What I Learned in January

How in THE WORLD is it the end of January???? When I did my week planning on Sunday, I flipped over to February's tab in my planner, and it was just so weird. But weird or not, the end of January has arrived, and I am prepared to carry on with my monthly tradition of sharing the things I've learned in the last 30 days. Hope you enjoy!!


Before I share my list, it is Tuesday, which of course means there's a new podcast! You'll get to hear a little more about our "A" date (see yesterday's blog for photos of that) and also Ryan's big dream fulfilled this weekend. (And I didn't even know it was a dream!)

Listen here.

Okay...NOW on to the lessons learned in the not-super-wintry month of January! 

1. The materials used on floats in the Rose Parade have to be all-natural. 

Maybe I'm the last person on earth to know this, but I sure did not have a clue until this year! Ryan isn't a big parade lover anyway, but he knows I like them, so we watched a bit of the Rose parade and I kept hearing all the talk of ground rice and coffee beans and such things being used on floats, so I had to look it up. True story! All natural items are required. Impressive to see what they came up with and how authentic it all looked!

2. I like reading old books.

Like ACTUAL old books. Old copies of old books. Not reprints of old books. Mom gave me her copy of The Secret Garden, which was given to her in 1947, and it was extra fun to read this American classic from pages that were equally classic. 

3. Writing Scripture is a helpful practice.

One of the new things I'm trying this year is writing out a few verses each day. I'm following the plan from here, and I'm learning that pausing to focus on verses long enough to write them out with my own hand is a good thing for me. It makes me ponder and retain the topics, and I'm looking forward to learning much through this practice this year!

4. We {as in the Shaffers} were not created to live on chicken alone.

Ryan's gallbladder issues this month forced us to eat a very bland, all chicken based diet for a while. Now, we love chicken as much as anyone else, but we sorely missed variety in our diet! Thankful that Ryan was able to have surgery so quickly to remove the offending gallbladder, and we have enjoyed reintroducing variety and flavor to our diet! 

5. Potty training a ten-year-old cat is definitely classified as an adventure.

If you've somehow missed the posts this month, well, I'm sorry, first of all, but the news is that Ryan has decided he's so over cleaning out litter boxes, so Braeya has been on a toilet training adventure. Because when the folks on Shark Tank say you can train a cat to use a toilet, he took them seriously. Somehow I think it has to be easier to train a tiny human than an old cat, though she has done better than I expected. I'll give her that! {And yes, in this photo, she has curled up in the litter to rest. Sigh.}

6. Ryan, coming out of surgery, is HILARIOUS.

I am just straight up sorry all of you had to miss having a front row seat to watching Ryan come out from under the anesthesia after surgery. He was absolutely hysterical. I wanted to film the whole thing, but alas, I was afraid the nurses would yell at me for it. (Even though I knew he would want me to be filming and has completely enjoyed the short clip I did get. I knew what I was doing.) So funny. I don't want him to require surgery ever again in his lifetime, but if ever he does, we know we're in for a treat on the flip side!

7. Out of eight new recipes I tried this month, six were good enough to make again.

Between getting back to a stricter version of clean eating (after a very UNCLEAN! December) and Ryan's diet needs during the gallbladder days, I tried a lot of new dishes this month. My two failures were, ironically, the first two things I made, and it made me a bit nervous for the future of the month! I tried a slow cooker spinach quiche that we ruled out because it wasn't flavorful enough, and a skinny Baja chicken taco recipe that had a clean Chipotle sauce on it, and I'm pretty sure that contributed to Ryan's worst gallbladder attack. OUT with that recipe! But you can look forward to seeing (at some point) recipes for chicken taco soup, a spinach chicken salad with oranges, cranberries and almonds, chicken nuggets, Blizzard cookies, chicken noodle soup, and chicken Parmesan strips! My goal was to try one new recipe a week, and while there were a couple of weeks when I did not, the number I tried averaged out to double the goal!

So that's what I've learned in the merry month of January! :) How about you? Any new things?  

Linking up with Tamar!

The Shafferland Shuffle

How in THE WORLD is it the last Sunday in January already?!!?!? On the flip side, after last weekend's unseasonably warm weather, I'll take it being the last Sunday in January, because it means we are that much closer to SPRING! Yes, please! :)

* Though we dearly love our Sunday naps, we had abbreviated versions of them last week, because we met up with Ryan's family for dinner and the celebration of his sister's 30th birthday! Dinner was at Half Moon, which is a local restaurant, and Ryan LOVES their food but hadn't eaten there in a very long time. It was his first really big meal post-surgery, and he ate every single bite and loved it! AND he didn't get sick. BONUS!

