The Saturday Six

One.

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I believe this qualifies as a true example of: It was the best of days...it was the worst of days.

Two.

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Anyone else ever watch Mad About You back in the day? I loved it so much in college and watched it all. the. time. I recently discovered it's on in the mornings, and I catch every episode I can. Paul and Jaime were one of my all-time favorite TV couples.

Three.

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Just learned about Transfercar this week. Have you ever heard of it? If you live in the right areas {which apparently we do not}, you can help rental companies transfer cars and RVs between their locations and give yourself the chance to travel for free/minimal costs! {They need to move the car, and it's cheaper for them to let you drive it there for little to no money than to pay for it to be hauled via freight.} A cost-effective way to travel!

Four.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we had some tornadoes in our city this week. Lots of destruction just a couple of miles from us, but we were safe. I found this video with drone coverage of the storm's path, so I thought I would share it here.  

Five.

Found this list over on Jessica's blog and loved it so much, I wanted to share it with you. The most beautiful spot in every state. Obviously it's subjective, and you may not agree, but I think you CAN agree that the pictures are stunning. I've been to three {though I was a kid for one, so I don't remember it very well} and think a road trip is in order to see the rest! HA!!! 

Six.

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Gotta tell you about the book I read to review this week. And I have to say, I liked it way more than I thought I would, going in. To be fair, I asked to review this book, so I thought I would like it to a degree, but it was a book I asked to read more to broaden my topic horizons than anything else. Two chapters in, I started over so I could begin underlining and making notes, because I suddenly found myself wanting to keep this book as part of my permanent library.

Next Door as it is in Heaven by Lance Ford and Brad Brisco is a guide to exploring tangible ways we can live among and love our actual neighbors the way God called us to live. To an extent, I think we've spent so many years emphasizing that loving our neighbor means loving more than our ACTUAL NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR...and now we've forgotten to focus on loving our ACTUAL NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS.

The book starts out a little "researchy," as the authors share some background information on how - and why - the atmosphere of neighborhoods has changed in the last 75 or so years. The information is not too academic or hard to read, but the tone at the start is much more informational than relational. Then the authors switch it up and begin explaining how we can change the culture of the very neighborhoods in which we live, by changing our mindset and being intentional in our behavior.

Our recent move has put us in much more of a neighborhood setting than where we lived before, and that was one reason I wanted to read this book. I don't want to squander the opportunity I have to live among people who could be great friends. But I also wasn't sure how to do it.

Lance and Brad offer examples of how their families {and people they know} have met and established relationships in their own neighborhoods, and because the book is written by men, rather than women, it's not loaded down with ideas of baking cookies and establishing playdates. {NOTHING wrong with either of those things, and as a woman, I'd be all about trying both. I point this out simply because if you are a guy or you want to offer this book to a guy, there are lots of examples they could relate to...sharing tools, putting together a BBQ night or a shared home gym...stuff that appeals to men without losing the attention of female readers.}

I came away from this book really convicted to make some changes in how I relate to my neighbors and also how I view my actual neighborhood and the amount of living I do in it, compared to the amount of living I drive out of it to do. {That was one of the most interesting points to me - how in the "olden days," people lived, worked, went to church, and did their shopping all within walking distance. And now, we commute to pretty much everything...and as a result, we don't even know the people in our own backyards.}

In fair and full disclosure, there were a couple of points in the book that I wasn't sure I agreed with, but I am not sure if I don't agree with them just because my lifestyle is more conservative, or if they were points that maybe should have been left out of the book entirely. In case you, too, are conservative, I thought I would add this so you don't come away from reading the book wondering why I didn't mention it, but maybe the things that stuck out to me wouldn't even bother you! All in all, those points aside, I found good, thought-provoking ideas inside these pages and am excited to put into practice the things I've learned!

* Thanks, NavPress/Tyndale, for sending a copy of this book my way in exchange for an honest review. *

Neighboring

When we moved here, we changed our plans for our third bedroom. We intended to make it a home gym, and I had a whole Pinterest board ready to go with decorating ideas and inspirations. But before we even finished painting rooms, we changed our minds.

We decided we wanted a guest room.

It seemed silly, in some ways, because we don't have a lot of far-out-of-town friends. Most of the people who would come to visit live within easy driving distance. Even while we drove to IKEA to pick out the bed for the room, I wondered if we were investing wisely in this square of space in our house.

A gym, we would use every day. It would benefit us.

A guest room, we would use now and then, probably mostly then...and while it would be more fun to make a cozy guest room than a gym, I just wasn't sure.

I'm sure now.

 A couple of months ago, we had our first guest: Ryan's mom. She had just been released from the hospital and stayed with us for a few days while she regained her strength. I loved being able to offer her privacy and rest.

