Shafferland 3.0 - Be Our Guest!

The very first room we put together in our new apartment was our guest room - because we needed to stay in there while we waited for our new bed in our master bedroom. So today I thought I'd show you the (mostly) completed guest room! 

You may remember that during quarantine, we redid some rooms in our Kokomo house (having no idea that we were going to be moving out of it shortly), and the guest room was one of those! Though I think we would have been permitted to repaint the apartment guest room the same color we used in Kokomo, we elected to leave it the same color it was when we moved in. In the pictures you're about to see, it looks mostly pink, but depending on the time of day and the lighting, it often looks lavender. We felt like it kept enough with the feel of the Anne of Green Gables theme that it wasn't worth the work of repainting - at least right now. 

So here's a peek at the room!

We used the same bed we had in Kokomo - and you might remember that it expands to a king bed when necessary. We have the same art up over the back of the bed, and the same quilt bedding I loved so much. (The Rebekah!) The bookshelves on either side of the bed are the same, as are all the things on them. Down at the far end are the three art prints I got for my birthday that depict scenes from the Anne of Green Gables movie. The black bench was also in our guest room at home - and the frame sitting on it is one of the prints from Anne of Green Gables that Ryan used for my quarantine birthday party. 

We love the flowy white curtains at the window, and of course I think we all remember the scene in the movie where Anne and Diana lifted weights together...right? Okay, so we just didn't have anywhere else in the apartment to put the weights, so we put them in here! 

And here's the other end of the room. The other bookcase, another window with flowy white curtains, and the old dresser. (In our Kokomo house, this dresser was in our bedroom, but we don't have room for it in ours here, and I think it fits better in the guest room anyway. It's very Anne-ish. My Dad's old typewriter also found a new home in this room! 

This is the one part of the room that isn't quite done yet. This is the same little bookcase/shelf we had in our Kokomo guest room, and it still houses kid toys and books for when our friends with kids come to visit. We have the little basket for blankets next to it - but it looks a bit unfinished, doesn't it? That's because we don't have a TV for this room yet. Since we ended up putting our guest room TV in our bedroom, this one is is empty. We're holding out for Black Friday sales. :) 

Here are a few up close details...

The Anne print says, "Dear old world, you are very lovely." In a year where this dear old world hasn't always felt very lovely, I thought this was a good reminder to keep up in the room. Plus it reminds me of that delightful party-for-two that Ryan threw for me this year!

And the art prints that I still love with all my heart:

I love a little bed tray with coffee mugs and flowers. So cheery!

Old books...

I hope to one day get this restored...

But when it's all put together, I think it's a lovely little guest room. We have no idea who will end up being our first guests, but we're all ready!!

(I may keep an eye out for a rug, too, just for fun. I'm not used to a zero carpet house!)

Many Hands Make Light Work

Last week a group of volunteers congregated at WillowBridge and blessed us to no end by helping us complete a whole bunch of projects in no time at all!

Prior to our arrival, WillowBridge had been selected as a site for the United Way's Day of Caring! The crew assigned to our building showed up a couple of weeks ago (well...a representation of the team came over, anyway) and made a list of all the things we needed done. And then last Wednesday they came back...with friends!

My mom used to remind me that many hands make light work, and though I fear I may have rolled my eyes when she said it to me, I saw it in action in huge ways last week.

While I was busy whipping up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and creating a little coffee and snack bar, Ryan oversaw the arrival of a whole bunch of mulch!

 

And then the volunteers arrived! 

They were so kind to us - working with enthusiasm and vigor all over the property!

* They pulled weeds out of the ivy in the landscaping and trimmed bushes and trees all over the place.

* They took down the trampoline so it won't get battered by Indiana winters. 

* They painted our entire shed, including the trim.

* They put a second coat of a paint on our deck.

* They moved the mulch out of the parking lot into locations where it looked so much more appropriate. :) 

And at the end of the day, when they gathered up all the tools (the ones they'd brought along and the ones we had borrowed from Gateway Woods), the place looked so fresh and clean! As I circled around taking the after pictures, I thought about how long it would have taken our little team to accomplish all those tasks alone. 

Could we have done it? Absolutely. But it would have taken us all through the fall, I'm sure. Now we have more time to work on relationships, team building, and constructing more vision for the future of this place. And for those gifts, we are so, so grateful. 

Many hands really do make light work, and we are grateful for an office full of people who set aside a day to help us carry our burden of work!

It's a lesson I hope to remember when serving those around me. Things that may not seem huge to me might make ALL the difference to those I help. And it's true for you, too!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Good morning from Grabill! Happy Sunday to all of you! I hope today is a beautiful day - inside, if not also outside your home - and that you enjoy some rest! Here's a look at our most recent week!

* We were on duty last Sunday, and we got to enjoy an unusual happening: our entire team went to church together! One of our tenants was baptized, so our support couple and all the other tenants went to church together to be part of the day. We've come to really enjoy the Sundays when all four of us are on duty and we can spend the afternoon together. Ryan caught me updating the message board we put in the entry to the building - and I caught him hanging some curtains in our apartment. Little by little, it's becoming home!

