What if You Took a Day Off?

I had a whole blog post planned for today, but it's not tweaked to my satisfaction, so it will have to wait for another day. 

Meanwhile...I've been pilfering through some writings from yore this week. {My yore. Not like classic literature yore.} Some of what I've encountered has been nothing short of mortifying. I even texted Ryan yesterday and told him I was glad he didn't find me any earlier in life, because I was a real mess. So I'm going to spare you all that drama of yore.

But this one stuck with me...convicted me a bit. So I thought I'd share it with you.  {Edited and updated, of course.}

I used to teach a Bible study at my church, and many of our study girls were teachers. More than once I heard them lament that they wished they could take a day off {sometimes for fun and sometimes because they didn't feel well} but it was too much work to be gone. They'd have to write lesson plans...and hope there was a sub available...and deal with all the sub-induced-misbehavior when they got back.

It was just easier to go to work. And perhaps more restful.

It just made me sad!

And when I worked full time, oh how I understood that. It wasn't that I couldn't take off work, but if I did, I had to work ahead so I wouldn't be behind...I had to work ahead to make sure Lynne was all set in my absence. And I had to find someone to cover my engineering duties. Sometimes I hated asking for help.

Ryan still understands this at his job. It's not that he can't take time off work, but he  has a schedule full of patients that need to see a therapist, and if he takes time off work, someone has to cover for him. He hates putting that on his co-workers. Sometimes he hates asking for help.

You probably understand. Maybe for you...you'd have to find someone to watch your kids...or manage the store...or drive your route...and it's just easier to keep going.

But I ask you...

What if you took a day off?

What if you took the time and the trouble to get the substitutes as needed, mapped out the work that needed to be done, and you simply enjoyed a day.

Fall has arrived, and while I miss the warmth of summer, I do love so much about fall. I love the colors...and the crisp air...and the food...all of it. And I'm hoping Ryan and I can carve out a day to go enjoy.

{We had a photo shoot last night for our Christmas cards, and we almost took a nap in the hammock while his mom took pictures of us! It might not have been a day to enjoy, but we sure did make the most of those five minutes!!}

But I digress. Back to you...whether it's savoring more of summer or looking forward to fall...or anything in between...what if you took a day and just savored things like this?

What if you did?

I dare you. 

Those Movie Mistakes

Before we got married, I spent most of my Sunday afternoons curled up in the fat chair watching sappy movies on either Hallmark or Lifetime. I'd eat my gas station single serving pizza, guzzle my polar pop {what?? Is that not normal Sunday lunch cuisine?} and sob over these highly predictable movies.

And while they aren't his 100% favorite, Ryan is a hero and not only agrees to watching predictable love movies, but sometimes you guys...he actually picks them. Swoon.

Last weekend, we watched a Hallmark movie live, and the one that followed it intrigued him, so he recorded it, and this week, in a moment of love-hero-of-the-world, he suggested we watch it.

OKAY!!!!

The movie we watched was called Autumn Dreams, and it is the cutest little romantic movie. It really is. I loved the lead actor and actress, I thought the supporting roles were great as well, I LOVED the coffee cups they drank from, and if I could just move INTO that house...yes please! So please know in what I'm about to say, I'm not condemning the movie. Cute, cute, cute...watch it!

{Source}

Movies always have mistakes hidden in them, and it annoys me to no end that I always miss them until I read some article online that says something like "15 mistakes you didn't see while you watched the movie." As soon as they point them out, I think DUH!! How could I have missed that??

So I always figure if I notice something, it's probably glaring.

After this movie, Ryan and I had a couple of good laughs over some big missteps, and we're still laughing about them, so I thought I would tell you. {And I promise, these things aren't storyline spoilers.}

Annie, the main girl in the movie, runs a farm in Iowa. Right at the beginning of the movie, she's called to New York to take care of some business, so she goes alone. She calls home at what appears to be fairly soon after dinner the first night and apologizes to her mom for calling so late. Ryan looked at me and said, "Where is she from? How late is it?" I said, "Well, she's from Iowa and she's in New York, so it's a one hour time difference, and it's actually EARLIER in Iowa." I don't know -  maybe her mom goes to sleep about 5 p.m.

A little later, she receives a call from her fiance back in Iowa, and he's standing out in a field, the crops whipping in the wind around him, and he says to her, "There's a storm coming in! They're afraid we're going to lose the crops to flooding!" She tells him she'll be right home, and in the next scene, she is home, filling sand bags.

I said to Ryan, "So she got the call that the storm was coming...when it was already close enough to be windy on the farm...and she booked a flight from New York City, got home, got back to the farm, changed her clothes, and had time to fill sand bags before the storm began?" That's some lead time! I bet farmers everywhere wish they had that much warning.

Eventually you see Annie and her mom crouched in the mud next to the tall, green corn stalks, surveying the flood damage, and her mom tells her everything will be okay after the harvest tomorrow.

