Friday Fun: Winter in Shafferland

 

I’m over winter already. This one has been challenging. Bitterly cold temperatures, very slick roads, and even though our snowfall hasn’t been nearly what it could (or might yet) be, I’m done. I’m ready to start a tropical campus of our church in a much warmer state. Anyone want to be a charter member?? 😉

                The lake has iced over, and our fireplace has run more often than not, just trying to pull the chill out of the great room air. We’ve cozied up on the couch rather than going on walks, and I’ve tried to make our space a haven in the tundra. Want to see some of what I’ve created?

                Our dining room has a handful of winter decorations, including the snowball stash! This was a crowd favorite last weekend when we were entertaining our godson, so I had to reconstruct it after he left.

                I didn’t do much to our table…just some buffalo check cloth napkins and some flowers to brighten the space.

                And I have been hanging up these snowflakes for years. Simple and sparkly!

                Lexi’s room, which doubles as my office and our guest room, has some flower arrangements and pinecones, and it feels bright and hopeful for spring.

                Our only kitchen decoration is this nod to hot coffee, but the kitchen is the home of the actual warm drinks and soups simmering on the stove. They definitely help the cozy factor!

                I put some white flowers in our bedroom, just to brighten up the nightstands.

                Ryan’s bathroom has a snowflake and snowman. I have high hopes of one day doing some more changeable wall art in the bathroom so I can carry more seasonal décor in there.

                Our living room has a few little winter touches, but it also holds the electric blanket and the books for hunkering down and staying warm. Isn’t that the best??

                The lake may be icy, but the house is cozy warm.

                Not everyone has a house, and when we get to this time of year, I’m reminded to be thankful for the privilege of a warm and comfortable place to call home.  I’m still more than ready for spring, for sure, but I am glad to have some cozy, sparkly, pretty winter love dotting the house.

Throwback Thursday: The First Year

 

                Christmas came late…or perhaps extra early…this week. My shipment of 2025 scrapbooks arrived, and I just wanted to sit and look at them for hours on end. It’s a favorite day whenever albums arrive, and this time I had an entire year’s worth of books at once.

                The day before they arrived, I snuggled up in a corner of the couch, with Ryan beside me, and we spent a little while looking back at the very first Shafferland daily life scrapbook. We were married in December 2012, and this book covered the happenings of January through June of 2013. We hadn’t wandered down this section of memory lane for a long time, and I read every word I’d written on the pages of that book.

                I make the books to preserve the stories. Why do I not read them more often? This week we read the stories.  

                Here are some of the observations I made about those first six months of marriage based on the pages of this book:

*We were much better about using our camera timer in those days. Fewer selfies. More tripod work. Perhaps we need to resort to this level of intentionality once again. It really does make a difference.

*We ate a LOT of sweets. Every single date revolved around decadent food, and we dated a lot. Perhaps some restraint would have been beneficial for me back then…and it’s intriguing to me to see how different our dates look now. Not everything revolves around food anymore.

*We went to our first marriage retreat when we’d only been married two months. I’m guessing most newlyweds don’t do that, but I’m glad we did. It was a great foundational investment!

*It snowed a lot that year. I have pictures of snow piled on tree branches, grills, and bird feeders. I also have pictures of a ruler in the snow, and you can only see the tippy top of the ruler. I do not wish to return to that much snow.

*Our reception was so much more work than our wedding. We held an at-home reception three months after our destination wedding, and just reading the recap of the setup day wore me out: “Both our moms and Allen came over for the day, so we had some extra help. We decorated from 11 to 5 and then went back to our house, where our moms helped us dip 15 gallons of ice cream into dishes for the next day.” I remember that so clearly. So. Much. Ice. Cream.

*Sometimes things don’t pan out as you imagine in the moment. I had an entire page devoted to the beginning of the sale of Ryan’s house that he owned when we were married. When I documented that event, the family that approached us about buying the house seemed to be such an answer to our many prayers. In the end, they left a trail of destruction and broken promises that cost us dearly in time and money and rattled our faith. It was a hard story to read, but it also reminded us of God’s faithfulness in the shaking.

*Sometimes the moments are really foreshadowing, and you don’t even know it. I had a page devoted to a date night where we supported some friends who were staffing a retreat at a lakeside conference center. I wrote, “I missed the lake so much – so good to see it again!” Guess what, Ryan and Bekah? Just you wait and see what God has!

*We went to a bunch of really cool concerts. (Thanks, radio job!) In those first six months, we averaged a concert a month. Obviously since I no longer work in radio, we no longer get such a deluge of cool concert dates, but that was SO fun.

*We savored our firsts. First New Year’s. First Valentine’s Day. First Easter. First birthdays. First annual birthday trip. First Mother’s and Father’s Days. We fumbled our way through the creation of traditions, and it was fun to see them emerging even in those firsts.

*We never rested – and it also appears we never had time to sleep. (Thanks, radio job!) Multiple pages told how we would arrive home between midnight and two in the morning. Multiple pages also told how we had to rush to try to be at birthday parties for family members and kiddos in our lives. We were exhausted. It showed.

