Perspective

I decided many months ago that I wanted to write the Shafferland story. I think I was driven to make sure our story was committed to paper in case either one of us ended up forgetting who we were and how we lived. {Yes. Too much Notebook.}

I wrote the story of our first year a while ago and immediately launched into preserving the second year, but then life began to happen and I stopped writing. For some reason, this week, the writing bug bit {HARD} again, and I've been sneaking to the computer every spare minute to relive year two through blog posts, journal entries, and scrapbook pages so I can transcribe the story for posterity.

People, this is why I'm such an advocate for scrapbooking and journaling. So many things were hidden in those pages that I'd forgotten. I remembered much, but I'd forgotten much, too. Feelings and prayers, Scriptures and quotes, ups and downs, the funny and the heartbreaking - they were all waiting for me in words and pictures.

The particular part of our story I'm writing right now is exhausting me as I relive it. In no particular order, here were some of our obstacles in our second season:

* Double commuting
* Polar vortex
* Job stresses
* Double home ownership
* Low self-esteem {okay that one was just me}
* Plumbing replacement

Daunting enough in list form. But each point carried sub-points that added about 150 pounds of emotional weight to each of us.

Job stresses weren't just "job stresses." They were weights that made Ryan hold his breath to see if his very job would hold and weights that sent me home sobbing every. single. day.

Double home ownership wasn't just about the inconvenience of owning two homes. It was about drowning beneath betrayal from people who had committed to buying Ryan's old house and then moved out instead, leaving us not only stuck with a house, but spending spare dollars we didn't have to repair damages they left.

It was all-consuming. So many questions. So many decisions. So much unknown. So much hurt.

As I sorted through the pages of my journal, I stopped cold on these words, written on February 23, 2014:

Bring the right people for the {Greentown} house and bring the right house for us. Give us direction about where we should go. Bring us HOME.

Of course in my mind, all this bringing and giving would happen in short, orderly fashion. Isn't that ultimately the hope of all our prayer requests when we utter them?

In reality, it would be five more months before we received an offer on Ryan's house, and it would be another 141 days {five months, roughly} before we signed the house over to its new owner. But in that long, daunting, ten-month span, God would indeed answer the cry of my heart: the right people bought the house. We still smile when we drive by and see how they continue to make it their own. We are grateful it can bless them, and we are simultaneously grateful to be out from under the deep stress of owning two homes.

And in fact, exactly two years after I wrote this prayer in my journal {two years TO THE DAY}, we received word that the appraisal on our new house, our now house, was complete. And in less than one month from that day, we would own the house and be mid-renovation already.

In those two years, God did bring the right house. He did give us direction. He was lining up the buyer for the house we had shared the first few years of our marriage. He'd freed me to be a stay-at-home wife.

It wasn't short or orderly, but it was complete.

This is why I love to journal. I have, as Ann-Voskamp wrote in The Broken Way, "God-Amnesia." I forget what I know to be true. I lose sight of the journey we've walked together. I need to be reminded of His faithfulness - not just in the ANSWERS, but in the journey that LEADS to the answers. The journey matters as much, if not more, than the answers.

I sit here today, grateful for that hard year we lived. I'm not sure how we survived it with smiles on our faces, as I look back over the consistent crushing blows of that year. But we did survive it, and we are stronger and more unified as a couple and in our faith today than we were before the year began.

I'm also profoundly grateful for the answers. They came slowly, but God was faithful in the journey. 

What I Learned in October

WHAT!!?!?!?! October is over??? But I haven't started scrapbooking it yet! Guess I better hurry! October is done, which means a happy birthday {yesterday} to my sister, a Happy Halloween to all of you today {don't eat too much candy}, and it's time for another round of wisdom/useless information gathered throughout the past 31 days!

1. We don't like vanilla flavored Greek yogurt.

Anymore, I use Greek yogurt in many ways: to make salad dressing, as a mayo and sour cream replacement, as the main course for breakfast, etc. Because I sometimes need it sweet and sometimes need it savory, I always buy plain yogurt and just sweeten it with honey as needed. Early this month, our grocery store was out of plain yogurt, but they had vanilla, which promised no artificial flavoring, so we bought that instead. Hated it. I ended up using it in the protein shakes I make, because the other flavors in the shake compensated for the aftertaste, but we decided this is not the yogurt for us. Back to honey.

2. Fall in our new home is lovely.

I lived in the same house for 16 years, so I am thoroughly enjoying the change of scenery at the change of this season! This is our first fall in our new home, and I'm quickly learning where all the prettiest trees are in the neighborhood, and I'm soaking in every bit of this transition to beautiful leaves! 

