The Saturday Six

One.

When I was in high school, one of my English teachers gave us an assignment to write our own obituary. (The point was not to be morbid; it was intended to make us think about what we hoped to accomplish with our lives that we'd be remembered for.) A few days ago, I came upon this post with a similar feel: what would it be like to write your own eulogy? Are you living with "the end" in mind? What people will say about you when you're gone?

Two.

I don't know him personally, but Austin is a student at the high school Ryan and I went to. (We went to school with his mom, but we're not going to talk about how old that makes us...you know...since Austin is about to be a senior.) He battled cancer last year and just found out it's back again. He's decided to document this round of his battle to help other teens (and their parents) understand what it's really like. Riley Hospital featured him in this article, so I thought I'd share it!

Three.

If you like to entertain, check out this "epic" chip and salsa board. (I always feel like the word epic is overused, but I will concede that this is the most epic chip board I've ever seen.) Ryan would probably find this appropriate for, you know, like a Tuesday night. :)

Four.

I adore the decorating in this little cottage. SO many great ideas if you're looking to make over something in your house. (Or just if you like to be house-nosy.)

Five.

It's been a while since I had a tiny house fix. This post took care of that! Some super cute ones in here!

Six.

Source

Well this was such fun! One of my birthday gifts was this Magnolia Table cookbook by (of course) Joanna Gaines. What a great gift!

I know, I know. Probably all of you have your own copy by now, but if you don't, I'll tell you a little about it, because I finally had time to just sit and savor it this week. I will start by saying you don't have to be a Fixer Upper fanatic to enjoy this book. This is a cozy book of home, family, and food, so if you like any or all of those things, you'll enjoy it! But if you are a fan, this gives you a chance to learn little things you may not have known!

Here's what I loved:

* Joanna says right out loud that this cookbook is about sharing a love of recipes and not about pretending to be some gourmet chef. She shares her heart for food she loves, and that makes me happy. I love to do the same!

* She shares glimpses into what she loves about cooking and creating for her family, and she shares a bit about why she chose the recipes she did. The stories are not long and belabored, but they're long enough to show you a bit of a peek into her world.

* Many of the recipes are normal things that I'd be likely to make. I always hate it when I'm looking through a cookbook and the recipes call for really weird ingredients and things I can't pronounce. The majority of these are good home-cooking comfort food that I would enjoy.

* Pictures! I do love to drool over pictures, and there were many to enjoy!

* She's marked the recipes that are featured at their restaurant in Waco. (That way if you want to feel like you're cooking restaurant food, you can know when you are!)

Basically I loved the great mix of practical, usable recipes and stories that are enjoyable to read.

Since I just now had the chance to sit down and look it over thoroughly, I've not made anything from it yet, but I have some friends who have made a goal to try one recipe from it every week (or two weeks) and I think that sounds like a great goal! A chance to try something new without trying everything at once!

(PS: Reminder: this makes a great gift!)

Top Ten Throwbacks #5

You know how much Ryan and I adore our little vacations (and our big ones too, but there are many more little ones than big ones). Did you know that I didn't even go on my first real grown-up vacation until 2009? It's true! Ten years ago at this time, I hadn't taken a vacation apart from tagging along with my parents.

Why? Well, mostly I couldn't afford it. (I simply can't express to you without actual numbers how small my income was at the start of my working life!) Add to that the lack of a travel companion and you have all the reasons why I didn't travel!

But in 2009, I saved my pennies and headed out on a trip with my friend Amber! She and I were both single and poor, so this seemed like the best way to have fun while working within our limitations. We had the best time. We went to Hershey, Pennsylvania and loved every minute of it.

(I would actually love to go back with Ryan. I think he'd adore it. Bonus? One of my high school classmates works in the upper ranks for Hershey. I bet she could tell us everything we need to know for the best Hershey trip ever!)

Since this was a pre-Ryan trip, it's not featured in the "Our Travels and Tours" tab on the blogaroo, so I thought I'd share it with you here! You might need a virtual vacation to get you into your weekend, right?

