Memory Lane, Trip 1

I was so glad to give you all a good laugh on Friday, with my tales of the sewer. Thanks for the texts and emails {and comments!!} with your laughing-out-loud-at-me moments. You brightened my day.

And the good news? I'm not done. Well I'm done with sewer stories {I sure hope!!} but I'm not done with some laughs for you.

Last week, Ryan and I cleaned out the attic, which led me to weed through allllllll the bags of my papers and memories from elementary school. Mom was good and saved it all. I sorted through everything while Ryan was at work one day, and I am sure the neighbors enjoyed me sitting in the pirogi, snorting/laughing at my own ridiculousness from days gone by. This stuff is TOO GOOD to keep to myself, so I thought I'd share some of it with you today and tomorrow. Hope you enjoy!!!

Found this gem in a newsletter of sorts that apparently was printed for the town back in the 80's. A precursor to the Greentown Grapevine, I believe. {That will only mean something to you if you know Greentown.} I do not even have words for this. Many giggles, but no words.

Apparently my investigative, producer-y skills were at work lonnnnnnnnng before I actually took such a job. Let's dissect this one, shall we?

* The {circle one} direction...a clear indication that I was caught up in the worksheets at school.

* Does the marital status of the Tooth Fairy really matter?

* Do you come every night? I don't know, Rebekah....do you lose teeth every night? Maybe I just wondered if he/she showed up to check for the potential. I don't know.

* Do you want to be my secret pal? Oh yeah. I  knew where the money was even back then. An in with the Tooth Fairy was IT.

* LOVE the sample address and how apparently the Tooth Fairy was a Gomez, even though I knew NO Gomezes at all. Must have come from a book. I do find the Under, Pillow quite creative.

* Wouldn't the presence of an address answer the PS?

* Love the reminder AGAIN to answer the questions, per the right side of the note.

* Verdict? Mr./Miss/Ms./Mrs. Lisa Gomez never answered, did NOT want to be my secret pal, and I still have all. these. questions.

My guess is that these little leaves came from some sort of bigger-picture school craft project in honor of grandparents' day. From the top:

* Of course I would know Grandpa loves me when he buys me food. It's the way I know EVERYONE loves me still today. Want to show love? FOOD.

* And of course he "cooks good hamburgers" because he's showing me LOVE.

* And is a forgetwich like a sandwich?

* Similarly, my Grandma's love is 50% food and 50% sleep. I haven't changed much in these years.

* What else did I love about Grandma? BAKING COOKIES!!!! {Which, incidentally, as an adult, I never remember doing. I must have, but I don't remember it.}

* It is amusing that aside from the obvious food references, the things that zinged my heart were staying up as late as I wanted and gifts. Shallow. Party. Of. One.

I realize seeing my Dad as a pirate, and my letter to the Tooth Fairy and now Santa probably makes you think there was a whole different side of our family you never knew!! We were normal. Well. Our version of it anyway.

* Any child who leaps immediately to "I have been good" has, in fact, NOT been good.

* WHO GIVES MINTS TO REINDEER???? Did it help his shiny nose cut through the fog??

* Did the other reindeer have to share the one malt? And what is a malt? Did I leave a milkshake? A malt ball candy? Did they not teach in elementary school that reindeer eat carrots? Do reindeer even eat carrots? How have I survived this long?

* Poor "Cuped" and "Donder."

* Santa apparently ate all the treats. Milkshake, mints, and all.

* Why is Santa leaving messages for my grandfather? This baffles me.

* I'm still laughing.

This was apparently from some health class project.

* Ahhhh the "respirtory" system.

* The nose was life size even then. Ryan and I both had one nose size from birth on: GIANT.

* Ahhhh the gas you "breath out." BREATH! JUST BREATH!

* Bet you didn't know you had caterpillars crawling in your lungs.

* Again - that NOSE!!!


If you enjoyed this, come back tomorrow. Bigger laughs. I'm giggling just thinking ahead!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday was our 32nd monthiversary, and while it was in many ways, an ordinary day, it was extra special, because I love any chance for a little celebration. For hiding a card on a pillow or taking a nap or fixing a new Pinterest-inspired meal. And when so many monthiversaries fall on weekdays, it's an extra treat to have the entire day WITH HIM to celebrate.