Ryan and I sat straight up on the couch. Harvest TOMORROW? The corn is July corn! Hasn't even turned brown yet! {I'm no farmer, but I know that much!} But, sure enough, in the next scene, Annie and her mom get up in the light of the full sun, climb in combines and harvest mature corn from green stalks. She gathers the farm hands - still in the full light of day and thanks them for their hard work in finishing the harvest, tells them they met their quota, and sends them home to prepare for the harvest festival that night.

Now.

I have only been related to a farming family for something like 34 months, but I have heard stories of the harvest, and I know these farmers do not begin at brunch time and finish in the daylight AND have their quota already figured. IN ONE DAY. I mean they wish they could, but they can't.

So for the rest of the night, Ryan ran around the house saying "Let me go fix some pancakes for brunch and then we'll go harvest the crops. We'll be home before dinner and go to the dance together...."

Well...despite those errors, the movie really was darling. I'd watch it again. I want to see her beat the storm home again!

And if you know any good movie mistakes, tell me. Unless I've read about them in an article, I guarantee you I'll have missed them, and I want to know what I've not seen!

Because it's High Time You Had a Dental Drama to Read...

A couple of weeks ago, I had my one year checkup at the dentist. One year since my dental surgery, and they told me I am continuing to progress well. Not fully healed yet, but on the right track and getting better with every appointment. {That was my fourth checkup since surgery.}

But at that appointment, the dentist told me I had an old filling beginning to break down and it needed to be replaced pretty quickly. {As in...they knew I would try to delay it until my next 3 month appointment and that was going to be too long.}

They actually did a couple of fillings for me during my surgery lat year, but I was asleep for those, so it's been a long time since I participated in full consciousness for a filling.

And...um....it was a disaster. The time before the sedated fillings, I mean. I had a panic attack and they had to actually stop the appointment and have me come back another time. And I had issues with my jaw locking shut {and then open} when they gave me Novocaine. A disaster from top to bottom.

So you can see why I was a bit nervous.

I've heard people say that when you have a baby, you sort of stop caring about your dignity and embarrassment becomes nonexistent. Well, I don't know about having babies, but I have reached the place of my dental-patient-career where I no longer have any dignity, and embarrassment is just a way of life.

Yesterday was the appointed filling day. I kept myself busy all morning, I called a couple of people for prayer support, and I skipped lunch out of sheer nervousness. {WHOA. I mean WHOA.} I strapped on the trusty old "Fear Not" bracelet, doused myself in Stress Away essential oil and headed to the dentist. They took me to a back room {thank you, Jesus for privacy!!} and I said to the assistant, "Have they warned you about me? Is my picture on a cabinet in the back room somewhere?"

I told her all about my panic tendencies, my previous experiences with a locking jaw, my TMJ, and probably a whole lot more she wished I would have kept to myself.

They tilted the chair back, and Fixer Upper played on the TV above my head. I needed the support of close personal friends in my hour of need, and Chip and JoJo were the closest I could find. Apparently it wasn't quite enough, because you guys, I cried all the way through the Novocaine. WHO DOES THAT!?!!? Apparently needles are different now than they were the last time I was awake for this sort of adventure, and the one they used was so big, it messed with my gag reflex and scared me to death. I felt honest-to-goodness tears rolling INTO MY EARS, and that was the end of whatever shred of dignity I had left.

I'm sure that poor dentist was thinking "WHY did I respond to the alarm this morning. WHY??"

They left me alone for the numbing to take effect, and I texted Ryan, saying "I don't think I can do this. I mean really. I DO NOT think I can do this." He told me I could. I decided not to test the waters by seeing what might happen if I came home without the completed procedure. But I'd be lying if I said that didn't cross my mind.

The assistant asked if she could do anything to make me more comfortable. I said, "Let me go home??" She laughed. I kind of hadn't been kidding.

When the dentist came in to remove the old filling and prepare for the new, I gripped the chair with both hands and mentally chanted "Jesus" because I figured it would hamper the work at hand for me to actually say it out loud, but I know there's power in the name of Jesus,  and I needed a good dose of it right then. What I'd been told should only take 3-4 minutes took closer to ten, and I only had to ask them to stop twice so I could do some Lamaze breathing and work my way through the panic.

The sweet assistant kept telling me I was doing a really good job, and she spoke to me in the voice people use on toddlers in potty training, but I remained unoffended. At that moment, my entire body was shaking so violently from fear that I could see the tools on the tray attached to my chair bouncing like they were in an earthquake. Finally, I dared to ask, "Are things really okay or you just telling me they are to be nice to me?" Evidently the cavity was deep and treacherous, but we made it through the drilling. The dentist tapped my shoulder and said "You did a great job." Liar. But I'll take it.

With that, the only thing left to finish was the filling itself. I finally got control of the ridiculous shaking and the assistant worked quickly to finish her work. When she got to her last round of sealing, I felt my jaw begin to lock up and panic set in completely. She felt my jaw trembling and said urgently, "TWENTY SECONDS!! GIVE ME TWENTY SECONDS!!" Those were the longest twenty seconds of my life, but we got through them with no locking.

By that point I was sweating, I don't even WANT to know what my blood pressure was, and my jaw was so sore.

But. I. Did. It.

