The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday, we decided to take it easy at home after church, because we'd been gone way too much and been apart far too many hours for our liking. We did manage to sneak out for a run in the afternoon - and I decided since it was really my day of rest, that I wouldn't time myself or stress about the run. Ended up having a super run. Go figure!!

* Monday we went back to work...why are weekends always so short? We planned ahead for dinner and enjoyed some pulled pork in the crock pot - and then I spent the evening making pumpkin snickerdoodles for Ryan...since I had to be gone the next night. Trying to be a good wife...leaving treats for the husband to prepare for an evening of absence! And he'd already won the husband award after leaving me this note:

* Tuesday evening I went to Lima, Ohio to work the Chonda Pierce comedy event and had SUCH a fun night with my friend and co-worker, Cindy. My GPS tried to get us lost...but he did not succeed and we really enjoyed meeting the fine folks in Lima and hearing Chonda. She is so stinkin' funny! It made for a very late night, but I'm so glad I went!

*  Wednesday morning, I watched a stunning sunrise on the way to work. {Picture doesn't do it justice.} But the day was quite a heart-string tugging day for my heart. It was my nephew's 25th birthday - 25 years since we said goodbye to him...and it's still so hard. And it was also Lynne's birthday, so I spent the day at work celebrating her and the friendship we share! After the heart-highs-and-lows of the day, it was good to come home and curl up on the couch with Ryan to rest and watch America's Got Talent.

 * Thursday was the Shaffers' terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. We overslept TWO hours. You read that right. TWO hours. Woke up when we were supposed to be getting in the car to leave. That set the tone for the day...and by the end of work, I was ready to curl up in bed and cry for hours on end. But I decided to, instead, be a responsible adult and unload the dishwasher. Yeah, that's when I found the lid to my Christmas-present-from-Ryan travel mug melted in the bottom of the dishwasher. That's it. Day cannot be recovered.

* Friday night was our date night, which included grocery shopping and a trip to the auto parts store. LOL!!! But for dinner, we made breakfast - including pumpkin pancakes, which were YUMMY!! They tasted just like the ones we had at IHOP last week! Bring on pumpkin and fall!!

* Ryan had to attend a work conference yesterday afternoon, so while he did that, I scooted around town doing a teensy bit of shopping...and then we dressed up and went to his cousin's wedding reception. I was so excited because we got to dance! {This is still one of my most favorite things about my new life. I don't think he quite understands it!}

The Saturday Six

One.


I was blog hopping the other day and ended up here - reading a blog by a funeral director. {Oh the stories I'm sure he could tell!}  I read that he and his wife adopted their son, so I watched the video they put together about their adoption. Warning: do not watch with mascara on.

Two.

Source

Read this week that Carrie Underwood is going to be in the upcoming Sound of Music production. While I am a bit of a Julie Andrews purist on this sort of thing, I am really intrigued - because I do love me some Carrie Underwood singing! I'm definitely going to watch this one.

Three.

Source

I told Ryan I'd probably wait until October to drag out all the official fall decorations and insert them all over the house. And then, doggone it all, I read this blog post from Jessica {who lives in a home that has four generations under one roof} and now I want to decorate immediately! And with lots of pumpkins!!

Four.

I bought my first infinity scarf this week. {If you don't know what those are...they're the scarves that are a big circle.} I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I did! It's nice and light, made from a T-shirt material - and it reminds me of a great accessory to a date outfit.

Five.


I was reading a blog post this week over at Magnolia Grace, and it reminded me of this song I used to listen to over and over when I was single. It's called "The Dream Never Dies" and is part of the Christmas musical, Child of the Promise. I ADORE the lyrics to this song.

Six.

I was looking through the early days of my blog for something this week and unearthed this photo of Braeya when she was just a baby - helping me blog - on a rather archaic computer... 

My September Mantel

You know. With ten days left in the month, I thought I would finally get around to showing you what I did for my mantel in September!

I wanted something new and different from the whole back-to-school thing, but I wasn't quite ready for a full-fledged fall mantel yet. So...enter the apple mantel!!

I hunted around Pinterest and found the majority of my inspiration from a picture that was actually a decorative dishwasher cover! Who knew?

Here's the whole thing:

 Yes. It makes us hungry. HA!!

What I love about it is that I spent almost NO money on it! I shopped the house, just like I learned to do from the DIY decorators, and here's what I found:

Left the easel up there from the last mantel decor and searched through my cookbooks to find a good apple pie picture. I lucked out in finding it in a spiral bound book, so I had no issues displaying the photo!

