Snowwwwwwwwwwwww!!

Well you are looking at one grateful girl. SO GLAD my dental appointment was last Thursday and not today. Today I'll just be praying my way to elementary school and back {#hatesnowdriving}.

Right before Ryan came home for lunch yesterday, these big, beautiful, snow-globey flakes began to fall. I had no idea what to expect, because they've promised snows all winter that {mercifully} never came. So I didn't know if it would snow this time at all, and if it did, how much would end up on the ground.

It snowed the entire day, slow and steady. So pretty. So picturesque. Words I can only say because I was done driving for the day. I heard the roads started to get nasty last night, and to me, snow is never as pretty when it becomes treacherous.

But for the day, it was a pretty, pretty snow.

I stopped writing every couple of hours to take a fresh round of pictures, with the snow domed up more than it had been.

And by the time Ryan came home, there was a decent amount to shovel from the driveway, and a stunning yard full of snow.

It was the most snow we'd seen since we moved here, and I loved seeing how our house fit under a pretty blanket of snow.

{And now as long as the snow gets off the roads and stops being treacherous, I will happily continue to enjoy the view.}

The Shafferland Shuffle

Busy week here in Shafferland! And given that last week started with a belated Christmas celebration, I'm really not sure what day it is - or month, for that matter - most of the time!

* Last Sunday evening, we finally got to have Christmas with Ryan's mom and Allen and all the siblings. It had been postponed twice: once for weather and once for illness that took down about half the family. We always have breakfast for dinner at this gathering, and then we watch the kiddos open all their gifts. Ryan had chicken noodle soup, which made him so sad, when he saw all the delicious foods he couldn't have! And also - when it comes to smiling for pictures, he's such a Chandler Bing.

* Monday morning, Ryan went in for a HIDA scan of his gallbladder, which was a 2 hour test to see if it was functioning or not. we were never SO HAPPY to hear something was not working! His gallbladder is only functioning at 20%, which makes him a candidate for surgery. Praise. The. Lord! That night, after work, we went BACK to the hospital, but this time to visit his mom, who went in to be admitted right after our Christmas celebration. (Her poor breathing!) She was doing better by Monday, so we visited with her for a while, and then came home where I pulled out one of my Christmas presents from Ryan: coloring book and colored pencils!

* Tuesday was one of our NON medical appointment days, so I took the opportunity to catch up on chores at home. Ryan had some computer training that day and got out early, so we even got to spend some extra time at home, reading and resting. We had Bible study that night: our first one in the new year! Good to be back with everyone and good tiramisu too, I might add.

* Ryan and I met with a surgeon on Wednesday morning and were floored - FLOORED!!!! - when he casually mentioned in conversation that he'd had a cancellation come up in the past day and Ryan would be able to get in for surgery on MONDAY. {As in tomorrow!!} We were so happy, we could have cried! Ryan went back to work, and I got him a special Subway treat as a cheer-up gift from his friend Nate. That night, we had to do some work at my parents' house, so on the way, we stopped by the new, temporary Starbucks that will fill in for the one the tornado took down, until they can rebuild it. It was our first time to see it. Really nice!

* Thursday, Ryan thought he'd do something new and different: go see a doctor! LOL!! He had actually scheduled an appointment with our new family doctor before any of this mess started and had to keep rescheduling. FINALLY got to keep it! I stayed home after my carpool duties. It was a cold, rainy, nasty day. Good for being home!! And of course, as you already read, we received our Braeya training kit in the mail that day. LOL!!!

* Friday we heard there was this MASSIVE stomach bug circulating the county, so I increased our oils exposure to try to keep Ryan healthy for surgery! We went out for a date to Cracker Barrel. LOL!! Ryan thought he could handle fish there, and he did! Just fine! When we came home we tried the next phase of the potty training activity. Oh my. This could be awfully interesting.