* Where in the world was Bekah? - Let the record show (as this post records) this was a pre-GPS kind of trip. MapQuest all the way, baby! Remember following actual maps and looking at exit numbers to get you to your destination?

* Headed to Hershey - And according to this post, when I came home, I printed 262 pictures. Oh my, how times have changed in the last nine years! (No more developing pictures, and also, now 262 would be my picture tally from day ONE!)

* Our hotel - Apparently my first experience making my own waffles on a continental breakfast bar. Yeah, I'm a pro at that now. In fact, does anyone have a waffle maker handy???

* Macro Settings - Amber and I went to the Hershey Botanical Gardens (GO, GO, GO if you ever visit there. They are BEAUTIFUL!) and that was the day Amber the artist taught me to use the macro setting on my camera. I became obsessed. (I said I was obsessed, not a pro, so give grace!)

* The Weeping Tree - Apparently back in those days I did a separate post for every little thing I saw. So here's a peek at an enormous weeping tree. I don't know if it's still standing out there, but if it is and you go for a visit, you should definitely go roam around under it. You could build a whole hidden house under there!

* The Children's Garden - I was an overgrown toddler, even then, so of course we went to see the children's section of these gardens. They had a whole area devoted to teaching fractions using brick Hershey bars. Now if my actual teachers had used chocolate to teach me, I might have picked up math a bit better!

* Garden beauty - It was so pretty out there, even though we had an overcast day. (That was the day I learned that your pictures often turn out better if it's NOT so bright.)

* Chocolate Tasting - Amber and I still talk about this part of our trip and how much we loved it. It's like a wine tasting (I mean I assume...I've never done that) but you taste various kinds of liquid/melted chocolate. It's not healthy, but it is both fun and delicious. She and I actually shared one and still left stuffed! If you ever go, DO THIS!!!!

* The Museum - I roll my eyes at myself now because I stated in the post that I was bored with the regular museum exhibits, but I enjoyed the interactive parts. I have a feeling now I would enjoy BOTH. 

* Visiting the Chocolate Lab - Not a dog. An actual lab! I loved this part and would absolutely do it again if we ever go. We learned about how to make chocolate and actually made a few things. (And got to wear a hairnet, so there's that gem...)

* Shopping at Chocolate World - I won't lie. I'd go back for this part TODAY!

* The Bake Shoppe Store - I think if I did go back, I'd do the activities I skipped last time! (I'm sure I skipped them due to lack of funds. Sounds like me.)

* Our Chocolate Lunch - I would do this again too. So. Worth. It. 

* The Chocolate Ride Tour - It had singing cows! What's not to love about that? :) Also...I see I'm wearing blue nail polish. A foreshadowing of my wedding nail polish! (Well, at least on my tootsies. I went nice and traditional on my hands.) 

All in all - a delightful first vacation. Loved it!!!!! If you've never been, I realize these posts aren't my best travel writing, but hopefully they give you enough of a glimpse to know that this is a fun place to go and worth the trip planning! Definitely hope Ryan and I can make it a stop at some point! 

Thanks for traveling on a virtual vacation with me. Now go get yourself some chocolate!

Top Ten Throwbacks #4

Oh, be still, my little beating heart.

In my pilfering through old posts, I came across this one from days of yore when I was single and my life was mostly filled with caring for bonus nieces and nephews. You know, I am so grateful for the families who welcomed me in and gave me a place when I didn't have a husband to fill my days. It's something that Ryan and I try to make sure we do for others now, because we remember how much it meant to us when we were on the receiving end!

Back in those days, my little buddies loved to come over and play at my house, and upon occasion, they were even able to spend the night. A treat all the way around!

I learned from this post that I was deep in the era of sleeping until eleven, noon, or sometimes even later on the weekends. I had forgotten just how late I used to sleep! (My preferred day begins at noon and runs until about four in the morning.) Anyway. During this weekend sleepover, I learned that kids of that age really don't sleep until noon. Or even nine. (Bet these two do now!!)

This is the same family we saw just a few weekends ago at a birthday party, so I have updated pictures with these two.

