A Year with Lexi: How a Dog Changed Our Lives!

 

It’s been almost thirteen months since we brought Lexi home to be our puppy. It was the first time either of us had ever parented a dog from its infancy, and neither of us had a clue what we were doing.

            We had done unending amounts of research. I stuck to what I knew best: Pinterest. Ryan watched hours of YouTube videos, learning behaviors and how to train. We read dozens of articles to learn what things we really needed and what things we really didn’t. In typical new-parent fashion, we ordered some things based on practicality and others based on cuteness.

            She was trembling from a fresh bath when we arrived, and our friends placed her in Ryan’s arms. He held her shaking little body while I tied her “Lexi” bandana around her neck. I wrapped her in a pink princess blanket, and we posed for our first picture together with her.

            And then we drove home, stopping for coffee on the way, because we figured she needed to learn the importance of that immediately. We came home and launched into introducing her to everyone at WillowBridge – and showing her where her bed, potty, and water dish were located.

            Our pup-ternity leave lasted about three days, and we devoted every minute to making her feel safe and loved, training her, and taking a ridiculous number of photos.

            And now we’re a year into this puppy life. It’s been, in some ways, everything we thought it would be, and in other ways, nothing at all like we thought it would be. Our lives have changed in every way, and for those of you who are, perhaps, considering a puppy, I thought I’d share our experience on the first year of puppy-hood.

·         We thought it would be a lot of work. It has been much more than we even thought. Part of this is Lexi herself. She is smarter than we knew she would be. Sometimes that works to our advantage. Potty training went magnificently, and I think it’s because she’s so smart. Behavior is sometimes a challenge, and I know it’s because she’s so smart. We've been advised that if we work hard, we will have a great dog in the long term. But we're still in the short term, where staying "on" all the time matters to create good habits. It's like a newborn, toddler, and teenager, all rolled into one.

·         We thought we would love her. We love her much more than we knew we could. Both of us have admitted we did not know it was possible for us to love a dog this much. Her devotion to us and her sweet, adoring eyes are too much for us to handle. I’ve told Ryan dozens of times that any bad day we may have is instantly cured by her exaggerated jumps of love that greet us when we arrive home. 

·         Asking for help was the best thing we ever did. We had purchased an online training package before we even brought her home, and it was immensely helpful in those first weeks. Our one-on-one sessions with the trainer told us that we needed to actually lower our expectations and let her be a puppy. We also received help with in-person training from professionals who knew how to circumnavigate her intelligence when it crossed into manipulation. (Yes, that is an actual thing.)

·         We knew people would have opinions, but we didn’t know they would be so varied – and so easily expressed. That has probably been harder for me than it has been for Ryan. I take things more personally. Regardless of what we choose to do, we know someone won’t approve. We stand by the decisions we’ve made in how we train and raise her and in the habits we use in our home. They work for all of us – Lexi included. I don’t know that my skin has thickened. I think I just share less so I don’t receive backlash. That may be the hardest part, actually.

·         She has far more energy than we ever knew she could have. We’ve been told puppyhood lasts three years. We’re a third of the way there. She has calmed considerably from where she was at this time last year, and we are glad for that! (I was literally wearing winter gloves in the house this time last year, because she was teething SO HARD. I also had to tie up all my long cardigans, because she hung off them using her teeth. And I couldn’t wear shorts because she scratched and nipped at my legs, and it HURT!) But she still gets the zoomies sometimes. She still wants to run at full speed always. (When she catches you in the back of the legs at full force, it about knocks you over. This is also why we hesitate to leave her with people. I’m afraid she’ll love them so hard, she’ll knock them over!)

·         Our time is no longer our own. We have to carefully calculate how many hours we are going to be gone from home at a time. We can’t take long day trips anymore unless we are willing to board her or can take her to our destination. That has probably been the biggest change for us. We are praying God sends us a “Ryan and Bekah” who can be her second home like we were for Phoebe! 

