Meet Our New Foyer (and Our First Project!)

Alrightie! I think we are finally ready to do some house touring here on the blog! Are you ready??

Before I begin this little mini-series of posts introducing you to Shafferland 4.0, allow me to say this. I wanted to wait until we were settled enough that you could see our personalities in this place. There will never fully be an "after" to this home, because we always want to make changes and allow life to unfold in this space. So if you're looking for a completed home, you're about to be disappointed. But if you're looking for the beginning of a story, settle in!

When we first started looking at houses in preparation to move, the main thing we did not want was a fixer upper. If you've been reading here long, you know that Ryan and I are most certainly not afraid of a good house project. In fact, we've worked hard to make each of our homes our very own, and we have great memories of the projects we've done in each of those spaces.

But we knew we would be coming into this new house on the tired side from our last couple of years. We didn't have the stamina for big projects. So we were excited to find a move-in-ready home, brand new with no true need for projects. To be fair, all the paint throughout the house is a soft beige, but even so, we decided to leave everything as it was and just move in and make it our own with our belongings rather than paint colors and projects. 

Except...

...Ryan decided to do one tiny project. ;)

Back when we were at WillowBridge, Ryan had borrowed a table saw from his dad - for a couple of projects he needed to do there. His dad needed the saw back, so Ryan decided to use it one more time before returning it, so we could put some finishing touches on our little foyer. Not long before we left Kokomo, we had put up board and batten in our foyer there, and we both really loved how dramatically it finished that space. Ryan wanted to add it to our foyer here, too. It was a small project, really, requiring only the purchase of the wood. (The builders left a decent amount of trim paint behind, so we used that for this project, which saved us even the cost of buying paint.)

So! Here is a picture of the foyer on the day we closed on the house. (Note: the light fixture is incomplete in this photo. When the builders took it out of the box, the globe was broken, so they had to order a new one. It hadn't arrived by the day we closed.)

I love our foyer, mostly because it simply exists. Our Marion house opened right into the living room, so in rainy and snowy weather, that meant dragging wet coats and shoes into the heart of the living room. Our Kokomo house had a foyer, and I loved it that our guests could have a space to remove wet shoes and coats if needed! I was happy this house also has this space. It's not huge - in fact, it's not as big in real life as I think it looks in the picture above. But it is plenty spacious enough, and I love it. 

Here are some photos from our project days:

Ryan did the installation/mudding/sanding, and then we worked on the painting together. We had it finished up pretty quickly! 

And here is the after version! (Well. Mostly after.)

Let me tell you about this side! The white wall hanging on the left contains verses from Lamentations and was a gift from our real estate agent. 

The wreath was our gift from Gateway when we left there. Our coworker, Sarah, made it, including the actual wreath itself! The darker hanging underneath the wreath was a wedding gift from Ryan's cousin, and we've had that metal monogram since our Marion days!

The table belonged to my Grandma Freelan, and I just love it. It's a perfect fit there! 

Here's the not-quite-completed side! We always get watercolor paintings made of the homes we live in. We have completed paintings of the Marion and Kokomo homes just waiting to be hung here. My friend Amber is going to paint WillowBridge and this house for us, and once we have all four, they'll go up on this opposite side! 

I have more dreams for this space. Maybe a rug someday...maybe a plant by the window. But for now, I'm content with this cozy and hopefully welcoming spot for guests to enter our home. And our prayer is that all who enter here will know they are loved by us and by the Lord! 

(Haven't decided which picture I want to hang on that frame yet.) 

Come back tomorrow for another room tour!

Sunday Sentiments

 It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL here yesterday. We have not had a warm and sunny spring this year. It feels like most of March and all of April has been filled with some combination of cold, wet (be it rain or snow), gray days, and I'm know I'm ready for some version of warm and sunny to show up and stay a while! 

Yesterday was one of those days, and at least in the Shaffer household, I must say we needed it.

Though right now we are still in an in-between state, it really did feel like a good, old-fashioned Saturday, and I was surprised at how much my heart drank up the goodness of the day.