* Monday was stunning and gorgeous outside, and I was grateful because some storms had passed through during the night. I loved running errands in blue skies and clouds!! We went for a run, and it was TERRIBLE {for me...Ryan did well}, but he's such a good encourager when I want to quit. He had just enough energy to mow the yard when he got home - this running will take the stuffing right out of a person!!

* Tuesday we had a fun before-work date going out to breakfast!! What a treat! I actually had a double treat that day, because I met up with my friend Lynn for lunch as well...haven't seen her in way too long. So essentially on Tuesday...I was well fed. :) And it's a good thing since we spent the entire evening cleaning out our attic...which was stuffed full to the brim and now looks like a respectable space. {And the rummage pile groweth.}

* I was so inspired by all the cleaning on Tuesday, that I marched right on Wednesday, finding new areas of the house to rip apart and purge. I hadn't meant to, but I couldn't help myself. I found HILARIOUS things that I will have to tell you more about...but it was certainly a great walk down memory lane. Ryan's work had a little memorial ceremony for a coworker who passed away a few weeks ago. They planted a tree in his memory and took time to honor his life.

* Thursday's big project was ALMOST thwarted by rain, but it stayed away, and I finished the project: painting the front porch. When I moved in here, the porch had that green indoor/outdoor carpet, but it was old and rotting and ripped itself up in a windstorm one night. I've been painting the porch boards ever since, and after a couple of winters of shoveling the snow, they were worn and chipped. I went with gray this time instead of red, and we love it!! The rest of the day was filled with reading, writing, and more sorting and organizing - including folding our spare grocery sacks into triangles. {Don't judge.}

* Friday I scurried to beat a deadline to finish a scrapbook before one of my coupons expired, so that was a fun way to start the day! Braeya apparently couldn't hack the madness and hid under the covers of our bed for her nap. LOL!! That afternoon, I had to run some errands, so I treated myself to a stroll through Hobby Lobby, drooling over the fall decorations and finding more signs Ryan and I need in our home. :) And my grand total for shopping? 32 cents, thankyouverymuch.

* I still have not recovered from yesterday.  We started with a 5 mile run early in the morning and never sat down the rest of the day. Ryan cleaned {and I mean CLEANED} the garage from top to bottom, and we tagged so much more stuff for rummage! We cleaned the house - even the windows!! {Braeya was excited about that because she got to play in the water.} In the middle of it all, we took a break for Starbucks - of course - and by the time I finally quit working at 10:30 last night, I barely had the energy to drag myself to bed. I am not made for that much busyness in one day!!

The Saturday Six

One.

Source

I've been doing more book reviews lately, and it's fun to hear back from you whenever you read a book that you learned about here. My goal with reviews is to do no more than one a week - and not necessarily one every week. But if your appetite for reading surpasses my ability to deliver new suggestions, check out this blog, which is devoted to book reviews, and the blogger does a great job actually offering HER thoughts on each title...you can tell she puts a lot of time and effort into each one.

Two.

Source

I'm not a teacher, but I know many of you who read are teachers, and you're gearing up for a new school year if you've not already begun it! {CRAZY to see in my Facebook feed last week how many people were already headed back to the old classroom!} One of my friends linked to this article, which I so appreciated even as a non-teacher. This was actually my first and longest-standing career choice and the main reason I ditched it was because my parents were both educators, and I watched the school system change so radically and take away so many of their freedoms in the name of stats that I just didn't want any part of it. This article proves there are still teachers that love the kids more than the stats.

Three. 

Source

I happened upon this blog last week and may have to spend more time exploring it. But this family has been doing a "summer of service" challenge and {again with the back to school theme...} I was intrigued by their choice for the week. I know a Facebook friend of mine who sells Thirty-One products was doing something similar. She challenged people to donate...ten or so, I think...and she'd shop for school supplies, fill a tote and donate it to the local school. I love all these little spin-off ideas! Anyway. On this post, there's also links back to the previous weeks if you want other ideas!

Four.

Source

With all the race training going on, I'm sure you can understand why this post by Holley Gerth really spoke to me. The phrase I need to remember? "Not my race, not my pace." YES.  PS - if you're not a runner, don't skip over this one. It's actually LIFE advice.

Five.

