Celebrating on the Run

This past Monday, Ryan and I celebrated our 67th monthiversary. If you're new here and don't know, monthiversaries are important to me. We got married when we were 34 and 33, and I'd been waiting a LONG LONG TIME to have milestones to observe. You better believe I'm going to pack in as many of them as I can! So while I know the idea of a monthly celebrations seems tedious to some, I don't care. It matters to me. (It matters to Ryan too, but I'm usually the one who puts together the "celebration.")

Last month we had to celebrate on the run because even though our day fell on the weekend, I was teaching a class at the library, Ryan was helping our friends work on their house, and it was the crazy weekend of four million graduation open houses. So even though we recognized the day, we didn't have much time to focus on one another.

And this month seemed no different. Because it was a weekday, Ryan had work, and it was unfortunately one of the days when he didn't even get much of a lunch. (Some days he gets a decent amount of time and other days he sort of wolfs down the food and rushes back to work. This was a wolf and rush kind of day.

We took our monthly photo the minute he walked in the door for lunch, and then we ate together. Well. Kind of. :) I had planned to make Frosted Lemonades for our dessert, but they took some time to assemble, so he ate his lunch while I made dessert, and then I ate later after he went back to work. But we got our dessert treats! (And they were delicious! And healthy!)

You may or may not remember (and it's okay if you don't) that last summer for about a month, we went to a gym to work out three days a week. It just was not a good fit for me. I am far too self-conscious to work out with other people. I need privacy. (I don't even like for Braeya to watch me work out.) But Ryan has really missed the gym, so he's going back now, just a couple of times a week, on his own, and I do my own workouts those days. So that night was his first night back. (I love it that the gym owner is a documenter. I get to see him work!)

After my own workout, I decided to surprise Ryan by mowing the yard. It was ever loving h.o.t. outside, so I had to pause for a lot of hydration breaks, but I got it mowed right before he came back home. I don't think this is the kind of hot wife he signed up for:

Yes. I sweat off all my eye makeup. I have never had that happen to me before.

After we got cleaned up from our respective grossness, we had dinner together and then walked to Dairy Queen (it's not a short walk, either) for a little monthiversary treat. By the time the day was done, I'd walked almost 25,000 steps, and my legs were TIRED.

(Ignore my hair and face. I didn't do anything to either one after I showered. He must really love me to be seen in public with me!)

So even though it was kind of an odd day in terms of celebration style, it was a good day. And I don't mind saying - our yard looks really good. ;)

Happy monthiversary, Ryan! I love you!

Gratitude

I know not everyone reading here is from the United States, but for those of you who are, today is our Independence Day. It's a day that gets lumped into a free day off work for some (not in our house, but probably for most) and a mix of family time/cookouts/firework shows for others. 

I will confess that fireworks are among my favorite things, and watching them on the 4th of July is something I look forward to every single year. This year is no exception, but this year is also a year I've been given a fresh reminder of those who made a day like this possible for all the rest of us.

One of the key parts of the program at our church this past weekend was the chance to honor our military veterans and those in active duty as well. Each of the three nights, all willing and able veterans were invited to stand on the stage while we recognized their sacrifice and thanked them for their service.

I sat close enough to look into their eyes, and I wasn't able to do that any one of the three nights without being utterly overcome by the stories in front of me. These men and women (mostly men in front of my section) each carried a story, and I wished I could have stopped the night to learn them all. 

Who had they left back at home to go and serve?

What personal dreams did they put on hold or let go of entirely so they could protect the rest of us?

What do they still remember, some of them dozens of years down the road?

Do they know how much they matter?

All these questions rushed through my mind as I looked from face to face.

Some couldn't even walk to the top of the stairs and probably should have been sitting, but even though ushers offered them chairs, they shook their heads and stood through the song. Some stood with aid, but they stood.

I wasn't able to get my camera out quickly enough this second night, but at one point, they all saluted together, bonded in a way none of the rest of us could know, even though they were mostly strangers to each other.

And these three pictures are just a minute representation of all the men and women from all over the country from all these many years who have made it possible for us to even have a program like this. 

So these are the people I'm thinking about today. Because of them, Ryan can go to work, even if it is a holiday. Because of them, we can celebrate with a date today (hopefully). Because of them, we could have the programs we had this past weekend. 

My heart is grateful today. (And though I don't have a recording of our choir singing it, this is the song they sang while all these brave soldiers stood on the stage.)

I think the only thing to say is thank you.

Patriotic Palooza!

It's podcast Tuesday, so here are some stories to keep you company while you go about your day! Enjoy! (You'll notice I got super creative in titling it.)

Listen here!