·         She has an actual personality just like people do. She is a scheduled dog through and through, which is great, because that’s how we prefer to live. But the moment we change up the schedule, she is lost. It blows my mind how much a change in routine affects her, but it absolutely does. She also seems to understand when I tell her we are going to be gone for a while, and if I do that, she handles our exit with no complaints. But I’m not kidding…if I fail to mention it, everything falls apart when we try to go! How is this possible? But it is! She also knows words and places and people and loves with her whole heart - and person. (Just ask Braeya. Lexi loves her with wild tail wagging and squeals of joy. Braeya loves quietly and from a distance.) 

We love our girl so fiercely and are so thankful she is part of our home. Before she was born, I prayed God would give us the puppy we needed for the life we have. It’s been a growing and humbling experience to train and parent this sweet, energetic, full-of-life baby girl, but I believe God answered our prayers in beautiful ways!

Cultivating Relationships with Depth and Purpose

 

Several years ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine at the church we attended at that time. She had such a magnetic personality. She was fun, deeply rooted in the lord, encouraging to every end, and did nothing ever halfheartedly. She was the kind of person everyone wanted to be friends with because she was so much fun and always left everyone feeling better than they did when they came into her presence.

            But as you might imagine, that left her with quite the conundrum. It’s a good thing to be the person everyone wants to be friends with, because it means you’re doing something right. It’s also an exhausting thing to be the person everyone wants to be friends with, because it means you never have any quiet to your life. You’re always in demand.

            But in this conversation we shared, she told me that she absolutely loved the friendships she shared with the women in her life. She loved going out to dinner or hanging out for a movie night or one of those parties where you know you’re going to buy something even if you don’t need anything. Then she shrugged and said, “But you know what? If I have to pick between a night out with the girls and a night with my husband, I’m going to pick my husband every single time. And if the girls get tired of that and don’t want to be my friend anymore, it’s okay, because he’s my priority and always will be. He’s the one I live with. He’s the one I made a promise to.”

            She wasn’t defeated in this. She owned it. This was her life and her choice, and she was really happy about it! She didn’t expect everyone to understand or agree, but it also didn’t matter to her if they didn’t. She was still going to pick her marriage over anything and everything else if she was forced to choose.

            Our many moves in this past decade mean we have a lot of relationships that have changed. We’ve lost friends along the way because once we were out of sight, we were also out of mind. We’ve lost friendships because sometimes the friendship needed constant attention, and once we couldn’t give that anymore, everything fell apart. Some friendships aren’t gone, but now that we don’t have the luxury of seeing those people all the time, we simply don’t interact as often.

            What I’ve learned from it all is that I hope to cultivate every relationship with depth and purpose – but without co-dependence. I want to have friendships that last a lifetime but are okay if they aren’t deeply invested in every single day of my life.

            Last week I got a message from a friend of mine that I’ve not seen in person in two decades. We message back and forth upon rare occasion on Facebook, and that’s about it anymore. But in her message, she said she wanted to come see me so we could have lunch and talk for a bit. Catch up for a minute. I feel no guilt or awkwardness because so much time has passed. I love her as much as the last time I saw her, and I’m sure the same is true from her to me. I’m excited she’s coming over, and even if it’s another 20 years before we see each other in person again, it’s okay! The same depth and purpose of friendship we had when we first met about 25 years ago is still there.

            The same is true of the friend who had the conversation with me about her choices of how to spend her time. We hardly ever see each other, but when we do, there is much joy and encouragement passed between us. And then we move along with what is immediately before each of us.

            Some relationships are all about in-person contact every single day. Others are almost always a long-distance communication. Some ebb and flow with life changes. But I hope I’m always committed to investing in what I can and not demanding of more than another person can offer in that season.

            And above all, I’m so very thankful for all the friends God has provided along the way. They are a true gift indeed!