3. Finding your stride in a new church home is an undertaking.

At first I started to say it was "hard," but I'm not sure that's the right word. Ryan and I started looking for a new church home at the start of this month, and we actually really liked the first church we tried. So for that reason, I don't think we can say it's been a hard season, but it's truly an interesting position being the new people in the family. We have to find new friends and ways to serve and how to be comfortable among a group that has already found a comfort zone. So it's an undertaking. One that has been way more positive than negative, but still an adjustment, for sure!

4. I love having Ryan by my side when I speak at retreats.

This month, I got to take him with me to the retreat I spoke at, and it made all the difference in my soul. To have him right there to pray over me and support me was beyond what I could have even imagined. We knew we were better as a team, but I don't think we knew until that moment that we were SO invested as each others' best teammates! 

5. I love planning days, even if I am mocked for them.

I set aside a day this month, packed a bag, and went to a coffee shop to do some planning for the next calendar year. Ryan's co-workers did NOT understand the importance {and sheer joy} of being in the presence of coffee, multi-colored pens, and papers to do my planning, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. To be fair, all the brainstorming 100% wore me out, and I had to go to bed early that night, but it was still FUN!!!! I'm excited to see what God does with 2017.

6. I have not outgrown craft dates with friends.

Before I was married, I frequently got together with friends to do some version of crafting. {Usually scrapbooking.} A variety of factors ended that habit for the most part, but early this month, one of my friends wanted to celebrate her birthday by hosting a bring-your-own-craft-and-a-snack-to-share night. We got together at her grandma's house, in an old workshop area, and had the best time crafting. I felt bad leaving Ryan at home while I hung out with my glue gun and a plate of snickerdoodles, but it was SO MUCH FUN. Hmmmm...we do have that nicely finished garage. Perhaps I should host craft dates of my own!!!  

 7. I enjoy helping people tell their stories.

This month brought a new adventure for me: freelance writing! I was hired by an organization to help edit a book that tells the stories of their years of service. Along the way, in addition to editing, they asked if I could just straight up write some of the stories for them. So I spent several hours at my desk, listening to recorded interviews and crafting stories from what I heard. I'd never done this before, but I learned I really loved it. I have no idea if this kind of work is a one-time thing for me, or if it's a door opening for work God has ahead, but I thoroughly enjoyed helping tell a story! 

That's what I learned this month! I don't think Emily Freeman does her linkup of these anymore {at least she hasn't for the past few months} which is EXCEEDINGLY sad, because it was so much fun to read what people had learned, but it's still a fun post for me each month. Good to know I haven't given up learning!  

The Saturday Six

One.

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You might have seen this on Facebook, because it's been everywhere, but if you've missed it, I wanted to show you! The silo minion! This is located not far from us, in Ossian, Indiana. {And this is a county we have already toured, or you can KNOW we would put it on the list of things to stop and see while we're in the area!}

Two.

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I am typically not a fan of letter art {unless the letters spell something} but when I read this post by KariAnne and saw the very end, I got all mushy inside. The reminder that the letters can be formed into words, which are then formed into the stories of our lives got me right in the soul.  I imagine it is only a matter of time before I want to make my own one of these...

Three.

It's been a while since I had a current favorite song, but Breathe by Jonny Diaz holds that title right now. Good message, catchy tune, and flat out TRUTH. If you haven't heard it, check it out!

Four.

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Some of you may have already seen this, but for those of you who haven't, you should read this post by Rory Feek. A friend of his has taken footage Rory shot of Joey throughout her last couple of years and is turning it into a film version of the story of her life. The story-lover in me loves this.  

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With travel season in full swing, I really appreciated this post by a blogger who has started a clean eating journey as well. She shares some of her tips for eating well while traveling!

Six.

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I have been waiting for this book since I closed the first book in the series. {And not waiting very patiently, either, I might add.} This book is a celebratory marker for its author, Irene Hannon, because it is her fiftieth novel. WOW! Congratulations, Irene!

I fell in love with the fictitious little town of Hope Harbor {on the Pacific Northwest Coast} in the first book, titled Hope Harbor {my review of that book found here}, and have wondered if maybe someone could actually build the town so we could move there. It's one of those charming little towns where everyone knows everyone else's business, but in the kind of way that makes good neighbors, not in the kind of way that makes you want to go into seclusion.

