Phoebe-Palooza!

Yes, I know. We need to get a dog.

But until that sweet day comes, we love having Phoebe for a day. {And to be fair, I should say that "we" does not include Braeya. She gave us the stink-eye for most of the day. Well, when she came out from under the bed to see if Phoebe was gone yet.}

Ryan had to work, so I had the Pheebster by myself for the first part of the day. Please also note that I did not have plans to go anywhere, so I didn't actually put a lot of effort into getting ready.

Kisses. Sloppy wet ones.

Blogs are boring.

Cooking is boring. LOL!! Actually, for this one, she was tuckered out from whisking me around the neighborhood at high rates of speed. She's kind of like a Marmaduke at times. A very small Marmaduke.

Text from Ryan that he's coming home for lunch! Let's CELEBRATE!!!!

No table scraps = much sadness. {Braeya does get table scraps, but since I don't know the full scope of rules of what Phoebe is and is not allowed to have, I just withhold all scraps. I don't want to make her sick!}

More sloppy wet kisses.

After Ryan came home from work, we went for a long walk. And yes, those are shorts on Ryan on February 18th. In Indiana. Amazing, isn't it? I am dearly loving our weather right now. I fear we may pay for it sometime in March, but I'm loving it right now!

Holding hands {paws?} during a nap. Isn't it just darling? I'm sure Ryan LOVES it that I've called him darling.

Couch cuddles.

Laundry helper. And by helper, I mean she watched me fold it.

We wrapped up the night with a little bit of Bible study. She was all in. Literally.

Any day with the Pheebster is a great day. Love that girl!!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Last Sunday feels like 100 years ago. This week has been full of not just busy activity, but endless mind activity. Friday night, I just tossed and turned because my brain was spinning and would not quit! So I'll be interested to see what all we actually did this week as I tell you all about it!

* Well, I guess last Sunday wasn't busy. A perfect, low-key Sunday, and now that football is over, it was a perfect, low-key Sunday of HALLMARK MOVIES! {Ryan's thoughts on that below.} We all just hung out, resting, and I made a clean version of Chinese food which wasn't too bad, except I messed up my rice to chicken ratio and had wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too much rice.

* Monday was pretty typical. Podcast editing, carpool duty, that kind of thing. But Monday night, Ryan came home with my Valentine roses a little early, which was delightful! And we delivered a new chair to my parents' house, which meant we probably should get Starbucks, since we drove right by it. I accidentally grabbed a drink that wasn't mine and although the rightful owner was gracious, the barista was not. I was dutifully put in my place and sent on my way.

* Tuesday was Valentine's Day, and even though I already told you all about it, the quick recap is that Ryan worked, I delivered brownies to the single girls at his work, we went to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, had a hot date at Lowe's {hee hee hee} and finished up with frozen yogurt. Our first time to go out to eat on Valentine's Day was a success!

* My Valentine gift was a day late, which was totally fine, but when it arrived, I loved it! A sign that says "surrender" that goes above my new cross! I loved it. I also loved trying to take a picture of the two together and accidentally getting Ryan's noggin! Spent a lot of time in Bible study and prayer on this day. It was the day all the mind-spinning began!

* I had a couple of days this week when I didn't have carpool duty, and Thursday as one of them. So Braeya and I hung out at home and did lots of writing work. At the end of the day, I went to visit Ryan, and he was behind on notes, so I did selfies with Brutus in his office while I waited. And I got free chocolate from one of his co-workers.

* Friday, Ryan took this crazy picture of me when I was asleep. Apparently I slept ON MY FACE and had bangs sticking straight up. Good grief. Busy little day, though, including prepping for a new speaking date and much grocery shopping. {Friday night date included dinner at Sam's Club. We are the coolest people I know.}

* Yesterday, we had Phoebe all the live-long day!!!!!! Ryan actually had to work for most of the day, but I enjoyed having Pheebs home with me. I did some baking, and she just hung out in the kitchen with me. It was gorgeous here, so we went for a long walk after Ryan got home, and then Ryan continued working on taxes. We just elected not to make that a memory. LOL. 

The Saturday Six

One.

If you're feeling a little bit forgotten - even by God - read this post by my new friend, Jessica. God is in the details. ALL the details. Even your details, and her reminder here is gentle and encouraging!

Two.