Sunday Sentiments: Finding Worship in the Ordinary

 

The Saturday after New Year’s Day was a full day in our little home. My favorite kind of Saturday is the one in which I can sleep as long as I want, stay in my jammies all day, and enjoy being home. I don’t mind being productive, but I prefer a leisurely productivity, not a race against a clock.

            The Saturday after New Year’s Day was not that day.

            Ryan got up early to drive to the lake house to complete a long list of projects. One of our friends went to help him, and the two of them had a great (and productive) day of marking off list items! He came home late that afternoon with a giant grin and a spring in his step.

            I, on the other hand, worked on normal breathing rhythms.

            I’d gotten up when Ryan did and immediately launched into chores. My main task for the day was to pull down all the Christmas decorations around the house, purge the things I knew would not be a good fit at our new house, and pack away the rest. I wanted to put new labels on all the storage tubs, since the old labels were five years (or more!) old and no longer really applicable to what I found in the tubs.

            Taking down decorations with the help of a puppy is not for the faint of heart. I was trying to go slowly enough to be careful with our fragile ornaments, but quickly enough to get the job done, because I did not have a single moment to spare.

            The more I took down, the sadder the house looked. For the first time ever, I wasn’t putting regular décor back in its place, because everything that was there is now packed for our move. The trees left naked spots next to the TV, and the entry table just sat, waiting to receive packages and serving no other purpose.

            While I worked on that giant project, I also washed and dried our sheets, so I could make our bed. I cleaned all the fruit I’d purchased at the store the night before. I made a cheesecake trifle for small group. I pulled off all my nail polish and applied a new manicure. I touched up my roots, washed and dried my hair, and got ready for small group. I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. And somewhere in there (before the shower and getting ready part) I did my workout for the day. Literally every other move in the workout was a burpee. I hate burpees. By the end of the workout, Lexi was hanging over the baby gate, watching my eyes with genuine concern, while I lied and told her I was fine.

            Ryan came home and carried the trifle (my arms were done) to the car, and we went to small group, where I looked forward to three things: seeing our friends, eating good food, and sitting.

            In the middle of juggling a thousand tasks and nervously watching the hands on the clock swing closer to small group time, I found myself unable to catch a deep breath. Wasn’t January supposed to be new, fresh, and amazing? Why could I only find the stress?

            Somewhere in the middle of that, I managed to scroll Instagram long enough to catch this post from my good friend, Brent Vernon:

“January reminds me that there's a whole year ahead of me and so much has to be done that I have little to no control over. So I feel like I'm spinning my wheels sometimes. Thankfully, I've noticed this pattern and things typically work out just fine.

“This morning, I went to the park with my coffee as I do. I told the Lord that I was not depressed or even terribly discouraged. But neither did I, at the moment, feel particularly encouraged and certainly not euphoric.

“It's the perfect time, I thought, to praise the Lord.

“I've become somewhat skeptical of public worship posture and affectation. I question this of myself when I sing praise and am aware that people could be watching. I also realize that it's quite easy to lift my hands and sing the praises of God when everything is going well. Certainly it's natural to do so when you've been through a difficult situation, and survived.

“Tonight, I know that so many of you are struggling with big problems and questions I haven't even thought of. I don't know that the Holy Spirit will, in every situation, make you okay emotionally. Maybe the questions that haunt you will lead to important answers, or grant you a depth of empathy and understanding. Maybe that extended dark path will lead you somewhere you could never have imagined, and wouldn't trade.

“Whatever it is, I hope you're able to praise Him tonight. We have a wonderful Savior who deserves every bit of it.

            So I determined, right there in my kitchen, to praise the Lord. I would praise Him for the beautiful decorations I’d packed away and for the lake house where I would unpack them next year. I would praise Him for a husband with unending levels of skill who works so tirelessly to do projects at the lake that I don’t know how to do. He’s saved us so much money by using his own talent. I would praise Him for the money to buy food for our family and to share with our small group. I would praise Him for a love of cooking that made me excited to put together a dessert to share. I would praise Him for the ability to move, however awkwardly, in a workout. I would praise Him for friends to share the evening with and the encouragement I knew we would find.

