Mother's Day

 

Since this past Sunday was Mother’s Day, I thought I would share a little about our day! For many years, our Mother’s Days were filled with food prep for Mommapalooza. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you might remember Mommapalooza! That adventure was born from our desire to bless our own moms and other moms in our family by providing lunch so they didn’t have to cook.

                Then Ryan’s mom passed away, and his siblings had their own young families and wanted to be able to start traditions with their own children, so we retired our gathering. (It worked out because then came the pandemic and multiple moves.)

                This year, Mother’s Day looked and felt different, but it was a good day.

                We had church, and after seven weeks of teaching Sunday School, I hardly knew what to do with myself without a class to prep for! But you know what I loved about church that day? It was promotion Sunday, and I loved seeing some of the kids Ryan and I worked with last fall moving up to the next class. So proud of them and so glad we had the chance to get to know them a bit better.

                I also loved it that Mom and Dad joined us for church.

                After church, Ryan and I went home to rest. The last two week (weekends included) have been crazy busy. We have barely had a moment to breathe, and both of us had hit a wall. We slept so hard.

                I was awake long enough to enjoy some bonding time with our sweet Lexi Grae. It was the best Mother’s Day gift to see her acting like herself again. (Also…she gets annoyed with pictures after a while and stops participating.)

                After dinner, Ryan and I took pie and ice cream over to Mom and Dad’s to enjoy dessert and gifts with them.

                The palooza days may have been reduced to a party of four with (boxed) pie and ice cream, but it was a good day, and I was grateful for every part of it. 

Spring Planting

 

Guess what finally happened this weekend?! We planted our flowers and garden! We started the festivities Friday evening, because it was just too pretty to stay inside. We brought Lexi outside with us, and she was happy as she could be to sit and supervise the planting.

                Partway through the night, the golfers seemed to be losing control of their game, and we had some rogue balls flying around. As has become my custom when spending time planting, I brought out the bike helmet. Yes, it’s on backwards. No, I didn’t realize it. Yes, I know I look ridiculous. No, I don’t care.

                We had a busy Saturday and didn’t get back to our outdoor work until afternoon, but I was determined to get the rest of my plants in the ground, and I did! The bike helmet returned, and Ryan finally told me I had it on backwards. Bless.

                I put in the garden, and it all looks so tiny! My biggest challenge when planting a garden is trying to cram as much as I can into a small space…whilst leaving enough space for all this stuff to get so much bigger!

                One of my favorite things about planting day is the day-one photo shoot. I love coming back in one month’s time and seeing how much they’ve all grown and filled out!

                I have a goal to work on one little area each year to make it cozy. The year we moved in, I worked on the mailbox ambience. (It was sad before I got busy updating it.) Last year we worked on the back patio. This year I’m working on the front patio. I adore this little rug. It was really affordable (thanks, Walmart!) and adds some color to this spot. We also have some more pillows for this glider, but we have yet to remember where we stored them over the winter.

                It all looks so festive now. Let summer begin!

Sunday Snapshots: Memorable Moments from the Week

 

As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve had a crazy week. I scrolled back through my pictures and realized I’ll be scrapbooking for a while on this week alone! I won’t tell you all the stories here, but I will tell you a few!

Last Sunday was a very special day at our church, and I won’t soon forget the service. We had a sweet baby dedication that left a lasting impact on my heart, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to our Scripture readers paint a beautiful picture of passing God’s Word down from generation to generation.

One of my favorite things this week? Ryan put together my desk in my new office at the church. I realize it is “just” a desk, but I cannot tell you the joy it brought to my heart to see it all assembled and in my new space. Three cheers for a handy husband who can put together anything.

As you know, Miss Lexi had a rough week this week. I came home from work on Tuesday and discovered she had gotten sick multiple times throughout the day. My heart was SO sad. We were able to get her into a vet that evening, just before the office closed, and they gave us some medicine for her. She was so snuggly and sad.

Ryan and Lexi spent some time out by the lake one day this week. We have so missed getting to sit outside, and we are looking forward to having all our patio furniture back in position so we can watch sunsets on the patio once again!