A very honest article on beauty. Such a hard topic to address honestly, because none of us want to admit that it bothers us as much as it probably does. I just appreciated her words, including these: "There is no perfection in true beauty—there is only redemption. It’s black and white, the paradox of loving my imperfections. It’s when I throw my shame aside and slip on my broken boots."

Three.

Ryan's Valentine's gift to me was this beautiful handmade sign from the Etsy Shop Wildwood Home Studio. The shop owner lives here in Indiana, and she uses reclaimed wood to make the signs. Ryan ordered this sign custom-made to go with my Surrender Cross from RAD JOY, and it is just so perfect. Ryan said the shop owner was great to work with and he highly recommended her! I adore the quality of the sign and the fact that it has a history!   

Four.

I guess in some ways, this post goes along with the theme of the first link up here in the list, but I guess sometimes when a similar theme keeps popping up, it's for a reason. If you're struggling because you feel like God is only all about the BIG stuff and life seems very small, take an encouraging read here.

Five.

 Hey Rachel in North Dakota? I saw your mind blown comment from the Shuffle about the clean eating queso and mozzarella sticks, so I wanted to share with you (and anyone else whose mind was also blown) the links to those recipes. They both came from the Dashing Dish website, and if you've hung out here very long, you know I LOVE ME SOME DASHING DISH RECIPES! Now, some of her recipes are exclusive for members, and the queso is in that group, but I totally assure you the monthly membership is worth the price. We eat so many recipes from this site and I adore Katie and her ministry. So here's the recipe to the queso (quick tip: we did not find that this reheats well as a leftover. Next time I make it, I'll just make half a recipe because that's all we could eat in one meal). I have not tried this recipe, but she has a clean eating white queso recipe here...and it's not a membership recipe, so anyone can see it. The skinny crispy mozzarella sticks are not a member recipe either, so you can view it without a membership!

Six.

Source

I had seen some teasers online about a new book called Fear Fighting by Kelly Balarie, and since fear is something I struggle with way more than I should, I decided this would be a good one for me to read and review.


Here's the thing about fear. It is a big, bad, suffocating monster that cannot be cured through reading a book. I will tell you that and Kelly will tell you that. In fact, in the afterword of the book, she says, "I don't know your timeline, but I do know that God wants to handle these two words (ahem: set free) one-on-one, hand-in-hand, and in conscious partnership with you. He reserves the right to decide when 'set free' is achieved." And it's true. You can't read this book and find the magic formula for ditching fear once and for all. But you can read the book to find two really important things: a friend who genuinely understands how you feel in your fear, and some suggestions for how to attack the moments of fear that can stem from so many different sources.

Fear Fighting is the kind of book I imagine myself going back to on multiple occasions, to find the specific chapter to accompany my present fear, and reacquainting myself with the ideas in that chapter. Whether your fear comes from the need to be in control, a desire to please everyone in your path, worry, comparing yourself to everyone around you, the unknown, rejection (real or imagined), or the resurgence of your own past, Kelly has Scripture-based suggestions to help you combat what Satan intends to use to thwart you.

She shares honest, vulnerable stories from the span of her own life - times when fear has bested her and times when she's overcome through the power of the Spirit. She offers Scripture to speak against the fear, and at the conclusion of every chapter, she offers some specific take-away thoughts and challenges.

Fear may be a life-long battle for you. That's very possible. But its dominance can lessen over time if you're willing to let God step in and teach you how to lean on Him instead of into the fear.

People who don't struggle with fear (ohhhh how fortunate!!) don't always understand how debilitating and discouraging it can be, so to have a friend who does get it and is willing to offer the hope that has worked for her in a spirit of compassion is such a gift!

* Baker Books provided me with a copy of this book at no charge. Opinions are my own. *

Keeping the Goals Visible

Last year, in January, before I knew we were going to pack up our house and move to a new town, I became the queen of the webinar. I cannot tell you how many webinars I had to be part of during my years in Financial Aid and radio, but I can tell you they were one of my least favorite things. I hated sitting still and quiet for an hour or two, usually right after lunch, with my mind juggling all the things that really needed to be done back at my desk. But self-employment will lead you to view things a bit differently, and suddenly webinars were my training ground.

I found all kinds of free ones and not only printed out the presentations, but took pages upon pages of handwritten notes. Some were helpful. Some were not. But one piece of advice I remember from one webinar early on was that people who keep their goals documented in a visible location are more likely to actually accomplish those goals.

