Christmas Mail!

 

One of my favorite posts each year is this one: sharing our Christmas card and letter! I hope you enjoy your virtual mail today!

            Back in October 2022, when we were attending my dad’s 90^th birthday party, we hesitantly told some friends about our decision to purchase a home on a lake and move for the third time in three years. We paused, ready to receive the familiar eyeroll or even chastisement for our apparent lack of life-direction, but surprisingly, one of them said, “What a courageous decision! Most people would look at that and say, ‘Someday, maybe,’ but you have enough courage to allow the course of your life to change now, while you have the energy and years ahead of you to enjoy it.” What a profound gift she gave us with her words – and more than that – a jump-start at direction for our 2023. Because of her encouragement and wisdom, we have approached this year by seeking the Lord in all kinds of ways and bravely stepping forward to serve and live fully, right in our present circumstances. After several years of seeking, searching, wrestling, and a heap of heartaches, we have enjoyed the blessing of a year that allowed us to inhale the freedom and heart-healing of the Lord in ways we haven’t known for quite a while. We are grateful.

            Because of the Lord’s grace and guidance, here are some of the things we have explored, embarked on, and enjoyed in 2023:

We finished the main renovations on our little fixer-upper cottage on the lake and moved in late February. A dozen friends showed up early on a cold, sunny morning with trucks, trailers, and muscles, and by lunchtime, everything was loaded, transported, and unloaded. We were fully unpacked in about two weeks’ time, and now we’re slowly dreaming and working our way through projects to continue bringing this home into its full potential and into our vision-come-to-life.

As we embraced our life at the lake, we both tried new adventures. Ryan took up paddleboarding and I took up (small-time) gardening. Ryan said his many years of skiing, wakeboarding, and barefooting prepared him for paddleboarding life, and I am grateful for friends and writers who taught me gardening basics and made my first year an enjoyable mix of trial and error – with enough harvest to spur me on for another try next year. Ryan entered his first brat-eating competition and came in second! Together, we started milling wheat and making bread, which is an adventure we love more than we even imagined we might. We also participated (teamed up with another couple) in the Adams County Amazing Race – a fundraiser for local charities. We completed 20 challenges around the county in 5 hours flat – and ended up winning second place in the competition!

The Lord released both of us from the jobs we had as we entered 2023. Neither of us found them to be the fit we had hoped to know in our vocations, but God graciously granted us new opportunities that have proven to be huge blessings. Ryan is working at a Retirement Community, where he serves as the Transportation Coordinator. He coordinates appointments for residents and is also one of the drivers for the appointments and for group outings. He is thrilled to be back with this age group and loves the work. I found a job with a ministry based out of Ohio called LifeWise Academy – which brings Bible and character education to public school students during the school day. I work as a coach, guiding communities who want to bring a LifeWise program to their school district.

I have missed the opportunity to read consistently – for probably the last five or so years – and this year I embarked on a reading challenge that I loved so much. I didn’t set any number records, but I did read 21 books and learned so much along the way. I also started memorizing Scripture, starting with the entire account of the Law in Exodus 20 and have been pleasantly surprised to discover I can memorize more than I thought! I’m currently working to memorize all of Psalm 119.

We had such a fun time on our birthday getaway in Michigan this summer, enjoying a long weekend of climbing dunes and having a unique dinner experience at a fish boil. Ryan climbed “the” dune at Sleeping Bear Dunes – the one that comes with a $3000 price tag if you have to be rescued. (He didn’t need rescued!) We just got home from our 11^th anniversary getaway to St. Louis, where we packed a whole lot of sightseeing into just a few days. The rest of our year felt like a vacation at home, enjoying brilliant sunsets from our own patio.

We committed to volunteering monthly at our church’s free clothing boutique and love the new community of friends we’ve made while serving. Ryan continued singing on the worship team at our church, and I was able to share messages with our local church and some women’s conferences as well. We also helped lead our Sunday School class now and then and joined up to serve with our church in other special ministry days. We just made a commitment to serve as deacons starting in 2024, and we’re looking forward that.

At the start of fall, we attended a friend’s wedding and came away from that day with fresh resolve in our hearts to move fully toward all that God has for us. The last five years (starting with Ryan’s mom’s illness and death) have contained much goodness, for sure, but also several profoundly hard circumstances. We celebrate the way God has grown and sustained us in them, but we are also ready to find a measure of freedom and wholeness we have not known over these last few years. It’s exciting!

Our end-of-year new adventure was joining a gym for the first time in many years. Ryan is teaching a boot camp class there once a week, and I’m taking the class. We’ll enjoy the chance to work out in these winter months when it’s too cold and snowy to be outside like we are in the warmer weather!