One of my favorite memories from this week was the sweet bookmark made for me by one of the residents at the healthcare facility where I spoke. It was so kind of her to think of me and share her talents with me!

We started planting – finally! Ryan was so sweet to help me put flowers in pots, and we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset while we worked. I’m so excited to see these flowers fill out and blossom in the weeks to come.  

Yesterday Ryan and I served in our church boutique, and it was our last day in the building we’ve been in ever since Ryan and I started helping. Beginning next month, we’ll be in a new-to-us space at our church, and all of us are so excited. We took a group picture to celebrate our last day in the old space!

                Thanks for coming along to see our week…and I hope your day brings you some rest!

Saturday Suggestions: Inspirations for Your Weekend

 

This has been one WILDLY unexpected week. We’ve had all sorts of adventures – some good, some a bit frustrating – and we are quite excited for this weekend! We are particularly looking forward to some warmer weather and sunshine. I’ve actually started planting and look forward to finishing it and enjoying some pretty flowers. While I do that…here are some fun finds for your weekend!

Are you walking through some hard stuff right now? I have some friends who have just such a road, and the minute I read Ann Voskamp’s post a few days ago, I sent them the link. She so eloquently says the things I’d been fumbling around trying to say, and it was a blessing to have the words to share. Maybe you need to hear them today too, so I’ll just leave them right here. (BONUS: Ann also has this beautiful post about love – from the perspective of a mother. I know Mother’s Day is not an easy day for everyone, so choose for yourself if this is something you wish to read, but I submit to you that the love she talks about isn’t just a mother’s love. It’s really about the kind of love all of us should show to one another!)

I am really thankful that when we moved to our lake house, some previous owner had planted a few things in the landscaping in front. While I am great about planting annual flowers in pots each year, I’ve never learned too much about perennials. I’m keeping this post for my own reference, but I thought I’d share it with you too! I wanted to hang onto it because Ann, the blogger, lives in the same zone I do, so if these plants work for her, they should work for me, too!

This YouTube video shows a GORGEOUS small guest bedroom transformation to become an Anne of Green Gables-inspired room. It was so beautifully done. Even if you don’t want to watch all the process part (though it isn’t terribly long) you should go watch the reveal. I’d stay there! (BONUS: Speaking of YouTube…whilst having a little personal concert in my kitchen a few days ago, I ran across this song by LordSong…called Lord of the Dance. What a powerful reminder of the whole message of Jesus’ life in one song!)

I do love a good trifle (both for taste and presentation) and this lemon trifle looks like a winner in both categories. Ryan and I both love lemon desserts, especially in the summer, so I’m keeping this on the list of things to try. How about you? Lemon and/or trifle fan?

If you need a fun last-minute idea for something to take to a Mother’s Day gathering, check out these adorable fruitflowers! These appear to be easy to make and are so, so cute. They would be cute at summer picnics or gatherings, too!

If you’re feeling adventurous, you could try your hand at living in a caboose. (It’s like The Boxcar Children in real life!) Could you do it? I don’t know that I’d love the bunk beds…but I think they’ve done a nice job with the space!

This week I went through my utensil caddy and got rid of items I don’t like/need anymore. Not all my cooking utensils fit in the caddy, so I also have a drawer with the rest. I want to go through them all, make sure my most used items are in the caddy and continue purging the items I no longer need.

Something else I should probably look through again? The coffee mug collection. We try to go through it every couple of years and curate our mugs! (If you’re not a coffee drinker, it might be tumblers for you!)

Mother's Day Tea

 

Good morning! Thank you so much for your kind messages about Lexi yesterday. She’s still under the weather, so we are contacting the vet again today. The symptoms aren’t the same as they were, but she’s still not herself, and she’s breaking our little hearts!

                The plants still aren’t planted, so we’ll have to table a post about that until next week.

                Meanwhile…I had the opportunity to share at a Mother’s Day event yesterday afternoon, and Ryan ended up accompanying me! That a delightful and unexpected surprise!