Source

Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. I have so many friends who have mourned the loss of a baby, through miscarriage or stillbirth, and I agree with the words of this post...let's talk about these babies. Let's remember them and give life to the days they did have on this earth, no matter how brief. Affirm their mamas and speak their names.  

Six.

I've been doing quite a bit of reading in this last month, and the one I'm telling you about today stopped me in my tracks in a way quite unlike the others. I will confess to you I'd never read Amber C. Haines' blog, but her debut book, Wild in the Hollow, made me add it to my daily reading list.

Her writing style {which reminded me of a cross between Ann Voskamp and Shauna Niequist} is stunning, but she didn't sacrifice the message of the book just to deliver well crafted words. But before I get to the words, I have to pause on the style. I know not all of you are writers, so it might not strike you the same way it did me, but for me, this book was a hands-on course in how to beautifully craft words. I wrestled between being unable to put the book down because I so wanted to know the next part of the story...and putting it aside after a particularly lovely sentence so I could go try to write beautiful sentences of my own. Her writing was a gift to me and made me want to offer more word gifts to others.

Now back to the words themselves: Amber's vulnerability is unbelievable. She shared deep, raw, personal places of her heart, her life, and her sin, which allowed her to also share the deep, raw, personal places of her redemption, her restoration, and her pursuit of a life of faith. It takes a calling and anointing to be able to pen what she did and risk the automatic bristling and judgment of her readers, as she shared about her drug use, her promiscuity, her abortion, her drinking. And if you've been cozy in a Christian bubble, those things are uncomfortable and bristly to read about...but they're necessary to know to fully appreciate the way Jesus met Amber while her cheek pressed against a bathroom floor and she waited to die. But our death brings His life and a whole new life, which she not only experienced, but gulped in until she overflowed with Him.

Her memoir proves that saying yes to Jesus does not bring an easy life. It doesn't mean marriage is perfect and children are shiny and disappointments never come. But her insatiable desire to rise above the temptation to sink into darkness, to push past shiny church exteriors and find ways to genuinely show the love of Jesus in the trenches of life, and to find fullness in smallness is both captivating and inspiring.

If you can read this book and not be moved...not be convicted...not be inspired to live more wholly with your Savior, I'd venture to say you're either lying or hardened. And praise God, He can transform both messes.

Thank you, Amber, for being brave enough to show your real heart. Thank you for the beauty of your words, which pointed to the True Beauty of redemption. And thank you, Revell, for binding these words into a book and providing a copy to me for review.

Sewers and Such

I feel like it's been too long since you had a good Bekah story, so....today is your day!!!!!

We have a gorgeous tree in our backyard...a giant piece of history raising branches into the sky and tossing leaves and shade over us...and we love that tree. It's part of our family roots...planted within the time that my grandparents lived on this property, and my aunt can still remember when the tree was transplanted int our ground.


For those reasons, we love our big tree.

But did I mention the roots???

No one told me, when I moved in here, that tree roots...the little seaweed looking tendrils at the very end, can stubbornly push their way into sewer lines and clog them. No one told me. And why would I know that? I mean high school was filled with drills on when Indiana became a state, how to do all kinds of things with parallelograms, dissecting pigs and diagramming sentences. NONE of these things have circled back to benefit me in my adult life {spoiler alert for students!!} but the helpful things - like learning what tree roots do to sewer lines - were never mentioned once.

So when you don't know, you learn the hard way.

The hard way for me came back some 15 years ago when I'd just moved in and one day my roommate noticed toilet paper and tampons laying in the yard outside a mysterious hole in the ground. Oh yes. You read that right. OUR TOILET PAPER AND TAMPONS were laying in the yard for all to see. In the dead of winter, I might add. Merry Christmas. We keep our extra TP and tampons outside. Help yourself!

We called a sewer service and the gentleman drove his giant white van {with large letters proclaiming his business smacked on the side} into our driveway and hauled out all manner of coils and tools I'd never seen. While I stood in the bathroom and kept the flush on repeat, he dug through and arrived at the back door in his snow and ice covered galoshes with the news that our lines had been full of tree roots, but never to fear, he'd cleaned it out. He handed me a bill, thanked me for my business, and left.

And so began my occasional meeting with the sewer man, who really is very good and prompt. He'd been here this past winter, when I thought the lines fought the roots again, but it turned out we just had a frozen pipe. But he warned me we should have him back come spring, because those lines were about to need some treatment.