Hmm.

I intended to do a magnificent job of that very thing, post-webinar-watching. But then we bought a house and I had to pack us up and move us and unpack us, and by that point, the main goal was to be done with house projects. DONE. And let me just tell you: a mountain of boxes is a visible goal. :)

I've slacked off on webinar-watching this year, but I circled around to employ that bit of advice, and I have to say, there just might be something to it! {And perhaps that is why the gentleman who said it is as wildly successful in the business world as he is!}

So I thought I'd pass along some of the things that have been working for me so far this year, just in case you need new ideas to motivate your own goals into reality.

First of all, I finally found the perfect day planner for me. {Yes. I still use a paper planner. And I love it.} And of course, I had to make it myself. I pieced together fragments of printables from around the web of Pinterest, and it's working out really well!

Scattered Squirrel is one of my favorite sites for printables, and I found this set of monthly planner printables that I just loved. I'm grabbing a picture of the March sheet since I've not yet written on it.

In the last few days of each month, I sit down with the next month's paper and pray about what I should focus on that month. For example, in January, it was establish a new routine. We had just come away from the holidays and I am not even sure I can claim I had a routine. So for the entire month of January, that was my main focus. In every area {time with God, eating, working out, working, our home, etc.}, I wanted to create a sense of routine.

Then in the other sections of this sheet, I write down any special dates I need to remember throughout month {big birthdays, holidays etc.} And then I make goals in three specific areas of my life. So again, in January, my three areas of focus were work, health, and me. In my work life, in January, I wanted to record 3 Conversation Cafe podcasts, tweak my book proposal, and work on launching my website. And because I wrote those things down and looked at them every day, I was able to check them off by the end of the month!

I picked three things from the three lists and made those my top three goals for the month. (In January I completed 2 of the 3 and only missed the 3rd one because of all the time that ended up devoted to Ryan's surgery instead.)

I also make a list of things I want to do around the house that month, which in January, involved decorating for winter.

Because I'm highly motivated by checking things off a list, this works really well for me!

Similarly, I found a printable here that gives me a two-page-spread weekly plan that helps me keep track of my everyday tasks.

Cards to mail. My workout. Home chores. Writing work. Appointments. You name it. I can't tell you how many times I've finished my tasks only because they were written down and I wanted the joy of crossing them off!

And my newest thing is this really cool gift my sister gave me for Christmas.

It's a board that says at the top, "Things that Inspire." There are six clips beneath it, and I use it to keep track of my six next pressing items. So for example, right now the first clip holds notes for what I need to do for my next Conversation Cafe interview, the second clip holds tasks for my book proposal, the third holds notes for a luncheon where I'm speaking next month, and the fourth holds notes for a bridal shower where I'll be speaking in a few weeks. {Currently these are the most pressing things.} This is a good way for me to remember that just because something may be a few weeks down the road doesn't mean I can overlook it right now! This sits right beside my chair in the office, so I'm very aware of the work ahead of me and it keeps me on task when I'd rather nap or Pinterest or something along those lines.

I have to say, I'm doing a much better job about staying organized and pursuing goals when I can see them right in front of me every single day. It brings accountability and encouragement in equal doses!

Maybe you're not driven by the visual as much as I am, but if your current system isn't working for you, perhaps one of these ideas can inspire you!! :)

Chicken Nuggets

Remember that time {a month ago} when we lived on a diet of chicken everything because Ryan's gallbladder just up and quit on us? Nothing will spur the desperation of finding new ways to eat chicken like being forced to eat chicken at e.v.e.r.y. s.i.n.g.l.e. m.e.a.l.

Not only that, but we couldn't eat any form of spicy chicken. The chicken tacos made him sick. The chicken tortilla soup made him sick. We didn't even attempt buffalo chicken. Nothing good could come from that.

So I was a wife on a mission to find healthy, bland, non-fattening, non-threatening ways to cook chicken.