Next time I won't be so quick to be a hero. There is no shame in being 37 and knocked out for a filling, I've decided.

And just what, exactly, is an appropriate token of gratitude to send to a staff who had to deal with the likes of a 37 year old toddler?  Ideas? Suggestions?

The Third Engagementversary

I told you last week about remembering back to three years ago when Ryan surprised me with a proposal. Our actual engagementversary fell on Sunday, and it was a day full of the fun, the new, and the maddening.

A few weeks ago, in the church bulletin, we read that they needed some volunteers to help at the coffee station on Sunday mornings. {Our church offers fresh brew and hot chocolate and tea on Sunday mornings.} We decided that would be a fun way we could serve together, and we signed up. Sunday was our first time to do that, and we had a BLAST.

I had taken a crash-training course in the middle of the week, but Ryan hadn't even been inside the church kitchen before, so we went down a few minutes early and I showed him where they kept all the supplies. He was excited to run the big coffee grinder and even more excited at the biggest brewing station we'd ever seen up close.

We served alongside another woman we only just met that morning, and it took a few minutes to get our system all figured out, but we did. Ryan did the brewing and the heavy lifting, our new friend kept us on track and made the whole operation run seamlessly, and I kept the main line tidied up and greeted the in-need-of-caffeine.

After church, the Colts played, and I have to say...it was the most excruciating game for an engagementversary afternoon. By the time the game slid into overtime, I was yelling at the TV, "You've had three and a half hours!!! Could you not just pick either a win or a lose in that amount of time? Why are you doing this to me???"

They finally squeaked out their painful, exhausting win, and we moved on to the next adventure. I really wanted to go do something, so we drove to the park, intending to walk through the beautiful gardens.

Except...they were closed for a wedding. I guess I can't really get cranky about people celebrating a wedding on the day we celebrated our engagement, right?

Ryan brought along a frisbee and we headed to the open green space of the park so your Bekah girl could learn to play frisbee. Yes. It is true. I am 37 years old and can't play frisbee. {And if you ever watched me try to throw one from the stage during my WBCL years, you are not arguing with me right now because you've seen the madness in action.}

It took a while, but I got into it, and I got better!!!

We worked up quite a thirst playing frisbee, so of course...frappes. {Excuse my look. I'm not sure what's happening there.}

And I had one more little surprise before the end of the day. Months ago, my friend Jeri was out on business and found these coffee cups. She sent me a picture and I had to have them in real life. So in honor of the commitment made on the original engagement day....

Monthiversary 34

This past Friday was our 34th monthiversary...how in the world did we get to being within TWO MONTHS of three years? How how how?? Mom said to me last week that it seems like much longer than three years ago that we all headed to Florida for a wedding.

Tell me about it! Seems to me like it's high time we go back. But perhaps another year.

Anyway. Ryan started off the day in the MOST lovely way by surprising me with a card. {I used to get him a card every single month, but I started feeling bad about it because he felt pressure to get me a card, so I gave up that practice. And then this time he surprised me and got one for ME!}

There may or may not have also been a Twix bar attached, but do you honestly think I'd let that sit around long enough to be photographed????

Ryan had to work, and I was all geared up for a good day of writing. The gears were turning, and I was pumped...and then....

Yeah. Apparently somewhere in our fine state {if you can believe what you read on the internet} someone did some digging without checking for buried cables and cut the fiber optic cable for Brighthouse, cutting out the internet, cable, and phone lines for all the customers of said company.

I know, I know...you're probably thinking "Can't you write without being online?" For a while, yes. But all writing requires research, so after a while, I was just stuck.

As you can imagine, by the time Ryan came home from work and I'd been internet-less for something like six hours, I was nearly unable to breathe.

We went out for dinner, and then we marched our laptops right into Starbucks and set up camp, because I still had to finish the blog for Saturday.

But this adventure did afford us a funny story!

Because we had our laptops to guard, we ordered our coffee separately. Ryan went up first and came back with fresh brew and this ginormous, delectable looking slab of lemon pound cake. I was surprised, because I figured we were both getting lattes and calling it a night, so I asked if he got fresh brew instead, and he said yes.

So I went to get in line {which by this time had gotten pretty long} and ordered fresh brew myself. Came back to the table, all ready for my coffee and pound cake...

Apparently communication is still an area of work for us. LOL!!! I completely thought he got the pound cake to share with me, and ummmmmmmmm.....well......

He offered to go get me my own piece but I truly wasn't hungry enough for a piece of cake {WHAT?!?!?}, so I just laughed and laughed about it.

We stayed until they closed, crash-internetting....

And by the time we got home, the internet was fixed.

We breathe again.

And we still laugh about the cake.

If you see Ryan, you should ask him if he has any lemon cake. :)

The Shafferland Shuffle

* We were EXHAUSTED last Sunday after the long weekend of yard sale madness, so as soon as church was over, we donned our Colts-cheering-clothing and hit Mo for the afternoon. Napping and game-watching. AND Ryan decided he needed no-bake cookies, so we made some and he proceeded to eat them straight from the pan before they even set up. LOL!! And for the first time in days, we were back in business with the coffee pot we rescued from the yard sale. Too bad we didn't rescue the filters before those sold!