From food trucks to cranberry bogs to local plays, Hope Harbor is a delight, and in book number two, Sea Rose Lane, Eric Nash heads back to this little town where he grew up to regroup after losing his job. A good attorney with a rising career, Eric has fallen victim to a company restructure, and when he arrives back in town {with a bit of a literal bump after crashing his BMW into a pickup truck owned by BJ Stevens}, he finds that his dad is smack in the middle of transforming their big family home into a BandB.

Furthermore, BJ is the contractor overseeing the job, and her presence causes more than a few distractions for an already unsettled Eric. With a suddenly-free schedule, Eric begins helping out here and there, and every path seems to push him closer and closer to the lovely BJ. Having just come out of a disastrous relationship herself, BJ is not interested in looking for romance, but after a few run-ins with Eric {the one involving their vehicles excluded, of course}, she is surprised to learn she isn't interested in letting this one get too far away.

The book includes glimpses of friends from book one but a host of new friends to love, too! I loved returning to Hope Harbor and am THRILLED to see that next spring I can go back AGAIN!!!!


Thank you, Irene, for a delightful return trip to see my book-friends in Hope Harbor and thank you, Revell, for providing a copy of the book in exchange for review!
 

 

Memories Enough

Yesterday I worked hard on the scrapbook I've been making to cover the great move of 2016. It's the chronicle not just of the nuts and bolts of moving, but of the beautiful story God wrote with the purchase and sale of our homes. I showed it to Ryan when I finished working for the day, and as he scrolled through the 130-some pages of the book, he said, "I think I know why we've been so tired."

Reliving our last night at our old house reminded me of a beautiful moment God and I shared that I wanted to pass on to you once I had time to process it!

The last evening Ryan and I spent at our old house was just two days before we signed it away to its new owner. It was our 41st monthiversary, and we went over on a gloomy, rainy night to mow one more time, to do one more sweep of the place {to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything} and to say our final goodbyes.

After I helped mow the yard, I asked Ryan if I could have some time just to sit and think, and he was kind to finish up the yard work alone so I could do my mental processing.

I went upstairs into the bedroom that had most recently served as our office, sat down on the carpet remnant covering the hardwood floor, and leaned up against the window.

The room echoed in its physical emptiness, and the light was dim, since we'd taken all the lamps to our new home, but in my mind, the room was full and bright with stories and memories.

I let my mind wander back to my childhood, when I slept in the big four-poster bed Grandma and Grandpa kept in that room. I remembered the rolling blinds that snapped to the top in the mornings, letting the bright sunshine flood in. I remembered the night Grandma woke me up to tell me we had to get to the hospital because Grandpa had taken a bad turn. I remembered moving my white metal daybed into that room the day I moved in as an adult. I remembered waking up on cold winter mornings and snuggling deep in the bed. I remembered calling 911 on the neighbors across the street when I saw one of them breaking down the door in the middle of the night. {That was many years ago. They had long since moved away.} I remembered transforming the room into my home office and writing hundreds of thousands of words.

I remembered all those things, just about that room. And then my  mind moved to all the other rooms and I kept remembering. I stretched to search for memories, inside and out, and then I stared at the scratched floor that has seen more memories even than I have, and I asked the question:

 Had I done enough? Had I taken enough pictures? Had I written down enough of the moments? Had I captured enough of life in this house, between words and photos? This was my last chance. This was my last night to hold keys that could get me in the door. Did I need to do more? Did I need to capture something while I still could?

And God stopped me right there.

It's enough.

He impressed on my heart that any memory I needed to capture had been, in some way, captured. It was preserved on a hard drive somewhere, pressed into a scrapbook, scribbled in a journal, or at the very least, etched on the corner of my mind.

If the memory wasn't captured, it wasn't a memory I needed to have. I had done enough. No regrets. I had worked hard to capture life in that house, and it was good enough. More than good enough, actually. It was more than adequate to carry me through the rest of my life.

And it doesn't end with the house. It extends to the corners of my life. I know I have a reputation as the Bekahrazzi, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I want to capture life because when life changes or something about it ends, I want to know I did all I could to tell a story.

One of Ryan's co-workers passed away unexpectedly a few days ago. I scrolled through my phone and found a picture I'd taken of him just a week before his death, when I happened to be visiting Ryan and documenting a corn hole tournament. It wasn't a posed photo. It was just a haphazard action shot I snapped from the corner, hoping to be mostly oblivious. Who knew that in a week's time, that would be a cherished photo for our scrapbook, because it captured the last time Ryan would ever partner with him in a game?

The memories don't have to be perfect to be enough. The pictures don't have to be flawless. The words don't have to be eloquent. They just need to be.