* Ryan had to return to work on Monday, and it was so busy, he didn't even get to come home for lunch. Sadness!! But I baked snickerdoodle brownies to take to his work friends, along with a thank you note for how they filled in for him while he was off work on gallcation. (Ryan fed a piece to Brutus. Ha!) We didn't schedule anything for that evening, because I feared he might be tired from his first day back, so we just hung out and I started reading my novel for the week, which I loved.

* Tuesday was a very busy day, including a podcast interview and some other work I had to get done quickly, and I had to do my workout early in the day. I know some people enjoy working out early in the day, but I'm not one of them. I MUCH prefer to do it later at night. So it was kind of a struggle, but I got through it. We had Bible study that night, and Miss Pheebs was there and snuggled up between Ryan and me for the whole thing. No arguments from me!

* Wednesday morning, I saw the most BEAUTIFUL sight! A tree full of fat robins! I know it's not spring and we have more winter to come, but I called it my tree full of hope! That night, Ryan and I enjoyed another night in and we actually cooked dinner together. We love to do that, but normally I have it ready when he gets home from work, so we don't have the chance. It was fun to work side by side! And then - the workout. Back in its regularly scheduled slot. And not as much fun as eating. LOL!

* Thursday, Braeya and I hung out together for a reading party, and then while Ryan worked overtime, I headed out to get my hairs done. (Not a fair gig for him, is it? But he got pizza for dinner, so I think that made it worth it for him.) It had been MONTHS since I had a highlight, and the hair was, well, white. Sigh. After marinating for a while under some foil and saran wrap, I came home a new woman!

* Friday night, our church had a chili supper and bake sale to raise money, and I wanted to take a dessert for the bake sale. I made buckeye brownies, and they're not hard to make at all, but they do have multiple layers and require cooling time, so I was up at 6:30 in the morning baking the brownie layer! We went to the chili supper when Ryan got off work, and it was delicious! We rounded out the night with some grocery shopping and coffee and (of course) DATELINE! lol! We're so old.

* Yesterday we started a new thing, which I can't wait to tell you more about! Alphabetical dates! Throughout the year, we'll go on a date themed by each letter of the alphabet. {I found the idea on Pinterest. Don't think I'm more creative than I actually am.} We were supposed to go on the "A" date a couple of weeks ago but had to postpone it until Ryan could eat real food again. So yesterday was our day! I'll tell you all about it next week, but we had a great time and I think this is going to be a fun adventure.

A Shafferland Day in the Life, January 2017

Julia from My Life in Transition does "Day in the Life" posts every quarter, where she records what life is like for one day from start to finish. I love the posts, but always felt our life was probably too boring for such a post. (Although I sorely wish now I would have done one when I worked at the station!)

But record-loving me knows that in ten years, I'll wish I'd done a "boring" post on our 2017 life, so today is my first day to post such an event! None of our days ever look the same (EVER!) but here was what last Saturday looked like in Shafferland. (Sorry in advance for the length.)

Saturday, January 14, 2017
Bekah is 38 years old
Ryan is 37 years old
Braeya (the cat) is 10 years old
Married 4 years (49 months)


6:00 a.m. || The alarm goes off for the first time and is appropriately labeled for how I feel about all alarms. I decide to ignore it. For the next 52 minutes, actually.

6:52 a.m. || Ryan is up and getting ready, and alarm #2 crawls on the bed and begins her version of beeping. There is no snooze button on this one.

6:55 a.m. || I'm up, because alarm #2 wants a drink from the sink. Yes. She has a water bowl that is always full, but she insists her drinks come from the sink. And she can put away some serious H20.

7:01 a.m. || He normally already has it going, but he must have ignored his alarm too, because I find Ryan brewing coffee. My day can't officially begin until that is ready and consumed.

7:02 a.m. || I'm in my purple bathrobe and relegated to the couch to read blogs, check all the social media, and see the latest conflicting set of opinions on the ice storm we may or may not get today or tomorrow or never.

7:22 a.m. || Ryan delivers my cup of coffee to me and proceeds to check the weather which has, in fact, changed significantly in the twenty minute span since I checked it. Eyeroll, Indiana.

7:30 a.m. || Ryan and I cuddle up on the couch for our devotion and prayer time together before he goes to work for a while. We have just started reading LuAnn Fulton's book Image Seeker.

7:45 a.m. || We are two days away from Ryan's gallbladder surgery, and yesterday we learned that in the next little town over, 172 students were absent from the elementary school and 29 more were sent home with stomach crud. So our life from now until post-op consists of vitamins, oils, diffusing, and anything that will keep the crud at bay. I begin the oil regimen for the day.

8:10 a.m. || I am curled up on the couch eating my go-to breakfast these days: plain Greek yogurt sweetened with honey, homemade granola, and blackberries on top. Since it's Saturday, I'm allowing myself all the extra time in the world to read blogs and Facebook links, and currently I'm wandering through a post about a cookie for every state in the USA. No wonder I want breakfast.