* Ryan worked yesterday, and I kept busy at home! We were supposed to get a big ice storm, but it never came. We did get some freezing rain, and the roads were a little crazy for a while, but nothing crippling. No lost power or internet or anything. It was a good little low-key day at home! Looking forward to next week at this time, being on the mend and a gallbladder-less family!

The Saturday Six

One.

Listen to the Interview.

This week I talked with Kelly O'Dell Stanley (a fellow Hoosier!!), who just released a new book called Designed to Pray. It's a study/workbook/prayer guide to help you creatively find new ways to approach prayer. Prayer seems to be a theme that keeps popping up for me, and I'm learning a whole lot about it right now, so I'm happy to be able to pass that on to you! This book is different from the one on prayer I featured last month, and both have great ideas. But if you have a few art-loving genes in your soul, you'll especially want to take a listen to Kelly's interview. BONUS! Learn more about this book at the end of this post, and I even have a copy to give away! :)

Two.

 Some of you might have heard this story and some of you probably didn't - and I only bring it up because I'm so impressed with the way it's been handled. Several weeks ago, a high school student posted a photo of himself and a friend with a couple of Colts cheerleaders, who had come to the high school for an event, and he made a racial slur about one of them. Not the best press for the high school, but I have to say, every single article I've read about the cheerleader and how she handled it has really impressed me. Read this, and pay particular attention to what she says about how all of us who are adults have a responsibility to teach kids good values and forgiveness by participating ourselves. Convicting stuff - at least for me.

Three.

So apparently, two years ago, right about this time, we were knee {waist?} deep in snow and Polar Vortexy goodness. I. Do. Not. Miss. That. I remember that winter and allllllllllllllll the tears I shed getting back and forth to work every day. Oh, those two hour drives! BLECH! Anyway. In my Facebook timehop this week, I found an article someone sent me back then of these lighthouses covered in snow and ice. Still fascinates me to no end. Check it out!

Four.

Speaking of snow, I loved this post by a blogger named Elizabeth Lang Thompson. She lives in the south and writes about how southerners do snow days instead of foraging ahead in the peril of snow. I feel I would make a good southerner. Bring me some sweet tea and let me have my snow day, thankyouverymuch.

Five.

I cannot imagine putting the amount of time and work into a project that is described in this post by Thistlewood Farm's KariAnne, but oh. my. goodness. Coolest keepsake ever. All of it. The book, the family tree, the memorabilia. It's amazing. Read up and enjoy.

Six.

Source

As I promised at the beginning of the post, I will tell you more about Kelly O'Dell Stanley's book, Designed to Pray, and then stick around, because I have a giveaway of this book to share with one of you!

Kelly O'Dell Stanley is a graphic designer and writer, and her two loves collided in this book. She had previously written a book on prayer called Praying Upside Down, and after completing that book, she began to have ideas for an interactive workbook type project on prayer that she hoped would help people become closer to the Lord through creative approaches to prayer.

This book isn't really a "read from cover to cover" kind of book, although I read it that way so I could tell you about it! It's a book you'll want to approach in a slow, daily kind of pace until you've worked your way through every single page. It's designed as an 8 week study on prayer, with new activities to try every single day.

She talks about everything from trying actual new postures of prayer to learning new ways to remember (consistently) to pray for requests that come your way to suiting up in the full armor of God as you pray, and over 50 additional ideas in between.

There might be some exercises that don't zing you, and that's okay. Her goal isn't for every single activity to resonate with every single reader. Her goal is to help you uncover new ideas you might not have considered and to unlock some prayerful creativity in you.

And if you're nervous about trying a book like this because you don't really have creative genes within you, NEVER FEAR! She already thought of that and designed each exercise to be a door-opener for the creative and well-equipped for the creatively challenged. You'll find enough tools on each page to be able to do some version of the exercise, even if you can't draw or think outside the box very well.

(OH! And if you are into the coloring craze, you'll find more than one opportunity to use that outlet in this book!)