Borrowed a ramekin from the kitchen and filled it with cinnamon sticks from the pantry.

Borrowed a tiny measuring spoon set {pinch, dash, etc.} and coupled it with two small wooden spoons from the kitchen caddy.

Used a red pie plate we got for our wedding and filled it with real apples. {That was the only money I spent on this decor - the apples. I think I paid about $4.00 for the bag, and if they're still in decent shape when I'm done with the mantel, I'll use them! :)

On the other end, I borrowed a pastry blender, rolling pin and apple corer/slicer from our kitchen and added those. I didn't own a sifter {because I'm not a real chef and find sifting an unnecessary step} but my Mom had one, so she let me borrow it for the month.

I washed a spaghetti sauce jar and Ryan peeled the label off for my flour jar. I filled it with flour from the kitchen and added a small metal measuring cup inside. {I keep a lid on it but took it off for the picture.}

And it felt like it needed one more touch, so I found a neutral kitchen washcloth and put it in the mix.

And that's the mantel! Simple, cute, and CHEAP!!

The Mama Had a Birthday

My Mom had a birthday a couple of weeks ago...and because of some events going on at her church that weekend, she wasn't able to get together with any of us to celebrate her birthday on time.

So...Ryan and I called her up to see if we could bring over her gift {all the kids went together to buy a gift} and some dessert to celebrate.

First, an explanation of the gift. My parents still have a home phone. You remember those, right? The things that attach to wiring in the walls? Yes. Those. When I was growing up in their house, there was one phone, and it was in the kitchen. All teenage gossip, boy drama, and dirty laundry had to be whispered in the kitchen, with the deepest, darkest secrets being uttered just outside the door to the utility room, which is the farthest the phone cord would reach.

They have since moved to cordless phones and added a second phone line in the house. We will NOT discuss the fact that this second line was added in the room that used to be mine. I begged and begged and begged for my own phone for my entire teenage career. I moved out and they installed one.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

The good news is, I'm not bitter about that. TOTALLY okay with it.

So back to the story...Mom wanted to look into installing more phone lines in the house so they wouldn't have to come running from the far reaches to answer the phone. {Ironically the same argument I used as a teenager and NO ONE listened.} My sister mentioned to her that you can purchase phones that have extension sets that just plug into a charger in a regular outlet. No need to install more lines.

This both baffled and amazed my mother, and she put this phone set on her shopping list. But we beat her to it. Ryan and I went to the store and picked out a phone with extension handsets and wrapped it up.

There is, however, a possibility that before we wrapped it, Ryan got the brilliant idea to pre-record the answering machine message.


It was quite the production. We wrote it all out like a script and read it ever so carefully. And THEN we wrapped the gift.

After dessert, we handed Mom the gift bag and watched her discover her new treasure. I've never in my life seen her SO excited about anything. {Not even a beach wedding in the middle of winter!}

She dug those handsets out right away and started playing:

THEN she said to Ryan...

"Can you show me how to record the answering machine message?"

I hid behind my coffee cup while Ryan kept a perfectly straight face and said, "Ummmm I think it came pre-recorded. Let me look, here." And then he started pilfering through the manual.

I'm not sure how I feel about being married to such a good liar.

He "messed around" with the phone for a minute and soon, our melodious voices belted:

RYAN: You’ve reached MIL and FIL!

BEKAH: We’re unable to get to the phone right now…

RYAN: …for several potential reasons. We might be at the Golden Corral

BEKAH: or we might be at a funeral home. We go to LOTS of those.

RYAN: or we might be trying to figure out how to answer these crazy new phones our kids got us.

BEKAH: It’s really hard to say.

RYAN: But if you’d leave us a message, we may or may not get it. We’re still getting the hang of how to retrieve them. Play and Delete look an awful lot alike.

BEKAH: But leave a message anyway. Goodbye, be good, do your best, think think think and BE SWEET!

(Background Bekah: what are you DOING?)

(Background Ryan: Looking for a BEET!}

As a manner of explanation, Ryan and I have six parents between us, so we have to have different names for all of them. Mine are MIL and FIL, which is short for mother-in-law and father-in-law. 

My Dad would eat at Golden Corral every day of his life if left to his own devices.

The goodbye message is what Mom said to me every day when I got out of the car for school.

The background part at the end pays tribute to the first time Ryan ever came over for a meal at their house and after eating about an 8 course meal, Dad started pilfering through the fridge. Mom asked what he was doing and his answer was "I'm looking for a beet!"