I knocked out a decent amount of scrapbooking.

Ryan was able to complete some touch-up projects around the house.

We ate our first meal on our porch - which, by the way, we have officially decided to name the lanai. (We watch too much HGTV.)

We didn't get ready until late in the day, and we only did so then because we had a small group gathering to attend. 

At the small group gathering, it was warm enough to eat outside and enjoy conversation around the fire once the sun went down.

A day of normalcy and good at-home rest spoke so much to our hearts and souls, and we loved it. We were both extremely grateful for what the day had to offer and the freedom we had to enjoy it.

Today is supposed to be pretty again, and I'm glad, since it's Ryan's birthday!

If you missed it, I did his official birthday post on Friday, but I want to once again wish him the happiest of days. I'm so glad we're here together to celebrate him and enjoy the day. 

This is our tenth opportunity to celebrate together, and I also paused in my relaxation-laden Saturday to look back at how we've celebrated over the years. I think I'll close today by throwing back to each of those occasions!

* The first year, his birthday fell on a work day for both of us, so we celebrated by going out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, and then after an unfortunate event at Starbucks, he had to pay for his free birthday drink! 

* The next year, he turned 35, so for 35 days leading up to his birthday, I gave him cards and notes I had collected from friends and family. It was so fun to watch him read those each day! Then ON his birthday, I gave him his "big gift," which was a spot on a whitewater rafting trip for that fall. From there, the birthday looked remarkably like the one from the year before: dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and coffee at Starbucks - but I believe it really was free that time! 

* We switched up the restaurant of choice the next year and tried Tucano's! His one request was a "festival of meats" for his birthday, and indeed he received it. I think this may have been the time I went into a food coma on the way home and didn't wake up again until the next morning! Even so, he said he loved his birthday experience!

* We must do things in pairs, because Tucano's was on the menu again the next year! This time we actually celebrated by eating out the day before his birthday and then enjoyed a low-key day at home (including a walk through the neighborhood) on his actual day. But I will show our "big" celebration at Tucano's - because that year it included his mom and Allen!

*Sometimes, though, we three-peat, and that very next year we ended up at Tucano's again, but this time with our friends Mike and Angie. Such a fun evening. We used to double-date with Mike and Angie a lot, but they ended up moving to the Pacific Northwest not long after this birthday date, and we miss them so much! (Also, she posts the most beautiful scenery from the area where they live. We HAVE to go visit sometime!)

* This next birthday nearly undid me. I had planned to take Ryan to Lucas Oil Stadium for a tour and at the last minute, they said they weren't doing tours that day! I was so devastated! He was a great sport about his ruined birthday, and we still spent the day in Indianapolis, enjoying lunch at Giordano's, walking around downtown (in the cold and rain) and having a coffee/ice cream date at a little local spot. 

* That brings us to Ryan's 40th, which was spent somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean! We went on a cruise for that birthday, and his actual birthday was an at-sea day. We did all his favorite on-ship things that day and even had a birthday-in-a-box delivered to our room! It may have been his favorite birthday since we've been married. (Certainly an improvement in weather over the year before!)

* From the Caribbean to stay-at-home orders the next year! I had a lot of fun trying to make this birthday special for him. I ordered Giordano's pizza and we had our own little makeshift restaurant in the sunroom at our Kokomo house. I think he had fun with it!

* Last year we celebrated his birthday with a trip to the RV museum in Elkhart, and that was a really fun day! (And it was a good thing it was an indoor activity, because: rain.)

So I'm excited to celebrate this favorite person of mine again today. I'm grateful for a chance to be together, to celebrate, and to hopefully do so with SUN AND WARMTH!

The Saturday Six

Now that we are in our new home, I wanted to come up with an idea for a guest book! In our Kokomo house, we used a Jenga game and had our guests sign a block when they came to see us. I wanted a different idea for this house...so I started researching! I know what we'll use here, but I found some other fun ideas along the way that I thought I'd share with you! Maybe you'll want to use them for your house - or for a wedding or party idea! 