Ryan and I noticed the familiar gurgle not long ago, so on Tuesday, I called the good man and asked if he could stop by. He asked if it was time for my annual.

You could say that. But I'd rather not word it just that way to the sewer man.

An hour later, he brought the big white van with the sewer service billboard on the side and parked in our driveway. The guys tumbled out with the coils and tools and got busy rooting away in the cleanouts. They shouted stories of the sewers of Marion over the loud motors, and I texted Ryan at work to see if he could, by chance, hear the stories from where he was.

I busied myself with emptying the dishwasher and wondered if our neighbors could hear...hoped maybe they were still asleep. Or gone.

A moment later, as if on cue, the neighbors knocked on the door and waved...they'd stopped by to drop food off in the freezer we share. We stood on the back porch and talked while the sewer service guys weaved in and out of our conversation and I hastily explained why they were there.

Right about then, one of the guys yelled "FLUSH THE STOOL!!!"

Oh yes. Bekah Shaffer: Keeping Marion classy for 15 years now.

They completed their work, delivered the bill, and congratulated me on calling just in time. Not much longer and it would have been a real mess, they said.

Ahhhh yes. The toilet paper yard ornaments. The only thing that could make it classier. 

Learning in Training #2

My second week of race training is complete...and in truth, the third week is almost done, as I write to you now. I've decided to do a weekly update about this adventure, because it's teaching me so much, and I want to share with you the lessons I'm learning.

These tales are from last week...week two.

We are finally experiencing summer here in the Midwest. After weeks of wearing jackets instead of swimsuits, real summer has finally descended, with all its humidity, all its heat...all its unrelenting full sun. It doesn't bother me...except when I run. I've learned that I'm such a fair weather runner. I keep track of all the conditions of each day's run, and I'm learning that I'm partial to 70 and sunny with a good breeze and a decent cloud passing over that sun ray now and then.

And last week? According to my notes, the first day was "super hot and humid." Second day was "87 but feels like 91 with full sun and no breeze." The third day was true Indiana all the way. In the space of three miles, I ran in "hot, humid, rain, sun, breeze, and no breeze." FINALLY on the fourth day, I got my perfect conditions.

It was no wonder to me, then, that the verse God kept laying on my heart was the end of Hebrews 12:1 - "let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with preseverance the race marked out for us."

It came to me during the first run of the week, on day "super hot and humid" as I clopped along gripping a full water bottle in my hand. My fingers ached and slipped on the sweating bottle, and I felt like I paid more attention to it than the run. I came to an area where I passed a set of aluminum bleachers, and the words "throw off everything that hinders...and run" came to mind. I smacked the bottle down on the bleachers and took off {think more in terms of a pig to the trough rather than a gazelle through a field} as fast as my lead-feeling legs would carry  me.

I ran and ran, feeling the truth of this lesson settling over me, and then I circled back toward the bleachers to retrieve the water and take a sip while running forward toward that last mile.

Alas, as I ran past the bleachers and leaned in to grab the bottle, my knee bent and my body inched in more than I realized...and my knee crashed into aluminum. I grabbed the bottle and kept running, glancing down to see fresh blood and the sweat rolling down my leg stinging sharply when it hit the open wound.

I wanted to stop, but the verse came back again...throw off everything that hinders - including a skinned knee - and run.

As I told you last week, I'm trying to pray for the people of Haiti as I run. Pray for the patients who have to walk to medical care. My leg throbbed a bit as I pounded across the last mile, and with each pain, I thought of people walking with broken limbs...with injuries far worse than a skinned knee. I prayed and I ran.

The weather wasn't the only thing against me last week. I caught a cold at the lake and had issues with a clogged ear and a stuffy nose. And then, of course, the knee.

There's always something to throw off. Injury, illness, bad attitudes, lack of focus...always something to use as a reason to quit. But I believe I'm encouraged to keep going. Keep running. Keep praying for these people who endure far more for the sake of their immediate health. They press on through illness, through injury, through humidity, through heat, through rain, through wind, through stillness. And I will do the same.

{Previous Posts on this Topic...}
The Haiti Half
Learning in Training #1

Firm Foundation

Last week I had the opportunity to step through the doors of this church...where I spent the first nineteen years of my life, and where the foundation of my relationship with the Lord was laid in strong layers.

