our new house.} I ended up having to get a sitter for him myself for half the time we had him, and we learned that although we do love him and he's a good dog, any future dog we have will need to be more the size of Braeya.
6. I still prefer books.
Earlier this month, one of my author friends sent me an electronic version of her newest book so I could read and review it. I don't own a Kindle or any other sort of electronic reader, but I found that it would open on my phone, and I could read it that way. I will say that I appreciate the ease and convenience of being able to receive a book this way, because I know for some, it's the only way I might be able to see a book. But I learned in that process that I am still not at all an e-reader girl. I want a real book that I can hold in my hands, mark in, and put on my shelf to behold when I'm done. Maybe I'm the only one on earthy who feels this way {doubtful} but it's what I learned about myself this month!
7. Moving is a big hairy deal.
This is the first time in my adult life that I have moved. And in about every single way possible, it has not gone at ALL as I envisioned. That doesn't mean it hasn't gone well. It just didn't go according to my perfectly prefabricated plan. {Does life ever?} From waiting to expenses to packing to unpacking to a million other things, moving is a full time job. It's sure myfull time job right now! Loving the adventure but will be so happy the first night we get to just sit back and relax in our completely assembled new home.
If you heard the podcast yesterday, you know that we're only as far along in this entire moving process as we are because a small village of folks pitched in to help! Today I want to tell you about the FIRST round of help we had.
The house we purchased was pretty much all one color on the inside - a very pretty tan. I do love it, but I also love a little contrast. So I schemed up some colors to paint a few of the walls, and for the majority of last week, that's what I did.
Well.
That and wallpaper removal. If you missed that podcast rant yesterday, let me just tell you that wallpaper scraping, I've decided, is my nemesis. I didn't even have that much to remove, but I think if there had been any more...
The backsplash area in the kitchen was covered in wallpaper. Part of it left via the wall demolition. The rest had to be scraped off. Piece by painful piece.
My friend Sandee came over to help me paint our master bedroom. I had no idea of her killer talent in painting the trim areas. We teamed up...I rolled and she trimmed. {And Ryan did the parts that were too high for both of us.} We got that whole room knocked out in one day!
{About the shirt. It was my parade shirt when I worked at the station. I couldn't exactly leave it there because my replacement and I didn't share a name. And there's not a lot you can do with a shirt like this other than wear it to paint!}
My parents came to visit and brought us dinner. {And Ryan's mom came to visit the next night but somehow I failed to get a picture!! She treated us to dinner as well!}
My friend Amber stopped by just to see the house and ended up offering to help me with the wallpaper scraping. And the next day, she came back on her way to work to bring me her DVD collection of a TV show so I could have SOMETHING playing in the background while I worked for the week. That was as much of a blessing as her trip over to help scrape wallpaper. I could not get over the crazy quietness of the house; the background noise was a blessing.
That wallpaper, by the way, NEVER ENDED.
Troy came back every day to do more sanding and mudding and sanding and mudding.
These were the heroes of week one in our new house. I worked at the house all day every day, and Ryan worked there all night after working a full day at work. We spent pretty much every waking hour there and a handful of hours that should have been sleeping ones. Painting, scraping, cleaning carpets, patching, mudding, sanding...these were the things that comprised the first week. And truly, truly, truly, we could not have made the progress we did without these friends who gifted us their time and resources.
I told you when I first shared the story of how we met our new house that it was pretty impeccable. The former owners took amazing care of this house and in truth, we could have given it a good once-over cleaning and moved right in. But where's the fun in that?? You gotta make a new house your own, right??
And so we have been.
I'll show you official before and after pictures later, when I have an after to show, but I'll start by telling you about the not-quite-full wall.
One of the things Ryan and I hoped for in a new home was an open concept between the living room and the kitchen. Ryan's Greentown house did not have that. His kitchen there was down a hallway from the living room. My house didn't have that either. The dining room separated the kitchen from the living room.
And you know what? That's okay! Some people prefer defined and separated rooms. But I love to cook and love to be able to continue in conversation with Ryan while I'm cooking. That's hard to do when you have to yell around corners and through other rooms. So we really hoped for open concept.
And this new house of ours did not have it. To its credit, those two rooms were at least next to each other, which was a step up from what we'd owned before, but they were still divided.
The wall that divided them didn't go clear to the top. It went up to about two feet from the ceiling and then just stopped. The day we walked through the house for the first time, Ryan declared if we bought this house, he would pull that wall down to just above the sink and make it open for us to have easy conversation.
