Travel Thursday: Holmes County, Ohio

 

                As you know, Ryan and I tend not to revisit places more than once (or maybe twice) because we have so many places we want to see! But Holmes County is one of those places we have been to three times now, and I’m sure we’ll be back multiple times in the future. The first time we went, Ryan was still working at Love INC, and they had a training session there we needed to attend. The second time we went was last year, when we went to Marriage for Life. And now…we’ve been back a third time!

                The beauty of going back to a place is that you start to recognize businesses and find favorites. It starts to feel like home. And we’re starting to feel like Holmes County is a little bit like home…away from home.

                This county is in the thick of Amish Country and is quite the tourist trap. There are Airbnbs, Bed and Breakfasts, cabins, and hotels everywhere. You can probably find anything you want, including a Bed and Breakfast that is for sale, if you want to start your own business adventure in the area!

                Both times we have gone to the marriage conference, we have stayed at the Encore hotel in Berlin, and we love it. We would stay there if we just went to Berlin on our own. Last year we had a big room with a kitchenette, and this year we had a standard room, and we loved them both. They were clean and had everything we needed.

                The breakfast at this hotel is amazing. Ryan is a huge fan of the biscuits and gravy. I am a huge fan of the cinnamon roll cake. I could eat a dozen pieces, but I make myself stop at one.

                Because the conference is so short and we spend most of our time at sessions, we haven’t had time to explore things like the pool or workout room at this hotel, but they do have them. (And the conference is held in attached theater, and they do have shows throughout the year.

                Each time we’ve been to Berlin, we’ve stopped at Ginger House Coffee Shop. It is probably our second favorite coffee shop…period. We love it that they play Christian music, and it’s so clean with great food and great coffee. We went twice on this trip. The first time we got coffee and a snack (yogurt parfait for me and a blueberry muffin for Ryan) and before we left town, we had lunch: southwest protein bowls. We remembered them from last year and loved them.

                This year we had dinner at Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen in Mount Hope, about 15 minutes away from Berlin. We went with our friends, and the guys got the buffet. They loved it. I got cheeseburger soup, and it was so tasty!!

                The one other place Ryan and I checked out this time was Mission Thrift. We found some fun things there! The thrift store was very well organized, and it felt pretty clean! We would go back, and we’d love to check out some of the other thrift stores around there. (Why is thrifting more fun when it’s really far from home?)

                There are so many other stores in Holmes County, and maybe one day we’ll have enough time there to check out even more! But these were some of our favorites from this trip!

Wednesdays in the Word: Trust, Do, Dwell

 

Late last year, a conversation I had with a friend led me to schedule one morning a month as a time of concentrated prayer and communion with the Lord as part of my work. I call it “Jesus and Jammies,” because I have absolutely no intention of getting out of my jammies for these mornings. I have every intention of hunkering down at home, avoiding texts, phone calls, and emails, and simply being with Jesus. Studying the Word. Praying. Seeking His heart for the trajectory I take in my role at the church.

                This past Monday was my first Jesus and Jammies morning, and I decided to set the tone of my heart by spending some time in Psalm 37, studying verse 3.

                Trust in the Lord, and do good, dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

                I learned so much and felt like the very words of this verse were perfect for a day of seeking God’s desire for the days ahead in my job.

                This verse, and the couple that follow, are frequently extracted as stand-alone quotes, but as I studied, I learned much by coupling it with the verses I studied the last couple of weeks. These words are the do this to the first two weeks of not that.

                The first verses talked about not fretting or being envious because of those who don’t do what is right. But you’ve probably learned, the same as I have, that anytime you remove a behavior from your life, you would do well to replace it with something else. And this third verse is the something else.

                We start by trusting in the Lord. These were words I knew but sure appreciated as a reminder, as I think about the days to come. Nothing ominous looms (to my knowledge) but all work, in or out of a church setting, depends on trusting in the Lord. It’s very true for me in the things I’m planning and designing. As I do them, I need to trust God for the ideas, the people, and the outcome.

