How in THE WORLD is it August already? This is the month when I just hang onto my hat and run, because it is SO FULL. So much beauty and wonder crammed into one tiny month.
This past weekend kicked off the full and busy, with a trip to the lake to see Ryan's family! Thought I would show you, over the next couple of days, some of the fun we had!
We headed up to the lake Thursday night, and of course the first raindrops hit our car literally the moment we drove past the city limits sign. LOL! It was supposed to be pretty stormy and nasty all weekend, but we were so fortunate and there was very little rain throughout the weekend.
We had hurried so fast to get there in time for the sunset boat ride, but the rain meant no sunset to see, and the water was a little choppy, so they canceled the sunset ride. Ryan and I went for a walk instead, and it was actually perfect walking weather!
Rain or no rain, we love the lake.
We played with the kids for a bit before they went to bed.
{Sorry for the blur, but this one cracked me up. He was trying to land the floatie ring on the baby, and that little guy thought it was the funniest game EVER.}
Family game of Uno. It was my first time to play Uno since I was a kid, so I didn't remember how to play.
Winning team.
NOT the winning team. HA!!
And Ryan got to pose for some artwork. LOL.
It was a great start to a weekend by the water. :)
* Last Sunday, Ryan was excited to use his new Norwex mop. "Excited" and "mop" have never before been in a sentence I wrote before. While he mopped, I scrapbooked and ate watermelon. That was one fantastic watermelon, I have to say. You never know when you buy them...but it was a winner!
* I felt really bad that Ryan hadn't had a good dessert in a while, so on Monday, I baked him a big old batch of snickerdoodles. He proclaimed them very good and asked if I was trying to make him fat. Ha! I also went outside to get pictures of our pretty flowers that have bloomed, because I was afraid I would forget and miss them! Gorgeous!
* Tuesday morning was FINALLY cool enough that we could have our breakfast and devotions on the porch. It was so peaceful! Know what could have been potentially NOT peaceful? Going to the BMV that night. We decided {after the pull-over incident last week} that we really needed to get our licenses updated to reflect our move! The place was pretty full when we arrived, but kudos to them for being speedy and getting us through quickly!!
* Wednesday morning we overslept...an hour. WHOOPSIE!! I could not wake up - even after a lot of coffee. it was a rough morning. I spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen, making snacks for our trip to the lake and dinner for our friend Amber who was coming over to hang out with us for the evening. The grilled veggie basket was DELICIOUS. Too bad I wasn't following a recipe. I fear I will never be able to duplicate it!
* Thursday, after Ryan got off work, we went to the LAKE! We love our lake time, limited though it may be! It was almost stormy when we arrived, and even though the ACTUAL storm never arrived, it was pretty choppy on the water, so we skipped the boat ride and just walked around the lake. When it got dark, we played games and had fun with the kids!
* Friday was a GREAT day at the lake. It was actually supposed to be nasty for most of the day, and it did rain some but we were pretty fortunate and had a mostly beautiful day on the water! I absolutely treasured that time away with Ryan and the chance to go on a couple of boat rides! By the time evening came, we had a full cottage of people!
* Yesterday we had a fun treat at the lake! We got to meet one of our blogging friends and her family! Natasha and her husband and kids were traveling through the area, and we got to meet them and spend part of the day with them. It was such fun! And that's good since I sort of woke up on the wrong side of the bed {a TRAVESTY at the lake} and I needed a pick-me-up! We had a big family dinner with ribs...delicious!
I don't know how many of you have been following Davey Blackburn's story, but I have been, and this post he added to his blog recently is just so powerful. Love the imagery.
Two.
Anyone else just SO READY for the Olympics to begin? I AM!!! And I confess to watching this replay of the Kerri Strug vault from 1996 many many times over the last couple of weeks. I cry every time. {Like I don't know what's coming...}
While my capsule wardrobe still isn't complete, a year after starting it, I'm learning to work with the things I have to mix and match outfits, and I was pretty excited when I saw this week that blogger Anne actually owns one of the VERY DRESSES I own. Not a similar dress, but the ACTUAL dress. {Now granted, it's just a plain black dress, so an exact match doesn't even really matter, but it was just exciting to see my EXACT DRESS on someone else. I clicked back to her original post about the dress and found some new ideas on what to do with it!Whether or not you own this exact dress, these are good ideas.
