The Shafferland Shuffle

Oh my dear people. If you need us today, just knock loudly. I fear we may be in for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng nap this afternoon! :) But while we snore (and just excuse us for that) here are some peeks into our week!

* I told you last week that we got our Christmas tree on Saturday night, but alas, he was soaked from the all day rain fest on Saturday, and we thought it might not be in our best interest to laden him with electrical wires and such at that time. So after church and some rest on Sunday, we got him all gussied up! :) We so dearly love having him twinkle in the corner of the living room. He makes us happy, curved trunk and all!

* Monday was my mom's follow up appointment with her surgeon (or his assistant, rather...but we won't go into the sadness of not getting to see the actual surgeon!) so I tagged along as secretary extraordinaire. Apparently that office is usually pretty quick, but we had a two hour wait and we were all pooped when it was over! (Mom most of all!) That night, Ryan and I went on our unique U date, where we did random acts of kindness. It was fun!

* Tuesday morning I popped into Hobby Lobby to pick up a few things, and I found this sign I MUST HAVE at some point. Because, you know, it's just true. We were actually supposed to have a dinner guest that night, but she was sick and canceled. So I used my time to make cookies (which were amazing) and Ryan worked on paperwork, with Braeya's help, of course.

* Wednesday was the fun day when both my sisters arrived for Thanksgiving, and we got to surprise Mom! She was still in the rehab hospital and had NO idea either of them were in town. Surprise success! We ordered pizza and hung out with her at the hospital to eat dinner, and then we had a big old family B and B party here at our house. We worked on Thanksgiving dinner and then watched the DVR'd season premiere of Fixer Upper!

* Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving, and even though I haven't really told you about it (come back tomorrow) it was a successful day! Mom got a day pass from the hospital and showed up to a house smelling of all the goodness of Thanksgiving and we had fun here in Shafferland!

* Friday was another big day for Mom, because she actually got released to go home!! My Kansas sister was still here and took a turn staying with her at the hospital for the day, going to her therapy and such, so I got some work done at home! We packed up multiple vehicles, got Mom home, set up her Christmas tree, and then Lori stayed there and Ryan and I came home and crashed!

* Ryan had to work yesterday, so I worked at home, and then last night, we hosted a (very small) gathering of my high school game night buddies! It was a simple little gathering, but we had fun anyway. None of them had seen our new house, because we haven't hosted the last couple of rounds, so it was fun to give tours!

The Saturday Six

One.

 Holidays have a way of bringing out all kinds of stress and awkward situations, don't they? This is an excellent article about how to handle some of those sticky, frustrating times in the most grace-filled possible ways. From special dietary needs among dinner guests to kids who blurt out the wrong thing at the wrong time, there are some great solutions found here!

Two.

Some unique gift ideas in this list! If you're looking for some gifts with a twist, check it out! 

Three.

How many of these Christmas movies have you seen? I thought I would clean right up and I've only seen TWENTY of the fifty! Time to sit in front of the TV! 

Four.

My goodness - we sure do have some friends in major trenches right now. Places of deep hurt and devastating life situations. Maybe you're among them. If so, read these words from Barbara Rainey. Hope they comfort you!

Five.

If you're dreading the increase of stuff as you enter the holidays, maybe it's time to do a pre-Christmas de-clutter? Here's a great list of things to easily clean out of your house so you can breathe a bit more easily and have more space! (I must say I can't agree with the books part. That's just the writer in me. Normal people would be okay with it, I'm sure!)

Six.

Photo provided by author

 

This week I went a little bit of a different direction with my book of the week. (And I didn't have time to sit and savor nearly as much as I would have liked. You know: holidays, houseguests, hosting, and more!)

A few weeks ago, an author named Kathryn Collett emailed me and asked if she could send me a copy of her book called Phoebe's Journey Part One: Of Pride and Passion. I wasn't familiar with Kathryn's writing, but I'm always willing to read someone new (to me) so I said yes! She sent me an electronic copy of the book, and this week, I read it.

Phoebe's Journey is based on a woman in the New Testament, but she's only mentioned briefly, so you may not even be familiar with her! (Kathryn said she's actually described with a total of fifty words.) She was a believer in the early church and carried Paul's letter to the Roman church on his behalf. Obviously, since Phoebe only gets fifty words in the Bible, very little is known about her. Therefore, Kathryn's work of fiction is purely speculation on her part of what Phoebe's life might have been like.