                But if you think about these words in relation to what we learned the last couple of weeks, it might be fastest to say don’t put your ultimate trust in people, because they aren’t consistent or trustworthy, but God is. Trusting in Him is a worthwhile use of time.

                Then…we do good. I read this quote in a commentary – “The best way to keep the mind from fretting is to always be engaged in doing good, to occupy the mind in something useful.” It’s so true. Rather than spending all our hours wringing our hands about the things that bring fretting, take that time and put it to good use.

                Dwell in the land. Goodness, when things aren’t going well, it’s easy to want to run away to greener pastures, isn’t it? (I say this to myself, because winter hasn’t been going well, and I’ve been asking Ryan if we can move to the tropics!) What would it look like to dwell (joyfully!) in the place God has given us and do all the good we can in that very place?

                The last part of this verse can look very different, depending on your translation of the Bible. I study from the ESV and it says “and befriend faithfulness.” Other translations say things like “and be fed” or “enjoy safe pasture” or “cultivate faithfulness.” After doing some digging, I found that the bottom line is that when we are focused on trusting God, doing the good we can do, and staying in the land of promise God has given us, we will find that we’ll live by His faithfulness and provision. We’ll feed on His truths and offerings and not have to worry about our needs being met.

                And so, as I make my way through this week – and the weeks to come – I am turning my heart toward trusting, doing, and dwelling. I’ll leave the rest to God. He will take care of the wrongdoers. He will take care of my needs. He will take care of the outcomes. My job is to trust, do, and dwell!

Tuesday Tales: Marriage for Life

 

This year marked the second time Ryan and I have attended the Marriage for Life Conference in Holmes County, Ohio!  Our friends have gone for several years, and last year they invited us to go along! We said yes and were so glad we did. It was an easy yes for this year, even though we (okay, I) got a little nervous the closer we crept to the weekend, because the forecast did not look that great!

                The conference has been around for almost twenty years now, and it has grown significantly over the years. The main conference is held in Berlin, Ohio (Holmes County) and they offer several date options! Each conference is identical in content, but you can choose if you want to go Friday night/Saturday morning or Saturday evening/Sunday morning. (This year they also added a Thursday night/Friday morning for one of the weekends.) It’s just overnight, with the hopes that this makes it doable for parents of small kids who have to find childcare. Donors help keep the cost down, so the charge for each couple is as minimal as possible.

                Last year they also added a weekend in Cleveland, Ohio, and we heard at this year’s conference they’re looking at other locations, too!

                Ryan and I headed out mid-morning on Friday and had a great day to travel.

                This year’s speakers were Dave and Ashley Willis, who have written several books and have a podcast on intimacy. The first session (on Friday night) gave several ideas about how to do marriage even better. I should pause here to say that Ryan and I were surprised at how many people asked us if we were okay when we said we were going to a marriage conference. Many of them equated a trip to a conference with a crumbling marriage and hoped we weren’t struggling. So I want to say…we are doing great! But we also believe in investing in our marriage and learning skills to keep right on doing great! This session gave us some of those tools!

                We sat with our friends and all of us stayed for the Newlywed Game. You might remember that last year we were contestants for that game, and I was most relieved it did not happen again. (Ryan was sad.) It was a lot more fun to watch other people play!

                Saturday morning, we went in for session two, which was on intimacy. I was impressed that they were able to teach on a delicate topic with such care.

                We had a break and then the final session was on the power of words. It was a powerful session – for marriage and for life in general!

                Last year after the session, we hung around to meet the speaker, but this time we wanted to get on the road so we could try to get home before the bad weather began.

                Each year features a different speaker, but we are looking forward to next year already! If you have a chance to attend, we highly recommend! (The couples ranged in marriage time from 27 days to 52 years, so it's literally for everyone!)

Menu Monday: Nourishing Body and Soul

 

                Good morning! I think our snowy mess is going to continue for just a little while! Hope you are well-stocked with food and fun to keep you comfortable while you wait. I spent most of yesterday being so, so thankful we made it home from our retreat before the snow flew with fury!

