The IKEA Haul

I mentioned earlier this week that on Monday, I went to IKEA with my friend Amber. She had a specific list of things she needed, but I just went along for the ride. Don't misunderstand: I shop with an open mind and can easily find things I "need," but I didn't go hunting for anything in particular.

I'm not saying this to justify a shopping trip, but I felt like I came home with a great group of practical, useful items that are going to make life in Shafferland a little bit better and cuter, too. Double win!

The first thing I found was probably the most impulsive thing I purchased. I found this adorable little alarm clock - a proper alarm clock, at that! I bought it for our guest room. I have never particularly stressed about not having an alarm clock in there because I know pretty much everyone uses phone alarms now, but I am the kind of person who just enjoys having a clock in every room. I like to glance at the time, and I appreciate having the option to do so. The guest room was one room that did not have a clock of any kind, and when I saw this one, it just screamed guest room clock! My décor in the guest room is red, black, and gray, so it's a perfect fit, it's little, it's alarm-functional if needed, and for the rest of the time, it's just cute.

Next up? These guys - which were HALF PRICE, thankyouverymuch. Because Ryan and I have started working with new ministries at church, I've been looking for ways to keep visible track of things we need to accomplish for them, so these metal sheets are the ticket. They're magnetic, so Ryan's going to hang them in the office for me and I'll designate one for each of the ministries. I can hang up prayer requests, brainstorms, reminders, and other bits of information that need to be sure to stay in front of my face! I love magnetic boards so much better than cork boards, because I always drop the thumbtacks and that's not great for bare feet! I'm still in the process of reorganizing the office, so I'm not ready for him to hang them yet, but they'll probably be up before the week is over! (Sorry for the randomly strange photo...I don't want to take off the protective plastic until we hang them!)

As some of you may remember, in our kitchen, we have a farmhouse style table with bench seats. I have absolutely fallen in love with the fact that the benches scoot completely underneath and allow me to work at the table as though it's an island, unobstructed by the tall backs of chairs. I wanted something similar in the office so I could take out the big, bulky chairs that have bruised me more than once when I've tripped over them. So I found these two cute little stools, assembled them myself, and we're actually going to just shuffle them back and forth between the desk (which is really a dining room table) and our podcasting table.. No need to have four chairs in the office when we can't sit in two places at once! And when we're not using the stools, they can just scoot under the table and be out of the way. No extra bulk!

I happened upon this strainer and decided to get it since it only cost a couple of dollars. I only have one strainer and many times I've wished for a second as I'm cooking so I don't have to stop and wash the one I have over and over in the same meal prep. (Another photo apology. I took pictures of everything the day I brought it home, and then I forgot to take a better one of this.)

A couple of my cutting boards are over ten years old and they're plastic. I'm trying to de-plastic our kitchen a little at a time, and I know those boards really need to go. They are so scuffed up and half the time they don't look clean, even though I know they've been well-washed. I found a couple of wooden cutting boards at a great price, so I got them to replace the old ones.

And finally, I found this set of nesting baskets, which I'm going to put in our bathroom (next up to be purged and organized) to hold makeup and all sorts of little things that need to be corralled in cute ways.

So I was very happy with my purchases, and I think Ryan liked them all, too! :) We're calling Monday an IKEA win! (Should we have gotten the hats?)

Fall Bucket List

I thought it would be fun to play along with this link-up this year, even if I don't end up participating in all the days. (Let's face it: I'm fashion-predictable. I'm not sure I can pull an exciting post out of that week's prompt!)

But a fall bucket list sounds pretty fun to me, so I thought I would play along this week and see what I can come up with for some autumn goals.

* It may be cheating to say this one since I've already mostly done it, but my first item would be to decorate the house for fall. I realize that may seem like a strange bucket list item, but last fall I didn't get to focus on decorating as fully as I would have liked, because fall brought about Nita's illness and the beginning of our crazy schedule. So this year I've enjoyed bringing out the fall décor tubs and warming up the house with oranges and yellows and different scenery!

* We are going to have to plan a trip to Marion at some point, because I cannot have fall without one cup of my beloved Apple Pie Chai from McConn Coffee. I have yet to find another coffee shop that makes this one - correctly, anyway. I did find one other place that had it on the menu, but it was not the same, and I was so very sad.

* We've never done this before, but I would love to take a drive through our own county this fall, once the leaves turn, to take pictures of beautiful areas. Remember this summer when I told you Ryan and I visited a little country church and drove down tree-covered roads we didn't even know existed around here? I want to go rediscover them in the fall.