* Monday I reintroduced workouts to my schedule. (Trying to bring back in one habit a week, and this week it was working out.) So as soon as I got done with morning transportation runs, I knocked out the workout! That afternoon, we walked over to Grabill Country Sales, which is a very fun Amish store not far from us. In addition to stuff for sale, it also has an animal collection, and Ryan was super excited about the rhino! And Braeya LOVES her new perch to watch out the window all her waking hours. (She is still a heavy napper, though. Ryan rarely gets one anymore...this was a fun moment.)

* Speaking of rhino, we found Brutus in our unpacking, so Ryan ran him through the dishwasher before we found him a permanent home. What? Do you not open the dishwasher to find a rhino head in there?? We spent Tuesday preparing for a big work day at WillowBridge on Wednesday. Got out all the supplies, Ryan washed the deck, and I took all the before pictures of the building. And when we were done for the day, we took a walk and totally interrupted some cows' dinner. They seemed a bit less than amused.

* Wednesday was work day! A crew came to us through the United Way Day of Caring, and they were amazing. They had great attitudes, they were hard workers, and they were funny!!! They pulled weeds, trimmed bushes and trees, took down our trampoline, painted the deck, painted the shed, and put down mulch. It would have taken Ryan and Tim many many days to do all that, so it was such a blessing to have many hands make light work! And oh goodness! The place looks so beautiful now!

* Thursday was the first day of our weekend, and we had our first visitors! My parents were on the road for their 66th wedding anniversary, so they came to see where we live before they went home! We gave them a tour of our apartment and the building, and then we drove them around the area, showing them our town and the town next dor. We went back to Grabill Country Sales - for dinner this time! It was good to see them and good to finally be put together enough to welcome visitors!

* Friday was our second day of our weekend, and Ryan went back to Kokomo to see some of his former work people! They were having a lunch cookout! While he did that, I worked some more on unpacking and organizing our office. One more good day in there, and I think I'll be done!! When he got home from work, we had a quick date to look at RVs for fun! Seriously never gets old.

* We returned to work yesterday and had a great day at WillowBridge and some great conversations with our tenants! Ryan grilled our dinner and I baked a pie that my good friend Marie Calender put together for us. We went on another sunset walk and I couldn't resist my millionth Grabill sunset picture. They are all so pretty!

The Saturday Six

One.

I really loved reading this article! It's about an old farmhouse that was in such bad condition that it couldn't be salvaged, some people bought it and recreated it to try to make it as much like its original self as they could...while also making it updated to fit modern needs. The end result was beautiful!

Two.

I've enjoyed seeing how different people have gone about organizing their masks. We are perfecting our mask organization to make sure we have an adequate supply in all the places we need them. I don't know that it's 100% perfect yet, but it's getting there. I really enjoyed the ideas in this post, too! She has a good system going on!

Three.

Ryan's mom and step-dad LOVED shopping for antiques. They lived (and his step-dad does still live) in that beautiful log cabin, and they had so many gorgeous old pieces that looked like they were just made for that house. I'm not a big antique shopper, but we do have a handful of older pieces that belonged to my grandparents. I love them more for their story than their spot on the antique list. But I do have to say, the idea of having a proper old card catalog kind of piece (someday) is delightful to me. I love, love, love that thought. So when I saw several pieces in this post, I got all melty inside. How about you? Do you love antiques or not so much?

Four.

My sister sent me this article...about apartments in New York libraries. They're abandoned now, but they used to house the families that kept the coal furnaces running in the libraries. Can you imagine living in a LIBRARY??? (sigh of joy....) Judging from the outside, I don't think the Grabill library has an apartment in it. If so, it's well masked.

Five.

I know some of you are homeschooling for the first time, or you're trying to be prepared if your kids' classes move (even temporarily) to home for a quarantine, or some of you are doing e-learning through the school. I found this posthttps://primaryplayground.net/snack-ideas-for-the-alphabet/ with some great ideas for alphabetical snacks! If you're working with preschool or younger grades, this might be a perfect thing to work in to your days! Or...you know...if you're an adult who is trying to remember the alphabet and likes snacks...

Six.

How have I not heard of this trail before? Hey Ryan! Wanna try it?

Our First Visitors!

Yesterday we enjoyed a first here in our new home...our first visitors!

Technically our first visitors arrived the day we moved in - and they helped us tote in all our belongings. But we hadn't invited any visitors over since we unpacked all those belongings and tucked them in their respective homes.

Until yesterday!

My parents came to visit! They had gone away overnight for their 66th anniversary and stopped by to see us on their way back home. I was so glad to see them pull in the parking lot, since I was the one who had written out directions for them from their hotel. Sure was glad to see I hadn't mixed up any of the "turn right" and "turn left" advice.

