Our Goodbye to Shafferland 2.0

I wanted to do an official goodbye to our house before it was completely empty - so Ryan indulged me with a little impromptu photo shoot one evening.

The Lord taught me a sweet lesson when we said goodbye to Shafferland 1.0 four years ago. On our last night to walk through the house, I wondered if I had made and captured enough memories of our time there. And God so tenderly showed my heart that I had all I needed. I had just enough - not missing anything and not having too much.

And my shelf of scrapbooks assures me I captured Shafferland 2.0 just as fully. (Probably even more, actually.) I've written all my goodbye posts to this house, and I feel good about our final farewell when it comes.

But I did want one more little photo shoot in our house!

We kind of sold our bed before the photo shoot, but we still had the mattress!

 When your door decal works out well for a goodbye shoot...

 Our sweet couch...we love it more than we even knew!!

 Most of the coffee stuff was already packed, but we still had the essentials...

 Our sweet sun porch...

 We took this one on the front porch...

 And then realized Braeya was sitting in the window...

 One last dance in the living room.

When we had our goodbye dance in Marion, Ryan picked the song, and he picked again this time. It was perfect last time and the new choice was perfect this time. This time he picked Josh Wilson's song Dream Small and the lyrics are PERFECT for our new season. In part, they say,

Dream small...don't buy the lie you've gotta do it all...Just let Jesus use you where you are...One day at a time...Live well...Loving God and others as yourself...Find little ways where only you can help...With His great love...A tiny rock can make a giant fall...Yeah, five loaves and two fish can feed them all...So dream small. 

And that's our very plan.

More Goodbyes with Friends!

Saying goodbye in Kokomo took a while! And we didn't nearly get to everyone, but we appreciated the time we had with the friends we did get to see!

I realized I never properly blogged about our 91st monthiversary - partly because it fell on Ryan's last day of work and I wrote about that! It was quite a busy day!

Ryan was really drained in his spirit when he came home from his last day at the hospital, which I already told you about. Saying goodbye to framily is SO HARD! But Pastor Liz (who was the pastor I served directly during my time at the church) and her husband had asked to take us out to dinner that evening. It ended up being perfect timing, because it gave us something enjoyable to focus on after a hard day.

They actually took us to a little restaurant about a half hour from home - and we'd never heard of it. It's called The Angry Donkey, and it was one of the best restaurant experiences I've had in a long time. It was clean, the staff was attentive and efficient, and the food was really good! Even better was the friendship and conversation.

Bruce and Pastor Liz became dear, dear friends to us throughout our time at the church - but most of all during the last six months when I worked there! I miss her already! (She retired this month, so we are both off to new adventures!)

I think I may have mentioned this before, but my friend Amber came to have one last dinner with us at our Kokomo house. She has eaten at our house MANY times, and I did take a picture when she came for this last dinner, but she didn't love it, so I won't post it. I WILL, however, post a picture of our delicious Giordano's pizza! When I ordered the frozen Giordano's pizza for Ryan's 'birthday, I had to order two, because they wouldn't ship just one. Amber had never had it before, so we promised we would have her over when we baked the second one. It was a great way to end the Kokomo Shafferland dinner adventures!

Our friends John and Sandee came over to see us, wish us well, and pray with us one evening. Sandee and I have been friends for...oh goodness...over twenty years now! I met her when I was a student worker at Indiana Wesleyan! This may be the worst quality photo EVER, but it represents a great quality friendship!

We had other friends who stopped by that we didn't get pictures with (major brain lapse on my part!) and we also had a great sendoff from our Sunday School class. Our last Sunday at our Kokomo church was the first time Sunday School classes reconvened, and ours pretty much gave us the whole hour to share about what we were going to be doing - and they even brought us cake! It was a really perfect way to say goodbye.

We appreciate all our friends and the great love they've shown us in this time of transition!!

Some Kokomo Lasts...

I thought I would tell you about some of our "lasts" in Kokomo! I know not everyone processes this way (and that's okay!) but I'm very much of a closure sort of girl. Anytime I prepare to have a big life change, I prefer to keep track of some of the lasts and then all the firsts, too!