8:36 a.m. || I pause the fun to do some work. I recorded a podcast this week with the author of a prayer book, and I need to promote the podcast on social media and email links of my work to her publicist - keeping up my end of the promises for having her as a guest. And of course, I'm OCD, so I have a checklist for all the promotion chores to make sure I don't miss any.

8:58 a.m. || I'm sitting at 300 steps for the day, which is not stellar for being up for two hours. But it's not out of the ordinary for a writer on a Saturday. So I get up and begin the first of many laps around the house. In the summer, I get my steps in outside, but winter knocks out that possibility, so throughout the day, it's lap time!

9:23 a.m. || I now have a more respectable 2000 steps under my bathrobe belt, and would have had them done sooner, had Braeya not needed another long drink and a potty break. {If you missed that post, we are in the throes of toilet training - like actually TOILET training - our cat, so potty breaks actually require monitoring and documentation of their own.} Before moving on to the next activity, I've decided to pause and begin a kitty training post, since so many have asked for updates on this adventure so they can go and do likewise.

10:06 a.m. || I'm getting dangerously sleepy on the couch, so it's time to get up, get showered, and get ready for the day. Since I have no intentions of leaving the house today {although so far = no ice} I decide to just do the skincare regimen and not mess with makeup, but I WILL go to the trouble of drying and straightening my hair so I don't have to do that all over again tomorrow and can instead sleep longer! {My hair is so thick that it takes FOREVER to dry and straighten, so I always make sure I can get two days out of it.} Athletic workout shirt and yoga capris since I'm in for the day. How I do love a Saturday!

11:02 a.m. || Finally conquered the hair, so I'm officially ready for the day. Realized that Rosie {our iLife vacuum} never ran this morning because we keep forgetting to reset her auto-start feature, so I start her and resume the step-gathering for the day. Walking in the house is beyond boring, so I pass the time by texting Ryan to see what time he's coming home for lunch, texting my sister in Kansas to see if their predicted ice storm actually showed up, and surfing Facebook, where I find the most ADORABLE picture of Ryan and his siblings then and now. Man, he was the cutest kid in the universe! Those dimples!!

11:37 a.m. || 5000 steps conquered, which puts me right where I want to be by lunch time. Ryan just texted that he's heading home {carefully, as freezing rain has arrived, according to the Scanner Facebook page}. I've got green beans cooking on the stove, I'm working on my next round of water {since I'm behind - whoopsie!!} and I'll warm up our leftover meat from yesterday so we can throw down a quick lunch before he has to go back to work to treat more patients.

11:47 a.m. || Lunchtime! Leftovers for the win with warmed up coffee from the bottom of this morning's pot to cap it off. While we eat, we talk about his morning, how long he'll have to work in the afternoon, and how horrible of a commute all his co-workers who live far away are about to have when it's time to go home.

12:18 p.m. || The mail arrived while we were eating, so before he goes back to work, he runs out to get it so I don't have to. It's my favorite kind of mail day: I got a package! A new book, which I'll read next week and hopefully be able to arrange an interview with the author soon!

12:23 p.m. || Ryan slides back to work, and I make a date with the couch for some more reading before I get up to do some chores. Coffee and Pinterest sound like a good start to the afternoon.

12:48 p.m. || Phone rings and it's my friend from college/editor of my last book, Amy, who had asked if she could interview me for a project she needs for her degree. Of course! It's perfect timing since Ryan's at work. She settles in with her questions and I realize I could knock out some steps while I answer, so I pace around the house and have the nicest talk with her.

1:54 p.m. || Interview concludes and so does my step goal! SWEET!

2:00 p.m. || Pull out my Bible and brand new journal {one of life's true pleasures - if you're a writer} to have my devotions and pray for a while.

2:27 p.m. || Expecting Ryan home from work anytime now, so I hustle into the kitchen to empty the dishwasher, which ran after breakfast this morning, clean up the general mess I hadn't bothered with after lunch, make a pitcher of iced tea, and refill the diffuser. While I am up, I make my 2:30 snack, which Ryan always teases me about. If the clock turns 2:31 and I've not had my snack, my body starts hollering. It ALWAYS knows 2:30.

2:43 p.m. || Finally sitting down with the 2:30 snack. Today's snack of choice is the Dashing Dish Chocolate Chunk protein shake. My favorite. And the cup makes me smile too. Favor from my niece's wedding last summer. Always drink my shakes from this cup!

3:06 p.m. || Ryan's still not home, proving that "anytime now" is a very broad range. I decide to do the next project on the list, which is to take down all the old Christmas cards hanging inside the kitchen cabinets and replace them with the photo cards we received for Christmas 2016. I like to keep them hanging up all year, out of sight, but where I see them daily, so I can pray for our friends!

