Valentine's Day Cooking Class

I'm fashionably late in reporting in on Valentine's Day, but I have been excited to tell you about this date of ours! Ryan is actually very good at planning dates - and he's really good when it comes to surprises, too! I was really excited to HAVE a date, because the start of this year has held unusual pieces that have made it impossible for us to have our normal amount of leave-town-for-the-day dates.

All I knew going into the evening was that I should dress comfortably and I wouldn't be wearing a helmet.

On the way, Ryan gave me "clues" - which really told me nothing, and then just short of resorting to Googling on my phone, he told me we would be going to Sur la Table for a cooking class! I had never heard of it before, but Sur la Table is a kitchen store that has a classroom in it. They offer classes of many kinds almost every day of the month, and over Valentine's weekend, they had a special one called Romance in Italy. And that was the one we we attended.

The store was a little over an hour from home, and although we left almost a half hour early, we barely arrived on time {thank you, traffic!!!}. Fortunately, they were running late there as well, so we didn't have to rush into class late.

The class holds sixteen students at four stations. They had everything set up and waiting for us when we arrived:

We found our station, put on our aprons and nametags, and met our cooking partners for the evening. They were another young married couple {we're young too, you know, but they were ACTUALLY young} and we thoroughly enjoyed working with them throughout the evening. Our chef was phenomenal. She did a great job of explaining steps and techniques and keeping an eye on all of us as we worked!

There were also three assistants floating around the room who kept our coffee cups full, our dirty dishes removed/washed/returned, and our fresh supplies delivered. I would like them to come live here, please and thank you.

While we cooked, we got to snacked on prosciutto wrapped asparagus. That's a pretty fancy pants snack for this Cheez-It family. :)

 {Sorry that's blurry - I was trying not to miss cooking instructions.}

First up, we made dessert, because it's the most important meal of the day. Or something like that. It was this chocolate mousse that smelled so good!!!

And after that was completed, we moved on to making our salad:

We also made a pan sauce for our pasta and we browned our steaks. {And our partners were just kind to take pictures for us.}

Here is our chef talking us through the finer points of pasta:

Once everything was cooked, they gave us a break to shop out in the store while they reset the room to make it our dining room!

I'll show you what we made, and they gave us the recipes so we can make the dishes at home, too. NONE of this was 21 Day Fix approved, and many of the ingredients are not anything close to what we have on hand, but despite those things, this was a delicious meal and a ridiculously fun experience.

Our salad was a shaved fennel and pear salad with bitter greens and pecorino:

Our main dish was porcini crusted beef tenderloin with a Chianti reduction and spaghetti alla carbonara.

And our dessert? Espresso Chocolate Budino with Frangelico cream.

And we loved it:

Thanks, Ryan, for a wonderful, creative date. I had so much fun!!!! :)

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday actually was Valentine's Day, and even though we had officially celebrated the day before, I refused to let the ACTUAL day go by unnoticed. So we did more pictures and enjoyed a leisurely day at home. I tried to make a festive dinner by doing the heart-shaped bacon idea I found on Pinterest {fail!!!} and heart shaped toast.

* Monday was a packing party here at our house, and I got so caught up in it that I had to hurry at the last minute to cook our dinner. I ended up having a total Lucille Ball moment and had messes EVERYWHERE. Counter, stove, cabinets {inside and out} and all over me. Good grief!!! Must keep better track of the clock next time! By the way, Braeya watched TV while I packed. She's spoiled.

* Tuesday, the packing continued, and while she has NO interest in the cat carrier yet, Braeya has much interest in reading the papers I use and climbing on the boxes. That child. Pretty exciting that evening...for our workout, I tried a pair of shorts I haven't really fit in since before our wedding!

* Wednesday I got to have lunch with some friends from my IWU days, and it was a GORGEOUS day to be out and about! I ran some errands while I was out and then came home to prepare for our final small group meeting. This adventure has been a blessing; I'm so glad we did it! We capped off our night with a pretty brutal workout and conked out!