I walked through the building, in the quiet between a funeral and the dinner to follow, and got lost in half a lifetime of memories.

The sanctuary where I was dedicated to the Lord at two weeks old, where I learned hymns from the heavy red hymnals, played in the handbell choir, sang in the choir wearing blue robe #4, gave camp reports, got in trouble for talking during sermons, played everything from an angel to Mary in Christmas programs, went to the altar to pray for the first time, and heard sermons I can still remember to this day.

The piano, hidden behind a wooden casing, where I played dozens of solos in those early years. Every one made me frightened out of my mind, and while I'm confident there was nothing I enjoyed less, I survived them, and I'm sure the whole experience made me stronger.

The words I stared at every Sunday...Come, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The choir would sometimes sing the words after they floated into the choir loft in those blue robes with white sashes.

The choir loft where I sang in high school...and behind it, the secret passageway that always mesmerized me as a kid. The choir room was to the right of this picture, and the men would walk through the secret passageway to the left side and somehow emerge up the stairs at the exact moment the women did from the right...and I spent probably four years of my childhood trying to figure that out. Everything about the choir experience, from both sides of these pews, was of highest intrigue to me. {And I can't even really sing!}

Third pew from the front, organ side It's where I spent most of those first nineteen years - sandwiched in between my parents and the Pefleys. When I grew up into high school, I was permitted the privilege of moving to the back, where I sat with my good buddy Betty and the aforementioned talking during the sermons and subsequent getting into trouble took place. But this third pew...this was where I dragged naked dolls with wild hair and miniature diaper bags filled with clothes they wouldn't wear...where I knelt on the floor, using the pew as a table to draw during the sermon...where I learned to sit still and listen even when I didn't fully understand.

The red padded pews with the little diamond pattern that embedded in my cheek every Easter morning when the 3 a.m. wake-up call to be part of the Easter pageant caused me to succumb to a nap.

The nursery, where I spent hundreds of Sundays, rocking babies, changing diapers, offering bottles, sneaking marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms stash before offering over the pieces of cereal, kissing boo-boos, convincing moms the babies would really be okay if they would just go...and swapping stories with the ladies of the church who worked nursery shifts alongside me. The room where one of my little charges had a seizure on my watch, and I scooped him up to run him to his mom, because I had no clue what to do. The room where I escaped during the teen years when I didn't like church as much as I wish I would have.

The window I peeked out of each Sunday I worked in the nursery...pushing my view past the foyer and into the sanctuary to see how close the service was to ending, so we'd know when to pick up the toys. The curtains I closed to shelter little eyes from spotting mom and dad in church and progressing into meltdowns of epic proportions.

The Sunday School room that was like a mini-chapel, where I went to pray - to beg, really - before speaking in church. The room where I would pace and quote Scripture and ask God for mercy and favor and a mind that remembered words. Any words at all.

The assembly room where SO MUCH LIFE happened for me. As a little one, I dropped pennies in the birthday bank, learned Sunday School choruses from Corrine McAdams, memorized my first Bible verses, listened to stories, and filed out with the other kids to go to Sunday School after our assembly time together. Then we gathered around and learned songs that taught us the books of the Bible and other spiritual basics, while our music minister strummed his guitar. We had Christmas parties in here, youth lock-ins, and on the rare Sundays that I got to miss regular church for junior church, we gathered in this room.

The library where I used to check out books and dream that I owned them all. The heavy desk with the card catalog, where I would scrawl my name on library cards and file them in the drawer. I imagine if I looked for a bit, I could still find my elementary autograph on some cards.

The youth room where I learned more Bible verses, giggled with my peers over the words of Song of Solomon, began to pray out loud in front of others, and learned from the college-student youth pastors hired to lead our tiny group. Everyone in the youth group was related except one other guy - and me, of course - so youth group felt like family, with all the ups and downs that accompany it. We filled this room with couches and 90's posters, and had a great time together.

And speaking of youth group - we can't pass by without discussing the offering doors. These little doors created a pass-through from the inside of each Sunday School room to the hallway. After class started each week, we pull open the door and put our attendance book and offering inside, and the ushers would come down the hall and pull open the hallway side to gather them. Our goal was to deliver our offering in the most creative {read: maddening} way. We rigged bags of pennies to dump out on the ushers, we taped coins all around the perimeter, and all kindsof versions of offering. Though I'm not sure it's the joy the Lord was looking for, hearing the ushers' reactions from the hall always brought us to giggles from within the class, and the men of the church came to good-naturedly dread collecting our money.

