The Saturday Six

One.

I think it's been almost five years now since Ryan and I traveled to Virginia Beach as part of a vacation. Our friends Mark and Lynnette took us to Colonial Williamsburg one day, and we really enjoyed seeing so much history! I stumbled upon this article this week - about a gentleman who makes a living as an actor portraying Thomas Jefferson in Colonial Williamsburg, but he also lives there in one of the historic homes. I enjoyed reading about what it's like to actually live there full time!

Two.

I'm so pumped that we have tomatoes turning RED on our little plants - but if you want to see a truly impressive garden, check out this post! I don't know that I could ever produce anything of this caliber, but it's a beauty!!

Three.

Our new living space is actually quite generous in size, especially for an apartment! But it is a different layout than what we have here, and one of the biggest changes we'll have will be in closet space. We will have plenty. That isn't the issue. (We don't have a ton of clothes, anyway, in my opinion.) But we will be saying goodbye to our walk in closet and setting up clothing-camp in regular sized side-by-side closets. I loved some of these ideas for functionality in smaller closets!

Four.

We ended up rescuing a couple of things out of our garage sale last weekend. One of the treasures was a rickety old stepladder that I deemed unsafe for practical use. We couldn't believe no one snagged it for decorating, so we decided to snag it ourselves!! Found this post with some fun decorating ideas for old ladders!

Five.

Packing and prepping to move has definitely provided us both with a fresh appreciation for being willing to let go of things we don't need or use. (I love this line a friend of mine recently used: "I'm not currently in an acquisition phase of life." YES!!!!) But if decluttering and downsizing seems overwhelming to you, check out these ideas for some inspiration!

Six.

I will admit I have not made these myself, so I can't speak to the ease or deliciousness, but they sure do intrigue me! Anyone else grow up on brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts? These homemade versions look so yummy - and it's not just because I think it would be fun to add extra frosting...

Slow Goodbyes: The Living Room

Yesterday I started a series of "slow goodbye" posts where I'm processing all my thoughts and memories about the rooms in our home. Yesterday I shared about our kitchen and all the joy that room brought us in the last four years.

Today I am saying goodbye to our living room!

Because this room is adjacent to our kitchen, it also received quite a makeover in the time we lived here. When we took down the wall between the two rooms, the living room changed as much as the kitchen. One of Ryan's best decisions ever about this house!

Here are the changes we made in the living room (and I'll count the entry as part of it, since I don't feel the need to do a separate goodbye to that space).

* We took down the top half of the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen, allowing light to flow between the rooms, unhindered. That change also allowed the feel of the living room and kitchen together to lean more toward the open concept side, and it really helped when we entertained.

* We did a stone feature wall (thanks, Pinterest!) that became quite a conversation piece and gave the room so much personality.

* We replaced the carpet, which was an unplanned project we were forced to do when the (still new) carpet the previous owners put in ended up staining TERRIBLY. It was white and though it was high quality, and I'm sure they paid a lot of money for it, it hung onto stains like you would not believe. We overlooked everything until the cup of coffee took a tumble. Couldn't overlook that!

* We replaced the light in the entry to something a little more modern - and much brighter.

* We did a board and batten feature in the entry that turned out GREAT! That was our last project before finding out we were moving, but we think the new owners are really going to love it!

* We painted all the walls.

And we had plans to put in a shiplap/bookshelf feature wall, but we didn't get to it before we found out we were moving. But we've heard that the new owners plan to do a version of it, so we are excited to know it will eventually happen!

When we lived in Marion, our living room was a little on the small side, and it was long and skinny with few furniture placement options. (It basically only had one wall that wasn't broken up by a doorway and/or windows.) We were so excited to have a HUGE living room in this house - where we could do all the living and configuring without any interruption. And much like the kitchen, it did not disappoint. The huge open space gave us all kinds of opportunities to enjoy all kinds of joy in the last four years. Here's just a sampling of the memories.

* We hosted my mom's surprise party for her 80th birthday here in this living room. That's still one of my favorite memories - her sitting in the wheelchair in the corner, throwing her hands in the air and yelling when she saw my sisters sneak into the room as surprise #2. This was our first true entertaining in this home ,and what a joy it was!

* Our small group met in here every other week for three years. People came early to claim couch seats and a couple of the girls loved getting the electric throw blanket when the coldest parts of winter rolled around. We congregated on the couch, folding chairs, and even the floor to open up the Bible and study and pray together. So many friendships were forged during those small group nights!

* We did many, many workouts in this room. For part of the time we lived here, Ryan had a gym membership, but the rest of the time, we did all kinds of Beachbody videos and most recently, Revelation Wellness workouts right here in this living room. We hauled the hand weights in and out of the room and did a lot of sweating.