Thank goodness my mom had gifted us with a "Healthy Choices" cookbook for Christmas! Like a good old-fashioned, spiral-bound cookbook with recipes that avoided sugar, white flour and artificial everything. Ryan begged me to get it out right away and hunt for things to make. Don't have to ask me twice! I was as sick of chicken noodle soup as he was! {Although I did find a recipe in this cookbook for homemade chicken noodle soup that was quite yummy!}

I stumbled upon a recipe for homemade chicken nuggets, and decided to give it a whirl. He loved it. And I learned post-surgery that he didn't just love it because it was a different way to eat chicken. He actually genuinely loved the flavor. WIN! And I loved knowing we were eating real chicken {I'm still scarred by the pink whatever videos from years gone by that showed the not real chicken in various nuggets} and knowing what was in the breading. And speaking of breading, I loved that it's not a heavy, fried, breadish breading. AND it's a pretty quick and easy thing to make. So I think now we're up to WIN WIN WIN WIN or something like that.

I've modified the recipe to fit what we had on hand, and here you go! Homemade chicken nuggets that are flavorful, easy to make, and not bad for you!

Chicken Nuggets

* 1/2 cup wheat flour
* 4 teaspoons seasoned salt
* 1 teaspoon paprika
* 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
* 1 1/2 pounds chicken breasts or tenders {fresh or defrosted}

Combine the flour, seasoned salt, paprika, and poultry seasoning in a gallon size bag, close tightly, and shake/knead to combine well. Cut the chicken into nugget size pieces and dump in the bag with the seasoning. Close tightly and shake until meat is well coated. Generously spray a skillet with cooking spray and cook chicken on medium heat until cooked all the way through. Serve with dipping sauce if desired.

A Few Tips

* I make my own seasoned salt, and the recipe is here. If you don't want quite so much salt, you could cut down the amount you use.

* Keeping your nuggets smaller will allow them to cook faster, if you (or your kids) are in a hurry to eat.

* Spray the pan well and don't cook on high heat. I've messed up in both those areas and lost half my coating on the bottom of the pan. AND it was super fun to wash later. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

* I use tongs to turn the meat, and I tried to turn it fairly often to keep it from sticking to the pan.

* If you're making a large batch of this and have a big pancake griddle, you can cook it faster.

* This does reheat very well. It never gets super crispy like heavily breaded nuggets, so you don't have to worry about sacrificing the crisp in the reheat.

* Ryan always dips his nuggets in sauce if he gets them at a restaurant, but he doesn't dip these. He likes the flavor just plain.

* We serve these with green beans or asparagus to keep the meal cleaner, but you could easily serve it with whatever side (to make it fancier or more casual).

* To give credit where credit is due, this recipe in its original form was submitted to the cookbook by Lucia Lapp from Benton, IL.

Our 5th Valentine's Day

Happy half-price candy day! It's always the best part of the day after any holiday, right? :)

Hope you had a good day yesterday. It was cold in central Indiana, but GORGEOUS anyway. Love me some sunshine!

Ryan kicked off our Valentine celebration the night before, actually, when he brought home beautiful deep red miniature roses for me. I love roses so much and he's always good to bring me some on Valentine's Day! I have pretty much carried them from room to room with me so I can gaze upon their beauty as I work!

Before we went to bed, I whipped up a breakfast casserole (the healthy version from Dashing Dish) and then I set the alarm for five in the morning so I could get up, transfer it to a slow cooker and "make breakfast" for when the alarm went off for real. Normally we just do fruit/yogurt/granola for breakfast, so this was a treat.

Also a treat? My early morning hair. :)

{Also - I have the worst ever reverse camera on my phone.}

Ryan went to work and I got busy whipping up brownies from scratch so we could deliver them to the single girls at his work. I wanted them to know someone was thinking about them on Valentine's Day! After he came home for lunch, I went back to work with him and helped him deliver them. It was fun!

Even though he didn't slack in finding me a gift, it was still en route to me, so I still have that to look forward to! :) But his had come, and I wrapped it up for him. He opened it at lunch time and liked it! (Whew!) I got him the Seinfeld version of Scene It. I'm not nearly the Seinfeld guru that he is, so I sure don't expect to win, but I think we'll have fun playing!

(We had so much fun playing Sorry! on our "B" date that I thought another game would be a fun new thing for us)

After work, we did our official Valentine photo. And yes, I'm the nerd with a candy heart garland decoration.

 OH!! And I wanted to show you my flowers!

We had a gift card to Ruby Tuesday, so we decided to go there for dinner. First time we've ever gone out to dinner on Valentine's Day! {Thanks, Wayne and Shari, for making our holiday perfect!}

We are such nerds. We filled up on the salad bar and brought our entrees home for leftovers. HA! WE do this all the time. We hadn't been there since they redid the salad bar, and I actually liked it better. I'd read terrible reviews about it, and I know the price is higher now, which is sad indeed, but I thought the choices were amazing!