* Monday evening, we donated all the leftover rummage and then went for a run while the geese went for a trip themselves. Ahhhhh fall. And can I just tell you that NOTHING stops your heart quite as much as coming home to fire trucks on your street? We were so tired from our run, but as soon as we saw the trucks, we broke into an even faster run to make sure our house was okay. It was {and yes, I'm the one who stopped to take a picture just in case it was us. Documentation overload. Also - it wasn't a fire at all. I'm guessing someone had a medical emergency.} The whole day just wore Braeya out. She conked out in our bed even before we did.

* Tuesday morning we had a rare treat when Ryan didn't have to go into work until late morning. We slept in, we had breakfast together...it was almost like a Saturday on a weekday! AND it was National Coffee Day, so we drank extra. {As if we need an excuse for that.} I spent most of the day working hard on my Bible study homework...I'd gotten behind, and there were many blanks to fill in and many lessons to learn!

* Wednesday was a writing day for me. It's so good to be back in my office, at my desk, working. {The house overhauls relegated me to the living room floor for several days.} Another sign of fall in Shafferland? The trusted combo of peanuts and candy corn, baby!!! We might have eaten too much of it while Ryan {and Braeya} took some online PTA classes.

* Thursday I went for about a five month overdue hair appointment. Always amazes me how much better I feel when I come away from the salon. Why do I wait so long to go??? It inspired me to work hard on our dinner, which included apple cider donuts! :) They were delish, by the way. And that night? More classes for Ryan and more blog reading for me. Pretty sure I had the way better end of the deal.

* Friday was our 34th monthiversary! Almost to three years, baby!! Ryan surprised me with a beautiful card that morning {YAY!!!!!} and then that night we went out for dinner and coffee. We ended up spending longer than usual at Starbucks, because earlier in the day, our internet went out at home. {Like it went out for a big part of the whole state...a cable had been cut somewhere.} I'd been home trying to write without the internet, which may SEEM an easy thing to do, but it's not. I research a LOT of things while I write. So we had to go catch up while we drank coffee. We're nothing if not celebratory!!! LOL!

 * Yesterday was a COLD AND YUCKY day here in the Midwest. We were so glad it wasn't last week and the yard sale! Ryan worked, and I went to take pictures at a corn maze and pumpkin patch. That adventure was cut short by rain, but we did enjoy a coffee break! Even found the place where Ryan and I added our hand print to the wall! We devoted the rest of our day to movies and naps. Because it was that kind of day outside!

The Saturday Six

One.

Good post by Jason Tippetts about removing his wedding ring after Kara's death. I appreciate his honesty here. There's not a set formula for this sort of thing {as there isn't for anything in life.} Even if you're not in his shoes, this is a good post to read to understand those around you who might be!

Two. 

 Source

I listened to this podcast this week on an intriguing topic: dirty language from a professional platform. I am not even going to lie...I have been straight up appalled and offended by the volume of professing Christians who throw around offensive language in their blog posts like it's no big thing. It was a trend Lynne and I noticed {with great sadness} increasing in recent months. While for me {in that circle anyway} it really is a heart issue, this podcast explains why - moral issues aside - the choice to freely throw around rough language can hurt you professionally. How it can turn people off to the point that not only will they stop listening to/reading you, but they won't recommend you to others either. Interesting topic. There is a transcript of it available if you prefer to read instead of listen.

Three.

Source

I know, I know. It's October. but Christmas is COMING. And this method of stringing lights on trees is the very one I learned from our Financial Aid secretary back in the day. It really is the best, even though it requires extra effort at the time of construction. The glow is unparalleled.  

Four.

Source

Speaking of October...and you know what this month means! Write 31 Days is back! This is the month when many bloggers pick a topic and write on it every day for the month of October. I've found some fun blogs through this little project, so check them out! 

Five.

Source

I realize this is not on a major network, but is anyone else watching Last Hope with Troy Dunn? Ryan graciously sits through it every week as I sob {sssssssssssoooooooooobbbbbbbbbbbb} through every episode. He reunites families separated, usually by adoption, and I will be quite truthful in telling you I don't even care if it's embellished for TV. My tear ducts NEED that cleanse every week. He used to have a show on WE TV called "The Locator." Sobbed through that one too. Clearly this should not be my next line of work. :) 
 

Six.

Truth? I chose to review Last Chance Hero, a new novel by Cathleen Armstrong, because the plot summary described a young woman trying to fit into a football-loving town when she "doesn't know a first down from a goalpost." I figured she and I had a lot in common, and I might like her story. After having read the book, I have decided I want to move to Last Chance, New Mexico, and be friends with every single character in the book. {Well. Maybe minus a couple of the busybody ladies. I might keep them at a slight distance.}


First, let me tell you a bit about the storyline, and I promise not to spoil a thing for you. Last Chance, New Mexico, is the kind of small town you would think of when you think of small towns. Most people who live there have always lived there, everyone knows everyone, and they're not big on change. Fitting in as the newbie is...a challenge, at best. But Dr. Jessica McLeod is excited to attempt to put down roots in the charming place when she opens a private medical practice there. She arrives in town just about the same time the hometown football hero, Andy Ryan, returns to coach the high school team. He'd played for the Denver Broncos, and the entire town expects his very presence to transform their struggling team into the Glory Days team he played for back in the day - back when they had an 84 game winning streak and were really something.