            I’m trying to do it more and more. Praise Him for the terribly ordinary parts of every day. Praise Him because He is worthy and deserves every bit of it, just as Brent said.

Saturday Suggestions

 

ONE. 

One of the things I worked on this week was planning our meals for the month of February. I already told you I’m working on a bigger, long-term plan to have a year-long rotating menu plan. Though I am not following this plan layout specifically (at least yet), I loved the idea of having a theme for each day of the week and using that to drive your planning. I could absolutely see this becoming a planning theme for us over time, especially if my current method becomes cumbersome as the year goes on!

TWO. 

I told you this week that we hosted our friends from out of state who come to see us almost every year on their way to a marriage retreat. They’ve stayed with us four times, and two of those were right around the losses of Allen and Nita, so we were a bit out of sorts. This time we’re in the process of moving, so we’re kind of a mess. We have great hopes that one day we’ll feel like good hosts when they arrive. I am keeping this in my backpocket for when that day comes. SO many ideas for double dates and group dates. While I might not feel that every idea presented is a fit for us personally, there are some really fun finds in here!

THREE. 

I am so excited to get our new home at least partially assembled so I can start showing you some of the things we’ve done and how it’s all coming together. We are officially in the finishing-touch stage, and it’s SO EXCITING to think this will really be happening soon. I have a Pinterest board with tons of ideas for colors/furniture placement/fixtures, etc. thispost has served as an inspiration piece for our  home office and guest room. This is the first time ever that we’ve had to combine the function of those two rooms. (We are going from a three-bedroom home to a two-bedroom home, so the guest room and office will have to share a space. I’m not replicating this room exactly, but she gave me some great ideas of how to make it work. (Her furniture is similar to ours, so that helps.) I also just want to go stay in her guest room! Looks so inviting!

FOUR. 

I was hunting around for a dessert to make for Valentine’s Day and happened upon this one. I don’t know if I’ll make it or choose something else, but I thought these were so pretty! The author of the post shares the recipe, which isn’t overly healthy (hello, butter and sugar) but it DOES teach you how to make a frosting that relies on the color from raspberries, rather than red food coloring. I know there are many people who can’t have red dye in their diet, so this is a fantastic alternative. Also, the lemon/raspberry flavor combination sounds pretty delicious to me. I may have to try it for that alone.

FIVE. 

Earlier this week, I talked about teaching ourselves to look for God in all the big and small areas of life. When I took the “One Thousand Gifts” challenge from Ann Voskamp’s book a decade ago, I used a composition notebook to keep track of them all. But I love the idea of using this five-year diary book to count those gifts of seeing God at work. This particular book is undated, so you can start it at any time. Each page is meant to serve for five years, so you can, by the end of that time, look back and see what was happening on that day each of the years prior. You could count as many ways you see God at work as you can fit into the lines and have a beautiful record at the end of that time!

SIX. 

Ryan and I did a do-over on last month’s semi-failed monthiversary date. We had extra fancy hot cocoa bombs this time and although we didn't do the popcorn on this particular night, that had been part of the plan, so let's talk about popcorn! We've been using a really yummy white cheddar seasoning on ours lately, but I found this post with ideas for homemade popcorn seasonings. I haven’t tried them…yet. But once we get moved and settled a bit, I absolutely want to try some of these!

Hope you find something that fits you this week. Happy weekend, my friends!

The Celebration Continues: 122 Months

 

Sometimes you just need a do-over. Our last monthiversary was a little on the sad side. We were both tired, stressed, worn from renovations/holidays/being apart, and then the day didn’t go according to plan at all.

            So now it’s a month later, and we’re tired, stressed, and worn from renovations and being apart…you can see how this is shaping up to be quite different from last month, can’t you?

