Sunday Snapshots: Memorable Moments from the Week

 

                What. A. Week. It. Has. Been. God has been teaching me so much. Some of it has been exciting. Some of it has been so, so painful. But I am thankful that in the painful, I’m finding that I immediately turn to the Lord for help, and He is faithful! (Also, significant props to Ryan for cleaning up a lot of tears this week.)

                Want to see just a fraction of what we’ve been up to over the last few days?

 Last Sunday we took communion at church, and I had the sweetest time with the Lord that morning ahead of communion. I had shared this with our deacons a few weeks ago and wanted to revisit it myself before participating. It was a really meaningful time.

Our house projects march on, and my favorite part of this week was getting to put our bedroom back together. We got a new quilt for it. The one we had was five years old and between a geriatric cat and a puppy, it had taken quite a beating. I love this one so much!

One of my days this week started at 3 a.m. and went until about 11:00 p.m. Whew! I had to be in Fort Wayne for a church member’s surgery at 5 a.m. and then I went to the 4H parade that night with Ryan and our small group. It was a long and full day, but it was memorable in good ways.

This was a week of family! My sister and brother-in-law came to visit, and in a rare event, our entire family (minus grandchildren/great-grandchildren) gathered for dinner at our house. We ate pizza, went for a boat ride, and of course, had a family picture taken!

I took my first try at driving the boat this week. I literally just drove it in the middle of the lake. No taking off or parking it. That’s for advanced students. I’m still a rookie. 😊

 My sister and I went thrifting this week and had a great time finding deals! We also enjoyed lunch out at McAllister’s. I haven’t eaten there in a while. It is SO GOOD.  

Ryan was in the Swiss Days parade yesterday! I have decided that going to a parade alone is not any fun, but I was proud of myself for going, and it was fun to see him enjoying representing Swiss Village with friends and residents! (Also: parades + thunderstorms + Bekah = interesting.)

Saturday Suggestions: Inspirations for Your Weekend

 

I’m excited for tomorrow’s snapshot post so I can remember all the things we did this week. It has been jam-packed from start to finish, and there have been both tears of hurt and smiles of joy.

                Until then, though, I have some fun stuff for you to enjoy today! Ready?

Andrea has such a beautiful home (I’m especially smitten with the color of her kitchen stove), and I love it that she thrifts and overhauls so much of what she brings into her house. She wrote a helpful post about decorating a house on a budget, and I thought she had some great tips, so I’m sharing with you! (BONUS: I learned SO MUCH from Suzy’s post about choosing the right lamp size for different lamps in your home. I honestly didn’t know there were actual guidelines for this! I have about 4 lamps in our house that are super old – some are about 25 years old – and I’ve been on the casual lookout for replacements for a couple of years. Maybe now I can actually know what to look for!)

I love a good before-and-after of any space in a home. You know that. Laura’s post about her kitchen update was great, in my opinion, because she really made this space her own without doing a full kitchen remodel. Those are expensive and invasive, and I feel like we rarely get to see ideas for how to update something WITHOUT starting over completely. This was inspiring! (BONUS: I love Melissa’s decorating style, and I loved this post she wrote about the slow, four-year evolution of their living room décor. I appreciated how she walked through each change they made, why they made it, and the importance of using what you have on hand/shopping your home/buying the things that really fit your family and your space. I learned much from her in this piece!)

 This was one of my favorite feel-good stories this week. It’s a great story no matter what, but we are proud to know Cooper! He’s a teen at our church, and he has a great heart. I love what he has done – and it also doesn’t surprise me a bit!

Have I been watching Christmas movies this month for Christmas in July? Oh, absolutely! Have I listened to Christmas music in the car? Sure have. (I also do that year-round.) Did I love Heidi’s post about upcoming Christmas trends for this year? Yes, I did! I know what I love at Christmas and tend to keep things pretty much the same here year after year, but that won’t stop me from reading a good inspiration post! 😊

If you’re looking for a vacation home, this mansion in Tennessee, formerly owned by Dave Ramsey, is for sale. Only $15 million! (Personally I’d just buy the library room from the home…)

A fun fact you may or may not know about me is that I occasionally write daily devotional readings for Light from the Word, which is a publication of the Wesleyan Church. Writers for this book submit their work well over a year in advance of publication, so I am always surprised when they pop up, because I’ve forgotten what I wrote by that time! My work was featured this past week, and I thought I’d give you the links to the audio versions in case you want to listen! Here they are: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

For a Future Day

 

I love it when a friend tells me something wise I can tuck away and marinate on when I have time. This week I did some marinating on a single sentence my friend Lois texted to me earlier this month.

                “The hard often becomes the best of a future day.”

                She and I were talking about the new journaling practices I’ve adopted this month. Each day I write about the best parts of the day and the hardest parts of the day. (I try, very intentionally, not to use the word worst, because while hard can be synonymous with worst, that’s not always the case.)

                I wrote down her words and gave thought to them in the days that followed.

                It is true.

                Some of the things that fell under the hard sections for me this month are slowly becoming the best parts of other days. Sacrifices and good-but-hard-for-me choices that cause my heart to ache and strain eventually become habits and become the things that I’m proud of and thankful for in future days.

                Some of the most frustrating days lately have centered on projects happening here at our house, but when they are done, they are going to easily be the very best parts of those future days.