* Make lots of soup! I love soup season, because it's so easy to throw everything in the slow cooker first thing in the morning and then enjoy it at dinner time.

* Diffuse all the fall smells. I have been eyeing all my fall scented essential oils here lately and am ready to mix them all up in the diffuser and enjoy a fall-scented house!

* One thing we did squeeze in last year amid all the chaos of our schedule was a hike through a state park. We went to Turkey Run with our friends Shawn and Amber and we had the best day ever. I loved it. I'd love to hike again in the fall. Less sweat!

* This one is more Ryan's than mine, but I will sneak a taste or two. Once regular football season hits, he loves a Sunday night dinner of chips, salsa, and queso. He mixes the salsa and queso together and puts away enough to constitute a meal! I used to join him, but I really need my pants to zip, so I'll just have a taste or two and eat something more vegetable-y.

* Candy corn and peanuts. Again, I need the pants to zip, so I can't go crazy, but I do want to have a small handful. It's one of my favorite things.

* I'm not sure if we'll get to do this, but I really would love to do a corn maze. We've done a couple since we've been married, and there is one nearby that we've never tried. I'd like to go if we can make it happen!

* Go to a college football game. (This may also be a cheating item since it's on the calendar already, but still...)

* Curl up under a blanket on the hammock and read. I need to find myself a cool-but-not-cold fall afternoon and snuggle up in the hammock with a blanket and a good book.

I'm sure there are more things I'd like to do, but I think this is a pretty fine start, don't you?

81 Months = Building Inside and Out

Monday was our 81st monthiversary! Wasn't it so helpful that our own holiday fell on a holiday? Well, it was nice, except Ryan worked and I went shopping, so it didn't really feel like a holiday.

My friend Amber had the day off work and planned to go to IKEA, so she asked if I wanted to go along and keep her company. Well, of course I wanted to go, but I didn't want to miss too much time with Ryan since he only had to work part of the day. He told me to go, have a great time, enjoy a shopping fix, and not worry about a thing.

So I did!

I had it in my head that the salted caramel mochas at Starbucks were part of the holiday menu, not the fall menu. But either they changed it or I was wrong, because they were selling them and you better know I got one! Delicious. I really do love those.

Next stop? IKEA!!! I didn't really have a shopping list, but I knew I would know what I needed when I saw it. And I did. (More on that another day.)

We decided not to go for these...

Sneaking into Amber's loading-the-car photo!

She and I really did have a great time, and I was able to find a few things for the house that I hope will make it feel even more like a home. That's one of my greatest joys as a wife: getting to consistently transform our house into a home for Ryan. So while it was a shopping day, it was more than that to me. It was a home-transformation day that brought my heart so much happiness.

Meanwhile, Ryan was home working on the porch. All of our cement work is done, so we were able to reassemble what had been torn apart. (We had to move all our potted plants out of the way while they worked, and we had taken down all the porch decorations, so we were able to put all that back up. We also repainted the trim, which was about a year overdue for an additional coat of paint.)

Ryan started before I got home. Braeya "helped."

Is it bad when our official monthiversary photo is taken while we're crouched down in the driveway working on projects? I felt it was representative of the day and that worked for me!

Ryan painted a crate for me. We didn't have quite enough paint in the can, so we just tried to make it look purposefully distressed. ;)

And as a reward for all our work, we grilled chicken and had home-grown sweet corn. Yummy!!

It was a full day, and we were both a bit exhausted by the end, but it was a day of making (or in some cases, remaking) our house into a home, and that is representative of what we try to do in our hearts every single day. We worked together as a team, we celebrated what we were able to accomplish, and we called monthiversary #81 a win!

Calm and Storm

As promised yesterday...some of the best of the embarrassing moments from the early blog days. I left out the one where I colored my roots with a scented marker. But the rest are just as story-worthy. Enjoy!

Listen here

This storm swirling through the Atlantic right now is something else, isn't it? They all are, really. Each storm with its unique name, path, and intensity swells up furiously from the calm, wreaks havoc, and then dissipates back into calm, leaving behind all the wreckage.

Living in the Midwest, of course, I have never been a firsthand witness to the terror of a hurricane in motion. I've seen tornadoes, and if you've been reading around here very long, you know I hate everything about those. Hurricanes and tropical storms, though, seem oh so much worse. For all of the devastation of a tornado, it's here and gone in a matter of moments. Living through days of an intense storm? I can't grasp that.