            We are clinging to the ever-growing light at the end of the tunnel and believe with all our hearts that next month will be a whole new story, because we’ll be moved, and even though we will still be, I’m sure, living out of boxes, it will at least allow us to be in the same space for the evening, and we welcome that.

            We aren’t complaining, truly. We have buckled down and banded together to see this thing through to the end. We tell each other every day that we’re almost there and it’s SO CLOSE.

            This is what monthiversaries are really about. We celebrate what went well – and we had a lot of “went well” in the last month. A lot of prayers answered in very definitive ways. Some of them weren’t what we imagined, but we do have an answer, and we rest in that. (Answers to prayer don’t always have to line up with your hopes and desires to BE answers. Sometimes we need to hear that, don’t we?)

            So yesterday we celebrated 122 months and focused on the many good things that came to pass in the last thirty days. We grew. We learned. We strengthened. We persevered. We celebrate all those things.

            Ryan worked at the lake house after work, and I powered through the work day so I could get back to packing. In there somewhere, I managed to make dinner and do some laundry, and Lexi helped with it all.

            Ryan came home, and we ate our Big Mac salads at the kitchen island, because the table was full of wall art waiting to be packed. Both of us were hungry enough that we didn’t care about relocating.

            Though Thursdays are normally our recovery day in our workout routine, we had to use Wednesday for that this week, because we went to celebrate Ryan’s Dad’s birthday with his family! So we pulled out the dumbbells and did a 45 minute workout! January’s monthiversary was our first day to do workouts in this series, so it was actually gratifying to see how much stronger we’ve gotten in a month’s time!

THEN, we had a do-over for our date from last month! When our friends were here last week to stay with us, they gifted us homemade hot cocoa bombs that were almost too beautiful to consume. (We worked past it and consumed them.)

They were SO GOOD. Ryan said he was ready to order a dozen more! (His was mint and mine was milk chocolate.) We enjoyed our treats while we watched a couple episodes of Without a Trace.

It was a sweet evening. Thank you, Ryan, for celebrating with me! I love you so much!!! Let’s ring in 123 months at the lake!

The Joy of Wonder: Teaching Ourselves to Look for God

 

I’ve been preparing for the retreat I’m speaking at in March, and I don’t want to say too much about it, because I know some of the ladies who will attend read the blog, and I don’t want to share too many spoilers. But one of the sessions I prepared took me back to Ann Voskamp’s bestselling book One Thousand Gifts. It’s twelve years old now, if you can believe it, and I still love what she teaches within its pages.

            Looking for God in the everyday is something I feel like we’ve mostly become too busy to do. We rush from one thing to the next and then collapse at the end of the day, wondering where God is and why we haven’t noticed Him lately.

            Perhaps we’re just too busy to look. Perhaps we need to teach ourselves to look for God.

            Perhaps we need to recognize that He is in even the smallest things. It doesn’t have to equate to parting the Red Sea or closing the mouths of hungry lions to involve Him. Bigger doesn’t equal more of God. He’s in everything – and perhaps most often in the smallest things.

            As I write this today, a very gentle and non-threatening snow is falling outside my window. It isn’t lost on me that every flake flitting about in the wind is unique from any other flake that has ever fallen. Isn’t that amazing? The wonder of God in falling snow.

            Several days ago, as I sat in our home office in training for learning how to write grant proposals, I looked up and found SEVEN DEER meandering through the empty retention pond behind the neighbor’s house. I couldn’t stop myself from gasping out loud, even though I was on camera, and I popped up from my seat to take their picture before the last of the daylight slipped away and I couldn’t see them anymore. The wonder of God in sauntering deer.

            We haven’t had much sun this winter, and perhaps that makes me appreciate it more on the days when it does appear. I’ve been in the office, sliding the blinds up early in the morning to capture the bare-from-winter trees silhouetted against the sun spreading its first soft light into the sky. The wonder of God in pink sunrises.