This was it. The place I spent my childhood. The yard I ran through during game time at VBS. The picnic shelter where we had snacks in youth group. The building where I learned relationships between myself and others...and myself and God.

The other churches He's led me to in the years since have been places of learning and growth as well, but I am so grateful for THIS place and all the memories and foundations.

No Formulas in Serving

And so it's come back to this. The discussion of our insatiable need for formulas to follow with these things we call our lives.

I wrote a post on this back when Ryan and I were engaged, and we were getting peppered with questions and cautions because we weren't following all the prescribed formulas and timelines for relationships.

In truth, nothing about my life has followed a formula, including when I showed up in life, to a family that deemed itself complete...and then there was me.

Most recently, when I left my job at WBCL, people stared, open-mouthed when I told them I was leaving to stay home. I expected questions, and I sure got them! People asked if we were having a baby...or when we would have babies. People asked if I was going to work somewhere else or if I needed suggestions on new places of employment.

None of it offended me, of course, but the truth is, no one quite knows what to do with the girl who walks away from her dream job to be a wife without a plan of children...and certainly without another job search on the horizon.

And my formula-less life continues.

In the questioning that came my way after I announced I was leaving work, many people asked what organizations I planned to volunteer with.

Gulp.

My mother is a master volunteer. She loves it. She thrives on it. She helps out with great causes and {truthfully} overcommits herself serving others.

Want to hear a confession that feels kind of ugly to say? I have no desire to do the things she does. {GASP!!!} Like I said...the causes are worthy and the needs are great, but they don't zing my heart. They're not my passions. I wrote another post a few weeks back about how people seem to get so devoted to the causes that zing them...that they believe everyone around them should feel zinged for the same things. And we're not, always. That's the beauty of the Body. We all have different gifts.

I've struggled with some guilt about this whole volunteering thing, because I wondered if I was broken in some way...if I should be eager to get out there and join the forces and serve alongside...and...and...and.

And then came last week.

I received a phone call that a gentleman from the church of my childhood had passed away. Though I now attend a different church, I'm in a Sunday School class with his daughter, and she was asking for people to help serve the funeral dinner, since the church where we went together all those many years ago is quite small in number now, and they weren't sure they'd have enough people to staff the dinner.

My heart jumped. THIS zinged me. Walking back through the doors of the church that laid my foundation...working in the kitchen where I used to stir pitchers of Kool-Aid for the kids' ministries...serving a family who invested in me when I was young...YES. And I've never had the freedom to serve in such a capacity, because I've always been at work when funeral dinners were being served.

And so it was that I baked a big batch of Buckeye brownies, grabbed my favorite serving dish, and strapped on heels for the first time in a while, so I could walk across the familiar threshold and serve. I worked alongside old friends I'd not seen in too long, and we sliced pies, arranged the puzzle pieces of salads and vegetables, chased slippery ice cubes with tongs and wrestled with safety tabs on iced tea bottles so we could fill the glass dispensers. We hugged the family and offered what they needed and then slid around a table in the back of the kitchen to sample the goodness of church folks' cooking once the family had settled at their tables.

After everyone filtered out the door, we scooped leftovers into recycled butter and cottage cheese containers, put the salt and pepper shakers back in the cabinets, wiped down the tables, and washed and dried the dishes. Hours after arriving, I picked up my crumb-filled glass baking dish and the nicely washed serving dish and limped to my car, feet screaming at me for daring to rush around in heels for so many hours after weeks of tennis shoes.

I came home fulfilled. I'd served...not out of guilt, but out of desire. I'd found a need that I could fill and I did it. This is the formula of serving. Or perhaps I should say the non-formula of serving. It's waiting for God to say "THIS!" and then doing it. It's about not signing up because the narrowing, confused eyes of those around you declare you should be doing something, but about choosing His Sacred Yes for you.

Monthiversary #32

Thirty-two months ago, it was Sunday. It was warm and sunny, and Ryan and I had our own version of church in the sand before devouring breakfast sandwiches, courtesy of a kind vendor who heard about some couple getting married that day, and upon finding out it was us, offered us sustenance.