*We saw the beginning of things that were uniquely us: like our “pirogi” – which was Ryan’s coined term for our pergola at our Marion house. We still use that word, all these many years later, though we no longer have a pirogi at our house.

*We did our first renovation and had no idea it was the first of a million of them. Do any of you remember our very first one? It was the kitchen at our Marion house. The room was tiny and so was our budget. The entire project was DIY, and we did all the work ourselves. It made a huge improvement in that space, and I smiled at the pictures of our teamwork and enthusiasm.

*We spent a lot of time in our backyard at the Marion house. That yard remains our favorite of any place we have ever lived, and it was our most well-used outdoor space until we came here to the lake. If we could transplant that yard to the lake, we would. It was the best.

*Ryan has spoiled me from the start. From breakfast in bed (Lexi makes that impossible now) to sweet notes in my lunchbox to surprising me with ambient lighting in the pirogi, he launched immediately into making me feel loved, and he still does. (Also, I really miss breakfast in bed. Having a food-motivated dog is sometimes helpful, but not in this case.)

*We went to a BUNCH of little kids’ birthday parties. It was the season of life back then. All our friends and family were parents of littles, so we attended five kid parties in the first six months.

*Our families have changed so much. I took note of a picture of Ryan’s family at Father’s Day. Nita took the picture, and she’s gone now. Allen is gone. Ryan’s brother and his wife have three more children beyond the one in the photo. His sister and her husband have a son that wasn’t born yet that day. Their oldest daughter now has a baby of her own. Ryan’s other sister is now married with three sons. Ryan’s grandpa has passed away. So much change.

*And the iconic photo of our marriage is in this book: you remember the ziplines. 😉

I loved this trip down memory lane, and I am so glad I captured and recorded our story. I still love capturing and recording our story!

Wednesday in the Word: Soon Fading

 

                Last Wednesday I started taking a slow look at Psalm 37, which is the Psalm God laid on my heart to study this year. Last week we talked about the phrase “fret not,” which is something that will probably be a lifelong work for me.

                This week I spent some time on verse 2: For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. “They” in this sentence refers to the wrongdoers/evildoers that appeared in the first verse.

                It’s a double-edged reminder. The truth is…we all fade and wither. None of us lives forever, right? While it feels comforting to our hearts to remember that those who choose to do wrong won’t be around forever, we also have to remember the same is true for us, so we would do well to use the days we have for the glory of God.

                Here are some notes I made as I studied that might offer a new insight to you, too!

*The climate in this part of the world allowed vegetation to grow and flourish quickly – but it also tended to die out just as quickly. That factors into this analogy. Sometimes the wrongdoers seem to grow and flourish quickly, but their downfall can come just as fast.

*Our days here can seem long, but if we’re able to pause how we view life in front of us and compare it with the length of eternity, we can see how very, very brief this time of prosperity really is. (This is so much easier said than done.)

*I read some notes in the Barnes commentary that said “The idea in the word rendered soon is that of haste or speed. The thought is not that it will be done immediately but that when it occurs, it will be a quick and rapid operation – as the grass falls rapidly before the mower.”

* The same commentary says about the herbs, “Not as the dry and stinted shrub that grows in the desert of sand, but like the herb that grows in a garden, or in a marsh, or by the river, that is full of juices, and that needs abundant water to sustain it…and that withers almost instantly when it is cut down.”

*That last part made me think of the passage in John where Jesus tells His disciples to abide in Him – for apart from Him, we can do nothing.

                So if we combine the sentences from last week and this week, the truths we’ve learned are that we shouldn’t get wildly incensed over those who do evil, because the truth is, their prosperity is very temporary, and when it’s done, it will be over quickly. And all of this is up to God’s timing.

                As I said earlier…it’s easier said than done. The fretting not, the perspective of how soon this life passes by…it won’t come naturally. But it sure is worth the work. I’m confident of it!

Tuesday Tales: A Little Visitor

 

Right after Christmas, Ryan and I went out for dinner with our godson and his mama. We had the best time, and he cried when we left because he wanted to come home with us. Over the last year, we haven’t had the chance to have him in our home as often as we’d like, so we came home that Christmas-gathering night and made plans to have him overnight in January.

                I wanted to share with you a bit about his visit today!

                When we picked him up, we were in the middle of our grocery shopping, so we hyped up the idea of shopping, and he was actually very excited to join us. He wanted to go to the “shoppin’ store” and help us…and help, he did! He sat in the cart, and we handed our purchases to him for his arrangement skills. Then when we arrived at checkout, he handed each one to us for scanning. We did make a stop in the Hot Wheels section of “War Mart” (which is now 100% what I will be calling it) to get a blue car for him, since he did such a great job in two shoppin’ stores!

                We stopped at Wendy’s for lunch, and he ate almost his entire meal. He generously donated one of his nuggets to Ryan. Sneaky way to get out of eating your lunch, there, little man.

                Ryan had pulled out the tub of toys, and he dove in when we got home. He found the puzzles and immediately started putting them together.

                He found my snowball decorations and had a proper snowball fight with Ryan. (Have you ever put away a grocery haul with snowballs slinging around your head the entire time? It’s interesting!) Even Lexi got in on that game.