Jessica has no interest in football, and no one in town can figure out why anyone wouldn't like football. And while they're all glad to have a local doctor on hand, none of them are interested in giving up their trusted doctors in the city a few miles away. Jessica may not be interested in football, but she is interested in Coach Ryan. An interesting predicament: to have a crush on a man whose very livelihood is of no interest whatsoever. And Coach Ryan's interesting predicaments totter back and forth between his own interest in the non-football-loving Jessica and his desperation to get the town to understand the Glory Days were in the past, and the team at hand deserves its own chance to make something of itself.

I learned partway through the book that this is actually the fourth book in the "Place to Call Home" series, but Cathleen did a great job of introducing me to he many residents of Last Chance, without making me feel like I was behind on their stories. And though I, like Jessica, know pitifully little about football, I wasn't lost in the details of the story.

I want to purchase the first three books in the series {which I've discovered will teach me even more of the back story of some of the other town residents} because I just fell in love with this little place and the people who live there. There's something to be said for the unique {and perhaps, at times, frustrating} beauty of small-town life, and I think Cathleen captured it splendidly. Can't wait to read the rest of the story. {And the fact that many pieces of the plot were not wrapped up with a neat bow leaves me with great hope that there will be another book to come for the story of Last Chance!}

{Revell sent me a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.}

Making an Heirloom

When Grandma died almost 20 years ago, we cleaned out her house, dividing up her possessions among her children and grandchildren. Some things were assigned per her request and others to meet the needs we had, which were as varied as our ages and life stations.

Then there were the things that everyone wanted: namely anything with her handwriting in it. The item I remember generating the most discussion was her recipe book. The book we knew she'd used as she stood in that little galley kitchen, whipping up the deliciousness of every holiday and family birthday gathering.

Unless we went the Solomon-inspired route of ripping the book up and giving pieces to everyone, only one person could have it. And so it went to Mom, and I made photocopies of Grandma's distinctive script from the pages of the book.

You don't really think about things like that, I suppose. Things like two daughters and five granddaughters wanting to hold onto a piece of your handwriting while using it in their own kitchens to carry on your traditions.

Last winter, when Ryan and I did our Christmas shopping, I happened upon a stack of these cookbooks in TJ Maxx.

And it came to me: we would make memories, this family of mine, while we could. We would share our recipes and our handwriting and each of our homes would hold a piece of each other and though we might be wildly separated by age and miles, we would be together inside the red cover of this book.

We bought a copy for each household and I presented the idea. For this past year, my mom, my sisters, my niece and I have been writing and mailing, writing and mailing, writing and mailing. We've been picking from our favorite recipes and preserving them within the pages so we all have a chance to cook from each other's kitchens.

It's the first time we've met on the level cooking field of adulthood. Some of us love cooking, some of us don't. Some of us have been doing it forever, others are brand new. But we all have something to contribute. We all have recipes that are ours and we have all shared them with each other.

I love this book so much. I love flipping through each page and recognizing familiar handwriting and knowing it's preserved for each of us. I love knowing I can try new things that others in my family love and call their own. Though I know at times they were all tired of writing and mailing, writing and mailing, I'm glad we did this project this year. I'm glad we made an heirloom on purpose.

Because I Said Yes

Sunday, according to the date on the calendar, is a significant mile-marker for Shafferland. But because I'll be busy filling you in on our week come Sunday, I'm writing about it today...the day-of-the-week-on-the-calendar when my life changed for always.

Three years ago, on a Thursday...Thursday, October 4th to be exact...this happened:

Three years ago, in a moment that I completely expected...and completely did NOT expect on that day...Ryan showed up at the station, got down on one knee, and asked me to be his.

And. I. Said. Yes.

I said yes before the question was even completely out of his mouth. I said yes in front of twenty people pressed up against windows, watching. I said yes in front of thousands more, listening over their radios. People who later told me they sat in their car at the grocery store, delaying the trip inside for food, because they wanted to hear the rest. People who sat in their garages, not ready yet to go inside the house, because they might miss something.

I said yes to a man who said he wanted to be with me every single day and every single night, and minus that one whitewater rafting trip I gifted him {and subsequently sobbed all the way through}, he has been. Every single day and every single night.

I said yes to a man who said he didn't know what was ahead and he didn't care - he just wanted to be with me. And in the three years that have followed, he's mopped up a million tears, calmed more than his share of anxious moments, and walked me through the recovery of a couple of surgeries. He's given me new experiences {shout out to ziplining, segway tours, horseback riding, a weeklong cruise and more}, and he's made our house a home, pouring months of sweat and some blood into this property.