And then, of course, a trip to Lowe's. Because why not?

Then, Ryan told me he'd gotten a Groupon to Orange Leaf (frozen yogurt) so we went there, planning to share a bowl of yogurt for dessert. But when we arrived, the lady told us they were running a special, and if we were willing to kiss at the cash register, we could buy one yogurt and get one free. Sure! We'll make out for free food! NO PROBLEM!!!!

We hadn't been to Orange Leaf before, but it was delicious and we'll be back, for sure! :)

We came home, got in our jammies and exchanged cards!

Thanks, Ryan, for making the day special, just like you make EVERY day! :)

Perspective

It's Valentine's Day, and whether or not you have a Valentine, this might be a hard day for you. We get that. It seems like there are just as many married people who don't look forward to this day as single people! So if you're irritated already and the day just began...can we try to cheer you up? A non-schmoopy Valentine edition of Spill the Beans awaits you.

Listen right here!

I was curious, after recording the podcast, what my last single Valentine's Day was like. I didn't remember it very clearly, so I went back to my trusty prayer journal to find my thoughts on that day.

Valentine's Day was always hard, of course, because I wanted to have a Valentine, but I never did. But after my Isaac journey, it was even harder, because Valentine's Day was the day I first learned about him and the potential of a relationship.

So that last single Valentine's Day marked two years since I'd first heard Isaac's name and my life as I knew it changed forever. And I wrote in my prayer journal that day, Hold me today - on this day of love and gifts. Shower me with You and help me to not be caught up in the absence of love.

My heart is still hopelessly tender toward those of you in that spot. Today is my fifth married Valentine's Day, and while I treasure what I have, I still feel that tender bruise under it all, of the years of waiting. I haven't forgotten the sting.


That last single Valentine's Day found me in a place where I had just begun to ache for love again, and it seemed like any promising path in that direction only brought hurt instead of healing. And that day, I chose to pray for the latest one by name. He was new to my friendship circle and what I thought was going to be a door thrown widely open by God's mercy turned out to be just the opposite. So I asked God to be with him specifically and I wrote, Though the pain runs deep for me, I know his own pain runs deep in ways I don't know or see, and such cleansing and healing can only come from You. On yet another single Valentine's Day, help me to trust...help me to know the pain isn't pointless.

Wouldn't it be great if God wrote in Sharpie on the wall? If He spelled out the exact reason for delays and pain and confusion? I'll tell you this much, my single friends: I may be married now, but I still wish He wrote in Sharpie. There are still things I wish I could just grasp. That doesn't go away with a wedding ring.


But listen to this. That particular day in 2012, when I had no idea I was less than ten months away from my own wedding day, I thought back over the guys I'd dated in my life (which, to be fair, were not many) and I recognized how they'd managed to hide me from the world at large. Not a single one of them had wanted an overly public relationship. (Some came before the days of social media, but even then, they weren't wild about public recognition of our relationship.) That was really hurtful, and on the Valentine's Day of 2012, I wrote, I want someone to be so excited about me that he shouts it.

And so it was that eight months later, someone named Ryan grabbed hold of a radio microphone and said in just about the most public way he possibly could that he loved me and wanted to spend forever with me. I'd call that a fairly clear answer to prayer.


Abundant healing for deep hurt, wouldn't you say?

But as I look back, I'm grateful now that those previous loves of mine were not so public after all. I'm grateful those were private, even when I wanted them to be more. I'm grateful the beautiful moments were kept sacred from public eye, and I'm grateful the messy moments were spared the public eye. God knew what He was doing. He knew what He would call me to and the protection I needed when I couldn't see it.

He knew that every hurt was necessary to shape and mold me into the woman Ryan needed as his wife. He knew our relationship was the one that would restore all that had been broken, wounded, and lost - for both of us.

I'm glad I spent that last single Valentine's Day with the Lord. I'm glad I was honest about my hurts and open to His healing. I'm glad He had a plan for me that was so much closer than I could even know. I'm glad He allowed brokenness and I'm glad He brought the healing.

Praying for you today, my bloggy friends. Those of you who are hurting and waiting...I'm praying for you. Praying God will bring a miracle to your day of showing you HIS deep love for you and praying He has a miracle ahead to bring you the love He has for you. And in it all, I'm praying you'll have the eyes to see His perspective at the time of His choosing.