            We are part of a small group here in our new community, and we eagerly look forward to the nights we all gather. It’s all very informal and mostly about conversation, encouragement, and prayer. (And food.) I’m always sad when we have a conflict and can’t attend – which thankfully doesn’t happen often. To have this kind of a group to love and embrace us is a rare gift that hasn’t happened too often in our lives, and we do not take it for granted. The wonder of God in friends and fellowship.

            On and on it goes. He’s there. He’s there in the small things that can become the big things if you take time to notice them. I hope you’ll do it today. I hope you’ll teach yourself to look for God and live in the joy of that wonder!

Dreams and Goals for February 2023

 

Good morning, friends! Happy shiny new month to you! Happy shiny short month! On this beautiful first day of a new month, I want to share with you the goals I have for the days ahead.

ONE. I have started packing for our upcoming move, but the number of packed boxes is embarrassingly small. This month will be ALL about the packing. Pretty much every spare moment I have will be spent putting things in boxes and preparing to cart them to the lake house. I should be a pro at this by now, since this is our third move in four years, but the packing process seems so daunting when it sits before you nearly in its entirety. Ryan will help as much as he can, but he’ll also still be finishing up the last of the projects at the new house, which I can’t do.

TWO. In addition to continuing to learn my job in writing grant proposals, I have been asked to help with a grant proposal outside of work, too. I’m really excited about collaborating on this project, and this month will bring about some of the preliminary work on that.

THREE. Although I’m thrilled that I accomplished so much prep work on my retreat-session-writing last month, I can’t remove myself from it too far during this month. I want to continue reading over it, learning it better, and tweaking the words as the Lord directs me to do so. I also have another writing project that is in its conception phase right now, and I want to work on it as I pack!

FOUR. Valentine’s Day falls in this month and at this point, I don’t have a concrete plan for celebrating! We always try to do something special for Valentine’s Day, even if we celebrate at home. (Sometimes that is preferable because of how big the crowds get in restaurants.) I just want to enjoy the day, whatever it looks like!

FIVE. Friends, if everything goes as planned, we hope to officially move during this month! I am so excited about this. We feel like we’ve been living in strange limbo for months now, with renovations and packing and dividing to conquer and everything. We know settling will take some time, but to be able to have everything in one spot and enjoy the space we’ve worked so hard to prepare will be such a gift! This is the anticipated highlight of our month!

SIX. I almost forgot! I do have another week of online training for work this month. The first one was so helpful and while I’m a bit nervous about this second one, because it’s a step up in the “grant proposal sandbox,” I am looking forward to absorbing the information they offer!

 

            That’s what we’ll be doing over here. Any goals on your end??

A Reflection on Dreams and Goals

 

At the start of the month, I shared with you some specific goals I had for January. Now that the month has ended, I wanted to offer up how they went! Some were great successes, and others didn’t work out as planned. All of it is okay! I’ve learned to hold the plans loosely. I pursue them as hard as I can, but if I find an insurmountable barrier, I trust that it wasn’t meant to work out at this time. Maybe later will be a better fit. Here’s how the month went in the land of goals:

ONE. This month I began slowly studying my way through the book of Exodus. I was so excited to begin. Spending a whole year in Genesis was far beyond what I expected to do, and while I don’t regret it, I also knew I needed to try to study a little faster starting this year, if I ever hope to finish a deep study of the whole Bible in my lifetime. The Lord kindly worked it out that my study book arrived on New  Year’s Eve, so I was able to begin my fresh start right on time on New Year’s Day! I allow myself a little extra time to be sure I’m fully immersed, but I am moving more quickly than I did through Genesis! (The study book from Precept USA is just one book instead of five, so it moves faster!) I’ve studied Moses’ life in depth before (because I wrote about it in one of my Bible studies) but I’m learning even more about him than I knew then, and the events of his life are perfect for what we are experiencing in ours right now. I'm currently in the middle of studying the plagues!