                It’s Monday, which means it is time to share with you some menu ideas from last week. I do have one quick note before I dive in. It’s true that I do prepare a large number of my dishes each week from Dashing Dish. While I am not one to subscribe to memberships to anything, I have been a subscriber to Dashing Dish for over a decade. It is worth it to me/us to pay the monthly fee because I feel like the recipes are completely worth the price! Having said that, I know it can be frustrating if you’re not a member to click on the links and not be able to see the recipe.

                I’ve learned that SkinnyTaste (which is a free recipe site) has many similar recipes to Dashing Dish. So I’ll start checking to see if I can find a comparable recipe whenever I share from Dashing Dish. If I can, I’ll note that! Hopefully that helps you…though I also maintain that this particular membership is worth it!

Monday: Leftover Southwest Chopped Salad With Chicken (Similar, free recipe here)

What I Loved: You might remember that last week I shared about this salad we made to take to our small group. I mentioned that I’d left out the chicken in the recipe, because I needed it to be a side salad that night. We had some leftover salad, so Monday night, I air fried a couple of chicken breasts, chopped them up, and added them to the salad. BOOM! Instant meal.

Tuesday:  Sloppy Joe Bowls

What I Loved: EVERYTHING!!! This was such a fun dish. I used frozen sweet potatoes, because you know I despise chopping potatoes. I also, based on the recommendation of a friend, used refrigerated fresh dill pickles from Aldi. They are so good. I love the flavor and freshness of them. I’ll be buying those again!! This was all the good of a sloppy joe without the carbs of bread – and I didn’t even miss them! This also makes six servings, so it was GREAT for leftovers!

Wednesday: Chicken Quesadillas

What I Loved: The seasoning on this was so good, and it was an easy dish for me to make ahead for Ryan – and then I was able to make mine later (after church). The next day we ate the leftovers without the tortilla because we were on the go and had no way to make a fresh quesadilla at mealtime.

What I Changed: The recipe called for avocado mango salsa, and that’s not really our love, so I just used avocado plain. So good.

Thursday: BBQ Sheet Pan Meat Loaf and Veggies + Apple Crisp + Ice Cream (Similar, free meat loaf recipe here)

What I Loved: We had friends stay overnight with us, and I needed a meal that was all-inclusive and easy to have on demand whenever they arrived. This fit the bill! I made a double recipe to be sure we had enough for four people…two of whom were guys…to eat. I lined the sheet pan with two bags each of broccoli and cubed sweet potatoes, and the eight mini meat loaves baked right on top of them.

I’ve made the apple crisp before and knew I loved it! It’s pretty quick to make when we use our apple peeler/corer/slicer, and it was so tasty.

Friday: Cheeseburger Soup at Mrs. Yoder’s

What I Loved: We were away at our marriage retreat on Friday, and we went to dinner at Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen in Mt. Hope, Ohio. This is a traditional Amish-cooking restaurant, and Ryan got the buffet with all kinds of really great food! I opted for a bowl of soup and chose cheeseburger soup, because I’d never had that at a restaurant before. It had amazing flavor. The meat in the soup tasted flame-broiled and that smoky flavor permeated the entire soup. LOVED IT. Here is a healthy (much more than what I had, I’m sure!) make-at-home version!

                             

Saturday: Leftover Sloppy Joe Bowls

What I Loved: We arrived home RIGHT at dinnertime, and while I had plans to cook, I just scooted those plans right over to Sunday and went with leftovers instead. This warmed up so great and I loved how it came out!

Sunday: Pita Pizza Bar with Homemade Sauce + Chopped Salad

What I Loved: This was FUN FOOD! I picked out this menu plan specifically because we were hosting our friends, and I thought it would be fun to make with them. They ended up leaving our house early because of the bad weather forecast, but Ryan and I ended up making this and having a blast with it.