Here was one of my FAVORITE lasts: our last walk to the ice cream shop. Before I tell you about that, I must tell you we now have an ice cream shop EVEN CLOSER to us than the one we had in Kokomo, and we may or may not have already visited it. And there's another one just a couple of miles away. I'm itching to go. Ryan said something about not getting all the treats on the same day - I'm not sure what that means. (Just kidding. Kind of.)

But back to the lasts. :)

It was a warm day for a walk!!

 We'll miss you, Scoops!! By the way, if you're ever in Kokomo and it's "in season" - go to Scoops. Servings are GENEROUS!!! (And also - what in the world is up with there EVER being a time when ice cream is "out of season?" Not in my book.)

 Yeah, that's a single scoop. Like I said: generous.

I thought about saving this one for another day when I talk about some of our people goodbyes, but I decided to talk about it here instead.

Our last trip to Texas Roadhouse with Phoebe's people included our last time to go see Pheebs. I felt like I did pretty well with all the goodbyes I had to say, but THIS GIRL was my undoing. My absolute undoing.

 I put up a post on Instagram about it and someone asked how long we'd had her...so in case you're new here, I should explain that she is not ours. This sweet dog belongs to Ryan's boss and his wife, and for the last four years, we have been her adopted parents, watching her every single time they went away, whether for a day, a week, or a month. (We had her for an entire month once when they went to India.) I love Pheebs as much as I love Braeya Jo, and I could not imagine telling her we were moving away.

How do you tell a dog you're leaving? I didn't know, so I just said it, and then I burst into tears, and then she stared at me, aware that I was not okay but unsure of what to do with a melting-into-a-pile-of-goo Bekah-Mom. (That's what her people call me to her. Bekah-Mom.)

 BREAK. MY. HEART. Oh this sweet girl. I can't even.

They gave us a wonderful gift, which I'll have to tell you about another time, but this part of the card made me wail all over again:

(The Romans 8 reference is a nod to our most recent round of small group study, which her people were in with us.)

All of that to say our last time to see Phoebe unglued me.

Here's another last! Our last church video. We love doing them, and it just so happened that two of the pastors on our staff are retiring this week, and they were prepping a memory video for them. Ryan did a segment for Pastor Stan and I did one for Pastor Liz.

Scott, the videographer, was in our small group and is just amazing at what he does. We'll miss him (and his talent) very much!

And then, of course, there was our official last day at church. Saying goodbye to the church should probably be a whole post by itself. It continues to amaze both of us how God brought us to a church we never imagined we'd be part of (because it was so big) and He gave us so much through it. We learned from some gifted teachers. We made solid friendships. We were able to serve in so many ways (some that surprised us!). We will miss this place for sure. But we are excited to see where God will plant us in our new town!

The Strangest Kind of Fourth

I've spent the last several blog days saying goodbye to all the rooms in our Kokomo house, and now I'm behind on talking about everything else! So let's start catching up, shall we?

I know this was so two (plus) weeks ago, but let's talk about the 4th of July! This year's fourth officially goes down as our strangest ever.

As you may know, if you've read here for a few years, I love the Fourth of July. I love the picnics and the fireworks and the fact that you don't have to wear a coat for the holiday. :) Ryan and I have had a tradition throughout our marriage of going to watch fireworks over a lake, and we had every intention of doing that this year too!

And then viruses.

And then packing to move.

And then garage sales.

And then our 4th looked nothing like tradition.

The day was properly hot and humid - and we spent the morning winding down the last of the Shafferland 2.0 garage sale fun. I already told you about the sale, but I just want to say again how grateful we are for how well it went. We were able to sell almost everything we had out there, and the little bit we had left, we took to our church for its rummage sale the following weekend.

We knew that the appraiser was planning to come to our house the following day (yes, you read that right: the Sunday of a holiday weekend), so we spent the rest of the 4th working hard on the house to get it ready to be seen. Apparently appraisals are very different now than they were in the past when we've sold homes. We were sternly admonished to have the place in pristine condition - clear down to the length of the grass - before he arrived. So we worked hard!