One.

This link is for a wedding guest book, but I think it could work just as well for a house. Quilt squares! You could get some fabric that matches your home's color scheme and some fabric markers for guests to sign the squares. If you aren't a quilter, you could hire the official finishing work done once you get enough squares! I've developed a love for quilts in recent years (thanks, Little House!) so I think this is a really sweet idea. 

Two.

I'm typically too impatient to put together a puzzle, but I do love what puzzles represent: many pieces coming together to make a complete picture. Whether you purchase a regular puzzle and ask your guests to sign pieces or you purchase a blank wooden puzzle like this one, I think having guests sign puzzle pieces is a perfect way to remember the people who have come to visit your home! 

Three.

I love it when I visit coffee shops or other businesses and they have maps on the wall where you can add a pin to show where you live! You could do the same sort of thing at your house if you have a US map (or world map if you have international visitors!) for people to mark. I've also seen the idea of an atlas for people to sign, which would allow them to be much more specific about smaller towns!

Four.

I keep a handmade serving tray on the bed in our guest room, so our overnight guests can put drinks or snacks on the bed with them if they want. (The tray was gifted to me by a women's retreat group, and it had been made by one of the organizers' husbands!) I found this idea for people to sign a tray, and I loved that! Whether or not your guests spend the night, you can have them sign a tray you use to serve your guests! 

Five.

If you don't care if people write on the walls, you could have a graffiti wall guest book! I'm not sure I would love this one in our home, mostly because our walls are brand new and I want to keep them all pretty for now, but I do think after a while, it would be so neat to see all the signatures of people you've hosted! 

Six.

Interestingly enough, I'm actually not going with a picture theme for our guest book, but I do love this idea of using a Polaroid camera to capture pictures of the guests who come through your home! (If you have particularly personality-laden friends, this could be extra fun! 

HAPPY (ALMOST) BIRTHDAY, RYAN!!!

Today is not Ryan's birthday. But Sunday is his birthday, and even though I may post about it again in my Sunday Sentiments, I wanted to do a proper birthday post today. 

My goodness. How I love this man. I feel like every single year we are married, words fail me just a little bit more, because I want to say so many things about how much I love and appreciate him, but the words I need haven't been invented yet. 

Ryan loves well. He loves creatively. He loves consistently. And he loves using the wrong words. One time I was having some sort of Bekah-ridiculous moment and he said so passionately to me, "Bekah! How many times do I have to tell you that my love is conditional???" I started giggling, and he said, "WHAT?!" I said, "Did you mean UNconditional?" This look of horror fell over his face, and he said, "Wait. What did I say?" So now we remind each other frequently that our love is CONDITIONAL.

But if ever I met someone whose love really is unconditional, it's Ryan. So today I want to celebrate him by showing you some of the many unconditional ways he has loved so well in the last year.

***

In the last year, we became official camping people, and this was one of the ways Ryan loved so unconditionally. He researched, watched YouTube videos, read articles, and made sure he knew everything he needed to know to make our camping adventures enjoyable. Each time we set up and tore down our campsites, he was careful to make sure all the hookups were installed properly and put away neatly. He did all of this in some very inclement weather at times. I appreciated his intense attention to detail that made all our trips so grand!

Probably his strongest love language is acts of service, and he loves so well through them. He will literally help anyone, anytime, anywhere at any personal cost. When we were on our vacation out west last summer, he wanted nothing more than to help our new friends at their home. We had been there probably an hour when he volunteered to help with a project. He said it was one of his favorite things! (Right before we arrived here, he had stopped on the side of the interstate to change a tire for two ladies who were struggling to figure it out.)  

He always embraces my (probably weird) ideas of vacation fun. I apologized profusely for scheduling two Little House stops in our trip last summer, but he actually really enjoyed visiting them both and never made me feel like we needed to hurry along to something more fun!