A talented stylist curled my hair and my entourage of two ironed my dress while I labored to repeat the makeup lesson I'd been taught. And at the appointed time, I gathered up my billowing skirt in my hands and sneaked into a gazebo to whisper Ryan's name before he turned around and saw me as if for the first time.

Yesterday was Sunday. It was warm and sunny, and Ryan and I went to church before devouring breakfast biscuits around the table with our Sunday School family. I sported curly hair, held crunchy from gel and hairspray, and our dryer spun most of the wrinkles out of my dress while I spent the last two minutes at home adding makeup to my eyes. I gathered up my Bible and journal and whispered to Ryan I was ready...and he still smiled as if for the first time.

This man:

I appreciate him so much. He works so hard so I can have the luxury of not having a full time job. He goes out of his way to thank me for the hard work I do at home and in writing and in serving, and I appreciate that he notices. He supports what I love and challenges me to try new things.

Last week, as I cleaned and purged in our house, I found a stack of prayer journals, where many, many lonely, tear-filled nights found their way into words, and I begged God for a husband. I questioned and doubted and got angry and asked for forgiveness and recorded what I learned and whispered secrets of the single...and this man is the long-awaited answer to those prayers.

We've poured a lot of life into the last 32 months. Sometimes we get tired looking back over the scrapbooks that document the moments - amazed that we've had enough energy to pour so much living into so little time.

And I'm grateful for every moment. Even the ones that were hard, frustrating, and even flat-out maddening. The moments when houses wouldn't sell and surgery dates were wrong and cars died on highways and tires went flat and dresses wouldn't zip and work depleted us. Even in those moments, I'm grateful for Ryan and how he can always make me laugh and how he always lets me cry. I'm grateful to be the one to make him laugh and make his bad days better.

It began almost three years ago - this adventure. And yesterday we celebrated thirty-two months of marriage. Thirty-two months of waking up to each other and reaffirming that we still do. We still choose each other.

That in this dance of life - we're partners.

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday, we woke up at the lake for the last time, packed up our car, helped clean up the cottage, and were home by lunch time. We stopped by the pizza place on the way home and got ourselves some lunch, came home, had the car unpacked and Mo pulled out in about 20 minutes flat. We took a lonnnnnnnnnnnnng post-vacation nap and then got the suitcases unpacked and the house whipped into shape before going to bed. Not a fully restful Sunday, but a good day, nonetheless.

* Monday morning, I met my best friend Lynnette for breakfast. She lives wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many hours away, but she was in town for a reunion, so we were able to catch up for a couple of hours, and I loved it! I took my office on the road for a bit that afternoon, spending some time in the coffee shop at IWU. And that night, Ryan and I went for a run, where I crashed into some bleachers, leaving me with a bruised and bloody knee. BOO for injuries.

* Tuesday I made a big batch of cookies for a carry-in at Ryan's work on Wednesday. Though we did sneak a sample later in the day, I was QUITE proud of myself for not sneaking any as I baked! One point for willpower! After work, Ryan went to his co-worker Diane's house to get a SNAKE out of her garage!! Oh. My. Word. I'd have to move. We went for an exhausting run - not because of a far distance, but because it was crazy HOT outside! And then we rounded out the day purging a closet and playing a few rounds of Dutch Blitz to practice for our upcoming game night.

* Wednesday I cleaned and cleaned - going through every single cabinet in our kitchen and in some storage closets, majorly purging stuff we don't need and tagging it for sale. I also got to use my label maker for some storage containers, and that made me SO HAPPY. I ran across a big stack of prayer journals that hold a lot of cries for a husband...looking forward to making my way through the pages and learning from my former self! Ryan and I braved the HOT again for another run. My legs felt like lead, but I actually didn't have too bad of a time!

* Thursday {among other things} I worked on a dessert to take to a funeral dinner on Friday. Batter bowls are my FAVORITE. It's possible I leave just a tad more than I have to IN the bowl so I can lick it! I went to the viewing for the gentleman who passed away, and saw all kinds of people from the church where I grew up. It was a big reunion! After I came home from that and Ryan came home from work, we had our friends Matt and Angela over again. They brought pizza and games and we had a great time laughing and telling stories and hanging out in the pirogi. A lovely  night.