I'm happy to report they loved it and if they didn't need a slightly more professional message, they'd probably keep it forever. But they did keep it for a while - and told people to call just to hear it.

We tried to teach them how to use the intercom feature. That went well.

But in the end, Mom was a happy girl with all her phones and her funny new message:

As for Ryan and me...well...this summed up our evening:

Funny Things Happen When You Live in the Miami Airport For a Day

We pulled back into the Miami port as the sun came up on Saturday...seven days after leaving on our first cruise together.

 We finished packing our bags and took our final picture...

 They wanted everyone off the ship immediately, so about 9 in the morning, we had to stack up our suitcases and head for the bus area. We boarded a bus that would take us to our home for the day: the Miami airport.

 Okay. Here are a few things you should know.

I had just been on a cruise ship for an entire week, which was {as you've just endured reading about for the past many days} much fun! But as everyone knows, being away from home isn't the same kind of rest as being AT home, so I was a bit tired.

I hadn't slept for a good chunk of the week because of the aforementioned fan debacle.

I had only had one cup of coffee. {For you non-coffee-holics, this is a bad thing.}

I knew that when I arrived home at the end of the evening, I would be arriving home to NO hot water {this story yet to come in its entirety}, which, of course meant no shower and no laundry could be accomplished.

And while I wouldn't ordinarily tell you this on the blog, it did factor in significantly, so I will also tell you I had a nasty case of PMS.

You sort of get my frame of mind at this point, right?

So we settled in for the first part of our day in the lobby of a hotel in the airport. I was scared to sit there, knowing we weren't paying customers, but we were going to be in the airport for EIGHT HOURS, which meant I thought a little bit of time in a comfy chair might be okay.

Ryan played games.

 I worked on editing my over 800 pictures.

 And that's when the lady from the hotel came over and asked if we were ready to eat in the lounge. When Ryan told her no...we were okay...she said, "Well this lobby is for customers of the hotel and lounge, so if you're not either of those, you'll need to move to the real comfortable chairs around the corner."

I had just been kicked out of a hotel lobby {please keep in mind all of the aforementioned issues} which brought the ultimate in embarrassment. I made mental notes to never patronize THIS hotel. {HA. As if I could even afford it. They had concierge. I can't afford anything with concierge.}

We went around the corner to the "real comfortable chairs" {that lady is a liar!!!!} and settled in for the rest of the day.

We actually were pretty fortunate. The chairs could have been worse {though I would not stoop to call them comfortable} and we had an outlet right there to keep our phones and laptops going. Ryan was sweet to purchase the 24 hour internet plan so we could both log on and catch up on blogs, Facebook, email, and all that. He watched a movie in his computer and I worked on various tasks on mine. We ate pizza and drank Starbucks and all in all, the day spent in the Miami airport wasn't so bad after all.

And to prove it:

Two hours before our flight, we packed up and headed toward security and I thought to myself, Bekah, you've done a great job in not panicking today. You're calm, you're ready to get through security, you're ready to fly, you're not panicking, you're GROWING UP.

Oh how pride goes before a big. fat. fall.

So we got in line for security and got through the boarding pass/ID check with no issue. And therein came the first issue. I thought our gate was much farther down than it was when we began this adventure, so I had not yet pulled aside to drag my bag of liquids out of my carry-on to put them through the x ray belt.

I rounded the corner toward the belt and signaled to Ryan that I needed a minute to get into the suitcase to get out my bag...when I saw her.

The little girl {ten or so??} doing a face plant into a trash can.

Oh my word, people. My stomach is churning even TYPING this story to you.

One thing I cannot handle is the sight, sound, and/or smell of vomit. I mean seriously. Any one of those three and I am done. Absolutely done. Pull me up a trash can because I am next.

Apparently I was super fortunate that Ryan was walking first because he caught the whole show before she even got TO the trash can. He {in his ever helpful state} was trying to flag down someone to help the girl because evidently her mother was consumed with holding her hair back and her dad was not doing a thing besides taking up space.

And I, if you can even picture this, was trying to keep the eye closest to the girl shut, plug the ear closest to her, not breathe, talk to Ryan, AND dig in a suitcase while carrying a jacket and a purse.

I don't care how good you are. This cannot be done. It just can't.

He was still trying to flag down help and I was baffled as to why he wasn't pulling out some cape to shield me from the entire scene. {I'm nothing if not irrational in emergencies.}

I hauled everything onto the conveyor belt {literally shaking by this point from all the chaos and the newly-birthed fear that I am one step away from throwing up in the Miami airport}, unearthed my liquids, threw them and my shoes into a doggie dish and went through security.