This week, I finished reading the "ATF" trilogy written by Jennifer Sands. No, it's not fiction. {I love it that there's a non-fiction trilogy!} Jennifer Sands was the keynote speaker at the Women's Break Away conference in Chilton, Wisconsin, where I served as a breakout session speaker earlier this year. I purchased all three of her books and A Treasured Faith, the one I read this week, is the final book in the series.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jennifer's faith grow throughout the series of books. If you didn't catch my review of the first two, I'll give you a quick recap. Jennifer and her husband, Jim, were happily married for six years when Jim died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The first book in the trilogy talks about Jennifer's fledgling faith in the year after losing Jim, and in the second book, you can see her faith start to blossom, after she made a true commitment to the Lord and began to serve Him.
In this book, Jennifer's maturity is marked and beautiful. Though she was battling breast cancer at the time she wrote the book, it's not the main focus of her writing. This book is filled with the many examples of places she found the treasures of Christ as she lived out her every day. She spoke honesty {and laced with Scripture} the places we all look for treasure, but we're looking in vain, because true treasure is found in Christ alone.
After struggling so heavily {and understandably!} with anger after losing Jim, Jennifer's peace and understanding are so evident in this book, and it's obvious she speaks truth when she says that knowing and loving God is the greatest possible treasure.
Scripture says that where your treasure is, your heart will be also, and Jennifer's life proves that. Where her treasures were once focused on Jim, scuba diving, and her work in the pharmacy, her treasures are now focused on Jesus, ministering for Him wherever she can, and learning all she can about the life He has for her.
It's a good faith booster of a book, but most of all, I just loved seeing the transformation within Jennifer throughout the series. God at work, captured on paper!
Yes, I know there are still a couple days of July left, but tomorrow is Saturday Six day and Sunday will be Shafferland Shuffle day, so I'm coming to you today with the list of things I learned in the month of July!
1. My Fitbit can count steps while strapped to my shoe.
Early in the month, I switched up my exercise for the day and worked out on an exercise bike. My Fitbit wasn't registering the movement when it was on my wrist, which was very disconcerting, because if I planned to spend a half hour on a bike, I wanted something to show for it! Ryan suggested I attach it to my shoe and see if it would catch the pedaling motion. And what do you know? It worked!
2. A K-9 on the police force is considered an officer.
Marion, where we used to live, had an armed robbery of a McDonald's earlier this month, and in the process of the whole sad, fatal debacle, a K-9 {the one in the photo above} bit the suspect, who then shot the dog in the leg. As I kept up with coverage of the whole thing, I learned that the suspect, when caught, could be prosecuted for shooting the dog the same as if he had shot one of the human officers. I did not know K-9s were considered officers on their own, apart from their handlers.{Probably the rest of you knew that one!} In the end, the suspect committed suicide and the K-9 made a full recovery, but the information was still news to me.
3. Drinking coffee alone is no fun.
Ryan's mom has told me on more than one occasion that she is jealous of our coffee dates. She loves coffee as much as we do {Ryan gets it honestly!} but her husband doesn't, so she has her morning, afternoon and evening coffee on her own. And she's mentioned many times that it's just not as fun. This month, Ryan got some weird flu bug that took him down for a couple of days, and part of being "down" meant no coffee. {I seriously thought he was going to die. When one of us declines coffee, that is SERIOUS. To decline it for two days straight...well...} After my second day of doing coffee on my own, I told him I finally understood what his mom meant. It really isn't as much fun to drink it alone.{It also apparently means that after you use the "Mrs." mug, your husband brings you the "Mr." one for the next round so you can evenly use the cups. HA!!!}
4. I want to grow herbs.
When we went to my cousin's graduation open house, she had little party favors for everyone, in the form of little potted herbs. She'd painted the pots and handwritten markers to stick down in the dirt, and I came home with rosemary, because it reminds me of my days working with Lynne. She always had rosemary on her desk. Having my own potted rosemary plant has made me want to own {and successfully keep alive} other herbs. It feels like a rite of passage I'm coming to wayyyyyyy too many years after I should have.
5. I think I need to take a LinkedIn for Dummies course.
I started a LinkedIn account last week, because a teleseminar I listened to not long ago recommended it for speakers. I fear that in its current state, it may make me look worse rather than better. I tend to be the sort of person who, on these kinds of social media sites, can navigate my way around and figure it out, but I think I accidentally sent requests to my entire address book and I know I keep stumbling back to the same pages with no actual progress. So if any of you have tips, EMAIL ME! I need help!