I said yes to a man who said he loved my writing and most recently has proven the truth of that by making it possible for me to quit my job so I can pursue it more fully. That's a gift most people don't have, and I know it.

I said yes to a man who didn't say in the proposal that he would love me as Christ loves the church, but he has done that very thing every single day.

In that moment, I was aware life was about to change forever, and I tried with everything in me to pay close attention so I didn't miss a thing.

I missed a few things.

But thankfully it was all heavily documented, and I've watched it over and over to learn what I missed in the awe of the moment.

What I didn't miss was that this very moment captured God's answer to my most long-standing request. To be chosen.

So on this day, I both celebrate the joy of remembering this moment when I said yes, and I commit to praying over each of you who are still waiting for this moment. I've heard from some of you even very recently, and I know your hearts hurt in the way mine did before this day three years ago. You hurt because you just want to be chosen. You hurt because you see no answer anywhere in sight. And I don't know what the answer is for you. I don't know when or where God intends to bring the fulfillment of your request. But today I pray for you because I know the wait is long and hard. And I know you want to be found faithful in the waiting.

You're loved. And for those of you who ache for it, I pray for the day when that love extends to a man on one knee telling you out loud...you're loved in a way you've never known before.

Small Town Livin'

I grew up in the country. {Ryan did too, actually...about two miles from my house. Yeah. We're that couple.} My parents had a couple of acres five miles from the nearest town and twenty miles from the nearest city of significance. We were surrounded by fields that left my mom's clean windows coated in dust come harvest time, but our views of sunrises and sunsets were unobstructed. {And I wasn't at a stage in life where I could fully appreciate that blessing.} We had two neighbors within walking distance, and that was it. Everyone else was a car-drive away, and things like going for a walk or a bike ride were always a bit of a risk, since the road by our house was a heavily used highway.

When I went to college and moved into the dorm at IWU, my entire world was revolutionized by things like city blocks and stores within a mile of my bed. Essentially, I could crave a hamburger and have it in five minutes. Stop. Is this real life??

I became a bit spoiled with such conveniences and staying in the city limits the last fifteen years has merely fed the spoiling. I've been known to start dinner, realize I'm out of a major ingredient and HAVE the ingredient back in my house in under ten minutes. {If you missed it, that means I drove to the store, shopped, paid, and drove home all in ten minutes.}

But city life {even though Marion is just a "city" compared to the cities where some of you live} has its drawbacks. The moments that make me scratch my head and wonder if my parents did something right by picking a country life. And then I remember how much I sometimes need hamburgers in a hurry, and I realize I would make a very poor country girl these days.

But last week.

Last week.

We had that yard sale over in Greentown, the small town NEAR where we grew up. The small town where we went to school. I went over the day before the sale to organize our stuff, and I set up our folding table in the grass outside the garage on the alley. I wandered in and out, listening to cars speed by on the highway, and enjoying the sunny day. Every now and then, a car crept down the alley, driving slowly so as not to spit gravel into grass, and when the drivers approached me, they slowed down even more, stopping to ask if I was having a good day...if I was moving into the house...if I was prepping for a sale.

Complete strangers took time to pause their cars and chat, and not once did I feel scared for my very life. We laughed and joked and I secretly figured most of them would know my parents if I told them who I was, but even though they didn't know they probably knew me, they took time to be nice.

My stomach growled loudly when lunchtime rolled around and I made my way to the gas station for some pizza and coke {and it tasted EXTRA good that day after a morning of pawing through a spider-filled garage}. I wasn't so far from civilization that I couldn't get a good gas station meal in a few minutes' time.

I drove past the little grocery store...I watched all the regulars wander in and out of the diner across the street...and I even chatted with a neighbor who stopped to chat on her walk to the utility office to pay her water bill. {Do I even know where the utility office IS in my town?} I remembered the Friday night a few weeks back, when Ryan and I drove over late to move our rummage stuff into the garage, and the whole town sky lit up from the lights at the football field, and as we pulled out of town, people flooded the sidewalks, making their way home from the game.

We are fully aware that at this time, the Lord does not seem to be releasing us from our little Shafferland house in the "city" - but I will not lie. A weekend of small town life absolutely charmed my socks off, and it's hard to push away the wistful feelings of living in a lovely little place like that.

25 Things I Learned from Our Yard Sale

One sale does not an expert make, and I fully know and admit that. But today I wanted to write this post so I can refer to it next time I want to hold a yard sale, and so anyone who has been previously intimidated by such adventurescan learn from our successes and failures. I feel like this past weekend taught me many things about what worked and what didn't in terms of what leads to a successful sale. Here's the list of 25 things I learned. {It's a bit long, but each one was important to me.}

1. Start prepping early. I started cleaning out our house three months before the sale, and although we continued to add items clear up until the week of the sale, the bulk of the finding-items-to-sell work was done weeks in advance. This kept me from stressing out the week of the sale.