* Thursday was {surprisingly} more packing, and I found all my old journals. What a fun thing to pack!! Braeya wasn't a huge help that day; she mostly just tried to help me eat my snack! {You can guess who won that battle. Meanwhile, Ryan spent the afternoon at the minute clinic, because he started coming down with something and there was just NO TIME. He was diagnosed with a sinus infection and came home and slept the entire evening! Bless his heart!

* Friday was STUNNING!!! It was warm and sunny, and Braeya stayed occupied for HOURS looking out the front door while I packed! Ryan and I went out to run errands that night and went to Starbucks for the first time in THREE WEEKS. I'd had such withdrawal!!!!

* Ryan was gone yesterday, but when he got home, he took me on a date! It was in the high 60's/low 70's here yesterday and we LOVED being out on the town without our coats! We went to dinner at Red Robin {where I learned I could love turkey burgers on lettuce wraps and bottomless broccoli} and had coffee at a bakery when we were done. It was a fun little night!

The Saturday Six

One.

As I've been telling you about our pending move this week, I mentioned that I have a planner/binder just for this occasion. I wanted to tell you where you can get it, in case you or anyone you know has a forthcoming move, because it has made my heart beat faster than any planner should. I found it on Pinterest initially, but you can buy it on Etsy. I almost passed it up, because it costs $8.00, and I typically refuse to pay for printables. But when I saw all that it offered, I realized it was absolutely worth the money, and the woman who designed it certainly deserves payment for her design efforts! What I love about it is that it's an instant download, you can choose the color you want {I chose gray because I didn't plan to use up our colored ink on packing stuff} and you can customize the pages on your computer! You can print them out blank and write on them, or you can type in the info and then print it. This planner has single-handedly revolutionized my moving extravaganza. {PS - the link over the words "all that it offered" takes you to the creator's blog post about the binder. The link over "you can buy it on Etsy" takes you to her shop.}

Two.

Source

Last December, when Ryan's sister threw a surprise 40th party for her husband, she asked me if I could take pictures at the party. I told Ryan I was relieved to have a job to do, because then I knew my place and had a purpose. I wasn't the weirdo wandering around with the camera. I was the event photographer {even if not a polished one} and that gave me a place. I love knowing my place and find that I panic a bit in any given situation if I have to just be there and don't know my place. Giving myself permission to just belong because I'm me is not something I'm great at, and that's why this post by Emily Freeman was so good for me.

Three.

Source

I love this little blog and actually interviewed Carmella when I worked at the station. Her posts inspire me to simplify my thoughts {which are, as you might imagine, currently quite chaotic where home and possessions are concerned}. This post reminds me of a truth I'm learning in fresh ways as I pack: it's important to keep the things that mean something to you. That's kind of our rule around here - if it doesn't fit our lives or house a significant memory, it's okay to let it go. When we realize we need something, because without it, something seems missing, we know it matters. Carmella says it better.  

Four.

Source

Here's why I no longer have to feel guilty about my power naps. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH how I love my power naps.

Five.

Source

Jennifer Rothschild is an author and speaker, and if you're not familiar with her, let me just tell you: she is a delight. I appreciated her truthful insights in this post, offering ways to make sure you don't waste the upcoming years of your life!

Six.

Source

I'm nothing if not fashionably late for a party. And this week I finally showed up at the Amish fiction party. If I've ever read Amish fiction before, it's only been one other book, and I'm not recalling it at the moment, but that's okay! Let me tell you about the one I read this week. Jan Drexler's latest novel is the first in a new series called "Journey to Pleasant Prairie," and book one is called Hannah's Choice.  