I have a marinara sauce recipe I’ve used for about a decade, and I still love it, but this one was so much faster to put together, and I thought it tasted great. It made far more than we needed, so I’ll freeze the rest.

The pizza bar was fun because we could use whatever we wanted/had on hand. I had turkey sausage, turkey pepperoni, banana peppers, bell peppers, mushrooms, mozzarella, and parmesan. You could swap out any other things you wanted. The pita bread made the perfect crust.

The chopped salad was easy to throw together. I didn’t add the olives or shallots because I didn’t have any, and I used Feta instead of parmesan, because it was easier. And I used our bottled G Hughes Italian dressing rather than making the homemade version – just for ease. One day I will try the homemade kind.

Snack: Granola Bars (Forgot to get a picture! 

What I Loved: These were very easy to make, and while a saucepan is required to melt together the honey and coconut oil, it’s otherwise a no-bake, no-cook recipe.

What I Didn’t Love: I opted out of the protein powder because I only had chocolate and didn’t want to use that in this particular recipe. But then there wasn’t any protein in this, and that proved to be not filling when I ate it. Ryan commented that these were also very, very sweet. That doesn’t really bug me, but he also wasn’t wrong about that. I think on my next round, I might put in PB powder where the protein powder would have been. Perhaps this will increase the protein and cut the sweetness? Or perhaps I will try this alternate recipe that is from a free site?

Sunday Scrapbook: Moments from The Week

 

                Today is a rare day in Shafferland. Our church canceled services for today, so we are staying inside to truly take a Sabbath rest all day. I know the various forms of winter storms are hitting different parts of the country with fury today, so wherever you are, please be safe and warm!

                Our week was full and good, and I have some glimpses of it for you today.  

                I already gave you a sneak peek of how our week started with our sweet godson spending the night with us last Saturday night into Sunday. Our day started earrrrrrrrrly with his 4:30 a.m. wake up call, but it was still a good day. We were so thankful to have the first half of the day with him – and just as thankful for the long winter’s nap that followed in the second half of the day!

                Monday was bitterly cold, and I passed more than one slide-off on my way to a meeting. I took it nice and granny slow and was happy to get safely back home to work for the rest of the day. Ryan’s highlight of the day was the IU game that night. He’s normally not a college football fan, but when you live in Indiana, you have to watch the championship game and cheer on the Hoosiers!

                Guess what arrived this week? EIGHT scrapbooks from 2025!! I still have one to make for our anniversary trip, but otherwise the year is documented and ordered! Happy mail days like this one make my heart SO delighted.

                My Wednesday was so insanely busy – a twelve hour work day – that I didn’t even have the brain capacity to pause to take pictures for fun. Every picture I took was one that I needed to capture something for work so I could remember it later. But at the end of the day, after I’d finally eaten dinner at 9 p.m. and collapsed on the couch, I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of this sweetness of my loves.

                Our friends from Illinois came to stay with us on Thursday evening, ahead of the marriage conference we all attended this weekend. We haven’t seen them since last year’s conference, so it was SO GOOD to have them here! Lexi was beside herself with joy when they walked in the door, and we had a great night catching up and eating yummy food!

                We traveled to Holmes County, Ohio, on Friday to attend the Marriage for Life conference! We had a beautiful day to travel and even squeezed in some thrifting and dinner out together before the conference officially began. I’ll tell you more about it this week, but here’s a couple of pictures from Friday’s fun.

                The conference ended around noon yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if we’d run into some snow on the way home or not. We were thankful for safe travels! We arrived home (after stopping to take Mom and Dad some snowstorm snacks and picking up Lexi from her little vacation away from home) JUST as the first snowflakes flew.

Saturday Suggestions: Inspirations for Your Weekend

 

Oh what a strange weather weekend this one is turning out to be, right? Whether you’re in bitter cold or snow or ice (or maybe all three) please, oh please, be safe, my friends. Hunker down and read some books and take some naps.

Before you read some books, though…here are some other fun finds for you to check out.