This was Liam nine years ago when he was snuggled up on my couch watching Cars.

(There are those pink walls again!) I still have this couch. I'm actually sitting on it right now while I'm writing to you. It's starting to get to that season of life where it needs to be replaced, but it's just so comfortable. It'll be next to impossible to find anything in our price range that's this snuggly.)

Here I am with Liam this year. He's hilarious, just like he's always been.

And Savannah! The night of the sleepover, she was busy giving me a manicure:

And now? All grown up:

I'm not only grateful these families welcomed me in back in the day, but I'm thankful they still welcome me with open arms. Ryan too!

And I'm grateful to have such great memories with these fantastic kids.

Top Ten Throwbacks #3

Thanks for being such good sports and going down memory lane with me! I'm back for the third day of my top ten throwbacks to old blog posts and memories!

I have a feeling that most of us have gotten to enjoy some pretty unique and fun adventures, but we tend to forget those opportunities and just wish for what we've not experienced instead. So today I invite you to see one of my unique moments from years gone by and maybe remember some of your own fun adventures!

Here's the original post about this one! Back when I worked at Indiana Wesleyan, one of the ladies from another department was in charge of finding people to be part of a photo shoot for some promotional materials for the graduate studies program. I'm not sure how or why she thought of me, but she did, and she invited me to be part of it.

Modeling has actually never been a career option for me (HA!) but this was a fun moment dabbling in it. There were three of us who were part of this shoot and we got to know each other QUITE well by the time it was over. I think the thing I learned that surprised me the most was how SMALL those little photo sets are. The three of us were all crammed into each other, constantly being told to smash in even closer, and the lights and camera were right up next to us as well.

Part of the time, I was dressed as a teacher/business person, but part of the time I was dressed as a nurse. They brought in some scrubs and I changed into those for a few of the photos. (Funny almost-blooper from that: I'd worn a dress for the photo shoot, and when I went to change into the scrubs, the top was plenty big, but the pants were snug and I wasn't sure I could get them on. I didn't know what I would do if I couldn't get them on, since I had worn a dress to work and not a top/bottom combo. Fortunately I squeezed into them. I also thought that was probably a good sign I needed to go on a diet.)

Anyway! Some of the photos were used on billboards in Ohio, and some were used on floor displays that recruiters took with them to various locations. One day, a floor display showed up in the building where I worked, so I got to see myself larger than life! (Always scary.)

That was the beginning and end of my modeling career, and I really have no desire to do more of it, except...I do think it would be fun to be a cover model for a fiction book. (You know. The kind of book where they only show the person from the back. HA!)

(I uncovered one of the nurse-in-scrubs photos. Enjoy!)

OH! One time a couple of years later, I was in a commercial for IWU too. I had to walk in the background of whatever was happening. Lots of takes to get that commercial! Alas, I have no proof of it. Scrapbooking fail.

So what about you? Have you ever gotten to do anything fun, different, or unusual? Any fellow "models" out there?

Top Ten Throwbacks #2

It's podcast Tuesday, and a BIG week in our world last week translates into a lot of stories for you! Enjoy!

 Listen here.

If you missed yesterday's post...I'm going on a little trip down memory lane to look at how life has changed since I started blogging twelve years ago. Yesterday was a look at the changes (for the better!!!) in technology in that time span. Today I bring you one of my favorites.

Here is the original post, which is really not all that exciting, in my opinion, but the pictures are ever so priceless.

In 2006, actually right before I started blogging, I went to my 10 year high school reunion. My main goal was to look very different from the way I looked in high school. (That actually wasn't too hard. Losing the perm took care of that mostly by itself.)

But I had started to go gray, which I blame entirely on my job in the world of math, and I did NOT want to show up to my reunion looking all matronly.

I'd been coloring my hair on my own for a while, but of course the one time it counted, the box of color failed, failed, failed me.

This is how I looked one week before my reunion:

I mean, isn't it just SO PRETTY?????

Orange is not my color.

My friend Marie, who put the color on for me, urged me to wash it out several minutes ahead of the timer, and I did, but it still came out as you see above. She rushed to the store to buy a new box to fix it, but ummmmm….