TWO. The YouTube course I found to learn more about my DSLR camera was four hours long, so I decided to break it up into four sections (one hour each) and learn that way. Sounds manageable, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. Not this month. Not with starting to read every day and trying to cook healthy meals at home every day and working out five days a week and working a full-time job and prepping to move. It may only have been a four hour course, but it proved to be four hours I didn’t have this month. I still want to do this, but I’m going to have to table it until things calm down a bit.

THREE. My book challenge is officially underway! My intent for the year had been to start with Redemptive Compassion, a book published by a former Love INC director, but our copies didn’t arrive in time. So I started with Like a Winter Snow (a short TV-movie-like novel by Lindsay Harrel), and that completed my “winter read” category. Then I moved on to Friends,Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, which completed my “book everyone is talking about” category. Right about the time I finished that, Redemptive Compassion arrived, so I dove right in. This book didn’t mark off a category for me, but it was a convicting read. Then I started Devotedly by Valerie Elliot Shepard, which covers the "award winning nonfiction" category - and is also a book I've wanted to read for quite some time. I'll tell you more about it when I finished it. I'm about halfway through now. I wasn’t able to read a book a week, which I knew would be the case, but I did carve out time in each day to read a little bit in my books. If I had time for more, great! If not, I at least committed to reading a few pages.

FOUR. I just gave you a date night update a few days ago, but…we did manage to do one date each week! We did an at-home hot cocoa and TV night, a dinner night, a coffee night, and a double date night with friends. I felt like that was a wonderful variety and was proud of us for mixing it up!

FIVE. In the land of retreat prep, I surprised myself by getting much further along than I imagined possible. Praise the Lord for that! I not only made the outline, but I wrote all three sessions during January! This was only made possible by an unexpected holiday at work (I didn’t know we had MLK Day off work until that day), and I was so grateful for it. We have such a busy February ahead of us, and it will be a gift later that I am this far along in the process. Plus…the things I learned as I wrote were such a gift for this season of my life. I’m grateful!

In addition to my planned goals, I…

·       *  Exercised five of seven days each week.

·      

 * Fairly exclusively followed our clean eating meal plan.

·       * Helped Ryan at the lake house. (Because of my work hours, I’m rarely able to help at the lake, so getting to go over a little bit was a gift!)

·       *   Took down our Christmas décor and packed it all away using our new tub-labeling system that I devised.

·        *  Took a week of online training to learn more about grant-proposal writing.

·        *   Ordered SEVEN scrapbooks. (While I was out of work, I did not order any books to try to save money. I found a job. They ran a sale. YAY!) I also kept up with our current books and made significant headway on our anniversary book. I’m probably 95% done with it.

It was a productive month, and I am grateful for all I accomplished and learned!

Friendship Traditions

 

            Back when we lived in Kokomo, I got a text from my friend Jenna asking if it might be possible for her and her husband to stay the night with us as they traveled to and from a retreat in Ohio. We were a midpoint in the journey, and since we rarely get to see each other, the whole arrangement was a win in every direction.

            We had the best time with them that weekend. We were able to show them around our beloved town and catch up with them about life, their kids, all of our dreams, what the Lord was doing in our lives, and more. It was such a gift to be able to host them and gift them a couple of nights of lodging while also getting to enjoy their friendship!

            They ended up staying with us the next year on their way to the same retreat – and they came back another time with all their kids, and I turned our house into a hotel. The kids left me a review, and I loved everything about that visit!

            We moved to WillowBridge, and they asked if they could keep visiting on their way to the retreat. That year, their visit coincided with the week Allen unexpectedly passed away. We were a mess, everything in our apartment looked disastrous, and I'm fairly sure I've never been a worse hostess. But that’s the beauty of friendship: you don’t always have to be polished to be loved and understood.

            This past weekend, they made their way through town again. We keep moving around, and they keep finding us and enjoying the next version of home we have to offer. This time, things were a bit bare in looks, since we’ve started packing to move. I was in the middle of weeklong online training to learn the skill of writing grant proposals, so my mind was mush. Lexi is still fully puppy when it comes to visitors.