Much love from Shafferland to you.

92 County Tour: Boone County

This past Saturday, Ryan and I toured our 16th county out of the 92 in our fine state! As you saw yesterday, the weather in Indiana was erratic at best throughout the week, so I tried to choose a county that didn't have a ton of outdoor fun, because I like to save those for good weather weeks. As it turned out, we had a warm and stunning day. Go figure! LOL!

We chose Boone County, which is about an hour south of us, and outside of going to visit a model home there a couple of years ago, I'm not sure either of us had been to Boone County before. This county is named for frontiersman Daniel Boone, but it's not entirely a frontier of things to do. we had fun, but there wasn't enough for a whole day of activity.

First, our picture...which we almost forgot to take and had to swing around in front of a city park to grab it. Please overlook the backdrop. LOL!

This is the first time we've gone to a county and haven't hit a true coffee shop. In my research, I could actually only find one coffee shop in the entire county, which is really sad in and of itself. The shop was also part of a balloon shop, and it closed at NOON on Saturdays. Equally sad! We had a donut shop we wanted to visit and it was just going to be too much sugar to do a coffee shop and a donut shop in the same hour. So we deferred to the donuts and never got to try anything from Balloon World and Coffee House.

We arrived in the county seat of Lebanon about 10:15 in the morning and went straight to Titus Bakery to have our breakfast.

Isn't this the COOLEST mural on a building?!?!?

When we arrived, the line was out the door, and we probably waited a good 20-25 minutes to order our donuts. Obviously a well loved shop! It's a third generation family owned business, and while the wait was long, the food was worth it. DELICIOUS donuts. (And HUGE! And not overpriced!) My only sadness with the whole process was that when I got to the front to order, I felt like I had to hurry, because the line behind me was still out the door, and because they had three people taking orders across the front of the donut display case, it was hard to see the full scope of what they had to offer. Since we were new, we didn't know what we wanted, and it was hard to see it all. But I am positive you cannot get anything BAD there, so our choices were excellent.

We got fresh brew to make it as close to a coffee shop experience as we could, and had a great morning just sitting in the shop, enjoying our breakfast! (And consequently, we were too full to eat anything else in the county the entire day. We had planned to have lunch there too, but there was no way we could possibly think of eating any more!)

Anyway. Totally worth the wait, and if you're an Indiana person reading this, and Westfield is closer to you than Lebanon, there's a location there as well!

I'd read online that also in Lebanon, we could find a little establishment called Bekah's Westside Cafe. HOW COOL IS THAT!?!? Even though eating was clearly out (see above), I wanted my picture taken with the sign, so we drove over there for that. (It was kind of on a main street, so I wanted to just get the picture and get out. I hate being stared at!)

I wanted to get a picture of the courthouse, too, because I'd read online that the dome is the second largest in size in the whole state. It really was a huge courthouse, and one of the nicer pieces of architecture in Lebanon, we thought.

There was another building mentioned as having quite a history, so we went to see it as well. It's an old milk factory that has been transformed into a theater (drama theater, not big screen theater). There's still an old smokestack outside the building that bears the word "milk" on it. (Apparently it used to be taller and say Wilson's Milk, but now it just has the lower section that says Milk.) Cool building, and I love that they continue to use it!

Before we left town, we made one last stop at Tru-Finds Treasures, which was a fun little antique/repurposed treasure store.

(Ryan thought Braeya would really enjoy taking a ride in that little Ferris Wheel. Clearly he has never actually met her.)

We left Lebanon and went to the other main city in the county: Zionsville. It is a darling little town. Its main street was completely quaint and full of little shops. Kind of reminded me of downtown Nashville (Indiana) on a smaller scale. And by the time we got to Zionsville, the day had blossomed into completely sunny and warm, so we just walked all around the town, seeing the little stores. I was especially taken with the bookstore, where they sold old (really expensive!!!) copies of books and featured local authors and even had a dog that lived right there in the store. It was my happy place.

This old church is also for sale. Oh my word. How darling is this!?!?!!?!

We found a nature trail that circled a park, so we took a walk on that, and it was just amazing to us that we could be out taking  walk without coats in the middle of February!

We left mid-afternoon to come back home (where we proceeded to go on another long walk, just because we could!) - but we had a fun time in Boone County. Sixteen down, seventy-six to go!