Mo {you remember Mo, right? Our amazing sleeper couch?} is great, and we love sleeping on it now and then, but when you have company, it's nice to be able to offer a room...with a door.

After the tornadoes came through on Wednesday, we were fortunate that we still had power when over 20,000 in town did not. We had lights and air conditioning, wifi and more TV channels than we could possibly watch.

So we offered our humble little guest space to one of Ryan's co-workers. She showed up late in the evening, and I have to admit, that guest room looked inviting even to me! The little lamps were glowing, and I'd scribbled a message on the reclaimed window we added to the wall after the photo above was taken.

We sat around in the living room for a while, where I was a perfectly LOUSY hostess, nodding off to sleep {a day of hyperventilating can sure take a lot out of a person!} while she talked with Ryan.

I loved going to sleep knowing we'd been able to help someone by sharing what we have. I loved waking up and answering the door to one of my other friend who needed a place to shower and get ready for work, since her house was without power too.

It's not a bed and breakfast. {I offered breakfast to both but they both declined. Perhaps I should work on my cooking skills!} I ran around with bedhead and clutched my coffee cup like I do on any other day of the week. I asked stupid questions and struggled to comprehend in the early morning moments. But even though I wasn't a polished hostess, I loved being a neighbor.

Throughout the day, I saw glimpses of the city neighboring in their own ways. There were, of course, all the things you would expect after a tornado. People hauled clothing and food to shelters and drop-off points, guys with chain saws looked for trees in need of removal. But there was more. The city schools closed for the day, so a bunch of high school students used their free day to clean up debris. A handful of people put clothing, pantry items, and free lunches on tables outside their houses for volunteers and those affected. A coffee shop gave free coffee to officers.

That was neighboring. Each of us doing our own little things to impact a life or two around us. And for Shafferland, it meant opening our home, and I loved it. I loved being close enough TO help.

I'm so glad we did a guest room instead of a gym. I think it's my way of neighboring.

It Was a Quiet Rainy Afternoon...

And your girl Bekah was in the kitchen, happily baking cookies. Chocolate chip, in fact. {Don't believe me?}

 A gentle rain fell, and I unloaded the dishwasher while I waited for the first batch of cookies to bake. I thought {a mistake I will not be making again} how lovely it was to be safe in my home during a gentle rain and how grateful I was to have the time to make cookies for my husband and just enjoy being a homemaker.

My phone rang...and rang...and rang...an oddity I'd never seen before. No break. Just ringing. As I walked to it, the weather radio went off. What?!?! They both blared tornado warnings. TORNADO WARNINGS?!?!!? What about my nice gentle rain and baking cookies? My happy homemaking?

I had no idea storms were on the radar {ha! See what I did there?} for the day, and after talking to several of Ryan's co-workers later, I learned I was not alone in my ignorance. I called Ryan, freaking out, because that's what I do in storms, and he told me to calm down because it was just a little rain. Never one to be quickly calmed, I continued my freaking-outting until finally he asked if I wanted him to come home and get me, so I could be at the hospital with him.

I said no, because I wanted to be with the house, I said. "What are you going to do for it, exactly?" he asked. Well, I'd thought about throwing myself over it to protect it, but I could see how that didn't make a lot of sense. So I finally agreed he should retrieve me. He scooted home, picked me up, and I rushed into his interior office to hang out with Brutus.

Sorry for the blur. I was shaking like you would not believe. Also. Don't expect to see smiles in this post. Not the time.

Not long after that photo was taken, they started closing blinds at the hospital and moving patients to the interior. Time for the water works.

It got so much uglier than that picture, people. I was sobbing and shaking and not breathing AT ALL. Ryan was trying to coach me through breathing {though he does not remotely understand my fear of storms} but I couldn't get it together. I tried to Lamaze, but it wasn't helping much. I fell apart the most when the rain and wind I could hear above just stopped and it was crazy quiet. I thought we were done.

The hospital was fine, but as you may have seen on the news {if you're from around here}, the town did take a hit, including one of our Starbucks stores! {These pictures below were from the Kokomo Herald Facebook page, so all photo credit to them.}

{I don't know how many people were inside, but there were people inside and from what I heard, they were all safe in the bathrooms. If you're not from here and don't know, the bathrooms in this Starbucks are on the right side of the building right above the red shopping cart in the bottom photo. Pretty much the only area still standing.}

It's a lot to take for a coffee loving, tornado hating girl, you know. Coming out of a tornado shelter to find out Starbucks fell over.

I had to sit for a while at the hospital because I was ridiculously lightheaded from all my hyperventilating. I do think that was my worst case of hyperventilation to date. I was a mess. When I got ready to go home...look!

Why yes! Sunshine and blue skies!

Good grief, Indiana.