We leave you with the obligatory family update list: Braeya is now 17 and seems to be in the final stages of life. We are sad to think of losing her, but we are SO grateful for every year we’ve had with her. Lexi just turned 2, and we are still working hard with her training. She makes us laugh with her colorful personality, but she is also wildly stubborn, so training will take a while! Our little godson is three now and still comes to stay with us on weekends now and then. He became a big brother this year, so his life has seen a lot of adjustments, and we are grateful we still get to actively invest in him.            

We serve a good, good Father, and we are thankful for the year He has entrusted to us. We look forward to what He has for us in the year to come. We hope your Christmas season is filled with reminders of God’s goodness and love, dear friends. He loves you so!

-       Ryan and Bekah

Favorite Holiday Memories

 

            You know how much I love Christmas…and the truth is, I always have. I sometimes lament that I was born prior to the over-documentation era of the world, because I’m sure the lack of pictures has also contributed to forgotten memories. (This is not a complaint toward my parents. It’s just that back then, we didn’t take pictures of everything! Two words: developing film.)

            But I do have some fond memories even if pictures don’t exist.

·         Mom always let me help decorate the family tree when I was little. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to trust your small child with handling sentimental ornaments and arranging them on a tree, but she did, and I’m glad. It’s probably why I love decorating trees so much now! (Also, can we pause to be grateful we no longer have to separate branches by mildly applied colors on the end of the wires? Whoever invented hinged trees deserves a MEDAL.)

·         As you know, my Mom has also made homemade candy all my life. (She’s still making it – just not as much as she used to.) I LOVED helping “work the fondant” – which meant squishing the cream centers until they were nice and soft. Ryan and I have taken some lessons from Mom, and I aspire to one day be able to make them – without looking like a first grader did it.

·         I always had a felt, homemade stocking when I was growing up. I forget now who made it, but it was always under the tree and filled with wrapped shampoo and underwear and all those things we used to get in stockings. Even though Ryan and I have grown-up matching stockings, I still have my beloved felt, homemade stocking of my childhood!

·         When I was little, my parents delivered gifts and meals for the Rescue Mission. Delivery day always came super early on a Saturday – on an equally super cold December day. This was back in the day before car seats or seat belts, and we had an old van with no seats at all in the back. They would get me up early, wrap me up in a warm blanket, and let me sleep in the back of the van while they ran all over town delivering food and gifts. (I tried to sleep, anyway. Whenever the doors opened for delivery, the blast of cold air would wake me up in a hurry!)

·         I was always in the Christmas program at our church. They typically rehearsed during junior church, which took place during the morning worship service. I was never allowed to go to junior church, because my parents wanted me to sit in regular church each week. But I was permitted to go for rehearsals, and it felt like the grandest treat to get to leave with all the other kids. I was Mary, I was an angel, I was a chorus member…I did a little bit of everything along the way.

·         For most of my childhood, we always spent Christmas Eve (evening) at my Aunt B and Uncle Jerry’s house. We’d have yummy snack food, and I always got to eat in the den while I watched Christmas shows. We were always an eat at the table family, so eating in a chair in front of the TV was kind of a Christmas gift in and of itself.

·         Christmas morning was our time to have Christmas as an immediate family and then we would go to my grandparents’ house for lunch. We would stand on the sidewalk in front of their house waiting for Grandma to find her camera and figure out how to turn it on, so she could take our picture walking in. Every year, without fail, she couldn’t figure it out and would holler for my grandpa to help. It became a running joke even after they were gone…Mom would do the same thing at her house.

·         For many years before I was married, I would take a vacation day in December and bake all day long from early morning until late at night. I would give away almost everything I made as a Christmas gift for friends.

·         The best Christmas gift ever was when my sister had a baby on Christmas Eve. You can’t top babies!

·         I started sending my own Christmas cards when I was in high school. I made them all by hand and loved sharing them with my friends. I think my love for cards came from when I was little and I would get to open any card that came to my house that said, “And Rebekah” or “And Family.” It was a grand adventure.

·         My mom taught me to budget money when I was pretty little, and I saved money throughout the year, from each week’s allowance, to use in buying gifts for friends and family. I loved how she set that example!

·         One of my friends from college started a tradition with her family where they slept beside the tree on Christmas Eve. I loved that idea so much and started doing it even when I was single. Ryan and I still do that today!

I’m sure if I sat here for another hour, I’d have five more posts’ worth of memories. But I hope you enjoyed these random stories today! Any fun memories you have?

So Here's a Funny Story...