The first year Ryan and I were married, we took a Caribbean cruise, and we spent a day in the Bahamas. From what I can tell, the area where we went didn't sustain the bulk of the damage I've read about online, but neither was it entirely spared.

I remember the day we were there. We didn't have an excursion planned for that port, so we planned to find a beach and enjoy the day. Ryan tried to communicate to the bus driver that we wanted a public beach, and he dropped us off in what seemed a very remote spot, pointed down a narrow alley, and promised there would be a beach on the other side of the buildings.

To this day, I'm certain he sent us to private property, but I will say that it was absolutely delightful to spend an entire day on a deserted beach.

We set up our tripod and captured our day of fun. We sat in the sand and talked, splashed in the gorgeous clear waters, and appreciated every moment of our perfectly private beach find.

As the afternoon went on, we began to notice some darker clouds gathering on the horizon, so we packed up our bags, found a bus, and managed to get back to our ship before the skies opened and rain fell hard.

But that rainstorm was nothing in comparison to what the area has seen this week. It wasn't just a dark cloud or two. It was a swirling, devastating storm.

It's hard for me to imagine, when I look at these perfectly crafted photos, that these same waters could become so angry and the winds could blow so fiercly.

It's true of our hearts, too. (Not just Ryan's and mine - yours too!) We can be in the calm of what seems the perfect moment, and suddenly we see some dark clouds. And maybe sometimes the storm that blows up in our faces is full and angry and overwhelming. And it may last for days. Weeks. Longer.

When it subsides, it may leave behind a mess of damage that looks far too big to ever clean and organize.

When those moments come for me, I have to remind myself that God has shown in the past that He can help me survive the storm and clean up the wreckage it leaves behind. That one day the waters will be calm again, and blue skies will appear. It may not be soon, but it will happen.

The last picture I shared in this post is one that Ryan and I had printed on a canvas and it hangs in our bedroom. As I pray for those in the path of this swirling storm, asking God to sustain them in the angry winds, I am also praying for those facing heart-storms. (And praying over some of my own!) If you're in the heart-storm group today, I hope you'll find a measure of hope in knowing the storms do pass. And in the grace of the Lord, we will be stronger for going through them.

She Did Better Than She Thought

At any given time, I tend to have half a dozen projects taking place, and one of them I'm working on right now takes me back into the early, early archives of this blog. I'm trying to back up some of my posts and make it easier for me to look up things I've written about before when I want to find them again. 

I haven't looked at the early posts for a long time. I started blogging in what feels like a whole different lifetime. I was still single, working in Financial Aid, and I didn't love winter any more than I love it now. 

It's funny to me how very different my day-to-day life looked back then. I slept in on Saturdays until noon or even early afternoon. It was apparently nothing for me to stay up (or even out with friends!) until about two in the morning - on a very regular basis. I still scrapbooked the good old-fashioned way, with papers and printed pictures and glue sticks. (And I made my own cards.) 

And yet there were some things that were still the same, like the intensity with which I loved to study the Bible, and the amount of time I spent writing. 

Braeya was just a toddler kitten, and I still had her older brother, Kaegan. (He died in 2011.) My friends' kids, who called me Aunt Bekah, were just babies and toddlers, and now they're all in junior high and high school. I was becoming a decent cook, but I still had a lot to learn. 

I was still living in Marion back then, and our Hobby Lobby had closed. Meijer hadn't come to town yet, and I couldn't stand shopping at Wal-Mart. 

And I collected embarrassing moments like I currently collect dust. (Tomorrow's podcast will be a fun nod to that!) 

But here's the thing I've noticed most of all in all the combing through old posts. 

I did a better job muddling through life than I felt like I was doing at the time.

Those were the days when I spent hours in prayer asking God to sustain me in singleness, because I ached to be married. Those were the days when I felt like I couldn't do anything right, because there were so many decisions I had to make on my own. Those were the days I wasn't sure my contributions to life mattered, because life felt so scattered.

But on this side of 40, I'm awfully proud of that just-turning-30 Bekah girl. She didn't do everything right, of course. She made a lot of mistakes that she talked about openly and she made dozens more that (wisely) didn't make it to the blog. But she tried her best and she succeeded more than she knew.

I see a girl who struggled through a math-laden job but gave it her all anyway. (I found posts where I made vague references to difficult moments when students and parents gave me grief and found those memories sailing through my head in living color as I read. Some things never fully leave.) 