* This room served as entertainment central whenever the kids came to play. We built things with blocks, stacked the ice cream scoop game, played matching games, hid Easter eggs, colored pictures, built blanket forts, watched cartoons, and tumbled all over the place.

* The entry served as the check-in desk when our friends came to spend the night and their kids wanted our house to be an actual hotel. I had just a couple hours' notice, but I did my best to transform the whole place into a proper hotel, and the entry became the hotel lobby.

* We spent every Christmas Eve sleeping beside the tree - one of my favorite traditions we have. Even though we had a tree in our bedroom, too, I loved waking up to our family tree on Christmas morning. We read the Christmas account from Luke 2 and exchanged our gifts in here. And of course, the living room was the home of the famous Merrcy Hristmas sign. (And yes, that's going with us to our new home.)

* Friends and family members spilled over into this room when we hosted Mommapalooza, Christmas, Thanksgiving, game nights, and other adventures. They made themselves comfortable, talked, watched TV, and sometimes even took naps.

* This is the room where we've curled up in the early morning and late night hours to study our Bibles, pray, and write in journals. (Okay, so that last part was really just me.)

* This is also the room where I wrote thousands of words, read dozens of books, and watched more hours of Hallmark Christmas movies than I care to admit. (But I don't apologize for them.)

* This is the room where Ryan and I have taken a billion Sunday afternoon naps, watched hours of TV reruns, and shared so many conversations. We have prayed together and talked over major life decisions. We've laughed and cried in this room - truly living here and making the best life from it.

We are excited for the new owners to get to make memories of their own here and have space to spend time together as a family without being piled on top of each other. And we are excited for our own new living space. It won't be as large as the area we have now, but it will be plenty big enough for what we need, and I have a feeling it may even feel cozier. We won't have our huge sliding glass door, but I'm pretty sure the window configuration in there will allow Braeya to supervise the yard to her heart's content, so she'll be a happy girl.

We've loved living here - not just in the house as a whole, though certainly that too - but living in this room. Living with the Lord, living together, and living life with friends and family. It's been a blessing!

Slow Goodbyes: The Kitchen

When we moved out of our Marion home four years ago, I did a series of "Slow Goodbyes" posts. I did them more for my own memory preservation than anything else, so I decided to do them again for our Kokomo house. You're welcome to eavesdrop as I say goodbye to our home, but if goodbyes make you all weepy, it's okay if you don't want to read all the words. I understand.

A couple of days ago, we packed up the kitchen. Next to the office, it was the most time-consuming room to pack. And oh, the flood of memories it brought about!!

I think our kitchen in our Kokomo home wins the prize (easily, actually) for "most changed since high school." We did more to overhaul this room than any other room in the house. Sometimes when I see pictures of what it looked like when we moved in, I do a double take, because I don't even recognize it anymore.

* We took down the (non-load-bearing) wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, making an open concept for the main entertaining area of the house.

* We added a stone backsplash.

* We painted all the walls.

* We refinished the cabinets to make them espresso instead of builder-grade oak, and we upgraded the hardware.

* We replaced all the original white appliances with newer, stainless steel appliances.

* We replaced the outdated light fixture over the table with an updated stainless steel fixture.

I think in time, we would have probably upgraded the ceiling fan, sink and faucet, but really, this room was all kinds of brand new just with what we did!

But all our upgrades aside, this kitchen was such a sweet room for us. If you're a veteran reader here, you might remember that the kitchen at our Marion house was a very narrow galley kitchen that provided for lots of bumping around and overlapping if Ryan and I tried to cook together. We really looked forward to this Kokomo kitchen, because it was a proper room. Lots of cabinet space. A real pantry. Huge windows with tons of natural light. Room for an actual table. It was a for-real living space all by itself. We had grand dreams for this room.

And it did not disappoint. We have dozens and dozens of wonderful memories stacked up in this kitchen and preserved in the pages of our scrapbooks (as well as the nooks and crannies of our minds).

* In this room, we hosted dozens of Tuesdays at the Table. If you're newer here and don't know about those, they were our answer to inviting friends over to share a meal, and we did them for a long time. Maybe we'll be able to bring back some sort of version of that someday. We served all kinds of meals to friends and family alike across those months of Tuesday evenings.

* In this room, we had lots of fun with the kiddos in our lives. From nieces and nephews to friends' kids, we've had pancake parties, cookie decorating adventures, meals, and more. We crowded around our little tiny farmhouse table and made messes right along with memories. We colored pictures and did homeschooling and constructed crafts.