You'll want to hear Kelly's interview above to learn more about her heart behind this book, but one thing she mentioned as she talked to me is that God is THE CREATOR, so to approach Him with reverent creativity is to approach one of the core pieces of who He is!

Though this book is geared for women (and is actually one of the resources on the new Belong tour), I think it would work well for teens, too, so if you're mentoring a young woman or have a daughter you're trying to find some common ground with on the topic of teaching prayer, this might be the ticket!

GIVEAWAY: I have one copy of this book to give away to one of YOU! To enter, just leave a comment telling me your biggest obstacle in your prayer life. (And if you comment anonymously, make sure you leave your contact info so I can reach you if I draw your name!) I'll leave this contest open until next Friday night, January 20th, at midnight, and then I'll post the winner's name on next week's Saturday 6!

** I received two copies of Designed to Pray at no cost to me from Tyndale Momentum and the Blythe Daniel Agency. All opinions on the book in this written review and in the podcast are my own. *

The Shafferland Shuffle

After the week we've had, I kind of feel like New Year's Day was about 1000 years ago, but alas, it was just last Sunday! Here's a peek at our way-more-eventful-week-than-we-planned happenings!

* Last Sunday, as I said, was New Year's Day, and we'd planned to spend the day with Ryan's extended family for our annual Christmas gathering, but alas, we spent it in the Emergency Room instead, trying to get to the bottom of Ryan's sudden onset of pain within the last week. After four hours and a huge battery of tests, we were sent home with instructions to await the birth of Myrtle the kidney stone.

* Monday was our 49th monthiversary, and since Ryan's department was closed to observe New Year's Day, we actually got to spend the day together. YAY!!! We took it easy at home and tried to celebrate, but Ryan was still in a decent amount of pain, so it wasn't perhaps in the top five of most fun and eventful monthiversaries of all time. I hated that for him, but I was still happy to be with him.

* Tuesday, Ryan went back to work, and so did I, after a month or so away from my writing and speaking pursuits. We also hosted our first Tuesdays at the Table for 2017 that night, inviting our friends John and Sandee over for dinner. Apparently I cooked the worst of all the things for Ryan's poor stomach, because John and Sandee had barely left before we were in the car headed back to the Emergency Room for another 3 hours of tests. This time, we were sent home with an ulcer diagnosis.

* Wednesday, I returned to the carpool world, because school returned to full-time session. (I had a feeling the kiddo I drive to school would not be quite ready to go back, and I was right!) I spent the day working hard, and when I went to visit Ryan at the end of the work day, I even got to see Miss Phoebe! That's always a good day. Ended the day by making a big batch of granola, which made the house smell just like a bakery.

* Thursday, I devoted (hey!! that's my word of the year!) my entire day to finishing the work on my website to get it up and running. I got the entire site done, which made me SO HAPPY, and also SO BEHIND on my steps. I had to do some major laps around the house to get them all in, but I did it! And it was the perfect day to do all this, because it was also our first snow of 2017! (There's no picture of this because I guess he didn't want to remember it, but this was also the day of Ryan's gallbladder ultrasound, which showed the healthiest liver in Howard county...and no gallstones.)

* Friday was cold here in the Midwest, although we were not preparing for any blizzards like I know some of you were! I ran my errands early so I could be HOME where it was warm, finishing my book and trying out my new foot soak kit (HEAVENLY). Ryan and I did our grocery shopping right after work so we could come home and rest all evening. Ryan's had a long, hard week, and he definitely deserved his rest! Since we can't eat most places currently, we got Subway and brought it home. Delicious - and bonus! Didn't make Ryan sick!

* Yesterday was cold again, but I told Ryan whenever the sun comes out and the wind dies down, it somehow doesn't feel quite as cold. I worked hard to try making some new recipes to try to make Ryan's diet a little more exciting, and he was able to eat everything I made. YAY! He was even feeling well enough last night to run to Starbucks for a latte. He takes the whole coffee thing very easy right now, so this was a treat!