I see a girl who loved her friends fiercely and did everything she could to invest in them. Some of those friends are still active in my life today and others have become more distant with the passing of time, the widening of geography, and the changes in circumstances. But I'm richer today because they were deeply invested in me then. 

I see a girl who attacked life fiercely, even when she didn't understand adulthood at times. (I told Ryan that now that I have the privilege of his wisdom on house stuff, I'm not even sure I could do now some of the things I did then to keep up with maintenance and repairs!)

I see a girl who treasured memory-making and life-shaping, and that's something that has never changed. 

I see a girl who needed to grow and refine, but she was purposeful and intentional about her life. 

This is one of the reasons I love journaling and blogging. I love the perspective it affords. It gives me great hope that I'll be able to look back in another ten years and see more happening than I can see in this moment.

And I hope it gives you great hope that for whatever things you feel have been lesser-than - or even a complete failure - in your own life might have gone just a little bit better than you thought they did. 

Above all, remember that for every moment that we walk this earth, we always have room to grow, mature, change, and improve. May we always be seeking the Lord and His guidance over us so we can learn from what we've not done well and do better with it next time. Grateful for His grace today!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy September!!! I absolutely keep forgetting it's a holiday weekend, and it hardly seems possible that September is here already! But it is, so welcome, new month! Hope all of you are having a great weekend, whether or not you have time off work!

* Last Sunday morning, it seemed like every single song in our service had perfect words. And the sermon was outstanding. Lots of God-moments throughout that service! Ryan and I caught up on our rest that afternoon, and when we went outside for a bit that evening, I found this perfect tiny rosebud on our bush. (This bush never did grow much this year, so this was a little sign of hope and promise!)

* We were sort of running out of food options at the beginning of the week, because we hadn't gone to the grocery store since coming back from our weekend away. Breakfast for lunch sounded great, so I made pancakes! We did some work from home that evening, and I nearly overshot the mug when I made some coffee in the Keurig. Whoopsie!

* Tuesday morning I had a meeting with someone from church, and we met at Panera. I love Panera, but it's a place we don't go all that often, so that was a fun little treat! (As was the flip flop cookie I had, but I ate it so fast I forgot to take a picture of it.) I found Braeya curled up with my prayer blanket that afternoon. I wonder what she was praying for? :)  After several weeks of brown, straw-like grass, things are starting to green up around here again, so Ryan mowed the yard that night.

* I had my annual eye-doctor appointment on Wednesday, and I'm sad to report I no longer have 20/12 vision. (For those of you who haven't heard of that...I made it up.) I still have great vision, but it's slowly slipping from where it's always been. Sad day. After Ryan got off work that day, we did some lawn mowing for his extended family, and then they invited us to stay for dinner. Taco night!!

* The guy working on our porch projects finished up at our house this week. He worked on the front porch, fixing the color to make it more what we wanted, and we were happy with the outcome! We went grocery shopping after work; our store revamped and it smells like a big glue bottle right now! We came home with a fresh supply of food and some pretty new flowers!

* I made some mason jar salads on Friday - and I declared it cute food Friday. Why are meals so much more fun to eat out of a jar?? We had a pizza date night, and I was so excited that Miss Braeya Jo elected to hang out with me instead of Ryan! She always picks him when he's home! (And who can blame her?)

* Ryan worked yesterday and then we met up with his family at the cemetery where his mom is buried, so they could pour the foundation for her stone. Allen wanted all the family to put their handprints in the foundation, so they did! And then we rounded out the night having game night with our high school friends game crew!

The Saturday Six

One.

You are well aware that I love a good home tour. I mean, remember Monday? I took you through a little cabin I found that is so adorable! Well I happened upon this post this week that isn't a home tour, but it is a gorgeous neighborhood tour. We have a neighborhood here in town that is filled with old, character-laden homes, and sometimes I like to drive through it just to appreciate their beauty. (And I get really excited anytime one goes up for sale because then I know I can see inside pictures online!) Anyway. The blogger toured a gorgeous neighborhood one afternoon and shares pictures of her favorite houses. So pretty.

Two.

Some wise words written by Jackie at Rad-Joy, exploring what it means to follow God's calling on our lives. If you're in a place of searching right now, you might find some encouragement as you read over this!

Three.

I declared yesterday to be "cute food Friday," and I made individual 7 layer salads from Dashing Dish. We use canning jars for our drinking glasses, so I just made the salads in those. It's a free recipe, and Ryan and I both liked it, so check it out if you need a new idea!

Four.