The book takes readers back to Phoebe's younger life and the trials she faces when her father dies very unexpectedly. Phoebe and her mother struggle with not only the deep grief that accompanies their loss, but also the logistics of what to do with his successful shipping company, since women of that day typically did not conduct business affairs. As you read, you begin to see some of the character traits within Phoebe that might explain why she was chosen to work so closely with the Apostle Paul.

Some people get very nervous when authors write biblical fiction. Some find it crossing a line to take the Word of God and make it fictional. But I understand why Kathryn wanted to do it. I did similar things in my Advent devotional, because as Kathryn says in her introduction, we have a tendency to forget that the people we read about in the Bible were real people. They all had regular lives with successes and failures, hopes and heartaches, and all the same kinds of things we have now.

For that reason, I found the book interesting. It was interesting to think about Phoebe and Paul (in particular) in a real-person light. I hadn't considered what some of their day-in-day-out life might have been filled with, and this book gave me at least some options. (Whether or not they were true.) I like that about biblical fiction.

I also haven't done a ton of research on what first century life was like. The habits and customs of that day are foreign to me, so learning about them through the fun lens of fiction was interesting for me.

I will say this book has a lot of characters, and most are purely fiction. Kathryn acknowledges this in the beginning and even provides a list of characters for your reference. If I'd been reading a physical book in my hand, this might have been more helpful to me, because I could have flipped back and forth. It was too much of a pain to scroll and then find my place again, so I just tried to wing it with keeping everyone straight and it didn't always go so well for me. The names, being first century names, were unfamiliar to me and I kept getting confused on that part.

If you like biblical fiction and are interested in reading what life might have been like for one character we really know very little about in truth, this book would be a good pick for you. The stories of the shipping industry, gladiators, and the treatment of members of the early church are enlightening, if you don't know much about that part of history.

Kathryn plans two more books in this series, and the next one releases in the spring, so if you read the first book and love it, you'll have more chances to spend time with these characters!

* The author provided an electronic copy of this book to me at no charge. *

So That Was Fun!

So I think most of you know that a little over two weeks ago, my mom had a double knee replacement. She had a big goal (pre-surgery) of feeling well enough and being home in time to host Thanksgiving. That was pretty lofty!!

What she did not know was that my sister from Kansas had been planning a trip to Indiana for Thanksgiving! We didn't tell her because trekking across this section of the country in late November is always subject to weather, and no one could fully commit until the forecast was set!

We realized a few days ago that hosting wasn't going to be possible for Mom, which was hard and sad for her, but we were able to step in and host in her place! (That's why I scurried so much to decorate our house last weekend!)

But before we get to the Thanksgiving Day part, let's talk about the surprise part!

Mom was still in the rehab hospital on Wednesday, and that was the day Lori and Jeff arrived. My sister from Indianapolis came up early too, and we all sneaked into the back door of the hospital so we could tiptoe down to her room.

I say tiptoe, because a skill Mom has developed during her hospital stay is the ability to determine a person's identity by their footsteps in the hallway. So I clomped down the hall first and once Ryan and I were both in position with phones to record and photograph...the tiptoe crew came in!

 She was indeed shocked! (And so happy!)

We hung out in her room for a while, talking and catching up:

 And then we ordered pizzas and had a party in the dining room! (My dad hates pizza, so he ate the hospital dinner they brought Mom. LOL!)

Quick family picture:

And a funny picture:

We let Mom rest and the rest of us came back for a big Shafferland B&B party! (AKA Thanksgiving dinner prep!)

It was a fun night! :) Our first Shafferland Thanksgiving hosting...underway!

Thankful and Blessed

It's Thanksgiving Day (at least here in the States...I know it may not be for some of you reading near and far) and I thought I'd pause to look back over the past twelve months and give thanks for what God has done in our lives! I also know many of you are busy today with dinners and such, so if you don't have time for this today, don't worry! Go enjoy your time of rest and come back to catch up whenever you can!

* I'm thankful for our fourth anniversary last December and its gateway to our fifth year of marriage. We had the most lovely weekend celebrating our marriage, and it included a carriage ride. That was sort of a romantic bucket list item for me, and it was every bit the delight I imagined it would be. Hey Ryan, remember when I accidentally threw your gloves out of the carriage? Whoopsie! Glad we got those back before the horse's bean dinner kicked in!