Not much better. As you can see, I got a cut shortly after the second attempt, but the lady who cut my hair was so booked in her schedule, she didn't have time to fix the color disaster for me. She could only cut it. She felt so bad about it, though, that she gave me everything I needed to fix the color with professional ingredients, and then a lady from my Bible study (who was also a hair stylist, though I didn't know it at the time) actually applied it for me. And she nixed my unibrow, which was super nice of her.

So by the time I went to the reunion, I did have nice, normal colored hair.  And I did win the award for most changed since high school! But this little adventure remains my absolute favorite hair story. I don't do my own color anymore. (I do touch up roots myself, but I'm very cautious about the colors I pick!)

Any of you have a good hair disaster story out there somewhere? Cut? Color?

Top Ten Throwbacks #1

I've had this idea roaming around in my head for a while now to do a top ten throwback series. Sometimes, as I pilfer back through my blog, I find things that either crack me up or really deserve an update or second visit for some reason, and I tell myself I should really throw back to some of the early days...and then I never do.

So I decided these next ten days will be my throwback days. Hope you enjoy! (Some of these posts may take you back to days before we even knew each other! Like this one, for example!)

I started blogging back in 2006 and had no particular direction for this blog. (I know. Some things never change.) But as I looked at those posts from what is now TWELVE YEARS AGO, I found something I just had to revisit.

The background. In 2006 I was hopelessly single, living in Marion, and working at Indiana Wesleyan. I had asked Mom if I could host the family Christmas that year so I could use modern technology to allow my sister in Kansas to actually be part of the family Christmas. She said yes, and that's how I came to host my first (I think) family Christmas.

Here is the original post if you'd like to read it in all its glory, but there are a few things I'd like to address, so I'll transfer some of the pictures to this post so you can see them easily.

Okay first of all, can we talk about the wall color? Ohhhh what a disaster this wall color was.

I can explain! For reasons still unknown to me, I wanted a living room with terra cotta colored walls. I am not particularly a southwestern style girl, so I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea for my house, but I did. I didn't have much money, so I saved my pennies and finally had enough to buy the paint, and when I did, it dried on the walls as decidedly PINK. PINK!!!!!!! Not terra cotta. I didn't have enough money to start all over, so my boss's wife helped me pick out a color to roll over it as a faux top design to soften the pink. Believe it or not, it did help, but I still cringe when I see these pictures. (This debacle had been fixed before I met Ryan. I doubt he would have married me otherwise. Just kidding. But he might have paused to question himself.)

But here was what I really wanted to talk about today. Do you ever stop to think about how far technology has come in these last twelve years?

When we included my sister that day, it looked a lot like this:

Where to begin? Do we start with how I had to disconnect my entire desktop computer in my office and haul it into the living room to reassemble it on top of my entertainment center? Do we talk about the boxy white monitor? Do we talk about the super cool speakers? Do we talk about all the cords? Do we talk about the alien-esque webcam clutching the top of the computer? Do we talk about Yahoo messenger: the video version?

WHERE DO WE BEGIN???

I laugh now when I see this because I remember what a huge, huge, huge ordeal it was to get all this set up and working for the day, so we could watch each other open gifts. Now? One punch of a FaceTime button and we're there!

(Ironically the ONLY time our family ever FaceTimes is on Christmas Day, so evidently we have not really kept  up with the times.)

Anyway. Anyone else remember these days of technology?

And before I go, let's not fail to mention the cordless home phone sitting next to the speaker! (I can't remember how many years I continued to have a home phone before I decided that was one extra bill I did not need.)

And though this picture was from a different post, I feel my first top ten throwback post would not be complete without a photo of your Bekah-girl from that technology-laden Christmas:

(Apparently computers are not the only smaller thing!)

The Shafferland Shuffle

A fun and busy week here in Shafferland! Hoping you had a similarly great week wherever you are!