6. I love Christmas shopping in July!!
So many stores/shops/online retailers have run great sales this month and I have knocked out a significant amount of Christmas shopping over the last few weeks. I'm sorry that I'm just now getting to tell you about it...but hey! There are still two days left in this month, so maybe you can still find some great deals!
My sister's phone met with an unfortunate demise a couple of weeks ago, and while she waited in that uncomfortable spot between staring at the broken phone and looking ahead to upgrade eligibility down the road, we remembered we had an old phone just taking up space in a drawer.
We cleaned it out to send to her, and that's when I discovered a whole host of pictures from back in the day - our first year of marriage, actually - and they made me smile. I imagine it's the equivalent of finding an old roll of undeveloped film {remember that stuff?} and having it processed so you can find out what mysteries hide within.
So today I thought I would show you some of the treasures from my old iPhone. Maybe you'll get a smile or two!
* The day I went to Ryan's family for Easter lunch for the first time, and he'd failed to mention the Easter egg hunt. My heels would have aerated the lawn nicely, but they weren't the best for a speedy hunt, so Ryan's aunt kindly loaned me her Crocs. Crocs and an Easter dress = nice look!
* Selfie I sent to Ryan on his birthday. Now why won't my hair do wispy waves like this now?
* Ryan's favorite picture of us, as mentioned on the podcast a couple of weeks ago:
* Photo taken at the store in late summer. Not sure the sign entirely fits the products. {LATE SUMMER!}
* The cool floors in the apartment at Ryan's Greentown house. They were made from old bleachers.
* When I was still getting used to the fact that Ryan's family can accomplish anything with farm equipment. It fascinated me so.
* The time I rear-ended Lynne's car. As in my own boss. And then I had to call Ryan and tell him I hit her with my car. Fun phone call!
* The day Ryan's truck hood flew up while he was driving, and all he had to secure it was an orange extension cord.
* The time we were in the middle of returning the dump truck to Ryan's family and we ran out of gas a mile from the farm.
* A picture they unearthed at the station of a time YEARS ago when the morning team came to Marion to broadcast remotely and I went with my friend, Sarah. Can you find me?
Ahhhhh, memories. They make me happy. So do pictures. {In case you couldn't tell.}
Fave picture you keep stored on your phone just to cheer up your own day??
We had an extra special treat on Saturday when Ryan got out of work early! YAY!!!!! Extra time together.
It is about a hundred million degrees here in central Indiana right now, so I really had little desire to leave the comfort of my air conditioning, but Ryan enjoyed doing his outside chores throughout the day. I'm not sure if he's brave or crazy, but either way, he had fun marking things off his to-do list. {And I have great appreciation for how wonderful that feels!}
We ventured forth in the afternoon to run some errands and given the heat index, it seemed ONLY right to stop for a frappe. We've been working to find a coffee shop in town that can be "our" official coffee shop, so that's where we went for our little outing. I've set up writing camp there a few times and just love it.
Saturday night, we had plans to visit Kokomo Beach again, because Ryan's company had rented the place out after it closed for the day, and employees and their families could go from 7-10 p.m. for free. It was still so hot at 7 that you couldn't catch your breath when you stepped outside, and Ryan was smack in the middle of yardwork, so we decided we would just skip it.
But then his co-worker texted to say it wasn't very busy and there weren't any lines...and Ryan finished his yardwork...so a little before 9, we hopped into our swimsuits and drove over to get in on the last hour of the fun.
This was the last time my hair looked good for the night.
We did the lazy river first and I sort of accidentally got under the waterfall part, and that was the end of my hair.
We met up with one of Ryan's co-workers and her kids, and they LOVE Ryan. They would love me more, I'm sure, if I were more fun. I am SO NOT FUN at a water park. I'm actually not fun at ANY park. I don't like rides, I don't like slides, I don't like getting water in my nose, and that's pretty much the whole of a park!! So the kids were tugging on my hands, trying to get me to race them on the slides, and I kept deferring to Ryan. I took pictures, which made me perfectly happy, but I think they think I'm perfectly weird. And they're right.
{To be fair, those kids are four of the best kids I've ever met. They are funny, polite, respectful, kind to the crazy lady who only does lazy rivers, and I really enjoy spending time with them.}
So here is some of that fun...the fun I had capturing slide races and cannonballs.
Ryan did get proof that I was there...
And we got a group shot with all of us. {Forgot the selfie stick at home.}
Ahhhh what a fun time with these friends. I'm enjoying getting to know his work friends' families!
{The final slide race of the night. They called it in Ryan's favor.}