The Thing about Pictures

Tis the season to take lots and lots of pictures, right? {I mean that's just every day for me, but for those a little less obsessed, this tends to be the time of year when we take more than even usual.

And this is also the season when they tell you {they being all the bloggers and TV people} how to take the best pictures and capture the memories without blur, without poor lighting, without missing the moment...on and on it goes.

It can stress a person just to think about it!

While I'm as eager as the next person to get a good picture, I think there's also a good point to remembering that not every photo has to be award-winning to be worth keeping.

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, Ryan and I went to our brother-in-law's 40th birthday party. Johnny's wife, who is Ryan's sister, had put together a 20 minute video full of pictures of Johnny's life - from his childhood forward.

And for those twenty minutes, all the guests stopped and did this:

We watched as the many hairstyles of Johnny crossed the screen. We laughed at the silly ones, made fun of outfits, cracked up at faces, and took moments to remember the people he loved who weren't there in person that day, but whose lives haven't been forgotten.

After the video, Ryan talked to Johnny about what a great gift Lori had given him in that, and Johnny said this, which struck me right in the heart: "Thank goodness for pictures. I'd forgotten some of that stuff. It was so good to see it."

It struck me because I'd spent the entire evening fighting with my camera in the low lighting of the party room, waiting for the disco ball lights to cross people's faces so they didn't look like they had red-eye all over when I snapped pictures. It had been a rough photography night. And I did delete a BUNCH of pictures.

But there were some I kept even though they weren't perfect, because Johnny's words stuck with me. Pictures that weren't even CLOSE to perfect. Pictures that will never win an award. Pictures that aren't clear and would provide photography teachers with a dozen "don't do this" teachable moments.

But yet at the same time, pictures that preserve a moment and after all...that's the point of pictures. Pictures that I tried to edit and clean up the best I could, and then I handed the over imperfect memories because I hope in twenty years, Johnny can look back at a new video and be reminded of moments he had forgotten, but moments that aren't lost after all.

So here we are, headed into Christmas, and I hope you'll get your camera {or your phone} out and commemorate. And I hope you won't stress over the pictures that aren't perfect. I hope you'll see the beauty in the memories.

Writing

It's been right at two months now since I walked out of the station for the last time {as the Mid-Morning producer, anyway}. I'm still on my fourth tank of gas since leaving, which in days of yore, was something that happened about every seven days. Is it weird that I have measured a piece of life in gas tanks?

People ask how I'm liking this new season, and I tell them I can't possibly love it enough. It's a grace, a gift, and absolutely right. {And who knows - it could change again, but for now, it's where I'm called to be.}

I came into this season with two goals: to be a wife and to write. Wifing it is going well, and hopefully Ryan would agree. It's a blessing to spend my days taking care of our home so we don't have to spend our evenings rushing through loads of laundry, washing dishes, and blowing thick layers of dust off the furniture. It's been a relief to go through every corner of the house and clean out the excess we don't need. It's been a joy to make meals and have them ready for our dinner when Ryan comes home. All those tangible things allow me {allow both of us, really} the luxury of having more time to just be when the day ends.

As for writing...well, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I had the time to do it. Or perhaps I should say I wasn't sure what God wanted me to do.

Of course the blog takes part of my writing time, and it's so nice to be able to do that during the day as well, while Ryan works, so I don't have to delay our time together in the evening to blog. And I've had the opportunity to write more for the Broken, Beautiful, Bold blog, which has been great accountability. I've even been doing a bit of writing for a project at our church, and I'm grateful for that.

As I prayed about a project for myself, God led me quickly and unmistakably to one that has been germinating in my heart for years, and now is pushing down small roots. It's still very, very raw and I'll tell you more about it later when I have something to tell.

Meanwhile, there was this one other project, one that I actually started back when I still worked full time. I didn't have an intent for it, really, other than to do it. But this past week, the full labor pains kicked in and I birthed thousands of words in one week.

It's the story of us.

A memoir, you could say, of our first year of marriage. Shafferland, Season One with all its comedy, all its drama, and all its lessons.

Much work remains to be done on the many pages that poured from my mind onto screen. Much editing, refining, reliving, rewording. It's not finished, but it is done. The story is down, in its Notebookness.{That was one of the main reasons I wanted to write it: if we got all Notebookey and forgot our story, I wanted to have it preserved.}

I laughed and cried at our own history as I wrote. Beautiful memories, frustrating memories, funny memories...they all evoked such emotion in me that sometimes I had to pause just to gather myself again.