We gave them a tour of the apartment; even though we had FaceTimed with them and sent pictures and videos, it's not the same as seeing it all in real life.

Then we showed them around the building a bit, and they got to meet our friends and co-workers. (It was a day off for us, so they were on duty.) And we gave them their anniversary present!

(Dad had to vacate his place on the couch playing with Braeya for the above photo - ha!)

After we showed them the building and grounds, we took them on a driving tour of Grabill and Leo.

Then we took them out for dinner at this little Amish store that also serves food. (It was like my dad's happiest world all in one building.) They enjoyed it, I think!!

And then we sent them on their way so they could get home before dark. :)

And then we took a nap because apparently Amish food puts us in a food coma!!

It was good to have them here, and good to celebrate their anniversary with them!

Sixty-Six Years

So here is a strange thing I try not to think about too hard: this year marks twenty years since I graduated from college.

Not high school.

College.

How is this even possible??

Because I grew up in the Midwest and attended a Christian college, many of my friends landed on the path I fully intended to take: marriage immediately following graduation. I've seen a lot of friends post this year about their twentieth wedding anniversary, and that seems as strange to me as knowing I've been out of college for twenty years!

They write beautiful tributes on these anniversaries and speak of how they had no idea what was coming when they got married. They speak of the joys and challenges of those twenty years and how they've come to the other side stronger for the experiences.

Today my parents mark sixty-six years of marriage.

Sixty-six years.

Six and a half decades of joys and challenges.

Job changes.

Moves.

Building a house.

Babies.

Surprise babies.

Health challenges.

Grandparenting.

Saying goodbye to parents.

Retirement.

And so much more that I'm sure I don't even know.

I celebrate my friends who mark twenty years of marriage this year - and I celebrate my parents who mark a rare milestone.

And when I'm exactly 100 years old and Ryan is 99, we'll look through our scrapbooks and remember (or discover...if our minds aren't keeping up) the 66 years we'll celebrate!

Shafferland 3.0: The Master Bedroom

The day that Ryan and I moved into our new apartment, I immediately unpacked and set up our guest room. We were going to have to stay in there a few days, and I needed some room to feel settled when every other room felt buried in boxes. I unpacked pretty things and put them on shelves. I unpacked lamps and plugged them in to make for softer lighting. 

And for the time we stayed in there, it was a delightful little space. But once it was time to put the master bedroom together, I was eager to call a room completely finished - full decor and all - and that is how the master bedroom came to be our first totally completed room. I thought you might want to take a peek at it!

I know I mentioned this once or twice before, but I'll mention it again - just in case you missed it. The day we interviewed for the job, we were able to see the apartment, but since we had no idea if we would actually be chosen for the job, we didn't really scrutinize the place as we walked through. We didn't take any pictures or measurements. It wasn't the time for that, and we knew it. 

But when we accepted the job, we had to rely on the memory of a quick walk-through to plan what we could bring based on what we thought might fit. We remembered that the master bedroom had been pretty small in comparison to the room we had in Kokomo. So we decided that in order to try to maximize our space, we would downsize our bed from a king to a queen. We chose a bed that had some storage in (drawers, cabinets, and shelves) and chose bedding that we hoped would work based on what we remembered about the wall color. 

And I think it worked pretty well!

I fell so in love with the quilt we got for our guest room that I asked Ryan if he minded if we got one for our room. I'm so glad he was okay with it because I love the look. The side tables and lamps were the same ones we had in Kokomo, and they fit right in. Actually, all the pillows are the same ones we had on our old bed! 

Here's the other side of the room! The little table under the TV was in the entry at our old house, but it worked well here, so that's where we put it! The TV had been in our guest room at the old house, but it fit in this space, so here it is!! 

And our new curtains! None of the windows had curtains when we moved in, but when we put those up, it made all the difference in it feeling like home. 

Here are a few of the details up close.

Even though we've been married almost eight years, I still love using our wedding pictures in our decorating. And I love that little sign. And that's Ryan's wedding boutonniere in the corner. 

The other side of that table...a picture from our photo shoot last fall, the beautiful tray my friend Amber made me for my 40th birthday, and a lantern from our wedding. 

Our canvas picture from our first cruise right after we got married. Pretty sure the colors were meant for this room!

And underneath it is the wooden barrel we had on our sun porch in Kokomo. It makes the perfect pedestal for this vase of flowers! The white branches on top are Bethlehem lights my sister gave me for my birthday, and at night, they have the softest glow. It's beautiful! That canvas on the floor was a wedding gift, and I love it!

This sign was in Ryan's office at the hospital, but I gave it a new home in our bedroom!

And this was a wedding gift inspired by our beach wedding. It fits perfectly in here!

And a few wedding and engagement photos on the shelf!

 And that's my wedding lantern there! :)

It is the coziest little haven. We absolutely love it! Memories and reminders of the story of our life so far. It's the perfect little spot, and we couldn't love it more.