Ryan got home a little late because they were waiting to hear if people from other facilities were going to be transferred to theirs, since it was still functional. Shortly after he got home, a second round showed up. I packed up all my journals in suitcases and prepared for us to hide in the bathroom.

Except when I turned around, he was gone.

I ran all over the house looking for him and then outside. I hollered his name and this whole group of gawkers down the road turned and looked at me, and I kept running and hollering.

Then I found him.

WITH THE GAWKERS.

See that guy in a white shirt and black pants in the trees? Yeah that's him. I kept yelling and yelling his name until he turned around and I said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" {What a lovely first impression I made on some of these folks.}

He looked at me quite calmly and said, "Watching the tornado."

I looked over at that lady in the black shirt and said, "What did he say?"

She said, "Watching a tornado."

I said, "FOR REALSIES??????"

She nodded.

I fled.

And by the time I got back to my "safe" spot, he had texted me.

I know you can't see the bottom because of the corn, but I saw another angle online and this was definitely a tornado.

Did I mention he really doesn't understand my fear of storms?

Because after that, I went here:

And he went here:

We went through three rounds in our part of town, and it seemed like every time we calmed down, the weather radio went off again.

I saw chopper coverage on TV and my goodness, what a MESS just not too far from us. Praying fervently for those folks and the cleanup and rebuilding ahead.

Meanwhile, if you need me, I'll be nose-in-Stress-Away-oil.

I think I need to focus on the SECOND part of this verse. Got the first part down.

Tales from the Carpool Lane

I've picked up a little side job recently, helping out one of our friends by taking her son to school in the mornings. He's 9, and a super sweet kid, but the question remained: what do you talk about when trying to make conversation with a shy 9 year old boy?

Ryan gave me some hints of things he might like to discuss, and I did try, but conversations were awkward and usually fizzled out pretty quickly. We would arrive at school each day, and I'd sip on coffee in the carpool lane while I waited to let him out next to the school. {So far I haven't shown up in my jammies or bathrobe, so I feel I haven't truly lived up to the hype I've heard about with such adventures, but the year is young. Give me time.}

Anyway.

Yesterday we were en route to school again and I found myself at a complete loss. Our conversation the day before, regarding his love for Legos, had taken the entire trip to school, but I wasn't sure Lego talk could last forever.

And that's when I uncovered it.

The golden topic.

Pokemon Go.

He brought it up when trying to explain to me some statue he knew about that was apparently close to our route, and he said what he thought would obviously seal it for me: "You know, like for Pokemon!"

I was simultaneously thrilled and petrified.

Thrilled because I knew I had found the winning topic. Petrified because I know nothing about it. Not just nothing. Negative nothing.

I tried to ask questions that would make me sound somewhat intelligent without giving away my utter ignorance. {Because he's a smart kid...he can smell ignorance a mile away.}

He told me all his favorite places and something about a team, and it was clear he thought I had some sort of baseline knowledge about all this. My baseline knowledge was to sip my coffee a little faster and hope for the best.

I have never played Pokemon Go, I have no desire to play it, and I sort of figured I would go through life without ever knowing one single thing regarding it. But if it means finally making a connection in the carpool line, I'll do my homework and learn enough to carry on an intelligent conversation.

This was my favorite part so far. He said something about playing it in the car when his mom brought him home every day. Now the one thing I had heard about this game was that it did at least force people to become more active, since they walked to find whatever they were finding. The car thing threw me for a loop.

"So you can play it in the car?" {I meant as opposed to only on foot.}

He said, "Well yeah, but not if you're driving!"

Trust me. No danger. :)

Looking forward to more tales from the carpool lane. Should be a fun year!

Capsule Wardrobe, Lake Edition

Happy podcast Tuesday! This week we have zero stories of lake clothing, but we do have fun tales of getting kicked out of the ER for being too loud - and much more!

Click here to listen.

And now...for my lake wardrobe. :)

I have been {perhaps rightfully} accused of over-packing for most things in life. I would like to go on record as saying that when we went to the lake a couple of weeks ago, I packed more to help myself out in the food arena than I did in the clothing arena. LOL! But I wanted to show you how the old capsule served me in lake-land!

As is now my habit, I planned out my outfits ahead of time and tried to mix and match as much as I could, so I didn't have to take as much with me! I also tried to shy away from my tendency to pack for "maybe" events. {Maybe we will go out for a nice dinner, so I'll take a dress. Maybe it will be cold so I will take pants and a sweatshirt. Maybe I will feel fat, so I'll take an extra shirt to switch out.} Here is what I took, and how it looked in real life.

We left for the lake on a Thursday, and I wanted to look "lakey" upon arrival, so this was my first plan:

{In truth, it may look more like a school uniform, but whatever.} Navy blue shirt {new to the capsule...it replaced my plain brown shirt, as I have eliminated brown from my capsule}, tan Bermuda shorts, and navy blue slip on shoes. I added a combo of blue and brown jewelry and called it a day!