3:26 p.m. || Ryan texts that he's headed home and we have our standard code conversation for "Do you want a Coke?" followed by "yes please," without actually having to admit I want a Coke. His timing is perfect. The photo hanging project is done just as he writes.

3:48 p.m. || Ryan is home from work, changed into comfy clothes, and we've hit the couch with the remote, which is when I realize I have never turned on the TV all day! He's not feeling great, but we power through because the gallbladder eviction date is IN SIGHT. Sounds like rest is in order.

4:09 p.m. || He's already asleep on the couch, and that nap I kind of wanted this morning is beckoning again, so I curl up beside him. Clearly there will be no photos of us sleeping unless Braeya has miraculously figured out photography. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her lately. Probably taking an all-afternoon nap of her own.

4:57 p.m. || Found her! Wake up when Braeya walks across my hip while I am sleeping and curls up on Ryan's lap, which is her favorite place to be. Discover I've missed about 8 texts from various people in the last half hour, so I stay up to respond. Figure I should probably get up and start working on dinner, but it's just so cozy all curled up under a blanket with Ryan. Decide to catch up on Facebook and emails before moving.

5:20 p.m. || Crawl off the couch and head to the kitchen to start on dinner. We're still on the all-chicken diet, since it's about all Ryan can eat without feeling sick. I assemble salads {spinach, celery, almonds, cranberries and cheese} and defrost chicken breasts to grill on the stove for the top. Ryan's watching football, and gets up long enough to brew the evening pot of coffee before heading back to the game.

5:48 p.m. || Sit down in the living room to eat our salads and watch football. {In 2016 we made a goal to try to eat more meals at the table and we do, almost all the time. But if we want to watch TV while eating, we'll make an exception and move to the living room.} Someone shows up hoping for scraps.

6:03 p.m. || Ryan is feeling better and decides Marie Callender's Razzleberry pie sounds good. Surprisingly this is one thing he can eat without getting sick, and he can have so few pleasures in the food world right now, that who am I to say no? He bundles up and heads to the store for a pie to get him through the weekend. I wait at home to preheat the oven.

6:30 p.m. || The pie is in the oven, the coffee has brewed, and we decide if we don't work out RIGHT NOW, it's never going to happen. We're working our way through the BeachBody Hammer and Chisel workouts, and tonight is Chisel Balance. I'm terrible at balance, but I want pie, so I'll do my workout! We change into workout clothes, fill up our water bottles, and get busy balancing.

7:13 p.m. || Workout done, and we crash. Ryan goes back to football and I check in with my workout accountability group and begin to edit pictures from a family gathering a week ago. I've been so caught up in all the gallbladder stuff that I forgot I had pictures sitting in the camera!

8:00 p.m. || Ryan brings coffee and pie to me on the couch, and we eat while he flips back and forth between football and Dateline and I write Sunday's blog post. Braeya begs for dessert just like she begs for dinner. No shame for that one.

8:51 p.m. || I pour second cups of coffee for each of us and pull out my new coloring book I got for Christmas. All my to-do list items are officially crossed off for the day, so I am happy to have time to sit down and decompress while I color.

9:21 p.m. || Remember that I never shared Christmas pictures with Ryan's family. Stop to upload copies for each of them so they can use as they wish. Sometimes I feel like Amelia Bedelia. I get so easily sidetracked and have to stop RIGHT THEN to do whatever I think of!

10:02 p.m. || I have my standard end-of-night snack: a small mug of healthy cereal. The night is winding down, and Ryan and I are curled up on the couch with our laptops. Pinterest for me, Amazon reviews for him. We are the coolest. We stop now and then to tell stories from our day and exchange useless trivia. These common, low-key nights are my favorite.

10:16 p.m. || I check the weather to see if there will be any impact on our drive to church tomorrow and then peek ahead to Monday to see what the weather looks like around the time of Ryan's surgery. If they're right, looks like we should be okay all the way around. It's Indiana, though, so this forecast could change 100 times between now and Monday.

10:30 p.m. || I load all our dinner/snack dishes into the dishwasher, reapply oils, refill the diffuser to run while we sleep, and check to make sure Ryan turned on the heated mattress pad. He has, of course. He's good with the details.

10:48 p.m. || My calves are tight and sore, which is not unusual, so Ryan is kind enough to give me a leg massage. He claims I could sit for a 24 hour massage and he's probably right. He's yawning, so my guess is this won't be a 24 hour massage, but I'm loving it anyway!

11:15 p.m. {ish} || We both fall asleep watching football, which is a sign it's about time to call it a night.

11:36 p.m. || We drag ourselves to bed and turn on Friends, which is typically what we fall asleep watching. We talk for a few minutes and Braeya crawls up beside Ryan. Not sure how long we stay awake before we finally conk out!

All in all, it was a very good and productive Saturday. Maybe we're not as boring as I thought! :) And that's a day in the life of Shafferland, January 2017!