One of the most surprising things {to me} about this book was its setting: 1842. I guess I had never given much thought to the Amish being active communities back in a time when everyone else in the world lived similarly {in regard to way of life itself}. I'm used to a world where the Amish live without the modern conveniences we enjoy, but in this setting, that would have been a much more level playing field since no one had cars or indoor plumbing or electricity. I typically think of the conflict between the Amish and English world revolving around the presence or absence of those kinds of amenities, but this story showed that conflict is conflict, and it was alive and well back then too, just with different manifestations.

The book chronicles the story of Hannah Yoder and her family, who live in Pennsylvania and have suffered much in the years leading up to our meeting them. Diphtheria claimed three of the children in the family and left soul-wounds that threatened to unravel the remaining members. Hannah is coming of age and wrestles with guilt from the deaths of her siblings, confusion over her feelings toward her lifelong friend Adam, who has converted to the Mennonite faith, and the attentions of a young Amish man who wants to make her his wife.

Hannah's family considers moving farther west, into Indiana, to start over, away from the influences of the world that seem to press in, and though she's sheltered from understanding it completely, Hannah finds herself exposed to the work of the underground railroad and the strange truths that humans are enslaved to other humans. So many choices face her and she wonders what will ultimately become of her if she chooses any of the paths before her.

I had never before thought of an Amish world and a slavery world colliding, so that portion of the storyline was incredibly interesting to me. I appreciated the tug of war within Hannah as she sought to be loyal to her parents, her upbringing, her heritage, her faith, and yet offer her own heart a chance at a promising future. I enjoyed seeing into her thoughts and finding recognizable commonalities from my own days in that age span when I wrestled with similar thoughts shown in different details.

I can say this without spoiling the end of the love triangle portion of the book: she didn't pick the man I rooted for, and that made me sad, but that's just a personal reflection and not any kind of reflection on Jan's writing. After all, isn't life like that sometimes? It doesn't turn out the way we hope, but there's still a beauty within it?

If you enjoy Amish fiction, I think you'd find this a good twist on a genre you love. Like I said, this brings in a time period and pieces of conflict I don't think are typical to Amish fiction as a whole. And since this is the first book in a new series, there's plenty of time to travel with new characters and see what unfolds for them!


* Thanks, Revell, for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. *

Gettin' This Party Started

I haven't forgotten Valentine's Day. I know a few of you said you wanted to hear more about our cooking class date {and we talked about it some on the podcast!} but I will bring you the full report with pictures on Monday!

Meanwhile, I wanted to show you one more thing about our current moving season! After we had the home inspection and knew that all was well regarding the structure of the home itself, I felt safe to go ahead and begin packing. Though we don't know when we will be moving, in all likelihood, it will be several weeks yet. I know it's not really necessary to begin packing, but I wanted to do a thorough job OF packing, and I wanted plenty of time to keep up with all my normal activities as well. Writing blogs every day, working out, keeping up with clean eating, prepping the podcast, being a wife...all those things take time, and I want to continue to excel at them in this meantime.

We had a stash of boxes already from the many times we've planned to move and haven't, so we had a head start on that. Ryan brought them in from the garage for me, and we got a bag of newspaper from my parents' house!

 We used a gift card we got for Valentine's Day to purchase our starter kit of packing supplies. Yes, I'm doing a whole color coding system, and I am so excited about it!!

Can we go back to the one who is NOT as excited about all this?

This face pretty much sums up her thoughts on NOT being consulted before this major decision. And I fear we will pay a dear price at her hand {paws?} throughout the entire adventure. But majority rules, and 2/3 of us are ready to go!!

We have been trying to work with her on this idea and let her sort of nose around at her own pace and get used to boxes and the ripping sound of packing tape and all that. It's a slow beginning.

The first couple of boxes I packed were cause for great celebration. Starting to feel real!!