* I'm thankful for Ryan's swift(ish) diagnosis, surgery, and return to good health when his gallbladder quit on us this past January. We certainly never saw that little health hiccup coming, and it took a few more hoops than it should have to actually get someone to order the correct test, but once we got that bad boy out of there, Ryan was a whole new man. And we could eat things besides chicken soup!

* I'm thankful for Mom's successful hip replacement in February and the army of health care workers who banded together to bring her to full recovery! Ryan went with me to the hospital to visit her, he worked to get her set up with a great home health therapist, he helped with her outpatient therapy, and he helped us understand all the medical-ese!

* I'm thankful for the chance to see the Gaither Vocal Band one more time before David left the group. Ryan surprised me in March with tickets to a concert, and we managed to squeak in to David's second to last performance with them. It was wonderful to see David, yes, but my goodness: what a night of true worship, too!

* I'm thankful for Ryan's life, which we celebrated on his birthday in April! We got to spend an evening out with our friends, Mike and Angie, and we didn't know when we headed out on the town that night that they would be moving across the country shortly. We miss them so much, but we are thankful for great memories of double dates together with them!

* I'm thankful for our birthday getaway in May, and even though it was crazy frigid, it was such a treat to stay on a boat and breakfast! We love finding quirky little twists of places to visit, and this was just such a place! A cozy little B&B - on a boat! We loved exploring Saugatuck, Michigan, and someday when we go to Michigan, it will be warm. We're just sure of it.

* I'm thankful Ryan's sister had a beautiful wedding day back in June, when she got married in a barn at the family farm. Outdoor weddings in Indiana - at any point in the year - can be a real weather gamble, but she got a lovely (although windy!) day to tie the knot!

* I'm thankful for the conference I attended in July! Even though it kept me apart from Ryan, which was excruciating on all levels, it was such a worthwhile trip. I learned, I made connections, I soaked up everything I could, and I am just so thankful for the provision to go and Ryan's encouragement to do it!

* I'm thankful for the chance to celebrate Ryan's 20th high school reunion in August. It was so much fun to see his classmates and meet up with friends and family throughout the course of the weekend!

(FYI that was a recreated photo. The guy in the back isn't really mad!)

* I am thankful we had the chance to keep Phoebe for a whole month in September! (Okay, really August into September, but whatever.) She was so much fun!!!! She failed at convincing Ryan we needed a dog, but she was a joy to have for those twenty-some days!

* I am thankful to celebrate five years of engagement this past October. We went out for a fancy dinner and relived that beautiful day when Ryan proposed!

* And today, on this Thanksgiving Day, I'm thankful for Mom's successful double knee replacement and the fact that we get to spend today together as a family. Yes! My sister and brother-in-law from out of state came in to surprise her! They arrived yesterday, and my sister from Indianapolis drove up a day early to be here too, and we just went right ahead and started a "thankful and blessed" celebration!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, my friends! You are a joy to my heart. Thanks for interacting with me here in our little corner of the web! :)

Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Buying Homes

Last week I shared with you some pearls of wisdom from my friend Lesley, who works in real estate. She offered some sound advice on selling homes and let us peek behind the scenes of her work as she helps people do just that!

This week I want to look at the other side of the real estate coin: buying homes. Anyone else have a realtor.com addiction? No? Just me? I adore looking at homes for sale, and occasionally, Ryan and I will even visit an open house just for fun. No, we're not looking to move. My goodness, we just settled in here! But I will say that looking just for fun is what led to move last year! I had a friend in Marion who showed me some houses just for the pure delight of it, and that led Ryan and me to pursue looking in earnest!

Looking for homes can be fun. But buying a home is kind of like adding a whole separate job to your life. It's intense, it's a huge decision, and today my best friend Lynnette lets us walk a mile in her help-people-buy-a-home shoes!

Lynnette has been working in real estate for four years. She and her husband recently relocated about halfway across the country, so she's starting over in a new spot! Lynnette got into real estate because both she and her husband have a huge passion for helping people through financial challenges. In most families, a home is their biggest financial asset, so Lynnette wants to help them make good decisions for their family about what house to buy, how much to spend, and even the right time to buy! She also appreciates the flexibility in schedule of the career. It suits their family lifestyle the best!

She may be starting over in her location, but the love of the job is deep in her heart, and here is what Lynnette says about helping people purchase homes!

 (This is Lynnette!)

1. Real estate agents do what they do for the love of their clients.

Sure there are some fun parts to the job, and of course some frustrating parts, too. But Lynnette said her biggest reward is the moment she hands buyers the keys to their new home. The good and the bad of the job takes a back seat to that moment. And trust her: there is a lot of work that happens before that big day.