                The activities director of a local healthcare facility invited me to share at their Mother’s Day event. I shared about a topic I’ve spoken on before at Mother’s Day events, and it’s one of my favorites, so I was happy to return to it.

                I was impressed with how many people showed up for the event. I didn’t count, but Ryan guessed maybe around 80 people attended. They sent invitations to family members of the ladies who lived there and many came to spend the afternoon with their loved ones. I thought that was so sweet.

                They had a photo booth, party favors, and even served refreshments at the end of the afternoon.

                My favorite part of the afternoon was at the end when one of the guests brought me this beautiful bookmark her mom made for me. Her mom had heard me speak at a church years ago and was actually the one who shared my name with the activities director. She said I’d inspired her back then and she wanted to share this gift with me now. I was so humbled and touched by her kindness!

                I have one more event this spring, and I am thankful for each group that has invited me to share!

Let's Be Excellent

 

I had grand plans for today’s post. I was going to show and tell you all about my spring planting adventures. Ryan and I purchased our flowers and garden plants, and I was so excited to show you how they all looked in their new homes…but they’re all still in their little pots sitting by the door.

                It’s rained almost every day since we bought the plants, and I haven’t been home, and we had an unexpected vet visit. I feel like the entire week has been a survival game on every front, and I can only hope the plants are surviving in their temporary homes until I can give them a permanent one.

                I’ve seen glimpses of hope in the forecast, and I’ve also seen glimpses of hope in our calendar that might give us a couple of hours at home to plant flowers.

                But what I really want to talk about is the vet visit and what it taught me.

                I noticed on Monday that Lexi wasn’t acting like herself, but it wasn’t overly alarming, so I didn’t worry too much. I was gone almost all day on Tuesday, and when I came home to give Lexi her afternoon snack and change my clothes to go to the gym, I found her very sick. It’s always scary to discover your pet is sick and not know what happened.

                I couldn’t imagine what she might have gotten into. Because of the excessive rain, she hadn’t gotten to walk outside much over the weekend, and she doesn’t tend to get into things inside the house. But something was obviously very wrong, and we called the vet to see about an emergency appointment.

                Our vet didn’t have any appointments until the next day, so we scheduled one, but we kept looking. We found another office that could get us in before the end of the day, so we took that opportunity.

                We made our way into the new-to-us office with a nervous/excited/sick little girl, and the from the moment the vet tech came to get us for the beginning of our appointment, we couldn’t believe the intentionality and care we received.

                She took her time, asked questions about what we were seeing in Lexi, and took careful notes to share with the doctor. When he came in, we could tell he had read the notes and he talked things over with us before he even looked at her. He examined her gently and took note of her pain. The doctor and the tech were so loving and compassionate, and when they took her back for x-rays, we felt completely at ease.

                When she came (running) back to us after her x-rays, they told us she had gotten a little too excited and had an accident, so they gave her a mini bath to clean her up. And then they went over every inch of the x-rays and spent time explaining what they found (and didn’t find) and what the next course of action would be.

                As we paid the bill, we also let them know we’d be establishing care for her there. We came home marveling at the kindness, attention, and care we had received from these people who just met us.

                I told Ryan it reminded me of a chapter I just read in a book called The Come Back Effect, specifically this: “Over the years, our expectations for customer service have dropped. In fact, even when we get mediocre customer service, we often celebrate it by writing on a comment card. We’ve become so accustomed to bad service, ‘just okay’ is often an improvement over the norm.”

                I told Ryan that what we experienced at the vet shouldn’t have been shocking. We had a sick baby girl and had every right to expect that we would be seen and heard – and that Lexi would be loved and cared for with compassion. We should have expected thorough care and easy-to-understand explanations. We should have expected a plan of action.

                But it was shocking because it was so personal and careful – and while we don’t feel like we’ve had bad care before, we haven’t had anything this amazing.

                It reminded me to work hard to be excellent. I don’t want to even be just okay. I want to be excellent. I want to serve with excellence and make people feel seen, heard, and loved.

                Let’s be excellent, friends! No matter what we’re doing, let’s do it the very best we can!