Maybe another day, I'll tell you some of the absolute nightmare the appraisal process was for us, but it's still much too soon to talk about it now. Suffice it to say we wanted to do everything we could to give our part of the process the best effort possible.

We were pretty tired from two days of hot and humid garage sale life, plus all the cleaning and straightening for the appraiser, so we decided to stay home that evening.

Though we weren't incredibly fearful of being in a fireworks crowd, we also knew we were very close to starting our new job, and we wanted to do everything we could to take extra precautions to stay virus-safe, especially since Indiana's numbers have been climbing over the last few weeks.

It was also just so hot - even into the evening - and it didn't sound fun to sit outside for any reason.

So we stayed home and watched fireworks on TV while about a thousand live shows exploded outside within earshot. I have no idea if there are normally that many fireworks in Kokomo or if it was just a virus-year kind of special, but there were a lot of them.

We were hot, sweaty, gross - and happy to be home together, even if it was a strange 4th.

I won't lie: I sure am hopeful that next summer we can go to proper fireworks outside - maybe over a lake? - on the 4th. I didn't mind a break in tradition for these obvious good reasons, but I missed my beloved 4th celebration in all its normalcy.

(By the way - what did you all do on the 4th? Stay home? Go out? Catch a neighborhood show? I have no judgment for your choice - whatever it was! I am just curious what people did!)

The Shafferland Shuffle

What a week of change and transition it has been for us! So many stories, so many emotions, and so many really wonderful God-moments! Here's a quick peek into it:

* Last Sunday was our official last day at our church in Kokomo. Our Sunday School class had a going-away party for us, and they gave us a chance to share about the work we'll be doing! It was so sweet of them! That afternoon, we packed up our car so we could head out for our week of classroom training for our new job. That car was packed SOLID. I didn't even really have leg room for the trip! On our way to that, we stopped at our nephew's second birthday party!

* Monday morning, we headed to our first day of classroom training, which lasted all day! When I was growing up, we always celebrated the end of the first day of school by having ice cream on our way home. Ryan was sweet (ha! See what I did there?) and took me for ice cream at one of the little spots in Grabill - called The Dairy Sweet. Monday was a hot day, so ice cream was pretty much the perfect way to wrap it up.

* Tuesday brought more hours of training, and that night we explored Grabill a bit by taking a walk. (All day training is delightful for learning but devastating to meeting step goals!) We were invited to join the tenants of our building at a worship service held beside the water - at sunset. It was beautiful and soul-filling!

* We had another full day of training on Wednesday, and then when the day was over, we met with Rob to learn specific things about our job. (The training we were in all week was a very broad training. We still have may specific things to learn.) We went on another walk that evening - exploring a few different parts of town, and when we came back home, Ryan spent some time on the trampoline. This should surprise no one. :)

* Thursday? More training! (Are you surprised?) We did get an extra-long lunch break, so we took a walk around the Gateway Woods property before the afternoon sessions. We had dinner at our apartment, and I even did some laundry. Real life still happens, even when training!

* Friday was our final day of classroom training, and after we finished that up, we had date night! We went to Chick-fil-A (which we ate in our car) and then Starbucks! We found a new park to explore, and then I did a little jumping on the trampoline!! My first time with that since I was about ten, I think.

* Yesterday morning we helped unload a moving pod for one of our new friends...Ryan was on the heavy lifting crew and I was on the regular lifting crew. :) We did some more hands-on training for our new job, and last night we were invited to dinner with new work friends! I fear we FAR overstayed our welcome, but all the story-swapping was just so much fun! (And the food was DELICIOUS!)

The Saturday Six

One.

Hello, humid Hoosier summer!!!! Anyone else have big hair going on these days? My hair is so huge. Not long. BIG. There's a difference! One of the ladies from our small group taught me about this anti-frizz serum, which does NOT cost a million dollars, and DOES work. In full disclosure, I will say that I usually go 3-4 days between hair washing, and the first day is still always the biggest hair. But even on that day, this helps tame it!

Two. 