The Christmas Shuffle!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! We know many of you are extra busy today with Christmas festivities and church, too, so you might not even be here to read this ON Christmas day, but whenever you arrive at this post, we wish you a very merry Christmas!!

We've had a full week, and our best gift is that we are FINALLY FEELING BETTER!!!!!

* Because a second round of ice was expected to fall overnight Saturday into Sunday, many churches canceled their Sunday morning services, including ours. AND, Ryan's mom postponed their family Christmas, which was supposed to be that day as well. So Ryan and I had a whole day at home! Ryan made breakfast, we watched church on TV, and we took a whole day of rest, enjoying movies, football, scrapbooking, naps, and the Christmas lights!

* Even though it was so bitterly cold that all the schools around here operated on a delay, last Monday morning was so pretty. Sunrise on snow is beautiful! AND I found a cardinal in the tree, so that made me happy, too! Ryan and I had a few errands to run after work, and we stopped by to visit a friend who is home-bound now. He was happy to see us and asked his caregiver to make us espresso, which I promptly ruined by adding creamer. LOL! But it was good to see him and try to bring some Christmas cheer!

* Tuesday was the last day of school before Christmas break, so I did my last carpool run before coming home to work on my 2017 planner. {Happiness in a day!} I also had a little more wrapping to do - including Ryan's stocking stuffers, so I got that done. Our only free night this week was Tuesday, so we finished binge-watching a DVR'd show, and Ryan was exceedingly sad to realize he was going to have to wait quite a while for the next episode!

* Wednesday was my parents' neighborhood Christmas party and we went as photographers for the photo booth, which was much fun! Dinner was delicious, the company was fun, and we had a great time!

* Thursday, I met up with one of my friends for coffee and some shopping in the afternoon, which was a fun treat! That night, Ryan and I joined his family to celebrate his mom's birthday, and we ended up having a good time together - even if we traumatized our poor waitress!

* Friday felt like Saturday ALL DAY. Not sure why! I met with my friend Faith and her daughters for our annual Christmas celebration, and we had a great time. That night, Ryan and I had date night, which included a trip through the We Care Park to see the lights. We drove it since it was rainy, but it was still a lot of fun!

* Ryan had to work yesterday morning, and while he was gone, I had a massive cookie baking extravaganza for all the Christmas celebrations. It was FUN! And last night was our first Christmas of 2016, with Ryan's dad's side of the family. His grandma always makes an amazing dinner {ham, noodles, the whole nine yards} and we got to exchange gifts with that side. Great night!

So...merry Christmas from us!! Can't wait to catch up with you this week and tell you all about Christmas! :)

Rest...Heard of It?

Yesterday was supposed to be our family Christmas with Ryan's mom's side of the family. Christmas in the log cabin is always picturesque. It's the kind of Christmas that when I married into the family, I thought fully encapsulated what Christmas was supposed to look like. Lots of family, lots of kids, lots of excitement, lots of food, and, well, of course - the log cabin in the woods.

{I'm not kidding. Photo credit to Nita for this, but see what I mean??}

But when ice covered central Indiana overnight from Friday into Saturday, and when the forecast called for more of the same, plus sub-zero temperatures for Sunday, the decision was made to err on the side of safety and delay Christmas until a warmer (?), safer day.

Our church bent toward safety, too, canceling services yesterday, so Ryan and I were presented with one of our favorite things: a snow day!

Ryan got up before I did {because left to my own devices, I will not exit a bed until the last possible minute} and had the kitchen buzzing with biscuits, gravy, eggs, and coffee by the time I finally peeked out with bedhead and a purple bathrobe wrapped all around me.

A lazy morning of breakfast, coffee, and church on TV followed by naps, football, scrapbooking, more naps, more coffee, more football, and twinkly lights shining from Grizzy in the corner made for pretty much the perfect day.

It's not Christmas in a log cabin, to be sure. We had to concoct an alternative dinner plan that wasn't quite as delicious as Allen's pancakes with homemade maple syrup, but even with those adjustments, it was a good day.