            And yet once again, they accepted and loved us where we were, both personally and geographically. Lexi lost her MIND with joy when they arrived, and she couldn’t understand why they didn’t want her to sit ON THEM at all times to show the full extent of her love. But they were kind to her and she was able to settle down eventually.

            We shared stories over Mexican food the first night of their visit. And when they stopped by on their way back home, we were able to show them the house where they’ll stay next year (ha!) and then told more stories over soup…maybe one of our last hosting opportunities in this house!

            This friendship began over twenty years ago when Jenna and I worked together in the Financial Aid Office. She was a student worker and I was a young, full-time employee who still wore all black on Valentine’s Day and sported glasses to try to look older. We drove matching cars (Three cheers for a Ford Focus). Hers was red, and mine was white. We even did a photo shoot with our matching cars! I drove to visit them in Illinois several times when I was single, and Ryan and I went to see them once after we got married.

            We love this friendship we share. It might be relegated to texting for the majority of the year, but we absolutely treasure our annual hosting tradition. We all just pick up like no time has passed and enjoy our conversations. We know it will probably be another year before we catch up in person, and it’s okay. There’s no pressure to cram in more if time does not allow.

            Friendships don’t have a formula. We have friends we see all the time and some we see only once a year – or less. But each one is dear to us. Each one has its own special offering. I’m grateful for every unique friendship tradition, and I’m grateful for our friends who visit our traveling B&B every year.

Sunday Sentiments: On God's Simple Kindness

             It happened just a few days before Christmas. Ryan had gone to work, and I was working from home. I discovered that the weather forecasters had released updated predictions about the Christmas storm, and I knew all of humanity (in our county) would be at the store by evening, buying up the French toast ingredients.

            I’d already planned to go to the store that day for some last-minute Christmas shopping, but I decided to take an early lunch and go immediately so I could avoid as much of the crowd as I could. I’d not slept well the night before, and I didn’t have any video chat meetings that day, so I hadn’t exactly taken time to do my hair or makeup. I gathered my hair into a ponytail, slapped on some mascara, and headed out to do my errands.

            Just as I left home, Ryan called. The crew installing our flooring at the new house had arrived and called to tell him the heat wasn’t working. The house was freezing. The supplies couldn’t warm up enough for installation. Ryan said he was on his way over to see what was happening.

            If I were a leg-buckling sort of person, I think that moment would have done it for me. There we were, five days before Christmas and three days before a sub-zero temperature storm. What if we had to replace the whole furnace? (It had given us troubles earlier in the fall, and our main goal was to limp through the winter on the existing furnace.)

            I found it hard to catch my breath as I plodded through the store. I worried about the furnace, the temperatures, the timing. I tried to pray, but I felt like my words fell short. I pushed the cart toward the back, and as I walked down the main aisle, I walked by a woman who caught my eye. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place how I knew her.

            I did a double take and noticed she was doing a double take of her own back my way. I had to know her.

            I did know her. Just not in the context of this town, which is why we both stared at each other, confused. (It also reminded me why leaving the house without getting ready is a solid guarantee of seeing someone you know.)

            She was my boss at Indiana Wesleyan, right before I left to work at WBCL. She had no idea I lived in this town, and I knew she didn’t live here. We hugged right there in Walmart and then stood to catch up on life and figure out why we were both at THIS store.

            I didn’t forget about the furnace while I talked to her, but the conversation uplifted my heart and helped me breathe again. By the time we parted ways, I had stopped panicking and found a genuine smile on my face.

            Ryan called a bit later to say he wasn’t sure what happened or why, but the furnace was working again. And the Lord kept it working right through that weekend storm.

            God’s simple kindness.

            Mysteriously fixing the mysteriously broken heat. Sending a friend I never expected to see to a store in a town where she doesn’t live at a time I hadn’t planned to even be there.

            Isn’t He good?