And from there it went, packing a little bit each day, working to pack away the things we use the least first:

One thing we can say for finding old TV boxes - they were bulky but the boxes are good for packing! :)

We have also started researching the best plan for the actual moving DAY for Braeya Jo Jo. This girl is traumatized to the max by car rides. Her saturation point on moving vehicles is less than one mile. We are moving farther than one mile. And while it would be easy {and maybe even likely!} to just put her in Ryan's car for the ride, since she likes him better anyway, I truly don't want her to be scarred for life by a move. So we're exploring kitty meds and all that. But in the meantime, we thought we would reintroduce her to the carrier. So we casually left it by all the moving boxes.

At first, she wouldn't even look at it. Literally turned her stubborn little nose in the other direction. But eventually she got closer.

Meanwhile, I keep packing. Bookshelves are almost completely packed now.

And while she may want little to do with the carrier, she is enjoying the jungle gym of boxes!

So that's where we are in the land of packing and organizing! It is fun {I've never truly moved in my life...moving out of a bedroom and into a house after college does not count} and I am excited to fully embrace this adventure!

Home Inspection Day

A couple of days ago, I told you we signed a counter-offer on the darling house we found ourselves in love with, and we had to have an inspection done on the house before we could move forward with the next steps.

As most of you probably know, Ryan and I are both a little too OCD for our own good, and my part of it has manifested itself in the creation of a binder JUST for this adventure. My printer and three hole punch have become my best friend since we committed to this house, and preparing for inspection day brought both out in full force.

We had been told we were allowed {and encouraged} to be present for the inspection, and the homeowners would be gone. I made a thorough list of everything I wanted to take pictures of {because, hello!!! I took none on our first walk-through} and everything I wanted to measure. I knew that if everything worked out the way we hoped it would, and this house did become ours, this day would be my last chance to step foot inside before it became ours, so I was a future-homeowner-with-a-purpose.

The morning of the inspection, we woke up to snow and conditions that made the idea of travel somewhat {okay, entirely} terrifying for this girl. Ryan drove to work and told me he thought I could make it, but I should be careful. I sat in full-on sobs on the couch, visions of car accidents dancing in my head and trying to determine if getting to check off my list was worth the risk of driving over on questionable roads.

I decided to be a big girl and try, and with hands firmly gripping the wheel at 10 and 2, I set out for the new house. You guys, Indiana is so ridiculous when it comes to weather. I left home with 100% cloudy skies, snow, drifts blowing over the road, and all around nastiness. Halfway to Kokomo, the skies were 100% blue, not a flake of snow flew through the sky, the blowing went back to being invisible, and the day could be classified as splendid. IN TWENTY MINUTES!

I picked up Ryan at work, and we drove to the house. We knew the inspector should already be there and we were planning to be present just for the second half of the process. He met us at the door, let us inside, and nodded for Ryan to join him in the kitchen for their inspection chat. He nodded at me and said, "the homeowners are in there."

I looked "in there" and saw the two homeowners sitting on their couch looking wildly uncomfortable, as though they had been relegated to a time-out in their own home. I hugged my three ring binder to myself and swallowed initial feelings of disappointment in knowing I could not very well flit about the house taking pictures and measuring to check off all my items with them sitting right there.

Instead, I walked over with my hand extended, introduced myself, and decided to make friends.

And that's how it happened that for the next hour, I sat on the loveseat, opposite them on the couch, pausing now and then to pet the dog when she ran by, learning all the things they loved about the house and sharing our own dreams with them.

I won't relay the entire conversation with you, but I will tell you my favorite part:

The wife said to me, "We were so discouraged about this house selling. People came through and didn't like this or didn't like that, and we wondered if it was ever going to sell or if we were just going to miss out on the house we wanted. We wrote it down and put it in the prayer basket at church, and right after that, you made your offer."

I cannot tell you what a joy fell over my soul at the realization that we have the incredible privilege of being someone's answer to prayer. I mean seriously - have you ever thought about that before? When I think about our own house and how we're praying for someone to buy it, I think about how profoundly thankful we will be for that person. How we will always think of them as our answer to prayer. And even before we get that opportunity, we have the even greater opportunity to BE someone's answer to prayer.