No two days are alike for a real estate agent. That makes the job both fun and challenging! But what a blessing it is for agents like Lynnette to help people with one of their biggest financial decisions while simultaneously helping them find home!


2. Real estate agents work entirely on commission. 

Lynnette says they don't get a salary of any kind or receive any kind of pay from a brokerage firm unless they sell property. And did you know the average time to sell a home is 3-6 months? (Ryan and I are clearly not your average home sellers. It's a wonder any agent would work with us at all!) During those months of waiting, agents are spending money on gas, advertising, professional associations, MLS listing fees, and more, but they don't receive a paycheck until the transaction closes.

So if you're purchasing a home, and you're staring at the dollar figure that spells out your agent's commission, it may look huge, but remember that amount gets split with the brokerage firm and represents roughly six months of work on your agent's part!


3. Get pre-approved for a loan and don't be afraid to ask your agent for suggestions on professionals to help you through the process!

When Lynnette works with buyers, she encourages them to speak to a lender and get pre-approved for a loan amount. That step is necessary because it tells her realistically the price range her clients can afford. I mean, we all love the huge, pretty homes, but we can't all afford the huge, pretty price tags that accompany them, and it's only fair to everyone to be shopping in the right price range.

Lynnette says as an agent, she has cultivated relationships with several lenders to make sure she can make good recommendations to her clients. She also works with inspectors, insurance agents, settlement agents, and many other professionals to help clients through the buying and selling process.

(Side note from me! When Ryan and I bought this home, our agent recommended a lender that was local and amazing to work with. It was a blessing to sit in her office and have her walk us through every step! We had never heard of her before, but our agent said she was super, and boy was she ever right!)

4. Do some research, if you can!

I believe this is code for "it's okay to have a realtor.com addiction." It's so helpful if you can do some research online prior to your first trip to see properties in person. Of course your agent is happy to select some properties for you to see, but it's so helpful if you can give insight into the kind of house you'd like the square footage you need, the number of bedrooms you must have, the location you'd like, and more.

If you're local and can do so, you might even drive by some of those properties you think you like to see if you like the area. If you can't, don't be afraid to rely on your agent to help you with some of those decisions!

(Another side note from me: Long before I married Ryan, when I planned to move to Fort Wayne, I worked with an agent as I searched for a home. I knew nothing about Fort Wayne and had no idea where I might want to live in that big old city. It was so helpful to me that the agent was willing to give me some insights about neighborhoods! I was single and nervous about living alone in a city where I knew only my co-workers. She was so helpful in sharing with me information about places that were completely foreign to me.) 

5. Don't go it alone!

Lynnette suggests that you consider hiring a buyer's agent. She only works with buyers when she can represent them as their official agent. That allows her to negotiate on their behalf, advise them through the process, and make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible! 

***

Ryan and I certainly appreciate the fine folks of real estate! We had an agent who fought for us like crazy when we sold Ryan's Greentown house about three years ago. We had some unbelievable obstacles in selling that home, and our agent saw things she'd never seen in her (rather lengthy) career. She stayed right with us, though, fighting hard, going to bat for us, and making sure we made it to the finish line, even though that race took 141 days from offer to closing!

We had two stellar agents who worked with us to sell our Marion home. We appreciated all the time, money, showings, and open houses both of them put into their respective time with us! We also appreciated the final selling agent for us also serving as our agent when we bought our current Shafferland residence. She made the whole thing FUN!

Thanks, Lynnette (and Lesley from last week) for letting us walk a mile in your shoes and showing us what it's like to work in this fun, unpredictable, important field that helps people find home!

 
To see the rest of the Walk A Mile in My Shoes Posts - look here!

The Date Inspired By the Letter U

Podcast Tuesday!! Stories from our week and a wish for you to have a HAPPY Thanksgiving week! :)

 Source

It's been over a month since we did an alphabetical date. WHAT!?!??! We are on the home stretch, and I'm excited about the dates we have coming up to finish out the list!

This  one was also pretty exciting, although we kept running into issues that caused us to reschedule it!

This date was unique in that it was unplanned...by us, anyway. My friend Kari thought up a series of date ideas and put each one in a different envelope. She gave them to me and we could pick whichever one we wanted to be our date night!

We planned to do this date last weekend, since Ryan had Saturday off work, but he ended up working so late on our porch (which really was more important) that we didn't have time for a date at the end of the day.