 

My mind was swirling in 100 directions yesterday. I was so productive in so many ways. I had work, of course, and I did laundry and went grocery shopping and almost finished our Christmas shopping and worked on some writing projects and sorted through all sorts of things…and when it came time to close my computer about 11:00 last night so I could go to bed, I remembered…I FORGOT THE BLOG!!!

            Whoopsie!

            Please don’t overexpect today. 😊

            In light of the fact that I’m writing this on the fly and have no plan, I hope it’s okay that I just tell you about a few of the (possibly not super exciting things) we’ve done over the last couple of days.

            You know, for example, we got a car wash. We washed our car a lot more often when we lived at WillowBridge. Part of it was that we drove by car washes quite often on our way to everywhere. Part of it was that we parked outside and the car never stayed clean. Now we don’t wash it as often – but does the car wash EVER get old??

            Fun fact that you may or may not know about me: I have gotten stuck in a car wash before and will not drive through them anymore. But I do love being a car wash passenger!

            Speaking of our WillowBridge life, we got to see our former coworkers on Saturday! It was the first time in over a year that our schedules worked out to be in the same place at the same time. So…a 4 year old’s birthday party it was!

            Lexi was super cuddly this weekend, which I find absolutely adorable. I don’t find it quite as adorable when she and Ryan roughhouse. They both LOVE IT. Anything with growling terrifies me. (PTSD from the dog bite, maybe?)

            Yesterday we had genuine snow squalls here on the lake. At times, it was so thick, I couldn’t see across the lake. I was so so so so grateful for a warm and safe house. May I never take that for granted.

            I had two scrapbooks arrive yesterday. I have been holding out for a sale on this site forever – and I finally got one that (although not what I hoped for) was good enough to order the last two books I made there. And those will be the last two, because I can’t afford it!

            You know how sometimes people have conversations in emojis only? Ryan and I have selfie conversations. Here is a glimpse of one of my messages to him yesterday.

            And after grocery shopping? Coffee for the trip home. Oh yes please. This is a tradition for us, and we love it!

            Come back tomorrow. I will try to be more meaningful then! 😊

Office Makeover!

 

When Ryan and I moved to the lake, we went from three bedrooms to two, which was a point of consideration for us. It seemed silly to need three bedrooms when it’s just the two of us. And since I have an office space in the kitchen, it made the most sense for us to make that spare bedroom more of a guest room than an office space.

            So we did! Other than putting my bookshelves in there, it was mostly guest room (and Lexi) space.

            But in the last ten months, we’ve only had overnight guests once. (That doesn’t include our godson, but he doesn’t need a big huge bed.) But as my job has changed, I have found that I need more storage space for supplies related to my work. My evening meetings have also increased recently, so sometimes I need a room to go into where I can close the door so Ryan and Lexi don’t have to be quiet and tiptoe around the house.

            We had a long talk about it a few weeks ago and mutually decided we would sell our guest bed so we could have more daily-usable space in that second bedroom. We know someone moving into a new house, and she was so excited to buy it for her guest room.

            We also talked at length about what we wanted to have in that space for daily use, and we were able to find it while we were gone for our anniversary! And then…on a whim…Ryan decided to assemble everything and we went ahead and put the room together. I never dreamed it would be finished yet this year! I thought it would be more of a January thing.

            So today I wanted to show you the finished product!

            Nothing has changed about the bookshelves (though I do plan to do some cleaning up and organizing over the winter.) We did get this rug. I was so happy to have found it. We have been looking for a rug for almost a year! I think this one fits the lake-feel of the house.

            The storage cabinet is SUCH a blessing. This helps me keep track of all my office supplies that don’t fit in my desk in the kitchen. We had one of these at WillowBridge (that belonged to WillowBridge), and I loved it. I’m so happy we have one again – and I love the extra space on top for all the pretties.

            The window on the wall is from our Marion house, and we’ve used it as a message board at every house we’ve had since. I’m now using it as a prayer request board, and it makes me so happy.

            Here’s Lexi’s corner. It’s the same spot she had before…just turned her bed the other way. The teal shelf was something we bought back in Kokomo – although it was red when we purchased it. I’m able to use this to hold supplies for work, and I love it that they’re no longer in boxes and stacks in the closet!

            And lookie here! Our new secondary desk! It’s a sit/stand desk, so when my days run long and I need to move around, I can stand while I work. Everything else was something we already owned – so that was fun to get to reuse it! I love this desk, and I love having a spot to go to when I need to be able to close in and think/write/research/have meetings.

            The room is so cozy and nice, and I’m so thrilled to have it all assembled before the year even begins! (And by the way, we’re going to get an air mattress to use when we have guests. They can use the guest room with the air mattress or they can take our room and we’ll take the air mattress!)