As I'm still shaking and trying to reassemble all my belongings, I see the TSA agent say to another, "Can you help me get this suitcase? We have to search it."

Oh yeah.

It was mine.

The two of them - TWO of them - proceeded to haul that thing like it weighed 800 pounds. Oh please, ladies. I carry more weight than that to WORK every day. You do not need two people for this suitcase.

Ryan was still getting through security, and I'm at a side table, puke girl still in my view, shaking from head to toe, with a TSA lady gloving up to pull out my Bible, my underwear, and all my worldly possessions.

She picked up a bag and said, "What's in here?"

I burst into tears "Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd from some beeeeeeeeeeeeeachhhhhhhhhhhhhhhesssssssssssssssssss."

She gave me the same look I would have given me if we'd been flipped, but it was just eight straws past the final one. Ryan came running over, "What's WRONG???"

She gave him a look like, "This your wife? Man you're so outta luck." I said, "It's the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddddddddd."

He didn't see the same sense of urgency in the situation that I did, which only made me cry more.

Because, you see, I had so carefully gathered that sand for a Pinterest project and one look at that TSA lady told me she did NOT have a Bekah-appropriate appreciation for Pinterest.

She really was sweet, and she did not call over dogs or anyone bearing handcuffs and was kind enough to let me repack my own bag.

And that undid every shred of courage I had gathered within myself. I had hot flashes and stomach churns and had to text back home to some of my prayer warriors to get me through that last flight.

The flight, by the way, was storm-laden and Ryan got to experience the labor-like death grip through some of the turbulence.

I really shouldn't have watched that first season of Lost.

Nassau or Bust!

Our very last day of the cruise was a day in port. NASSAU, BABY!! We awakened as we were pulling into port. Atlantis greeted us:

 We made our way toward the breakfast buffet and found some rather large towel animals lounging by the pool!

 And an army of towel animals on the chairs by the pool. Unfortunately it was starting to rain...so they were getting wet! :( They didn't get to stay out very long.

 And so began our last fully day of cruisin'!

 We pulled into port {along with a few other ships} in Nassau...my first time to the Bahamas!

 Ryan had been ACHING for a Coke all week but refused to pay the ridiculous prices on the ship. But he found one in Nassau calling his name....

 We wandered around the {crazy busy} downtown area for a while, shopping for some souvenirs, and then we {gulp} boarded a bus headed for the beach. I sure did get my fill of public transportation on this trip!

 One of the ladies at a shop we stopped in suggested we visit Cable Beach. We told the bus driver to take us there...and in the middle of all these resort areas, he stopped the bus and pointed down a rather questionable looking alley between two houses and said "It's there." We tentatively walked toward the beach and found it...completely deserted.

Beautiful sand...and not a soul on it. We weren't quite sure if the driver had been right...perhaps he had dropped us off at private property? A woman walked up behind us and we asked her if we were on private property. She said it was a public beach and the houses there were guest houses that were probably empty!

What an AMAZING way to end a cruise! Our own private beach for the day! All for a $5.00 bus fare {combined}!

 We wasted no time setting up our tripod and having the BEST time with a photo shoot!

And guess what??? WE MADE A VIDEO!!

 The sky started to get dark again, so we packed up our bags and boarded the bus to head back to the ship. We'd only been back about 20 minutes when the sky let LOOSE and absolutely POURED.

We rested for the afternoon and watched from our balcony as we left Nassau....

...by way of this lighthouse. I was a bit mesmerized.

No time to waste taking pictures though...because it was time for the last night of dinner!!

The bracelet on the left was my sole non-Christmas ornament souvenir purchase.

Excuse the hair. It didn't go as planned - for either of us. 

Dinner started out with crab cakes for Ryan {more fruit cocktail for me....}

And frog legs. Those were Ryan's too. They made me shiver.

I went the comfort route this time: bacon, chicken, mac and cheese.

And Ryan had shrimp.

AND Mahi-Mahi. {In my world it's known as Icky Icky.}

Dessert in Ryan's world was this orange cake with a glaze....

...and cappuccino pie. I had more chocolate melting cake. :)

We made some new friends at dinner and then came back to our room to find our last towel gift: a heart.

And then we had to pack to go home.

My thoughts on that.

So that was that, folks! First ever Shafferland cruise. You'd think the stories were over. But I still had to fly home.

Stay tuned.