He loves this little guy with his whole heart and completely pitches in whenever we have him stay with us. (This photo is from last summer, when we still lived at WillowBridge. Ryan carried him to church and back, rocking the diaper bag the whole way.) He isn't afraid of diaper changes, bath time, feeding, cleaning up, playing, rocking him to sleep, or anything else! He is always eager to have him come over for a day...or a week!

He is the most fun, and all the kids love him. He isn't afraid to be silly, and he has boundless energy to keep up with them. This was from last summer when we went to the zoo with some friends, and the kids wanted to ride in his seat in the train. Can't blame them there. 

He will fight through any amount of pain to take one for the team, and last July, he did just that. He rolled his ankle - BADLY - during our variety show performance. But his sole goal for the night was for us to win that competition, so he hopped back up and finished the dance on a horribly sprained ankle. We didn't win the whole thing, but we did win best costume, and I felt like he won biggest heart for powering through. 

And because loving unconditionally is what he does, two days after that mess, he ice-bathed his foot all the way from Fort Wayne to Indianapolis to make sure I didn't miss out on my birthday present - postponed from May 2020 - which was tickets to see The Sound of Music. 

His willingness to help extended to a six-week-long stay for Phoebe just to help her people during a busy season. He didn't hesitate to invite her into our lives and even our camping, and he never once complained about early morning potty breaks outside!

He loves his family, and he is especially good to his grandparents. His grandpa (mom's dad) and grandma (dad's mom) are both aging and declining a bit, and he makes a special point to try to see them as often as he can. I make a special point to keep the pictures updated, because they matter.

Speaking of pictures...he understands that documentation is dear to me, and he is diligent about documenting for me when I can't be part of something. Last fall, he went on a men's retreat with our church, and he kept me updated all weekend long with pictures of everything from lake views to his food. And his bunk. :) 

I'm pretty sure it was Ryan's idea to offer to Tim and Justine for their little girl to stay with us while they went to the hospital to have baby #2. And then when she arrived, he jumped right in to help take care of her - stories and all!

And he was so happy to meet baby brother when he came over!

One of Ryan's main goals last fall was to run the Hog n Jog 5K for Gateway Woods.  Unfortunately, his ankle wasn't ready to run yet, following the sprain in the summer, but he jumped right in to be an encourager on the route! Encouragement...another thing he does so fantastically well! 

I hear many wives say they just can't get their husbands to talk. I'm so grateful Ryan loves unconditionally through conversation. Last summer and fall, we spent hours upon hours of our time away camping just talking and dreaming. He is so good to listen and not just try to fix things. He listens, he cares, he sympathizes...and I appreciate it all so much. 

Unconditional love in sickness and health meant...he took me to the clinic when the random dog on the street bit my hand, and then for the next NINE WEEKS he faithfully changed my bandages and cleaned the wound because I'm not great with blood/wounds. It was a special challenge for him, because I also didn't want him to touch it or even really look at it. ;) 

Ryan asked to go spend a day with my mom, learning how to make her Christmas candy. He said it was one of his most favorite days. He loved watching her do something she loved and learning her craft. I loved it that this is how he wanted to use one of his days off! (Also...he is FABULOUS with unconditionally loving my parents. He is their tech guy and helps out with anything else they need anytime!)

I mean...if he'll wear coordinating shirts, he really loves unconditionally, right?

Another proof of his unconditional love was saying yes to getting a dog! He dove into researching everything about a dog from the moment we knew we were going to get one, and I will never ever ever forget the day we picked Lexi out and knew she was ours. He was smitten from the beginning. Look at her little tiny face!! (This was the only time he was able to pry her from my hands that first day. Ha!)

One thing I love about Ryan SO MUCH is how he treats everything in the whole world with the same respect as he treats his own possessions. He takes such immaculate care of everything. Last winter, I went to the coffee shop in Grabill to get frozen hot chocolates to take to friends who weren't feeling well, and when I got to the end of the sidewalk, one of the cups tipped over in the drink carrier and splattered all over the sidewalk. I told the shop what happened, but when I walked by later, on my way to the post office, I noticed they hadn't had a chance to clean it up, and it looked AWFUL. When I told Ryan, he pulled out the mop bucket and made the walk of shame right beside me all the way back to the coffee shop to help me clean it up. 