Some of you know that I occasionally link to Lindsay Sherbondy's hand-lettered art. Ryan and I have several of her art pieces in our home, and when she had a storefront for a time in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, we actually stopped in to meet her in person (while we were en route to one of my speaking engagements). If you follow Lindsay on social media, you already know this, but if you don't, her 7 year old daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury this week in a strange and seemingly random fall out of a golf cart. Here is a link to her Caring Bridge page if you'd like to see updates or know how to pray with and for them. I can't even imagine! 

Five.

Here is a list of over 50 freezer meals you can make for yourself/your family/your friends! If the return of the school year has made your meal prep time a bit short, or if you want to bless some busy or recovering-from-illness friends, take a look and see if you can find an idea or two!

Six.

In closing today, I will share with you another recent Etsy find of mine. For the last few years, I've been using Lemongrass Spa for all my skin care, and while I love the products, I simply can't keep up with the minimum monthly order requirements anymore. So I've been on the hunt for all-natural products that I can order at my own leisure. In my hunt, I looked for a new body wash, and this one seems to be working well! I like that it has a little bit of bubble and a decent amount of aroma WITHOUT turning me into suds-ville or making me smell like a giant cookie. And a fun bonus? They personalize the labels for you, so my bottle says it was made just for me! (I suppose this keeps Ryan from digging into the berries and cream body wash!) I also liked having the option to choose whether I wanted a pump top or a flat cap top. And if you're not a fan of berries and cream, there are a variety of other scents available. The shop owner is from Illinois, and shipping is free (at least in the US, I believe.)

What I Learned in August

Ryan glanced out the window during the Colts game last night and told me that it was dark...at 8:30. Sadness indeed. August has come and gone - or at least as of tomorrow it will have come and gone - and believe it or not, I did learn a few things while it was here! Take a look!

1. I did not miss my calling when I decided not to become an actress.

As I blogged about earlier this month, I had a very small (smaller than miniscule, really) part in a skit at church, and it completely stressed me out. I was terrified of forgetting all my lines. All four of them, you know. It wasn't being in front of people that scared me. I do that all the time when I speak. It was the actual acting and the attempts to be seamless with the others in the skit that terrified me. So skipping out on acting was, it turns out, one of my better life decisions.

2. If you're going to ride a bike for the first time in five years, don't try to do twenty miles in one day.

I am really proud of myself FOR doing just that, but WHEW! (Trivia: when I did the laundry after our bike ride, I discovered Ryan owns biking shorts with a padded behind. WHAT?! No wonder he wasn't hurting on that trip!) Also, as a subpoint to this item, if you haven't jumped rope in a while, maybe start back up with something less ambitious than six hundred jumps.

3. There is such a thing as a leap second app.

Have you heard of it? I learned about it because one of my Facebook friends has used it every single day for the last year. She has recorded exactly one second of video to represent her days over the last year and it made a 6 minute and 6 second video that was pretty fun to watch. (If I am the last person on earth to learn about this app, just move along and say "Bless her heart.")


4. The initials M and M (like of the candy?) represented people's names.

Ryan watched a documentary (that was way more interesting than the name "documentary" would lead you to believe) on how food shaped America. Part of the documentary focused on the chocolate industry, which obviously covered Hershey and Mars...but that's where we learned that both of the Ms stood for a last name of the candy creators. WHO KNEW!?

5. Concrete stamping is FASCINATING to watch.

We had some work done on our front and back patios this month, and I had never seen concrete stamping before. It was so cool to watch them place the texture and color designs in the fresh slab of concrete. I was kind of like a toddler watching through the window! I'm sure the guys were eager to finish the job at our house and return to working at places where scrapbookers-in-residence do not hover.

6. I found out what dill looks like...outside of the spice jar.

Since I don't have an herb garden of my own, I typically use a lot of dried spices in my cooking. When I was on our family vacation this month, I saw dill for the first time in plant form. It's like a tiny green (not hot) firework!

7. Andrew Luck retired.

And so marks the thing we all learned this month, right? As you know, I'm not really what one might call a die-hard sports fan. (One might just as easily call me a complete sports idiot and be absolutely correct.) I'm not really a credible sports commentator. But that doesn't stop me from having a comment! :) I am actually more of a Jacoby Brissett fan than I am an Andrew Luck fan, but I have incredible respect for what Andrew did. In all likelihood, we only heard a fraction of the reasons that factored into his decision, but if a man of his talent and caliber can see beyond the game and the paycheck to consider the full scope of life, health, and family, I applaud that. It's rare and impressive.


So what about you? What did you learn?