* In this room, we've cooked a million meals (give or take a few). Meals for the two of us, meals for Mommapalooza, Christmas, Thanksgiving, parties, and more. We've had taco bars, pizza buffets, birthday parties, and probably even more that I'm not remembering right now. Meals are love in my book, so we shared a lot of love in this little space.

* In this room, we watched our small group congregate to choose coffee mugs, fill a snack plate, talk, hug, laugh, and cry - before and after our official Bible study times. They deposited snack offerings on the table and helped themselves to whatever they needed, because they truly understood that our house was their house. Nothing gave me more joy than when they began pilfering around for themselves when they needed something. It told me they felt right at home, and I loved it.

* In this room, I baked hundreds of cookies. Cookie-baking is my go-to when I need to have a creative outlet or make a batch of gifts to share. My double oven cranked cranked them out in double the time, and the table became the cooling rack...at least for those that survived to the cooling stage. Taste-testing on warm cookies is best, right?

* In this room, we had a lot of conversations with Ryan's mom while she stayed here after her surgery. I'd cook her breakfast and eat with her every morning after Ryan left for work. He would sit with her in the evening, reading Scripture to her and talking her through the things that made her nervous. He sorted her medication in this room, and in fact, this was the room where he first told me about her diagnosis and its realities. She loved our house, and she loved my cooking. (She even loved it when I was secretly counting her carbs in her medication-induced diabetic state.)

* In this room, I made space for a skinny tree every December, so those driving by on our road could enjoy proper Christmas lights through the front window. My s'mores tree was in its element in front of that window! And somehow the room felt even Christmas-cozier with that tree all aglow!

* In this room, our visions of a coffee-themed room came to life, and we enjoyed crafting lattes and other coffee-flavored deliciousness for friends and family. In this room, our own morning java flowed freely and woke us up so we could have our most productive days!

* And just since quarantine, this room became the location of Ryan's breakfast-making perfection. He took his omelet-making game to new levels, and I certainly hope that skill doesn't remain with this room!

This little kitchen has been so good to us. We hoped for a room where we could live and work together, and it did not disappoint. We love the transformation we gave it, and we love the memories it gave us. We know it will do the same for its new family!

And for those of you who are worried that we are going to be back to a tiny kitchen...never fear! Yes, our next one is more of a galley style again, but it's even more open to the living area than this one is, and we'll have a little bar counter, too! (Ryan's particularly excited about that.) It is a beautiful, beautiful kitchen with all the updates, and we'll have room for an even bigger coffee nook than we have now. And we're going to get to use our actual dining room table once again.

So while we have much to look forward to about our new space, we are so grateful for the long-lasting memories we've enjoyed in this space!

Saying Goodbye to the Hospital Crew

Two nights ago, I washed, dried, and folded Ryan's scrubs...for the last time. He was asleep on the couch, worn out from an exhausting day of emptying our attic and putting memories in long-term storage. (On a 90+ degree day, nonetheless.)

For the last nine years, scrubs have been part of his life as he invested and immersed himself in a career he never imagined for himself. As he would tell you, when he graduated from high school, he didn't have college on his radar, because he didn't think he was smart enough to go. He knew he wasn't cut out for farm life, so he headed to the factory. And for over ten years, he did factory work. He was good at it, and it paid well, but he eventually realized it was going to age his body quickly if he kept up the pace.

That's when a friend from church asked him if he'd ever thought about going to school to learn physical therapy. He had not, but after their talk, he researched it and almost immediately signed up for classes. Almost thirty years old and finally headed to college. (Where, by the way, he found out he was not only smart enough, but he was a good student.)

He had a clinical rotation at a rehab hospital, and at the end of his rotation, they threw him a going away party.

But a job opened up, and he stayed.

They threw him two other going away parties throughout the last nine years, and for one reason or another, he ended up getting to stay every single time.

Last week they threw going-away-party-number-four. This time he's really leaving.

They all are.

I told one of my friends that I wasn't sure if it was easier to say goodbye knowing they're all going to be going their separate ways, or harder, because he left earlier than the rest.

Either way, it was a hard couple of days of goodbyes to friends who became family over almost a decade. We've walked some hard roads with some of them - and they've done the same for us. My goodness, when Ryan's mom was sick and dying, those people stepped up and covered for him so he could be at her surgery, her last days, her funeral. They sent us gift cards and left food on our porch. Most of them sat for hours in a packed church to pay their respects to a woman they'd never met, just because they loved her son so much.

So saying goodbye wasn't just walking out of a job. It was a hard goodbye, made maybe-harder-maybe-easier by the hospital closure.