Yesterday I finally had time to pilfer through my pictures from our weekend, and I wanted to share with you some of the fun we had being part of our church's big patriotic program. (Our church does two HUGE musical programs each year. One is patriotic and the other is filled with Christmas music! This was our first time to be in one, and Ryan's first time to even see one. I'd come to a few of them years ago with my mom, because she really likes them. But still, it had been several years since I'd seen one!)

(Also: most of these pictures are ones I took but a small handful were gathered from Facebook finds. So here's some generic photo credit to all those who came and took pictures!)

Here we are in the choir room before the first of the three performances. I was so nervous. 

Clearly Ryan was, too. Here he is a bit later before the choir filed out:

I had an almost-front-row seat in the audience, where I sat with my fellow narrators. I tried to sneak some pictures throughout the various nights. Some photos aren't the best because I didn't want to take time to really set everything up. (Trying not to get on every last nerve of the people behind me.)

These four guys are a quartet from our church and they sing together quite often. The guy second from the left is a retired police officer from our hometown, and he was our official D.A.R.E. officer when we were fifth graders! (Do they still do that program in schools? I'm not sure.) Anyway. He's hilarious. The Lord went long on personality with him! 

These guys sang for about fifteen minutes before each night officially began. 

See Ryan? Isn't he so handsome?

See the guy at the piano? WOW. He is t.a.l.e.n.t.e.d. I could listen to him play for about 400 hours. He was one of my favorite parts of coming to rehearsals with Ryan. I always sat where I could watch him play and then I imagined that I had that much talent, too! (Daydreams for the win.)

This is Lisa, and she has an incredible voice. She sings many solos at church, and with good reason! Ryan ended up sitting next to her for the performances, so they became friends! 

PS - Love her shoes. I would have tripped and broken my head wearing them, but love them.

In addition to the choir, they brought in gymnasts and dancers and drumlines and all kinds of fun extras. Here's a shot of one of the dance groups:

 Our pastor just became an American citizen last year. (He's originally from England and still has a delightful accent.) The church recognized his official citizenship during the program. (The picture on the screen behind him is from the day he became an official citizen.)

 The choir sang the Preamble (bonus! I learned the Preamble during this!) and this gentleman was "writing" it as they sang.

They recognized the veterans each night as well, but I want to save those pictures for tomorrow's post. So just imagine them.

There were four narrators each night. We worked in pairs. This is the other pair!

(The girl down front was another dancer, and she had the kindest, most genuine smile. I enjoyed watching her!)

A little quartet fun. (Gotta sing Kokomo when you live there, right?)

 And some small ensemble fun:

Our pastor presented a brief message each evening. 

Oh! And one of the other narrators was kind enough to get some pictures of me with my narrating partner (her name is Sharon) on the last night. I call this piece "The Goodwill and the Boutique." Sharon owns a boutique and, well, I shop at the Goodwill. I think we coordinated nicely, nonetheless, don't you?

We had a pretty big number of friends and family who came to enjoy the program throughout the weekend. We didn't get pictures with everyone, but here are a few!

Ryan's Grandma and her husband:

 My mom and aunt:

Ryan's dad and step-mom:

Ryan's mom:

A couple of Ryan's cousins:

Ryan's other grandma:

My friend Ronda:

There were more, but these are a few! 

And the ONE THING I wanted was a good picture of Ryan and me at the church. Yeah. Forgot about that. How about a stoplight selfie?

So that was our program! It was so much fun to be part of something that has gained such a great reputation among community members, and it was a joy to make new friends through it, too! I'm glad we found something we can do together, even if we are using different talents in the process!

Monday Funday!

I haven't gone through all my pictures from the weekend yet, so I'm grateful that Callie tagged me with some other blogging fodder! I'll be back tomorrow with a recap of our weekend with the patriotic program!

One other thing of note: today is our 67th monthiversary! Happy monthiversary, Ryan! I have loved all our adventures, including being part of the church program with you. Thank you for making every single day so much fun. :)

Okay! Now on to today's blogging fun. I enjoy reading Callie's blog, and she did a fun post last week and tagged a handful of us with questions for our own posts. I'm using that today!

1. What is your favorite childhood memory?

I have to pick just one? That's not easy! I have a bunch! I think I'll go with the (way too brief) season when I had this adorable little chihuahua named Lassie. She was the best dog, and I loved her! Though I continue to take a fair amount of ribbing for naming a Chihuahua Lassie, I don't care. I'd name her that all over again!

2. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I'm not sure I have a dream location as far as city or state, but I would so dearly love to have a beautiful water view. So, you know: ocean, lake, river, retention pond...whatever!