* Friday I had the opportunity to help serve at a funeral dinner at the church where I grew up. I've never done that before, because I've always had work to dictate my schedule, and it was nice to be able to do something good for a family who invested a lot in me in my early years. SO many memories flooded from being back in that church!! Friday was also the last day for one of Ryan's co-workers, so they did a group picture, and I'm sure you'll all be shocked to see where he landed. :) We had a date night at home on Friday - eating Chinese food and taking a leisurely walk on a beautiful evening.

* Last night we hosted a game night at our house with my high school buddies. We even had a new friend from the high school days join us, and we had a great time. We ate tacos and cookies and played games - sometimes without even keeping score! I was grateful to see them all after TOO LONG a time apart!! {And in case you were wondering, no we didn't win. At least when we were keeping score. Great. We probably won when we didn't.}

The Saturday Six

**Candy S, you are the winner of "The Dating Manifesto" giveaway. Please send me your contact info so I can mail your prize!!**


One.

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I really appreciated this raw and vulnerable post by Sarah Forgrave. I remember my crisis of faith five years ago, when I sat on a chair and had to decide if I had enough faith to continue trusting in the God I'd walked with for years. {My answer was yes.} It was HARD, because I questioned if He could be trusted. He's proven he can be. Though life is considerably brighter now than it was that day, I still struggle with the waiting and the disappointments, and her post reminded me HE MOVES.

Two.

You know I've been doing all this cleaning and purging in the last month or so, and my sister found and shared this article...kind of a guide on things to clean out that perhaps you might not have considered. {Or maybe you DID, but you were hoping you were just overzealous.} If you need a jump start on simplifying, check it out!

Three.

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I don't know whether or not you caught this post by Melanie Shankle, but if not, you have to read it. It made me laugh SO HARD. Although I would like to stop and discuss the frightening mention of the possible resurgence of perms. Shall we???

Four.

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I have no words. SERIOUSLY no words. You have to look at the inside of this barn.

Five.

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I don't think I've said so this time around, but Ryan and I are in the market to move again, so our house is for sale and we've been praying for God's favor to allow us to move close to Ryan's work and cut out his commute. So of course my little eyes are hyper-sensitive to anything about moving, and this article on creating a packing station was so helpful!! 

Six.

Wrapping up this week with a book review! After FAR too many years away from reading fiction, I am delighted to have the time to get back into it in this new season. I'm discovering authors I'd not known before and thoroughly enjoying their styles of storytelling!


And so it was that I learned about Irene Hannon. She's not a new author - actually has almost 50 published books to her credit - but Hope Harbor was my introduction to her. This contemporary romance has all the promise {based on the cover you should never judge a book by...} of a sweet, feel-good read, and there are things about it that are blissfully that. But thankfully it goes deeper than that.

The book tells the story of Tracy Campbell, who lives in the Pacific Northwest...in the kind of town you'd want to move to, actually: Hope Harbor, Oregon. It's the small-town, water's-edge, taco truck, bike-riding kind of place that makes your heart rest with ease. And that's what Michael Hunter was hoping for when he rolled in to town after a cross-country drive from the pace and stress of being a CEO in Chicago. He's taken a leave of absence from his job to sort out his life, which has been crushing in too hard, and he's counting on this town to give him the space and comfort he needs to accomplish that.

But the town, for all its quaint charm, does have real people living in it - and with them come the same things that come with all of us: stresses and secrets, wounds, and worries, floundering and faith-testing. And that's the true delight of this book. It offers just enough feel-good to accomplish what a good novel does: an escape from life pressing in...but it also offers just enough real-life to make it a read laced with lessons and understanding of what the characters feel.

I loved the characters of Hope Harbor. I cheered for them and ached for them to find healing for their wounds and solutions for their problems. I appreciated that they weren't sickeningly perfect, and that not everything came easily for them. But I also appreciated that they were the kind of people I wanted to like. And my biggest delight was finding out that this book is not standing alone...a new installment for these characters I came to love will roll off the presses next summer!

The book isn't suspenseful in a heart-pounding way, but it's captivating in story and well-crafted in romance. I'm looking forward to book #2 and more storytelling from Irene Hannon!

{Thank you, Revell, for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. And thank you for making clean, faith-inspired romance a reality for readers!}