I'm not sure if things are opening back up where you live or if you're still (or again) on lockdown, but regardless, you may still be struggling with loneliness. If so, read this post by Anna Rendell. She not only empathizes and sympathizes with genuine physical loneliness, but she has some great wisdom to share!

Three.

I love it when capsule wardrobe bloggers show their outfit combos in action, and not just the pieces they chose. Not a ton of people (that I've discovered, anyway) seem to blog about capsules anymore, but this one did a delightful post on it!! Her color choices are similar to mine (blue, white, gray, etc.) so I really liked her grouping!

Four.

This post is written about a Christmas gift idea, but honestly I think this makes a great almost-any-kind-of-gift idea! Pancake mix and syrup, packaged up all cute as a button. Cost effective and cute presents for the WIN! Also, we apparently need to make pancakes soon, because we drove by an IHOP today and I was drooling like crazy!

Five.

Way back when I worked at the station, I found a metal perpetual calendar on clearance at Kohl's and bought it to use on my desk at work. I LOVED IT. The squares are big and I could stick small sticky notes in them to mark shows or meetings or whatever. When I left, I moved it into my home office, and I still love it. This week I found this paper version from Etsy - and it's so cute! You can print and hang it, and if one of your cards gets used up, you can just reprint it! OR you could laminate them and dry-erase write on them, I suppose. Cute!

Six.

One more Etsy find for the week: a personalized gift tray - which is particularly perfect if you want to gift someone a handwritten keepsake recipe!

Slow Goodbyes: Let's Not Leave Out the Garage!

Here's a funny story! Every month I make a list of things I want to blog about, and for this week, I'd written out my full list of slow goodbyes. Today's was about the garage. Then I thought maybe you guys were tired of my memory-making, so I decided to scrap the garage post. But then Gerri asked yesterday if I was going to say goodbye to the garage, so I decided that must mean I should un-scrap the post.

It's actually pretty fitting to say goodbye to the garage, because other than the sun porch, the garage is the ONE thing we won't have at our new place. So this really IS a goodbye to the garage! It will be deeply missed...not just our particular garage, but having a garage at all!

Our garage in Kokomo has been such an extension of our home. We moved into the Kokomo house shortly before Mother's Day back in 2016, and when we hosted Mommapalooza that year, we planned to have it on our back porch. We didn't have a proper dining room in that house, and the kitchen was much too small to squeeze in a dozen people.

And then Indiana pulled one of its weather stunts and Mother's day turned out to be about 50 degrees that year, cloudy, windy, and FRIGID. We couldn't put our people on the porch with paper plates and cups and napkins and ask them to freeze their way through lunch. So we ate in the living room, and our poor sister-in-law sweated all the way through the meal about what her littles might be dropping on the almost white carpet. Happy Mother's Day, right?

So that's how the garage makeover came into existence. It was Ryan's idea, and it was a good one. When we moved in the garage looked a little bit like this:

Standard issue garage, right?

But after Ryan's vision came to life, this was an actual finished room, with insulation, drywall, paint, a finished ceiling, a finished floor, and the potential to be used as an overflow room for gathering/entertaining!

 Fun fact! This was the room that landed us in the Wall Street Journal! (The article is no longer online - I looked - but they saw my blog post about refinishing the garage floor and ended up calling to interview me about it!) 

We christened the room when we had Mom's surprise party! It was the painting room! 

We hosted a bunch of dinners out there - from friends to small groups! (Small group members are also our friends, of course, but you know what I mean!)

It was also a great place for craft nights...

Of course...Mommapalooza had a few runs out there!

We hosted Thanksgiving for my family out there - the year Mom had her knee replacements. She was staying in the rehab hospital at the time and it was so easy for her to just come to our house from there and go back when she got tired.

And a year later, we hosted Christmas for Ryan's family when his mom was in the rehab hospital.

That garage served us so well. Ryan did a million projects out there, and of course, when not in use for party purposes, it's been a great little shelter for our vehicles. They'll miss it most of all!! 

I'm so glad we made the investment to finish it off! It was a great decision, and we will miss this space!! Thanks, little garage, for giving us a place to be hospitable to large groups!