3. What was the last book you read? 

I've been a bit of a slacker in the book department this summer, but the last book I read was Together Forever by Jody Hedlund. GREAT story, as always. Jody is amazing!

4. When you have so me spare time, what do you do with it (besides blogging of course). 

Scrapbooking! Pinteresting! Sleeping! Eating! Walks with Ryan! County tours! (Can you tell that I'm always excited about things that involve spare time?

5. With whom is your longest friendship?

I have two friendships that date back to story hour (before Kindergarten). One is with my friend Amber and the other is with Pat. He's the one we did the kidney walk with last weekend! I'm so thankful for these two! Both of them are very dear friends still to this day.

6. Favorite summer beverage?

It doesn't matter the season. It never changes.

7. If you had the opportunity to attend your own funeral, what would you hope to hear people say about you? 

You know, there's actually a song about this that I love! You can hear it here if you want, but the bottom line is that I hope people would say that I loved Jesus and others well!

8. How did you meet your spouse?

This is a hard one to answer, because we don't remember. We grew up in the same town and went to the same school (and church camp!) so we don't actually remember when we met. But many years later, we ended up at the same church, so that's how we really got to know each other.

9. Finish this sentence: "In high school, I could have been voted most likely to..."

Never make eye contact with anyone. I was PAINFULLY shy and awkward.

10. Tell us something we don't already know and wouldn't think to ask you. 

That's another toughie. I feel like I've told you almost everything! OH! Here's one. I used to have a guinea pig. When I was in third grade, we had a class guinea pig and right before spring break, she had a baby. Through the luck of the draw (or dumb luck, from my mom's perspective) I got to bring them both home to keep over spring break. I loved it so much that I ended up getting a guinea pig for my birthday!



So there you have it! Some Monday Funday for you!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy July, my friends! I hope, hope, hope, if you're in the dangerously hot parts of the country, that you're staying safe and cool enough this weekend!

This week can mostly be summarized in two words: choir practice. LOL! This weekend IS the big patriotic performance Ryan's been practicing so hard for over the last two months. We have two performances down and one to go, and it has been spectacular. Definitely moving for this girl's heart!

But here's a little peek at the week, choir and otherwise!

* Last Sunday at lunch, Ryan made me a mini sundae with yogurt, pecans, syrup, and a mini peanut butter cup on top. It was the cutest little thing in the world! (Sundaes on Sunday for the win!) As we headed to choir practice that night, we passed a retention pond right on a busy road - and there was a deer getting a drink! I was so excited!! We've NEVER seen deer at that pond because it's not a quiet area. So, so cool! We got home from practice in time for a sunset walk, and it was so lovely!

* Monday was a HOT one here in Indiana, and yours truly overheated while mowing the yard. Didn't feel good the rest of the day, actually. Womp, womp. I had to power through, though, because we had a meeting with one of our pastors and another practice that night. We took salads with us to eat in between and I resorted to creating them in 8x8 baking dishes so they would transport. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

* Tuesday I practiced a new braid (desperate to learn how to do SOMETHING with my hair for the weekend! At lunch, Ryan and I did some hard-core brainstorming for a conference we're speaking at (together!) this fall, and that night, we had zoodles for dinner! It was our one night off this whole week, so we had to pack in all the things we would normally do on other nights...into this night!

* I had a podiatrist appointment on Wednesday, so I had to do the pre-podiatrist-pedi before I went. LOL! Crash pedi! After that, I had to shop for black pants for this weekend. Who knew something as simple as finding a pair of black pants could be such an excruciating experience!?! I finally found a pair and though they were hot, hot, hot for the weather, they fit and worked. That night? You guessed it. More practice.

* Thursday morning I had another little reading camp here at home with the kiddo I'm working with, and we had a great time. She rocked the games! I made a chicken/zucchini/squash dish for dinner and I know you can't see it in the black and white picture, but the veggies were green and yellow. That happened to be our school colors, so I named it the Eastern Comet chicken dinner. LOL! Thursday night was our big final rehearsal with the full band and extra people...it was wonderful! (This picture Ryan took of me narrating while having my picture taken cracks me up!)

* Friday night was the first performance! I thought I was going to be sitting backstage in between my narrations, but I was actually out in the audience, so I got to sneak a few pictures! We had some friends and family come that night, so it was fun to see familiar faces in the audience! And I may have to write about this separately later, but when all the veterans and active duty members went up on stage for a song....ahhhhhhh. Bekah did the ugly cry.

* Ryan worked yesterday, so I worked at home, and last night was our second patriotic performance! Most of Ryan's family came that night...he had parents and siblings everywhere! We had a great night. (It's going to be so strange to not have this be such a big part of our lives anymore.) After it was over, we all went out to IHOP for dinner.