And folding up those scrubs for the last time was a bittersweet moment for me. That hospital uniform represented not just the hard work of earning the degree, but the hard work of investing in patients every single day for the last nine years.

But the going-away party was very sweet. And it had its funny moments, too. Like when they all worked hard to arrange the party and surprise Ryan, but none of them thought to check his schedule, so he actually had a patient during the hour of the party. (HA! Someone covered for him so he could attend.) Or like when Michelle said this was the LAST time she was going to one of his going-away parties.

He finally got some lunch! And then I made him pose with a full mouth. It's what I do.

Heather was working in another building that day, but she came in for the party!

Michelle when she's NOT kicking Ryan out...

I've written about Cindy before (with her permission). She was a miracle patient starting back when my mom was in the rehab hospital. She loves Ryan so much and wanted to be at his party!

This is Amanda, who worked in Ryan's department. Her daughter was born on our wedding day - actually DURING our wedding! (Clearly not at our wedding.)

Nick and Dani - also from Ryan's department. Ryan and Nick are so funny together! (Have I ever told you the story of the time I was dog sitting for Nick's dog and his mom scared me to death by showing up at the house? That's a good one.)

Ryan's boss, mentor, friend, and Phoebe's dad - David. David and his wife Sheila have been so so good to us. They haven't told Phoebe we are leaving.

Ryan was Chanteal's student back in the day before all the goodbye parties started. ;)

And Katie! She's the newest therapist in Ryan's department and she is a gem. She got married last fall, and we went to her wedding. She's a cat fan like we are!!

We missed a few people on the pictures, but we love all of them and are sure going to miss daily life with them.

This place has been home, and its closure will be a tremendous loss for the community. But I am grateful for the role the people here have played in Ryan's life the last nine years!

Small Group Goodbyes

We had only been attending our church a few months when Pastor Cindy invited us into her office for a talk. Not because we were in trouble, but because she saw potential in us, and she wanted to get to know us better to see if we would be a good fit to be small group leaders.

We had led a couple of small groups prior to that invitation, and we knew we loved doing it. After she talked to us for a while, she said we were welcome to become official leaders if we wanted to give it a try. We were nervous...only because we were new. When sign-up Sunday came, we stood behind the table at church, sporting our matching small group t-shirts, and waited to see if anyone would want to be in a group led by two strangers.

Still to this day, I'm convinced our group was built up because it met on Tuesdays. No one knew us. I had no idea if anyone even wanted to know us. But Tuesdays worked for them, so they signed up.

We started out that first fall with about a dozen people in our living room. We were all over the place in age and life station. We had older, middle-aged, and younger members. We had married and engaged couples. We had new believers and long-time Christians. We had people who had been part of that church forever and others were new like we were.

Every other Tuesday night they came, choosing a coffee cup from the kitchen, filling a plate with snacks, and settling in to learn together for a couple of hours.

We finished the first year and the second one began. People came back. They all came back except the couple that moved away. (We miss you guys!!) And then a third year - with new couples added to the mix. We grew until we were almost bursting at the seams.

I think it was in the third year that we finally hit our stride. Some couples who didn't even attend our church anymore still wanted to be in the group because we'd become framily for each other. One friend who came just to make a video one night ended up staying and becoming part of the group.

People stopped leaving the moment study time was over. It was not at all uncommon for them to stay an hour or more past study time just to talk and have more snacks.

We loved it, and we loved them. We had prayed people through losses. Our people had prayed us through losses. We had celebrated answers to prayer. We wrestled through difficult questions. We told stories.

And when the world shut down, we started meeting on Zoom so we could still see each other and share life.

When we wrote the email a few weeks ago - the one in which we told them we were moving - we weren't prepared for the outpouring of love and sadness that came our way. We knew they loved us, but we didn't know they loved us that much.

And they needed to tell us goodbye. We planned a Zoom meeting, but it wasn't enough. They needed to see us and hear our story - and we needed to tell them it was okay to continue on even if we weren't there with them each week.

So a week ago today, one of the couples (with a lot of space to allow us to spread out) invited us over for an evening of talking and praying together - and I think it was just what we all needed. We cried, they cried, and at the end of the night, we got close enough to get in a picture together before spreading back out for air-hugs.

We got a nice picture, with everyone looking and smiling, but it's this picture I'll be framing for our new house. (We thought the pictures were over and we saw the timer flashing for one more.) These laughing, loving faces are the ones who made our small group leadership such a delight. These are the people who have loved us so well these last three years. These are the people we will miss studying with every other week, but these are also the people who have given us the hope that we can lead again in a new atmosphere with a new group.

Small groups aren't the answer to everything in life, but for us, they have sure been a blessing. And this crowd is a big part of the reason why.