My journals, scrapbooks, and blog posts were all strewn about as I pieced together our story into one place...and as I wrote, I saw something I hadn't remembered. It was in that first year that God began to stir my heart about being a wife and writer. I looked at my heart wrestlings on paper...words of conflict between how much I loved my job and how much I wanted to devote to my marriage. It was a tug-of-war that lasted, according to my journal, two years from the first inkling to the final goodbye.

What a beautiful blessing to sit on the other side of that answer and see the moment of its conception. I hadn't expected it, but I gave thanks in it.

And with the final keystroke of the draft...I cried. I cried because it was my first completion in this season. My first big project - regardless of how far it goes outside our own home - is done. I stand two months into a new life chapter with a completed work in my hand. Perhaps the largest completed work I've written.

I celebrate it. And I wanted to celebrate it with you. For many of the words I'd written here to you about our love, our life, and our lessons found their way into that project. Thank you for being a welcoming place for me to share my thoughts every day. You help me preserve our story in the tiniest of bits every day.

Season One: documented. I look forward to the days of editing, refining, and moving on to write about season two!

Writing Our Story a Page at a Time

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted on Facebook something about wishing people would stop being so consumed with pictures and just start living life in the moment.

I'm sure I don't need to explain to you why that touched a bit of a nerve for me, the Bekahrazzi. But alas, these sorts of comments don't run my life, so I moved on to the next post and tried to forget I'd even read it.

Late last week, a guy from my high school {that I knew of, but didn't really know} lost his wife unexpectedly. She probably wasn't even 40. She just died...no warning. No time to prepare. And the next day, he took to Facebook and begged parents to take pictures with their kids...to make videos with their kids. Because he's got a little guy at home too young to really retain memories of a mama who isn't there now. And this heartbroken father is now trying to scrape together fragmented representation of memories for his son.

And he asked if anyone knew how to make a photo book.

I've written before about my scrapbooking passion, but I'm doing it again because his post reminded me why I do it. Why I soak up hours out of my weekends to put together photo books for our little Shafferland. Why I push myself to finish vacation albums as soon as I can after the trip, before I forget details. Why I'm willing to save up Christmas and birthday money to spend it all on my books if I need to.This isn't just a hobby I'm crazy about or an obsession I need.

When I read that Facebook post about preserving memories, my first thought was, "Please, dear Lord, let me live a good long time. But if I don't, Ryan won't ever have to worry about forgetting a single thing of our life together, because I have preserved it for him. Every joy. Every sorrow. Every long, hard season. Every victory. I put it on paper for him."

Thanks to killer sales and Christmas money, I just received four scrapbooks I'd completed a while ago but had been waiting to buy. And here are some things I love about these books that make me thankful I've been capturing our story in words and pictures, one page at a time:

* One of the books I just got was our reception album...and it's been almost two years since our at-home reception. I love the page the chronicles the making of the new Freelan family photo: the first one to include EVERYONE. On the right? The good picture. On the left? Reality of the making of the photo. You betcha I included it! This is who we are!!

* I personally don't subscribe to the theory of picking only the best of the best of the best pictures. I put them all in. I try to capture life. Like, at our reception, the picture of me intensely explaining the finer points of how to serve ice cream to Tom and Olivia. Ryan, evidently turning into a weather man to my third grade teacher. And my niece being a mini-me: texting during a lull.

* Another book we got this last week was the chronicle of the first ever Freelan family vacation, taken this last June in honor of my parents' 60th anniversary. I did a page about our trip to the hotel pool and as I read through my journaling, I remembered that we'd been playing with a beach ball we found, only to find out it actually belonged to another family staying at the hotel - and how they were gracious enough to let us keep borrowing it. I'd forgotten all about that until I read it.

* Sometimes I write a bit of history in my books, like this page, where I wrote about this history of St. Meinrad Archabbey....a place we visited during one of our county tours. I didn't have to worry about keeping the brochure this way, and it helps me preserve the important stories behind this historic place.

* Although I make our books for us, other people look at them too. My friend Jeri looked at our Holiday World book and said to me {after seeing the page below}, "I never knew Ryan could eat so much!" I'd written about how he sort of put away extraordinary amounts of food on that trip - and how it just became funny after a while. I love it that people who don't know us well, but might look at our books, can learn something fun about us. Random trivia preserved in pages.

* Those Shafferland Shuffle pictures you look at every week? I put them in our chronological books. Every single day of our last year, documented in some little way.

* The books aren't just about me. They're about things that are important to Ryan, too! Yes, I documented the day we sold the Asphyxiator. Hey! That truck had been a big part of Ryan's life - and ours - but really his. Selling him was a big deal!