* We thoroughly enjoyed our busy, lazy Sunday at home last week. I scrapbooked hard that afternoon and finished two albums I wanted to wrap up! We both took naps, and Braeya swiped Ryan's water during dinner. Sigh. This is why we need lids. It was such a pretty day, so we took a sunset walk to end a nearly perfect day.

* Monday I made burritos for lunch (clean eating version) and Ryan loved them so much he declared he could eat them every day forever. Impressive! I switched up my workout again, wondering if my body was getting too comfortable with the one I had been doing. I can attest that it is NOT comfortable with this one! :) Another beautiful sunset walk ended our day!

* We went to the county fair on Tuesday night! We had a great time walking around, seeing friends, sharing an elephant ear, and checking out our niece's Mini 4-H projects. It was fun that the fair wasn't SO packed that night. We could actually breathe a bit!

* I made the cutest taco salad bowls on Wednesday. Never made them before, but they were easy and (I won't lie!) delicious! That afternoon I worked on researching and writing a talk for this fall, and I finished reading my novel - with a little help from Braeya JoJo.

* As you already read, Thursday was the day we welcomed our new nephew, Camden, into the world! It was fun to get to snuggle a baby for a minute, and we are so thankful he's here safely. Ryan's mom and Allen took us out to dinner at the end of the day, so we got to spend a little extra time with them.

* We had run out of dessert on Friday, and I always like to make sure Ryan has dessert. So I made a clean eating version of apple crisp. It was very tasty! We stayed home that night so Ryan could work on laying a new drain in our yard. Though at first I thought it was a lifeline helicopter, it turned out to be a crop duster flying over our neighborhood all night. I hadn't ever seen a chopper version! Only airplane.

* Yesterday was SO much fun! We did so many things, it's hard to condense them all to one little list! But a highlight of the day was the DEER that came into our driveway and yard! Little Bambi! I was SO SO SO SO SO SO excited! We also had a visit from our friend Jessica, kept Phoebe all day, and had another fun night at the fair! AND we held the baby again. So much goodness in one day!

The Saturday Six

One.

One of my favorite cabinets in our kitchen is the corner cabinet that spins around and has tons of storage inside. We already owned some mini lazy Susans that I put all our spices on inside that cabinet so I can find things more easily. But if you don't own any, I found this hack for making your own with dollar store items!

Two.

A lounge-wear capsule wardrobe? Now THIS is my style! Working from home for the win!! (The post is old enough that not all the links still work but the pictures do. I want some of those shirts!!)

Three.

Those of you who know me well know that I joke about my parents being professional mourners. I realize mourning is no joke, and I don't intend to make light of that, but I've just seriously never known any other people in my life who go to as many funerals and viewings as the two of them. And it's always been that way. I had been to about a million before I even went to high school. So even though I'm only 40, I have gotten to know a lot of funeral home people over the years. And while it's probably straight up weird to have a "favorite" funeral home, I would have to say mine is the one over in Marion that I've been to the most often. And this week they were featured on the news because of their grief therapy dog! I don't know if this is a common thing or not, but Nero is quite the hero in Marion! Here's the link to the article about him.

Four. 

One of my Facebook friends shared this post this week. I don't know any of the people involved in this story, and I will warn you right now this is pure tragedy. But this woman's raw faith in raw grief is nothing short of inspiring and convicting.

Five.

I'm typically not a fan of sponsored blog posts, because they start to feel (just my personal opinion) like the random shameless advertising that gets crammed into movies. BUT! That aside, I do love this post's date crate idea. THAT is something I can get on board with. I may have to figure out a way to put one together and begin coming up with ideas for it!

Six.

Source

This Irene Hannon's Sisters and Brides series. I just so very dearly loved this series of books. Thanks, Shari, for introducing me to them! If you missed my previous posts about them, I'll catch you up!

week I read the third and final book in

This is one of Irene's earlier trilogies, and collectively, the series tells the story of three sisters (A.J., Clare, and Morgan) whose aunt passed away, leaving them a chance at a sizeable inheritance. Before they can take home the money, each sister has to fulfill a stipulation set forth by Aunt Jo, and none of the requests are particularly convenient for the girls. Each one requires a significant sacrifice of time and activity.