I was eager to just move in, and a big mess didn't sound entirely appealing. I suggested we wait a year or so, see if we really hated the closed off wall, and then if we did, we could change it then. Later. After life settled. Ryan was okay with that for about a day, and then he convinced me it really would be better to take care of it before anything was officially moved in.
And let the record show: he was right. That demo made a HUGE mess. Much more than I ever expected. I probably would have been cleaning dust for 32 years if we'd waited until the house was full of stuff.
So the day after we walked in as owners for the first time, Ryan and his friend Troy held Shafferland demo day to take down that wall. {Please note that I was not able to be there for this, and Ryan set up the tripod and took pictures of the process for our scrapbook. One million points. He also wrote #demoday on the wall and channeled his inner Chip Gaines.}
By the time I came home, they had a pretty good mess going on:
The wall coming down made a HUGE difference. So much more light and open. And these two had a blast ripping stuff up. Of course any wall ripped down means repairs, so there was much patching and mudding and sanding to knock out after this was over, but it certainly was a fine start to our new home together!
Troy, thanks so much for helping us - and for coming back over on subsequent days to patch what was left behind!!
I have heard you!! You want to see adventures from our new place!! Today I bring you just that!
Last Monday...a week ago today...Ryan went to work and I resumed my Spencer-sitting. {That was the Great Dane we had for a couple of days last week, if you missed that post.} In the late afternoon, I loaded up the car with Spencer and all kinds of things I imagined we'd need at a new place on a first day and drove over to meet Ryan at work.
It was our first time to go in our house together as its owners. The last time we'd seen the house, it was filled to the brim with a life that didn't belong to us. On this day, it was filled with wide open potential. The only signs of the former owners were the smashed down carpet, betraying all their furniture placement, and the smattering of things they left behind for us to keep or rehome.
We had Spencer with us, but he really struggled at the new home. A few
people have suggested it is because the former owners had a female dog
{who was obviously not there, but her scent was, I guess!} and Spencer
is a male dog, and he just really freaked out being inside. As a result,
we didn't get all the photos I'd envisioned, but we got enough to make
it work!
First dance in our new home.
Back when we thought we were going to build a house, we planned to do the thing you may have seen on Pinterest, where you write Scripture on the studs of the home before they're covered with walls. Obviously purchasing a home made that impossible, but I just modified the idea to write on the walls we planned to paint instead. Ryan and I made our rounds and wrote verses we hoped would mean something to this home:
Was it a perfect first evening at the new house? Nope. But it was still ours and we will always cherish the first moment we stepped into the first home we purchased together!
Happy Easter!!! We are thankful for what this day represents - and for a day of REST!! Today you'll get some glimpses of our new house adventures. More posts to come on that this week!
* Last Sunday, we started dog sitting for the first time in our married life, which you already caught a peek of this week. Our friends brought over their Great Dane named Spencer, and we spent the day learning the ways of huge dogs!! He took us for a walk and tried to sit on our laps. LOL!!! We had a lot of fun with him that day and we were thankful for a pretty day that allowed us to spend some time outside with him!
* Monday was a HUGE day in Shafferland! We got official possession of our new house that day! We tried to juggle meeting the new house with having custody of Spencer, so it was sort of an interesting adventure, but we made memories!! That's for sure! We had the chance to do a photo shoot with our new house and write Scripture on the walls {much more on these stories to come}. But mostly we were just incredibly thankful for the day we'd so longed and prayed for to finally BE HERE.
* Tuesday was a big day at both Shaffer houses. We had the inspection on our original house and that's the day I got to meet our buyer, too. Really enjoyed getting to swap stories and learn more about what God had done on the OTHER side of the story! And at the new house, Ryan and his friend Troy had a good old fashioned demo day to knock out part of a wall. They channeled their inner Chip Gaines and had a grand time. {And made a grand MESS!}
* We broke out the paint cans on Wednesday! My friend Sandee came over and together, we tackled the master bedroom. While we didn't have to paint all the walls {some were okay as they were}, we did get the painting in that room finished in one day. I never could have done it without her help! And my friend Amber stopped by just to see the house and ended up helping me scrape wallpaper. {Ugh. Wallpaper. But YAY for good friends who will come for fun and stay to help!}
* Speaking of wallpaper, it was my utter nemesis on Thursday. I worked to finish scraping it off TWO rooms, and that was exhausting. I swear it was held on by super glue. Thankfully, Ryan helped me push through to the end without screaming! I also painted a bathroom and shampooed some of the carpet. And when Ryan wasn't at work, he helped me touch up paint. {He's very good at that.}
* Friday morning, we were at Lowe's before it opened in the morning. What!?!?! Who is up that early? Well, we are, apparently. I spent the entire day painting my new office. I made a last minute switcharoo of color and now have a bright yellow office that makes me VERY happy. We put together our bed frame and started dreaming about where we're going to place all the furniture!