* Best moment ever? Hearing Ryan say, as he looked at the books when they came, "I'm glad you do this. I'd already forgotten some of this stuff. Thanks for writing our life."

I'm not saying you have to scrapbook. But whether you journal or Instagram or Facebook or blog or scrapbook - write your story. Write it for you. Write it for your spouse. Write it for your kids. Write it for those who love you. Chronicle this journey God is making with YOU!

The Saturday Six

One.

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You know how much I love looking at houses...both plans to build and existing houses to buy. Some people play Facebook games. I house hunt. But this post about mail order homes in the early 1900s is fascinating!!!!

Two.

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Melanie wrote this post about her blog...and how she felt spiritual attack as she tried to write a series on digging deeper into the Bible. I firmly believe in spiritual warfare and believe Satan does come after those who are trying to serve the Lord. I love how she's not letting him win!!

Three.

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As a girl who regularly struggles with fear, I found this post by the lovely and wise Susie Larson very timely and encouraging.

Four.

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I've mentioned this general story on the Saturday Six before, but I love this new article by Holley Gerth about how her new 20 year old daughter adopted HER...and I love it mostly because it speaks volumes of truth about how these pretty little formulas we think need to be followed are all of our own making. God sometimes writes the most unorthodox stories - and they are SO GORGEOUS in their own way.

Five.

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Well, I live in Indiana, so really putting much thought into a winter outdoor living space is pointless, since it would all get buried beneath all the Polar Vortexing...but if I did live somewhere with less snow, I would want my Christmas porch to look like this one by Emily A. Clark. Stunning.

Six.

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This week, I had a chance to interview Melissa Deeg, the creator of Droolery. When Ryan and I were shopping down near Holiday World earlier this year, I found Droolery in a store and thought it was the coolest thing. It's jewelry for moms of babies. The beads are safe for babies to chew on...so if you have kids, you don't have to skip wearing jewelry until they're in Kindergarten. You should check it out!! 

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday morning, we walked to church in the cold and snow...if we ever move, we have decided we will miss walking to church! Even in the cold and snow! We spent the afternoon watching football {Ryan} and scrapbooking {me} {as if you needed those explanations}. I made stuffed crescent rolls in honor of the playoff game, and I tried to enjoy the beautiful sunset. We are looking forward to warmer spring evenings when we can take sunset walks again!

* Monday I spent the majority of the day at work settling into my new office...yes, still. We had so much stuff to sort and weed through! I purged many files and organized the bookcases. Ryan and I went to the gym that night and then came home to watch the Downton episode we missed on Sunday...and we ate some chocolate cookies! {Not enough to negate the gym.}

* Tuesday I did more settling at work and actually got to write some interview questions on a big, clean desk...heavenly. Loved it. We stayed home that night and Ryan grilled {yes, grilled! In the cold!} and I worked on some gift/craft projects. Oh! And we watched makeover week on the Biggest Loser. You guys - ugliest cry I've had in weeks. Two solid hours of near sobbing. Such. A. Sap.

* Wednesday. was. so. cold. And the bad news? It's only going to get colder!! Our new office at work still doesn't have all the heating bugs worked out, so I never ended up taking off my scarf the entire day, trying to stay warm! {And if I'm cold, that's bad news.} So that night Ryan and I layered up the clothes, warmed our hands over the oven after we made garlic bread and then I hunkered down by the fire to use my new Shellac polish to do my first French manicure in YEARS!!!!

* Thursday afternoon, I debated about whether to drive home the interstate or the back way. Picked the interstate. Thought it would be okay. Thought wrong! Passed a nasty accident and it took longer to come home than if I'd gone the back way. Lesson learned! It was national pie day, but we were too cold to go back out and celebrate, so we ate pie-shaped cake instead. That counts, right? And guess who got to be part of BLT? RYAN!! He called in and spent some time on the air with Lynne and me. Love it when he does that!

* Friday morning I was so excited to see the sun coming up DURING my commute! HURRY, SPRING!!!! I had a good day at work - complete with sharing chocolate chip cookies with my friends! That night, despite the crazy weather predictions, Ryan and I drove to Indianapolis to have a double date with our friends, Mike and Angie. We had dinner at Fogo de Chao - and got home in the blustry, white-out filled winter at 1:30 in the morning.