The final book of the series, The Unexpected Gift, is Morgan's story. She's the only one of the three sisters whose career is everything to her. She's a rising star in the advertising world, dedicating (and sacrificing) everything to gain a top seat in the firm for which she works. Every moment of every day, stretching into weekends and even holidays, is reserved for working.

Aunt Jo's stipulations for Morgan is that for six months, she must serve on the advisory board for the Good Shepherd Camp in Seaside, Maine, and for four weeks at some point during that six month period, she must also reside in Maine at a cottage aunt Jo owned. At the end of the six months, she'd gain not only the money, but also half ownership of the cottage - if she fulfilled Jo's request. The other half of the cottage ownership would fall to a gentleman named Grant that apparently meant a great deal to Aunt Jo, even though Morgan had never heard of him.

As much as Morgan wanted to just bypass the entire thing, the financial benefit on the back end of the six months was significant enough that she felt compelled to at least try. Traveling from Boston to Seaside - especially in the winter - wasn't going to be easy, and she certainly wasn't happy about it, but she said she would try.

I love stories of coastal cottages, so this book contained much beauty (even if Morgan was usually moving too quickly to fully appreciate it). I loved the faith story woven in, as Irene always does with her books, and it was good to catch glimpses of the other two sisters at different points in the story too!

And though I'm sad to say goodbye to these three, I appreciated the ending of the book and the thorough conclusion to the series. (I do adore something tied up with a neat bow!)

All three books in this series make good leisurely reading, so if you have a vacation coming up and need some good books, check them out! And thanks again, Shari, for bequeathing me your copies!

Welcome, Little One!

First of all, a thousand invisible points to Shari for noticing that though I referenced the picture of corn in my post yesterday, I failed to actually ADD the picture of corn to the story. Sigh. Shari, the points are invisible and get you...well...nothing. But you do get credit! I've fixed that now if you really want to see the corn!

Meanwhile, in news MUCH more exciting than any old corn, we have a brand spankin' new baby in our family! (Our family at large. Not our Shafferland household.)

Ryan's sister Bre gave birth to little Camden yesterday, and we had the privilege of meeting him in the very first hours of his life!

We knew Bre was at the hospital, and yesterday, mid-morning, Ryan's mom texted to let me know they were probably going to do a C-section. I tried my best to carry on with my own work while waiting for updates and praying/pacing quite a lot. I always get a bit nervous with these kinds of stories, just remembering my own first nephew, who we lost in moments much like that one. I guess even thirty years later, those memories stir you. I tried to make sure they stirred me to pray and not to panic.

Ryan ended up having a little extra time around his lunch hour, so we hurried to the hospital to wait with the rest of the family. We knew when we got there that she'd been taken into surgery, but we hadn't heard any news on whether or not Camden had safely arrived. I was too nervous to eat (WHAT?) but Ryan is never one to turn down free coffee:

We couldn't find any of the family at first, and then we discovered they were all waiting in Bre's room, so we joined them. More minutes passed and I was starting to feel pretty strong anxiety. Why didn't someone text a report?

And right then, we looked up and there came Bre, wheeled in her bed, holding a baby! WHAT?! She's done? She's back? He's here? So many questions! So many emotions. So much shock and awe and wonder and surprise all in one moment.

The nurse shooed us out of the room, so we all congregated in the hall, around Andrew's phone, trying to get a glimpse of this baby. (Bre's parents were the only ones who really got to even glance at his face for half a second before we had to get out.)

I felt I should at least document the crew who came to welcome him!

Ryan had to leave so he could get some lunch and get back to work, so we didn't get to meet the baby until later in the day. We went back as soon as Ryan got off work, and this time we got to meet and hold him!

He was so alert when we got there - just looking all around, taking in all the sights. I still haven't heard him cry. Guess he was pretty content!

Bre is doing well post-surgery and seems to be quite a natural as a mama. :)

And Ryan is quite a natural as a Ryan. I signed the guest book. He doctored it up.

Congratulations, Andrew and Bre, on this sweet new boy. Thanks for letting us share your special day with you!