Friday was just a random day of fun, with no big plans to go anywhere, so I chose a gray sleeveless shirt {new to the capsule this summer}, denim Bermuda shorts, my trusty gray Go-Walks {I figured we were likely to walk around town and I wanted to be comfortable}, and turquoise accent jewelry.

And here's how it looked {excuse the hair}

I knew Saturday was the day we would be meeting up with Natasha, so I planned my outfit to be one of my favorites. I also packed a chambray shirt for the weekend, just in case it got chilly. {We hadn't seen "chilly" for weeks, but of course it did happen while we were at the lake.} Purple tank top, reused the denim Bermuda shorts and gray Go-Walks {again, knew we would be doing a lot of walking} and purple and blue jewelry to accent.

Turned out well!

Sunday was our traveling home day, so I kept it simple. White shirt, reused the tan Bermuda shorts and blue slip-on shoes, and reused some of the jewelry, too!

And in real life....

Of course at trip to the lake also requires a swimsuit, and even though I only wore it for about a half hour before being rained out, it did get used! Swimsuit, cover up and flip flops!

{Baby not included.}

I also packed a few tank tops/shorts/lounge-y clothes for workouts and hanging out around the house at night.

I wouldn't have done anything different for this trip. I had everything I needed for a warm lake weekend, and reusing items worked really well!

{Trying} to Eat Well On Vacation

I took two back-to-back vacations recently and had great plans to show you how well I ate on both trips - taking clean eating on the road, if you will. This has been modified to show you how well I ate on the first trip. HA!!!

Before I do that, let me address the second trip. Our trip to Kansas lasted a week, and I really did try hard to be good. I did. I packed healthy snacks and made promises to myself that I would not overdo it. And in truth, I should have and could have tried harder to stick to my guns. I learned a lot on that trip about how not having a detailed plan results in falling so far off the wagon that you can't even see the wagon anymore. Maybe I'll unpack that more in another post sometime. But I said it to let you know that I'm truly NOT perfect at clean eating and I had my share of flat-out-fails this month.

But the trip to the lake was successful, so let's talk about that!! When Ryan and I headed to the lake for a weekend with his family, I had the wedding just a week away and a class reunion looming in the foreseeable future, and I really didn't want to mess up!

So if you're wondering how you can eat well on a trip and still have fun, here's a peek at how I did it that weekend.

I started out by planning ahead. Before we left, I made plans for healthy snacks for myself. Snacking is what gets me every time. Lake cottages are filled with bags of chips, trays of cookies, and many other not-so-clean deliciousness. And I contributed to it! I took a big plate of cookies and a loaf of zucchini bread to share with the family, but I wanted to have a stash of healthier options for myself {and Ryan did eat some of it, too}.

First up: fruit. I cut up a huge watermelon and took it with me. Ryan hates watermelon {WHAT!?!?!!?} so I normally don't buy it, because I can't finish it by myself. But since I had people to help me eat, I treated myself to a watermelon, and I have to tell you, it was an exceptionally tasty one!

I also made a batch of energy snacks to munch on when everyone else was enjoying cookies.

I planned out a bunch of Shakeology snacks, but I think I only ever made one the entire weekend. I should have been better at that, but the unusual schedule kept me from doing my protein shake - or any meal - at my normal, predictable times.

I also took yogurt, granola, and berries for my breakfasts, because I knew the standard fare there is donuts and/or biscuits and  gravy. {Delicious, but not clean!}

And a bag of peanuts for another snack option:

On the way to the lake, Ryan and I stopped at Culver's for dinner. Oh, be still my beating heart. Butterburgers, fries, and mixers. And yet, I chose this:

It's a strawberry chicken salad that is TRULY delicious. I used to think fruit and cheese and meat and vegetables didn't belong in a mix like this, but I really do love this salad. And I was so proud of myself for starting the weekend well.

When they served sandwiches for lunch, I just skipped having a bun on mine, and I went for watermelon instead of chips. {And I was so hungry that I didn't take a picture of it.}

On nacho night, I had mine on a bed of lettuce instead of a bed of chips, and I went light on the cheese and heavy on the beans. 

When we went out to eat with Natasha and her family, the restaurant didn't really offer specific healthy options, so I got a salad and didn't eat all of it.

While I tried to keep the treats as healthy as I could, {low fat milk in my coffee treats, etc.}, I did enjoy a delicious frappe and a sampling of Ryan's treats throughout the weekend!

All things in moderation, right? Now why couldn't I have remembered that the NEXT weekend?

It actually went well, and I felt considerably better physically when I kept the eating as much on the up-and-up as I could! The best thing I did for myself was coming into the weekend with a plan and bringing my own food!

Also linking up with my friend Tamar today!