* Saturday was such a wildly disappointing day. We had plans to drive to the lake and attend the wedding of some of our friends, but the weather was still so bad and the drifting/white-out reports were rolling in, so we stayed home. I was SO sad! I've been looking forward to this wedding for months! Our plan B was to rest...to sleep until almost 11, to write and write and write in our book, and to enjoy a bit of a treat for dinner - ice cream!! It was great to spend the day with Ryan - wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in a Plan B sort of day.

One Big Truth

I was reading Kelly's blog the other day and found this link-up that I want to participate in - and you can read the details of it here, if you'd like.

Most of you who read this have been lurking around my blog for a while and you know the story. You know where I was and how I hurt and how God has wildly redeemed the pain and loss.

Last week I got an email from a reader I've never met...and her story moved me to tears, because as she shared her life with me in that email, I read my own story, with slightly different details. I nodded over and over as I read - because she's walking down the very path I took not all that long ago, and she said reading through the archives of this blog is giving her hope that God is good and He can redeem.

She's not the first person to say those words to me, but each time I hear them from one of you, my mind is absolutely blown...because...

...when I was in the throes of that hurt, I didn't particularly want to read about other people's happiness. With all due respect, it kind of got on my nerves. I'd read and think, "Well, yippee for you that you have everything all patched up and happy in life. Meanwhile, I still hurt. My heart is still broken. I'm not seeing any hope at the end of this thing."

It amazes me how many people are able to read our story - all of it - and find hope in it.

When I was in the hottest, most painful part of the desert, I remember crying out to the Lord, asking Him to find me faithful in the journey - and to make the pain worthwhile. To not waste it. I firmly believed that if He trusted me with such incredible pain, He had a reason. And if I could help someone - anyone - in his/her pain, then it was worth it to me to walk the path.

It was in that season that God directed me to these verses in Deuteronomy 6:

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you - with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant - and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (vv.10-12)

And I asked Him never to let me forget.

I can look back on that season now without searing pain gripping my heart - and that is something I wasn't sure I could ever say. My heart isn't tugged and ripped with each memory. God has healed my heart and my mind, and I'm grateful.

But I have not forgotten. I've not forgotten how it DID hurt. How it DID cripple me. God's COMPLETE faithfulness. And His unmistakable, undeniable deliverance from that dry, dusty desert.

It's why I'm compelled to share my story...our story...every chance I get. God is good and faithful and I praise Him for bringing me into the promised land.

New Adventure

You know that little idea that sort of sparks on one side of your brain...and then spreads until it's all your mind can think about?

And you think about daring to voice it, but you're just not sure, so you don't...and it grows and grows in your mind until your whole head is in danger of exploding?

Truth be told, that little scenario above can describe me about 90% of the time. And the most recent time was just a few days ago.

I had a little writing dream stirring around up there. It started out little, but it grew, and I was excited about it...but scared, too. It was the kind of writing dream that involves a naked heart, and that's always intimidating to think about revealing to anyone.

But I reached the point where I HAD to say something, so I blurted it out to Ryan one night, while we were sitting on our couch relaxing after work.

I knew it was safe to tell him. He's always supportive...my biggest writing advocate. {Even more than my mother. And that is pretty impressive.} I wasn't scared of his reaction - but I certainly didn't expect the reaction I received.

I want to write with you.

You should know that Ryan's comfort level in the writing world is just about equal to my comfort level in the Big Boy Weight Room at the gym.

But this is one of the things I love most profoundly about him. When he senses a God-placed passion and direction, he doesn't let anything stand in his way. He just goes for it.

Before we even got married, we sensed God calling us to be open to sharing our hearts, our stories, our wounds, our healing...whatever He asked of us. And we said we were willing. We didn't know what that meant, but we were willing.

And this past summer, when we were up at the lake on that crazy fall-like rainy Sunday morning in July, we huddled in hoodies under a shelter while rain pelted the lake, Bibles open, fingers curled around coffee cups and said yes to the next part of God's invitation to us. We still didn't know what form it would take, but we felt compelled to say yes to being used. Being His ambassadors.

And then again a few days ago, we said yes to writing the message He has laid on our hearts.

It's scary. Ryan's not a writer and I've never written with anyone before.

It's exciting. To be chosen as a vessel is humbling and thrilling.

It's serious. To agree to be used is to be vulnerable to attack, and we know that.

It's unknown. We are still waiting for God to unfold more details, and patience is...well...we struggle with that.

We'd love for you to pray for us as we take on this new adventure. We want to make sure we're listening clearly, writing obediently and suiting up in our armor to stand against the Devil's schemes.

Will you be our prayer warriors in this season? We'd love it if you would!

Hey, When Your Husband Says You Need to Scrapbook...