Christmas in the Midwest falls to the mercy of the weather more than any of us want to admit. Flights are canceled and people who planned to come home...can't. Parties have to be postponed. Christmas programs get moved. It's disappointing to young and old alike, for sure, when the calendar, already stuffed full of activities, has to be altered.

But sometimes we need rest more than we need the happenings. That whole silent night and heavenly peace thing isn't just for the songs. It's for us, too. It's for those of us who are worn out from making lots of memories. It's for those of us who have overextended in every way to make things perfect for the kids. It's for those of us who are juggling extra jobs on top of extra get-togethers. It's for those of us who are fighting to get well (or stay well) amid a sea of germs.

We don't do it well - the choosing rest. Sometimes we have to bend to the mercy of the weather, swallow the disappointment, and learn to be okay with a plan B sort of celebration. And in the middle of it all, it might just be good for us to think about this thing called rest that has just been offered to us.

The Shafferland Shuffle

BE SAFE, my friends! I know there's a lot of bad weather filtering about this morning. Please, oh please, be safe out there!!

* Last Sunday was a sick day at the Shaffer household. Ryan was just certain if he could have one whole day at home to rest, he could kick the cold and get well again. While it didn't totally cure him, it did go a long way in helping. It snowed, so it was pretty to watch that from the comfort of the INSIDE. Even though we were sad to miss church, it was glorious to have a whole day at home! A true Sabbath!

* Monday's mail truck brought me a PRESENT! I may be 38, but I'm not too old to freak out in joy over a present in the mail! :) I worked from home, in the presence of our pretty Griswold tree, and knocked out a ton of chores. And when Ryan came home, Braeya curled right up in his lap and slept the night away. It's her happiest moment.

* Tuesday morning, AFTER I got home from my carpool run, it started snowing, and it was so pretty. Like a snow globe. I loved it! And Tuesday night, we hosted Tuesdays at the Table! We invited over a couple we'd never hung out with before, and we laughed so hard. It was the best time! Perfect night for soup and pie and laughter! :)

 * Ryan was excited on Wednesday, because there was a giant crane doing work at his work. I'm pretty sure he secretly wanted to go drive it! :) In other secret wishes, Braeya secretly wished she could have a piece of Ryan's pie. She was funny - she just sat next to him, very quietly, looking the other direction, like "if I am just good enough, he will notice me and share." Didn't happen. So she paid him back later by drinking his water. And this is why we have to have sippy cups.

* Thursday. Oh, you guys. THURSDAY. That cold of Ryan's came right back to me, and I was utterly flattened. I never left the couch. I tried to read and watch TV, but the truth was, I slept the entire afternoon away. Ryan said he had never seen me as sick as I was that day, and that's probably about the truth. He prayed for me, which I really appreciated, and I also appreciated being able to be home and have pretty lights to look at between naps. But other than that, I would just prefer to forget Thursday.

* By Friday, Ryan and I were ready to declare WAR on the germs in our house. We washed and disinfected EVERYTHING. And while I did feel much better than I did on Thursday, I was still not great, so that night, we curled up and watched Christmas Vacation and drank the delicious lattes that our friends Mike and Angie brought to us as a gift to cheer us up!

* So if you're not from around central Indiana, you might have missed out on the ice that blanketed us overnight Friday into Saturday. Woke up to an actual skating rink outside. It was insane! We slept in, took it easy, and then Ryan went out to salt the driveway, and one of our friends in the neighborhood had a sled out and was sledding down the ice in the driveway. Of course Ryan wanted to try, and I have {are you ready for this?} never gone sledding before. So we both went. We were just out for a few minutes, but it was fun in the most terrifying way! We did manage to get out a bit later for errands, and then we hunkered down before the next round hit!

Heading to Wisconsin!!