His job description at WillowBridge was merely to care for the apartments in the building, but when one of our tenants moved out and had a plumbing issue over the holidays, he packed up all his tools and headed straight over to take care of her, too. (She left messages with the maintenance guy where she lived, but he didn't get back with her for many days, so it reached emergency status.) He spent hours over several days working on it, and never once did he complain about it. 

Ryan was unceasingly patient with all our tenants. He wanted to equip them well for their futures, so anytime he had an opportunity to work with them and teach them practical skills, he did just that. He didn't care how long it took or how slow they had to work. He just wanted them to learn everything they could. The number of hours he spent allowing them to tag along on projects he could have done so much faster by himself would blow your mind. 

From the first day Lexi came home, he has devoted time from every single day to working with her, teaching her skills and tricks, and commanding such great excellence from her. She loves him so much, and I can't blame her there. 

He even got in the trenches with her - literally. Now that is unconditional love!

No one will ever, ever, ever, ever know how many hours Ryan spent working behind the scenes at WillowBridge to try to do every single maintenance thing he could without calling in a company that would cost more money. He learned to do repairs he hadn't previously known how to do. He spent time beyond what any other human being would have spent on something, determined to figure it out. He worked early in the morning. He worked late into the night. He skipped meals to fix things. He was tireless, and though he often heard from me, "JUST CALL SOMEONE..." I am so proud of how hard he worked to try to show love through good stewardship, even when no one was watching. 

Though he shows great love to me by coming to every single speaking engagement he possibly can and being present to help in every way, I don't know that I have ever felt more loved and supported than I did the night of the WillowBridge fundraiser. That week was one of the hardest we ever had at WillowBridge, with some choices some of our tenants made even on the day OF the fundraiser, and as a result, I don't know that speaking has ever come at such a great personal cost to me. He alone knew what it took for me to stand with any kind of poise and collection and share passionately, and he not only prayed me through it, but he was there at the bottom of the steps when I left the stage, ready to speak words of life and encouragement into my ears. (Look closely and you'll see us at the back of the picture.)

Ryan always loves well through standing beside people when they need a friend. Not long before we left WillowBridge, one of our tenants said if the Colts lost a particular game, he would do 200 squats. Annnnnd they lost. He didn't want to do the squats, but Ryan talked to him about the importance of being a man of his word, even in silly things like this. And then Ryan stood beside him and did 200 squats too, even though he hadn't been part of it. This is Ryan. He'll go 100 extra miles so someone else doesn't have to stand alone and be embarrassed. 

He will stay and love people through cleaning up their events, even if it isn't his job. Earlier this year, our coworkers at WillowBridge threw a big event and Ryan stayed to the very end, washing dishes with a giant smile on his face. (Smile not pictured, because he and Sean were being silly here.) This is Ryan. Nothing is too much trouble or too beneath him. 

The day I had to go for my crown, I was so scared, and even though he had 100 better things to do with his time, Ryan packed up a bag of stuff to work on while he waited and drove me to the dentist. I cried and shook all the way through my appointment, but just knowing he was a few feet away in the waiting room if I needed him absolutely got me through that appointment. 

Even though it was hard to leave our job at WillowBridge, Ryan worked so hard to make sure everything was set for us to step toward our next place of ministry. From paperwork on the house to setting up the utilities and things we needed to packing the trailer, he worked tirelessly to make it smooth. This was definitely an undertaking of love!

One of our favorite things since moving has been getting to go on more dates again. And in this, he shows such sweet love to me. I appreciate his willingness to invest purposeful time in our marriage! We are excited to have more time for this! 

Ryan, I hope to be just like you when I grow up. I hope to be able to love as deeply and thoroughly as you do. Thank you for ALL the ways you have demonstrated love to me and everyone who comes in contact with you. Thank you for being a man of integrity and love! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! I love you with my whole heart. 

Unconditionally.