                He wanted to play Uno with us, which he did, but the rules he used were slightly (entirely) different from the game. We basically counted out our cards, and he won every round. I wish I had thought to play more games this way myself!

                Meanwhile, Lexi played with her new toy Ryan got her at the shoppin’ store.

                After some games and playing, it was time for me to put together the salad for small group. We washed our hands thoroughly and he hopped on the kitchen stool to help me! I chopped and he assembled, and he was so proud of that salad. He wanted nothing to do with eating it, but he had a lot of fun helping to assemble. He even asked to stick around and help make the dressing!

                Then it was time to build a bridge and color a picture.

                When we arrived at small group, there was so much to see and explore. The piano held a lot of interest. He played with much gusto.

                After dinner, he dove into building a train track, and the end result was quite impressive. He also spent time in the fort Julie helped him build and enjoyed sitting in her lap while she read some books.

                He was so tired from a full, full day of play, so we came home, read a story, and went to bed.

                He slept until…are you ready for it? 4:30 a.m. I heard him moving around in his room, so I went in to check on him, and he said, “Good morning, Bekah! Is it time for church?” Oh sweet boy. Indeed it is not. He never did go back to sleep, and eventually he was so hungry that we got up to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some blueberries. He watched some cartoons while he ate, and Lexi watched him, just in case anything fell. (It did not.)

                He rested on the couch while we got ready, and then we dressed him up in his new outfit for church! He helped me do my pre-church chores, devoured a donut, and was beside himself with joy when I said it was time to go to his classroom. He’d been waiting for hours.

                Our children’s director sent me a picture of him partway through Sunday School. He was “reading” to the class from a tiny New Testament he found on the bookshelf. She said he had everyone’s attention!

                Our church had a fundraiser lunch, so we stayed for that, and then he went to play basketball with the kids.

                As you might imagine, pulling him away from that went…terribly. We are the meanest people in the whole world. He didn’t WANT to go home. He didn’t WANT to go to our house. He didn’t WANT to go to church. Because he WANTED to go home and he WANTED to go to our house and he WANTED to go to church. 

                Can you tell someone was so tired??? (4:30 a.m. will do that to you by noon!)

                He slept all the way to meet his mama and then cried all the way home because he missed us.

                It was a joy to have him and we’re making plans for the next visit!

Menu Monday: Nourishing Body and Soul

 

It was another busy week in Shafferland, but I felt like I did better in the kitchen this week! I made some keeper recipes, and we appreciated all the body-warming, soul-filling options on our table this week. Want to see?

Monday: Leftover Stuffed Pepper Soup

What I Loved: Yes, we started the week with leftovers, but that was because this was the day I was out at WBCL all day, so I particularly loved coming home to leftovers. Ryan air fried some tater tots to have with his soup!

Tuesday: Slow Cooker Chicken Caesar Pasta Bake with Steamed Broccoli

What I Loved: This recipe calls for cooking the chicken in a slow cooker and then assembling it with the other ingredients to bake. I just cooked the chicken on the stovetop, shredded it, assembled it, and baked it. It was much faster for me that way. I actually had a dinner meeting this day, so I didn’t get to eat it with Ryan, but I sampled it as a leftover the following day. I really liked the taste, and it was a filling, comforting casserole-type meal. It almost reminded me of a tuna casserole, but better (since I don’t like tuna).

Wednesday: Sheet Pan Roasted Sausage and Veggies

What I Loved: This was super easy to assemble and bake, and the flavor was excellent. The homemade Italian dressing was a fast creation, and it didn’t even have to marinate long to produce the full flavor. I always, always love a dish that gives me protein and veggies in one swoop.

Thursday: Leftover Chicken Caesar Pasta Bake

What I Loved: Ryan had his final wrestling adventure this evening, so it was helpful to have leftovers to eat before leaving for that! This makes a great leftover!

Friday: Sweet Potato Skillet

What I Loved: This was fast to assemble. I used frozen sweet potato cubes, TWO bell peppers instead of one (I needed to use them up) and the rest of the veggies came from cans. It was filling, tasty, and a one-pot wonder. I appreciate not using every pot and pan I own when I make a meal.

(Note: Our godson assembled this and I forgot to get a picture of it other than when he was holding it. Sorry for the awkwardness of the cropped photo!) 

Saturday: Southwest Chopped Salad

What I Loved: We had small group this past weekend, and those nights are always a potluck meal that everyone in attendance contributes to. I signed up for salad for this meal. I made this with our godson when he came to stay, and it was the perfect dish to make with a little one! I did the chopping, and he did the arranging. Our small group meal theme was Mexican food, so this was my attempt to make a salad that matched enchilada night! I also loved the dressing, which was made of yogurt and salsa combined.

What I Changed: The recipe called for chicken, because this is a full meal in a salad. Since we were having enchiladas, I just omitted the meat from the salad and made it more of a side dish, rather than a main dish.

Sunday: Leftover Sweet Potato Skillet

What I Loved: This warmed over so nicely and was perfect on a night when I had planned to cook but ended up being tired from the long week and just wanted to warm something up. Ryan added chips to his!