2. Price as you go. As I cleaned out every single drawer, closet, cabinet, and cranny of our home, I immediately put price stickers on the items going in the sale. This also saved me incredible amounts of time the week of the sale, because all that work was already done. {Some things did have to be repriced, because not every surface material was created to house a sticker for weeks on end, and we lost a few along the way. But the bulk of the work was done.}

3. Sell some good stuff. Some sales {as you know...you've probably been to them!} are clearly a dumpster labeled with stickers. It's obvious some people sell their worn out junk that they don't want - and probably nobody else does either. I think one of the things that led to the success of our sale was having a significant amount of good stuff. Much of what we sold {and the same went for my mother-in-law} came from simple excess in our homes.

4. Don't underestimate the "junk" that still sells. We had a cracked crock pot that I wanted throw away, but Ryan convinced me to put it in our sale. He said maybe somebody had that same crock pot, but maybe the heating unit wasn't working, and they could combine our good heating unit with their good crock. Or maybe somebody knew how to repair the crock. Amazingly enough, it sold. {We did put a sticker on it explaining it was cracked.} And there were other piddly things that I threw in on a whim...that sold. It shocked me that people would want some of it, but they did.

5. Make little gift packs. Rather than pricing out every single little trinket, I made some gift packs that sold really well. I used different size storage baggies and grouped like items together and sold them as a pack. It saved me time from laying out individual things.

6. Location is everything. I had learned from other people's previous attempts that sales at our home are not successful. We are not in a prominent enough location to draw in traffic, regardless of where we advertise or how many signs we put up. For this sale, we took our stuff to Ryan's mom's rental house in Greentown. The house was just off the highway and had great visibility. ALSO - the house was near a parking lot that made it easy for our shoppers to get in and out safely and easily.

7. Timing is everything. We held our sale as part of the community sale weekend, so there were people in town looking for sales, and we were able to benefit from the sales going on around the community. The official sale day for the community was Saturday only, but we did our sale Friday and Saturday, and Friday was by far a bigger day for us. It was a strange thing to benefit both from the fact that there WERE other sales happening and the fact that we were AHEAD of some of those sales.

8. Weather is everything. You can't control this one, but it really does affect a sale. Our Friday was stunning. It was warm and sunny and people generally wanted to be outside, probably because they know there aren't many days like that left in this year. It wasn't too hot, too windy, too anything. Saturday, we encountered some sprinkles, and during the hours that the rain was most threatening, the crowds were smallest. People don't want to walk around in rain, and you can't blame them.

9. Organize the thing!! I drove past a sale that started even before ours did, and I got hives just looking at it from my car. Tables were tight together, they were obviously packed form side to side, and I had no idea how shoppers would find ANYTHING in there. I spent the entire day prior to our sale sorting through every box we had, dividing every item into categories, and then I made signs for the categories. I figure stores organize their merchandise in categories for a reason, so why shouldn't garage sales? We had SO MANY COMPLIMENTS throughout the weekend from people who appreciated the organization and got a kick out of the fun signs I made. It helped them calm down, find what they needed, and have a fun shopping experience, and they seemed to really like it.

10. Presentation. We borrowed long tables from Ryan's mom's church, and we borrowed clothing racks from a friend of her family. Both were HUGE helps. We were able to spread out the sale throughout the entire yard and give people plenty of room to browse. We had the items displayed by category on the tables, so people could skip sections they weren't interested in. AND we learned that we sold things better when they were up in full view of the people {aka hanging clothes sold better than folded clothes and we sold more shoes when we put them ON a table rather than UNDER a table}.

11. Some people will rummage. Even though I was adamant about having every single item out on display, we had some friends drop off items that were unmarked in boxes. I didn't have time to price their stuff or space to display it all, but I learned some people are undaunted by rummaging through boxes, so it was okay to have the boxes there for those who wanted to do that. {MOST did not want to go to that trouble, but some did.}

12. Multi-family helps. We heard multiple people asking if we knew which other sales in town were BIG sales. It did seem to draw folks in that we had a lot of stuff. We ended up having a three family sale, and we had a WIDE variety of items between the three families. We did not have any kid stuff at ours, and we had some people who were looking for that specifically, but overall, it didn't seem to hurt us that we didn't have kids' stuff. {But if you can find someone selling baby/kid clothing, accessories, toys, etc. that can be a huge selling point!}

13. GET HELP. We had three "full time" employees at our sale, and then my mom was there for a big chunk of the time too. Next time I might make sure we have even more people on hand. You need one person to run the cash box and watch it like a hawk when it's not in use. And sometimes in a rush, it's helpful to have a second person there to sort prices between families {we had to divide the spoils, so that was an extra step for us} and bag the stuff. If you have heavy stuff, it's important to have someone to help lift it - and it's nice to have someone to help customers carry big piles to their cars. And then it's good to have "security detail" since yes, there are people who steal from yard sales. {We had a few.} Unless your sale is small, it's not good to try to run it entirely on your own. {Besides, you need to get food and go to the bathroom sometime!!}

14. Refresh and replenish. On the busiest day, I spent most of my time, walking from front to back, straightening things up, bringing out new things to fill in holes left by things that had sold {yes, we had so much stuff it wasn't all out at once}, and sometimes just scoot things from one side of a table to another. It helped people see things they hadn't seen before. I refolded shirts, pulled new things to the front, and took away entire categories as they sold out. Some people came back to our sale for a second time and commented that they saw things they never saw the first time - because I moved it all around and spruced it up.