Then we planned to do it this most recent weekend, after Ryan got off work, but it was SO nasty, we just were not in the mood to go out.

So we did it last night!

We chose date #3, which was so perfect for us. It was a date centered around random acts of kindness!!

We were challenged to do 3 random acts of kindness, and though we modified a couple, we had a great time with all of them!

The first challenge was to purchase 2 boxes of Ding Dongs. We were to tape a provided tag to each box. (The tags said "You've been Ding Dong ditched.") We were supposed to leave the boxes on people's front porches, ring the doorbell and run. We were a bit nervous about doing that after dark, for fear of scaring people or getting the police called on us if they had security cameras. So we modified the challenge a bit. We took the boxes to the hospital where Mom's been, and we left them at the nurses' station. (They were all out tending patients, so they didn't see us!)

The second challenge was to leave a bag of laundry detergent and a bag of quarters taped to a washer at a laundromat, along with a provided tag that said, "This load's on us." (Two of those, actually.) Again, the people who watch too much Dateline were nervous about leaving unidentified white powdery substances in a laundromat, so we just did the quarters, but we had taping them and running!

The third challenge was to purchase a $15 gift card to a grocery store and find a person to hand the card to while in the store. We walked allll through the store, looking for the perfect person. We found a nice lady shopping alone and handed it to her. I so wish we could have gotten a picture of her shocked face. She had no idea what to make of it. She said no one had ever done that for her before, and that made it TOTALLY worth it!

So that was our fun date! It was a blast to do things for other people. GREAT idea, Kari. Very unique!

(To see all our alphabetical dates so far, look here!)

Getting Our Tree!

We have a tradition we started back in 2012, when we celebrated our first Christmas together. We hadn't even been married a month yet, and we hadn't had the chance to give proper thought to things like Christmas traditions. It's kind of a wonder we have traditions at all!

But neither of us had ever done the live tree thing before (at least as adults) so we decided we'd have one live tree in our decoration collection each year. For our first four Christmases, we visited different Christmas tree farms around the state, picking out cute little trees and bringing them home to be part of our season.

Last year, the day we set aside to go to the tree farm brought the first wintry mix of the year. We decided it wasn't the best day to go, but we would have to wait over a week for our next opportunity to find a farm. I didn't want to delay my decorating, so we visited the Kroger Christmas Tree Farm (okay, lot) and picked out a pre-cut tree from their stash.

It ended up being the best financial choice for us. While we love the fun of going to a farm and walking among the trees and finding ours, those trees are not cheap! We could get a tree twice as big as any we'd ever had, for less than we'd paid at most farms.

We decorated earlier this year than we ever have before, mostly because we are hosting Thanksgiving, and I wanted the house to be all pretty and cozy. (Mom will host Christmas, so we'll look at her tree that day!)

I'd been keeping an eye on Kroger, to see when their trees might come in, and as of Saturday, I'd not seen any. That afternoon, while Ryan was still at work, I called to see if they knew when they might be delivered. The lady who answered the phone said they were being unloaded from a truck that very minute. Well....perfect timing!

So we went out in the freezing cold and rain (why????) to pick out our tree. We made short work of that choice due to the aforementioned freezing cold and rain.

 (Guarding the tree while he went inside to pay. And oh my soul, that NOSE!!)

We planned to decorate him that very night, but alas, he was SOAKED. We didn't think putting strands of light on a drenched tree seemed very wise. So we just set him all up and let him acclimate overnight.

He ended up being a lot bigger OUT of his net than in it. 

Sunday afternoon, we put the lights on him and went through our tradition of reading the stories behind all our ornaments as we put them on the tree.

(Side note if you don't know: this particular tree is our "story" tree. All the main ornaments are ones we've collected on our various adventures, plus an ornament to represent each year and a piece of each tree's trunk. We fill it in with colored balls, but the main ornaments tell our story. As we collect the ornaments, I take pictures of them and write on the back the year we got them and the stories behind each one. We read those stories as we decorate!)

The only ornaments on this tree that have NOT been collected since we got married? Our very first ornaments from our childhood. :)

I filled in with a few extras, and then Ryan put the S on top to complete it!

It may be tethered to the wall in three places because it has a curved trunk, and it may be raining needles when bumped, but it's our tree! A piece of Shafferland history!

(Further photos of our Christmas decor to follow later!)

Linking up with Tamar!