I started scrapbooking right after college. My first albums are now declared pathetic pages slathered with rubber cement {GASP}, hodge-podge applications of mismatched stickers, and pictures of all sizes randomly distributed over whatever background paper I happened to have on hand.

It's embarrassing, really. So much so that I don't even really want to talk about it.

But over the years, I poured myself into scrapbooking. I found my style...my groove in the thing. I found friends who had as deep a love for the craft as I did, and we'd get together on weekends, hunched over my rickety dining room table, gulping Polar Pops and licking brownie crumbs off our fingers. We'd rotate movies in the other room but the understood scrapbooking silence hung in the room. We could be together but in our own worlds...reliving memories.

My friends got married...started having babies...and scrapbook days were harder to come by. They either had to bring the kids along {which drastically reduces productivity} or hire a sitter {which drastically reduces supply funds}, so more and more, I found myself scrapbooking alone.

By that time, I lived alone, so it worked out. I could haul out all the supplies and if they stayed out a few days, no one cared. I could scrapbook in the evenings after work or all weekend if I had no plans.

And then I discovered digital scrapping, which allowed me to do twice the work in half the time, and I LOVED it. Another reason I loved digital scrapping...the chance to really write.

I could sit there and type out a whole story about an event - and it was done faster than I could have handwritten a little journaling box in the traditional scrapbook.

My scrapbooks became my books. My stories. My autobiography. The chronicles of vacations, weekenders, the year at large, milestones, and more.

And then I got married.

Suddenly, life became much busier. In a beautiful, welcomed way. I had real dinners to plan and prepare. While the addition of a husband meant the addition of help around the house and consequently less work for me in some ways, it also meant being more diligent about work.

I admit, I felt rather guilty about scrapbooking. Ryan would be hurrying around outside, trying to squeeze in yard work before dark, or dragging out the tool box to repair yet another thing that wasn't working quite right in the house, and I would be kicked back on the couch, sipping coffee and cropping pictures.

So I made rules. I would only scrapbook if it was a weekend when Ryan worked and I was home alone. Or during football games when he was busy watching and I was content to multi-task.

But here's the beautiful thing. One day when I apologized for scrapbooking {again} when I knew there were other, more pressing things to do, Ryan scooped me up in a hug, kissed my nose and told me he WANTS me to scrapbook because in doing that, I'm preserving our story. I'm keeping track of our life and we'll always have it to look at. "So, no guilt," he said. "Enjoy it."

After I was resuscitated...I smiled and said, "Well if you say I NEED to do it...who am I to argue??"

Our Culinary Stories

Shauna Niequist's book, Bread and Wine moved me. It moved me because she has some of the same struggles with her food relationship that I have. She loves people the same way I {hope I} love people. And to combine the love for food and the love for people...is her passion. And it makes me passionate.

I realized that so much about my relationship with Ryan has food in it somewhere. From our first date's picnic in a park and big ole burger at Round Robin to our nightly coffee dates to our occasional breakfasts out to celebrate special occasions.

And I realized that I want a chronicle of our culinary journey. Something that tells the story of our adventures eating out. Not adventures like spilling a glass of iced tea..but adventures like the heart of what happened during a meal to make it memorable.

And I want a chronicle of what we loved to make during this first year of marriage. What meals did we go to time and time again? What did we change up to make it ours? What sort of culinary dance did we create as we worked together in a tiny kitchen, creating memories along with food?

So I am making a scrapbook.

A book that chronicles our culinary stories from the first year of marriage. Is it okay if I share with you a peek into our book?

I thought I'd share the text I wrote for our first ever meal together as a married couple. {I'm including the pictures I included on the scrapbook page.}

And it all began with breakfast. We awakened December 3, 2012 full of joy and wonder from our wedding the day before, and our love-butterflies had been replaced by hungry rumbles, Ahead of us lay a day of honeymoon memory-making, yet more than that...a lifetime of memory-making...that began with a meal. We drove to The Broken Egg, a local restaurant in the Village of Siesta Key. A restaurant whose claim to fame is that basketball hall-of-famer and ESPN announcer Dick Vitale eats there every time he's in town. He even has his own table. We began day one of marriage by finding OUR own table, on the patio, overlooking a cloudless blue sky, and ordering our first breakfast together as husband and wife. We ordered breakfast quesadillas and ate while catching sideways glances at one another, scarcely able to believe that we were indeed married. And so it began. The love of eating outside...the love of breakfast. The love of discovering new places together and sitting back to just enjoy this wondrous thing we call love.