15. People come early and show up late. Personally, I do not understand it, because I am a rule follower. If a sale starts or ends at a certain time, I would not DREAM of going outside those boundaries. But on Saturday, we had people show up early {who seemed irritated that we were still setting up} and we also had people come as we were boxing up the leftovers {a half hour after the close of the sale} asking us to unbox and cut deals. These things are not wrong, but it's good to have a plan in place to know how you want to handle them.

16. People will be mean. It's another thing I do not understand. It's a YARD SALE. It's not a life or death thing. But as I told you in my story yesterday, I would have cried over some of my first people on Friday if I'd had time. They were rude and pushy. We finally learned by the end of the weekend, Ryan needed to handle the rude people. So know that they will happen - and be prepared to have someone there to handle that.

17. Know ahead of time when to be firm on price. Part of the reason I had a problem with mean people was that they wanted to negotiate the price of items that did not belong to me. I wasn't comfortable accepting less on someone else's behalf. Finally we had to make a list {for everyone involved in the sale} of the firm items. We wrote them all down and put the list in the cash box, so regardless of who ran the box, they would know if the item could be brought down in price or not.

18. Pricing is a gamble. In all the articles I read ahead of time, some said to price things high because people want to negotiate them down. {Truthfully I don't understand that either. I would never do that. I would pay what the tag says or walk on by if I didn't think it was worth it. But that's just me.} Other articles said if you want to move stuff out, price it to sell. So I priced it to sell - and then people still wanted to argue the prices. That was frustrating to me. I'm not sure yet which is the best way to go, but I know we moved TONS of our stuff, so pricing to sell seemed to work.

19. Set expectations ahead of time. If you're doing a multi-family sale, it's a good idea to know ahead of time what the expectations are of all those involved. Is a representative from each family working the sale at all times? If not, is the hosting family keeping a percentage of the sales? Does everyone pitch in together for the price of any advertising taking place in newspapers or other paid venues? What time does everything need to be at the sale location? All good things to know before the day of the sale.

20. Having the sale at another location brings its own set of challenges. Because the house where we held the sale did not belong to us, we had to work around the schedules of others, and we also had to be sure we brought with us EVERYTHING we would need for the day of the sale. {Food, water, change of clothes in case the weather changed, change of shoes if our feet started to hurt, phone chargers, sunscreen, sunglasses...all that stuff.} I also spent the entire night between the two sale days worrying that the house would get robbed and all our stuff would get stolen. We also had to show up at the house an hour and a half before the sale each day to drag everything out and set it up, since we weren't holding the sale from inside a building that could be set up ahead of time. These weren't bad things, necessarily. Just things that have to be considered ahead of time.

21. Seed Money. Ryan went to the bank before the sale to get seed money for change. Even though he told them it was for a sale, they sent him away with mostly 20's, 10's and 1 dollar bills...and not one lick of change. NO quarters No dimes. No nickles. Fortunately, one of our first customers was a professional sale-goer and had a purse load of change and she kindly sold us some quarters. It was actually enough to get us through, but next time I would make sure we are better set with the money.

22. Social Media and other ads. We paid $10 to be included in a town map, and the town dropped off a handful of maps to our sale, which we handed out to others. But as far as we know, the town never advertised it in the local newspaper or the nearby city's paper. So to improve our advertising, I used part of my day-before-the-sale prep taking pictures of some of our bigger ticket items and I made a Facebook album to explain where we would be, our hours, and what we had for sale. And the night after the first day, I updated it with what items remained. We had several people come because they'd seen things on Facebook. So I think using whatever social media you have is a great advertising option.

23. Spring for some bling. I made signs on lime green poster board to put at the end of the road, and I bought some balloons as well - to draw attention. People seemed to respond well to it. I think it shows the sale organizers put time, effort and their own resources into it, so it's likely to be a fun sale.

24. Interact with your people. We had fun at our sale, because it was in our old hometown, and we got to see people we hadn't seen in a long time. We really enjoyed that! But even with the people we didn't know - we tried to strike up conversation, and several said it was the most fun and most friendly sale they'd been to. If people like you, they'll want to buy from you. It can't hurt!

25. Cleanup is as hard as setup. There's a lot of cleanup work to a sale. Our moms stayed and helped us pack up boxes of leftovers, tear down tables, etc. Ryan returned the borrowed tables and clothing racks, we threw away all our signs {go get the ones you put up around town!!!}, pulled flyaway stickers out of the yard, and prepared our leftovers to be donated. We counted and distributed the money, and tried to make sure all our helpers knew how much we appreciated the gift of their time.

So that's what I learned from our first run! For me, this was not just some random thing I did. As a stay-at-home wife, this was my WORK. This was my employment for the weekend. I put the same time and effort into it that I would into a job, and I was proud of the outcome. While my poor feet are enjoying the post-sale break, I'm glad we did it, and I'm glad it was successful!