Ryan and I have birthdays three weeks apart from one another, and we decided when we got married that each year, we wanted to take a trip of some sort near our birthdays, just to get away, refresh, and enjoy each other. {If you've missed our past fun, you can read the posts from this page.} The first year we went to the Creation Museum AND ziplining. The second year we went to the Holland Tulipless Festival, which proved to be an amusing and frigid getaway. Last year we headed south to warmer climates and trekked through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.

This year, our trip was quite different in that it was a pleasure-combined-with-work trip. Last fall, my friend Olivia called to see if I would be interested in having my name submitted for speaker consideration for a conference hosted by her church. I already knew that God was calling me to more of this line of work, and this seemed like a wonderful opportunity. I also knew I wanted Ryan to go with me, but he has such limited time off work that I knew there would be no way he could accompany me to this and still have adequate time off to go on another adventure, so we combined them.

After the incredibly mild winter we had and the early, warm spring, you'd think that going to Wisconsin in early April would be most pleasant, weather-wise.

Or not.

We left home last Friday morning, on a yucky, cloudy, is-it-gonna-rain kind of day.

 I should mention that Ryan came home from work the night before we left, miserably sick with some sinus mess, so our backseat was packed with luggage, pillows, maps, computers, and his mobile medicine cabinet. Bless his heart, he really tried so hard to be an amazing trooper through the entire weekend, but I know there were times he just wanted to curl up and sleep for days.

We stopped for frozen Cokes - a treat for me, since that's not on the clean eating plan, and a soothing treat for his fiery throat.

I spent most of the first part of the day editing our podcast - extra fun to do when the roads were so loud that I sometimes had to hold my laptop up to my ear to hear it well!

We drove through every imaginable weather condition, from rain to sleet to snow, and Ryan hung on for dear life against the maddening WIND! We spent a couple of hours getting through Chicago. Sigh.

Stopped for a quick lunch and got back on the road with an initial destination of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. I drove the last leg of that part of our trip so Ryan could sleep.

I wanted to stop in Sun Prairie, because a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Lindsay Sherbondy of Lindsay Letters {back when I was still at WBCL}. Lindsay is an artist who has designed the covers of books for Shauna Niequist and Myquillyn Smith {The Nester} - and she was one of my most favorite people to interview when I worked at the station.

I'd read on her website that she'd recently opened a storefront called Letters on Main, and I wanted to visit it! I checked ahead of time to make sure they were going to be open, and it so happened they would be on that day!

You. Guys.

This is the cutest shop EVER!! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

She sells her own things and also the creativity of some others, and it was just a delightful, inspiring place to be. And even better...when I met her in person, she was just wonderful in every way. She was so kind, gave me a hug, agreed to a picture with me, and even sent me on my way with some goodies for free. {I can't wait to show you what I bought, too!}

It was such a lovely little stop. I'm so glad we went. If you're ever in the area, GO. And if you're not, check out her online shop. CUTE, CUTE, CUTE stuff.

There happened to be a little local coffee shop around the corner, so Ryan and I felt it was only necessary to stop for a fresh brew and to split a pumpkin scone because...well...vacation.

And then back on the snowy roads we went, with a destination intent of Chilton, Wisconsin.

Before we'd been there very long, this was the ground:

Ummm, come on, SPRING!!!!!!! What in the world!?!?!?!?!!

{In case you've never heard of Chilton, it's just northwest of Milwaukee, a little south of Green Bay, and on the opposite side of Lake Winnebago from Osh Kosh. It's just a little town in an agricultural community, but my goodness, did we EVER feel loved and welcomed while we were there.}

Olivia is a friend of mine from YEARS ago; we went to church together and I mentored her for about 10 years starting when she was 16. She's married now with two of the cutest kids you'll ever see {and you will see a LOT of them over the next couple of days}. It was my first time to meet the littlest one, and I am pretty sure by the time we met, we made a couple of little friends for life!

Olivia had made us a home-cooked meal that night, healthy and everything! {Learned I like Brussels sprouts...who knew???} And before we went to bed, we went to the high school where the conference was held to do our technology check with their tech guy.

It was a long, but wonderful day!