That is a beautiful feeling.

Ryan got done talking with the inspectors and joined me while these homeowners shared their love for this house, the details of all they had done, and the excitement for their own home-to-come.

We left a little over an hour after we arrived, and not one thing in my three-ring-binder had been checked off. Although they willingly offered us freedom to walk through and do whatever we needed, I took exactly one picture {of a bathroom, no less} and measured two things, I think. But what I gained in exchange was so much greater.

A home is a personal place, isn't it? Not just a house, but a home. This couple has lovingly cared for and invested in this home for the last fourteen years. And their hard work showed. The inspectors found nothing alarming, and furthermore, they told Ryan they were impressed with how well it had been maintained.

We loved that about these owners. They had cared for their home with love and integrity because it was more than just a house to them, and their choice would turn around to bless us. It's the same way we have cared for our own house and hope to bless someone else with that choice we made. It was a pleasure to be on the receiving end of such a gift.

When we left the house that day, we left with joy, because again, this whole thing was about so much more than just buying a fun new house. It was about carrying on a legacy begun by someone else, long before we were in the picture.

It was about being an answer to prayer, which feels even better than receiving an answer to prayer.

Like I said. This journey has roots that extend far beyond buying a house.

This Faith Stuff

I think the hardest thing about this house selling/house buying journey we're on is the truth I realized early on: this entire adventure doesn't have nearly as much to do with buying and selling houses as it does with testing, establishing, and growing our faith.

That ever happen in your life? Something that takes place is really just a vehicle used by God to accomplish a much deeper purpose? A much more eternal purpose?

That has been this adventure. I actually am not sure I can explain to you all that has transpired APART from the fun and the stress and the paperwork part of this season of our lives.

But I can tell you this: God has been on the move. He has been speaking, unmistakably, even if the words we hear don't include any version of "Here's a step-by-step timeline of what's next for you." Some examples of what we HAVE heard through words we've read include:

"God knows what's next for you. He is already preparing your heart and mind. He is clearing the path. He will show you the way." - Liz Curtis Higgs

"Sometimes when we get overwhelmed, we forget how big God is." - A.W. Tozer

"The giant in front of you is never bigger than the God who lives in you." - Christine Caine

"You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock."  - Isaiah 26:3-4

There are many more, but that's just a sampling of the things chronicled in the journal to carry us through this part of the journey.

I wanted to share this one with you too - just because it gave me goose bumps! Ryan had called his mom to share with her about all our news, and as they talked on the phone, she glanced across the room and noticed her little "faith" picture sitting nearby. She grabbed her camera to take a picture, and when she looked at the picture on the computer later, she noticed the shadow of the cross on it.

THIS.

 These are the things that have sustained us in the waiting.

And you know what else? We have grown together, unifying in our faith and trust in incredible ways over the past couple of weeks. Who would have known that this would be such a bonding agent? It's not the first hard season we've gone through, but there's something about it that has created growth like we've never seen.

There's also a peace we can't explain. Even though there is so much that is absolutely unknown for us {our own real life "to-be-continued"} - there is this crazy peace that has settled over us. An excitement to see HOW God plans to resolve this. A peace that an answer is out there, even though we can't see it. A comfort that our faith really has grown, because I can remember a time not all that long ago when this very thing would have utterly undone me. Undone both of us, actually.

We are excited. Excited for something good and fun and joyous to come. Excited to see how God answers the deep need of our house to sell and the deeper need of our heart to trust Him to work a miracle.

Sure, there are moments of panic. Fortunately they tend not to hit us both at once, so we yoke up together and carry one another along in the moments of doubt until we've both found sure footing again.

Sure, there are moments of jealousy when we read about friends who are in a similar situation but have had no hiccups in selling their homes. That's hard to read about. But in those moments, we try to rejoice with them in their blessing, and in so doing, turn our hurt into praise for what God has yet to do for us.