* By yesterday, we were understandably exhausted, and we look every bit of it in these pictures. Ryan had to work, so I went with him and caught up on all internet life on the wifi there. Then I went over to the house and resumed painting and replacing swichplates and cleaning up and all sorts of things. We were so tired by the time we finished the day around midnight, but so happy!
Last Sunday, one of the Howard County Sheriff's deputies was killed in the line of duty while serving an arrest warrant. While every life lost in such a way is tragic, this one hit very close to home, as Ryan's brother serves the same department. What a reminder of the personal safety risked every day by people who are just like us: peoplewith lives and families and dreams and un-checked bucket lists. Deputy Koontz left behind a wife and infant son, and I just cannot imagine their grief. Our prayers continue to be with the Koontz family and with the HCSD family as well.
If you read this blog regularly, you will recognize Tamar's name, because she comments almost every day {I LOVE THAT, TAMAR! THANK YOU!!!} She takes some of the most beautiful photos I've seen, and sometimes after I look at one of her pictures, I think "Now I see that every day but I never thought of getting it from that angle." She's got a gift, and she took that gift to a flower show a few days ago. I LOVE flower shows but haven't been to one in years. Anyway. Check out her pictures - both for the photography and the the subject matter. Great work, Tamar!
As I've gotten a little braver on the Beachbody eating plan, I've started eating out a little bit more. I have to be careful because I know that even things that SEEM like healthy options in a restaurant might be loaded with good-tasting badness. {I read an article a while back that said some kale salad available through McDonald's was actually worse for you than a Big Mac. I think it had to do with dressings and other toppings they put on top of the kale.}ANYWAY. Found this post with some already-figured-up options for eating as healthy as you can while you're out. Even if you're not 21 Day Fixing it, these are helpful guidelines.
I am sure that several of you still follow her blog, so you know this, but this week marked one year since Kara Tippetts passed away, and her husband posted this about the long year since her death. I always marvel at his posts; he expresses himself so well and so vulnerably. Loss is always hard, and there is never a prescribed way to do it, but he seems to be doing it in the most healthy way possible. I appreciate his thoughts.
Five.
Ryan actually contributed this one to the Six this week. I dare you to watch it and not smile. Seriously dare you.
Know what I missed this week? Sitting and reading an entire book in one fell swoop. As you might imagine, with all the house fun, it just wasn't possible. But I did finish the third book I've been reading for my personal devotions this year, and I wanted to tell you about it!
The Circle Makerby Mark Batterson is not a new book at all. He published it back in 2011, and I had started to read it shortly after it came out, but I never finished it. I think that was because God knew I needed it right nowand not because it was in any way a lackluster book. {This happens to me sometimes. I'll start a book, put it aside, and come back to it in the perfect God-timing. I've learned not to be irritated by it when I "can't" finish a book, because I know it means God has another plan.}
If you're not familiar with this book, Mark introduces reasders to Honi, a first-century Jewish sage who boldly drew a circle in the dirt, stepped inside and prayed fervently for rain in the midst of a drought that threatened to kill an entire generation of people. Honi's bold prayers brought rain, and the concept of praying circles around everything from problems to dreams was born.
This book is filled with examples of HOW you can pray. Not that they are the only ways to pray, but they might be ways you've not considered. From recording your prayers to be able to look through them later, to praying literal circles around things you desire, Markoffers very practical suggestions, and I practiced some of them in these past few weeks of praying for our house to sell. There is indeed something powerful about putting actual feet to your prayers.
He also shares heavily from his own experiences of drawing prayer circles, sharing specifically and vulnerably about how those times strengthened his faith. I think many of his stories resonated extra with me right now, because they were based on real estate prayers, just like mine have been! {If you're not familiar with Mark, he's the pastor of National Community Church in Washington D.C. and the church has worked to purchase several prime locations in the heart of the city so they can use them for ministry centers. As you might imagine, acquiring those properties was not an easy task, and much prayer was required.}
Mark is careful to say we should steer clear of "name it and claim it" type prayers or of treating God like a genie in a bottle, required to fulfill our wishes, but he also says that praying specifically and boldly often brings about miraculous answers we couldn't even have imagined.
I came away from this book both challenged and encouraged. I'm excited to grown my own prayer life more and more. {I'm still reading the 40 day companion guide.}