I know the post-holiday/new-year season is a common time for people to work hard at organizing their homes. It’s the perfect time of year for resetting the house and finding a place for everything (and keeping everything in said places). KariAnne wrote about some of her favorite organizational tools, and some of them were even new to me! The shoe storage and earring holders were my two favorites, I think, but take a look through the list and see what you like for your home!

You know I’m a huge fan of David Phelps, and I stumbled across this interview with him not too long ago. It was fun to hear some stories I hadn’t known – and to think about End of the Beginning, which is one of his early songs that is still so powerful!

It sure does not feel like gardening season around here right now, does it? But it is a great time to learn about gardening, and indeed I did learn much from Mary’s post about regenerative agriculture. Ryan and I have a relatively small (in the grand scheme of life) garden bed, and the size of our property doesn’t permit us to expand it much. I do want to make the most of what I have, though, so reading these tips about how to treat the soil (plus a few other things) was really helpful!

Sugar addiction is real for me, just like it is for Wendy. I really connected with her words here and am reminded that whether it is sugar or something else, there are far too many things that push us away from God, and we let them, because they don’t “seem” dangerous. Read this one a few times, even if you don’t have a sweet tooth. The underlying truths matter!

Audrey released a casual winter capsule wardrobe not long ago, and I liked her picks. It’s not go-to-the-gym casual, so if you want to be comfortable but still look work-appropriate, this one would probably work! I always like Audrey’s choices, and this capsule was no exception!

I love a good set of fun facts, so I had a blast reading this article about random photography facts. Indeed, I did not know most of these things – including the object captured in the first ever color photo! Enjoy learning some photography trivia that my one day serve you well in a party game! (Also, for the record, I’m REALLY glad DSLR cameras don’t weigh as much as the original. Whew!)

BOOKSHELF:

                A few weeks ago, I told you about the 2026 Christian fiction reading challenge, and I decided I wanted to participate so I could learn about some new-to-me authors. The January author is Becky Wade, and I’ve never read any of her books! The book they chose for the challenge is the third in a series, so of course I needed to read the first two before I get to the intended book. (It turns out I’m  unlikely to get to the actual challenge book by the end of January, since it’s next week.)

                I discovered book two for free on Kindle and the first and third books were just $2.99 on Kindle, so I got all three. That is how I came to read Memory Lane – the first book in the Sons of Scandal series – by Becky Wade.

                The book opens on a primitive island off the coast of Maine, where Remy Reed discovers a man overboard near her home. She rescues him, but he is injured and has amnesia with zero memories of his life and identity. Though she is, by nature, private and isolated, Remy devotes every moment of her day to helping “Jonah,” as she names him heal and rediscover who he is.

                Though I don’t want to say more of the plotline out of respect for the plot, the book is full of unexpected revelations and a complicated mystery that picked up speed as the book went along. (I stopped breathing entirely by the end.)

                What I Loved About This Book: I really loved the characters – main and supporting. I easily fell into their world and felt right at home there. Even though I did not accurately solve the mystery (and so thought I had!!) I loved the suspense and resolution of it all. I enjoyed reading about occupations foreign to me, and I really loved some of the underline-worthy quotes scattered throughout the chapters.

                What Surprised Me About This Book: I want to be clear that the following things were not off-putting to me, but they were surprising. Though the book has clear faith undertones, it doesn’t have as strong of a faith storyline as I expected. The characters do casually drink, which I didn’t love, but it wasn’t a main theme, and I reminded myself that this probably bothers me way more than most readers. Based on the design of the cover, I thought this would be a no-spice book. They all seem to have the same look about them. But there actually was a LOT of spice in this book. It was tastefully written, but it surprised me since I figured it would be absent. I did enjoy the push and pull of the love story within these pages, for sure.

                I’m excited to move on to book two – and then three! And even though I’ll be late to the party, I look forward to watching the interview with the author that comes with the reading challenge!

                Also, for the record, I really like Becky’s writing style and would love to eventually read more of the books she’s written.