Sunday Sentiments

I have spent a lot of time this month planning ahead for the year to come. If you have read along here for any length of time, you know I’m more of a monthly-goal kind of girl than a yearly-resolution kind of girl. That hasn’t changed, but my 2024 is shaping up to be a year that involves a lot of speaking, which means much preparation will also be required. I am so excited about it, but I am aware I need to carve out time for it.

            Ryan and I also have made commitments to honor our health and our marriage and that means creating purposeful time to invest in those commitments as well!

            Planning is one of my favorite things, so these weeks of thinking, note-making, and preparing have brought me so much joy.

            But even last night, as I wrote in my journal about some of the decisions ahead, I told God I wanted to use my brain to make the plans to the best of my ability, but I also wanted to stay fully in step with Him. I don’t want to get so insistent on my own ideas that I can’t leave room for what He has for me.

            Proverbs 19:21 says “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” I’ve seen it happen over and over in my own life – in our married life, too – and I know that won’t ever change!

            I am excited to know that God has plans for our 2024. I am excited to know that He plans to use us in ways we can’t imagine right now. I am excited to see how He takes the dreams and passions He’s been building in us over the last few years and makes something new and beautiful out of them. I am even excited about the parts I don’t yet fully know. It’s like waiting to unwrap a gift! I know it’s there, but I don’t know what’s inside.

            But while I wait, I want to prepare well. I want to move forward with what I do know and trust that the Lord will guide me to a new road when I need to find it.

            So on these last few days of 2023, I’m staying busy. I’m busy praying about what to study in 2024. I’m praying about messages to share. I’m praying about how to spend my free time. I’m praying about how to show love to Ryan. I’m praying about how to move ahead with the goals I’ve set and the goals we’ve set together.

            Isn’t it exciting to stand on the edge of something new?

Saturday Suggestions

 

Good morning!! Hope you all have a great Saturday ahead of you. I’m doing some frantic final festivity preparation, but I am excited for this day. While I wrap and prepare, here are some things for you!

ONE. 

We have just over a week until Christmas! EEEK! Need some stocking stuffer ideas across the age ranges? There are some really good ones on this list! It offers ideas for men, women, and kids! Note to self: finish shopping for Ryan’s stocking.

TWO. 

You know how much I love some organization in my life, right? Well, this post has some really clever uses for binder clips. I confess I have not thought outside the box enough to consider using binder clips in creative ways!

THREE. 

One of the first years we were married, Ryan’s brother and sister-in-law gifted us a breakfast basket. It had a jar mix for biscuits and homemade jams and jellies. We saved  it and used it on a real snow day – like the kind where we both had to stay home from work because we were truly snowed in! It was so much fun to sleep in, make biscuits with jelly, and then play in the snow! Jar gifts are a great way to give at Christmas (or anytime) and here are some ideas of things you can make to give! I love this list!

FOUR. 

It blows my mind that I do not regularly participate in cookie exchanges, because I love cookies SO MUCH! But what a great idea it is to have a Christmas party with a cookie exchange. This post has ideas for themes, directions, and even some recipes. And now my mouth is watering.

FIVE. 

I love house tours, as you know, and I double love Christmas house tours. It’s rare that anyone offers a tour of a basement, but when your basement looks like this one, it’s tour-worthy! Enjoy this cozy space!

SIX. 

In full disclosure, I haven’t tried this recipe, but I think it looks really unusual and delicious. Blackberry hot chocolate? YUM! Feels fancy.

Christmassing!

 

You’ve been so kind to listen to all my stories about our trip, and I thank you for it. I told someone the other day that while I loved being gone, one of my favorite things about being home is the chance to sit by my lovely lights again. Our Airbnb didn’t have a tree this time (sometimes they do!) and I did miss the soft glow of the lights.

            We’ve also had some Christmas fun since returning home from our trip.

            Ryan’s work had an open house, and we were able to spend an evening touring the whole place, enjoying the beautifully decorated trees (themed by different organizations and businesses). I LOVED the one with a photo theme. It was so fun to see the residents enjoying the memories as they looked at the pictures.

            They had snacks and live music and a wreath auction, too! It was such a fun night.

            Then last week, I traveled to Columbus for a teambuilding day with my work. We had an ugly sweater contest and a “gingerbread” nativity contest. It was a lot of fun to get to hang out with my coworkers in person!

            And then, over the weekend, we hosted our small group for dinner and went to see two of them in A Christmas Story – the musical version. I confess to not loving the movie, but the musical version was really good. Highly recommend!

(Borrowed those last two from Facebook)

            Looking forward to some more Christmas fun over the next few days. 😊