And tomorrow, I am going to tell you the story of home inspection day. Another day when God showed up.

The Snowball Effect

Podcast Day! And yes, we're talking about the house {some} and our non-bungee-jumping Valentine's Date! But never fear...the blog story continues below!!

 Click here to listen

Despite my begging to the contrary, you hate me, don't you? All the to be continued-ing? Like I said yesterday, it's how the story is going for us, too, and I assure you that even as you read this today, we do not know the details of how it all will end. So parts of it are as much a mystery to me as they are to you!!

Okay. So I told you we decided we loved this darling little house we'd walked through and yet we had no clue if anyone else also loved it like we did.

On our monthiversary, we prayed. A serious, heads-bowed, on-our-knees kind of prayer. The kind of hit-the-floor prayer that we hoped demonstrated the utter seriousness of our hearts. As we prayed, Ryan felt overwhelmed with a nudge to get paperwork started to make this a reality. And when we stood up from our hit-the-floor prayer, he did just that very thing.

Whoa.

The next day, he called the listing agent of the house we loved and thanked her personally for sending the text of the kitchen table and conveyed to her that we had fallen hard and fast for this house and were putting paperwork in motion to make it ours. He hung up the phone, still anxious in not knowing if we were up against anyone else, but comforted that he had done what he could to make our case known. {The listing agent later told Cathy that in all her years of real estate, no buyer has ever called to offer personal thanks and hope and that Ryan's call was extremely impressive to her.}

While Ryan got busy on more paperwork for our future, I met with Cathy to once again list our house for sale. It was both exciting and defeating to have this meeting with her. I wonder sometimes if all our neighbors have some sort of betting pool on when we're going to list our house AGAIN and how long it will take for us to give up after it doesn't sell. Five years of signs flying in and out of the yard has to be comical to watch - unless, of course, the signs are in YOUR yard.

When Cathy came with all the paperwork, her assistant came to take pictures. I shook her hand and Cathy mentioned in passing that this home had been my grandparents' house. The woman asked me who my grandparents were, and when I told her their names {keep in mind they both passed away when I was in high school}, her jaw dropped clear to the floor. "I worked for your Grandma" she started, and I finished for her - "at the bakery, right?"

Goose bumps.

With all our paperwork in place to list our house and to be ready to buy a new one, Ryan and I asked Cathy if we could make a contingent offer on the house we loved. She came back with good news and bad news. The good news was, we could definitely make an offer. The bad news was, the people who owned the house had an offer of their own in on THEIR new dream home. And if they didn't close by a certain date, they risked losing that house. They were willing to meet us in the middle as much as they could by delaying the closing of the house they were selling/we were buying to the last possible day before they HAD to close if it would help us to have more time to sell our house.

And so it was that on Thursday, February 4th, one week after we walked through the house we never planned to love, we signed an offer for that very home.

Within about twelve hours, they counter-offered and just past quittin' time on Friday, we sat in Cathy's office signing the counter-offer.

We went home to eat clean-eating-approved Chinese food and stared at each other.

Did we just buy a house?

And more importantly - we needed a straight-up miracle where our own home was concerned. It didn't matter that the house hadn't sold in five years. We needed it to sell on the double.

Back when we still owned Ryan's Greentown house, we made a solemn vow that we would never again own two homes. And we thought long and hard about that - and more than mere thinking - we prayed long and hard about that before we signed the offer. But we knew in our souls that this wasn't just impulsive Shafferness we were participating in. Based on the specific prayers we had prayed over the last week or so, God had unmistakably opened doors we did not ever expect to see open. Moving forward was the right choice, and we knew it in our hearts. We also knew we were about to walk into the biggest faith challenge we'd seen yet in our marriage.

And it scared us to death.

To be continued...and since I know you're mad about that, I'll just ask that every time you get the urge to yell at me, pray for our house to sell instead, okay?? That should garner a lot of prayer!! :)