                Hard things don’t have to be hard forever. They can slowly melt into the best of a future day.

                I encourage you to think on Lois’s words today too. What hard part of today might become a best part of a future day for you?

50 Before 50 List Check-In

 

                I’ve decided to hold myself accountable to some of the items on my 50 Before 50 list by sharing reviewing the list monthly to see if there are any things I can cross off the list at large!

                If you missed this story, I shared my vision for this project here, and then I shared my seven categories of things I hope to enjoy or accomplish: travel, learning, dates, alone or with friends, accomplishments, cooking/baking, and home/thrifting.

                I only came up with this idea this month, so my checklist is quite small. But I have started! And here is my report from July! (I know we still have a week to go in this month, but today seemed like a good day for a check-in.)

Journal a full page every day. As a reminder…I write my journal on my computer so I can type and allow my fingers to keep up with my brain. This month I started a new process of journaling each day – telling the stories of the best and hardest parts of my day, the rhythms that filled the day, and I answer a prompt as well. This has made my journaling MUCH more intentional, and I am enjoying it so much more.

Create an annual recipe binder. I have started this, too. I have a list of dishes for the entire month of July (one per day, though I didn’t end up making them all this month) and I will be printing out the ones we liked well enough to have again. I plan to put them in my three-ring recipe binder, and then I’ll need to figure out my system for filing. Still, this is a fine start.

Make a signature dish from all 50 states. I decided to make my way through them in alphabetical order just to keep track of things more easily. You’ll see more about this in the recipe recap in a few days, but I made a white BBQ sauce from Alabama as my first adventure!

Thrift 50 things from my wish list (instead of buying new). I’m up to 4 already!

When I looked through the books at church, I found three Lori Wick novels that were on my wish list. (Lori no longer writes for publication, but I want to own a full set of all her published books. I have almost all of them, and now I’m three closer!) And the bonus? These were FREE! Did not cost me a single thing.

When I was at the Goodwill, I found a salt lamp, which I’ve had on my Amazon wish list for a few years now. I paid $4.99. The price online was $21.95, so I was pleased with that savings!

                So this is the start of my list. I’ll check back in again next month to see if I’ve accomplished anything else!

Parades and Our People

 

This week is fair week in our county. It’s our fourth summer to live in this general area and go to the 4H fair parade. I remember the first year we went. We sat with Jonathan and Julie (as we do every year), and as the floats floated by, Julie would say hi to kids from the church, and I wondered if I would ever learn all their names.

                Last night we sat in the same yard of friends, with Jonathan and Julie, and I knew the names! I recognized people. I recognized the names of businesses and clubs that went by. It might seem silly for something like a parade to be a marker of home, but for me, it was.

                Starting in 2020, the Lord took us on such a journey that carried us from one home to the next to the next to the next. New towns. New churches. New jobs. New houses. New friends. New, new, new.

                And now the familiar is taking root. The Lord has given us a place to land and stay. He’s given us friends and familiar faces. He’s given us routines and traditions – like 4H fair parades.

                I know parade pictures are probably like fireworks pictures: we’ve all seen them, and unless you’re there and know the people, they probably don’t mean much to you. But these pictures represent home and friendship, and I celebrate that today.

Lexi's Summer Fun

 

It is so hard to remember what life was like before Lexi joined our family. We’ve gotten into such a rhythm of days with her, and we absolutely love summer days spent with our best girl.

                She loves being a lake dog. A boat dog, more specifically. She loves boat rides with her whole heart. She loves the company that stops by to see us. She loves seeing her friends out on their golf carts. She loves it all.

                I thought I’d give you a peek at Lexi’s summer fun – inside and out!

We sure love her. Thanks for taking a peek at her summer! :) 

College Rooms...Then and Now

 

Last week, as I perused some blogs, I ran across Brendt’s post about setting up college dorm rooms/apartments for her daughters. You should look at the pictures in the post, because they are beautiful.

                I confess, though, I had to giggle right out loud, because I thought back to my own dorm rooms and they looked n.o.t.h.i.n.g. like the pictures in Brendt’s post. Not even close!

                I loved my dorm rooms and (most) of the experiences I had in them. I am sad that it was the era of real film that cost money to develop, and I hadn’t yet found my love for documentation. Most of the pictures are from move-in days or specific events, and there are some rooms I really don’t have any pictures of, because they’ve either gotten lost along the way, or I never took any. (That hurts to write.)

                But since my college years were before the years of blogging and social media, I thought it would be fun to share those pictures with you now! Vintage Bekah coming your way! 😊

                These pictures are from move-in day my freshman year. Like I said, the rooms look nothing like Brendt’s inspirations!

                For those of you who might be new here, I went to Indiana Wesleyan University, and my freshman and sophomore years, I lived in Evans Hall, up on the third floor. I LOVED the third floor. My parents did not love it on moving days. (I’m trying to remember if they had elevators. I’m not sure they did! If so, we didn’t get to use them for moving.)

                I had the bottom bunk in all my Evans Hall rooms, and this first year, my roommate’s name was Christi. (Fun fact: she lived in Florida for a while, so she was at our wedding, and Ryan and I visited her when we went back for our 5^th anniversary. If you’re a longtime reader here, you might also remember that about fifteen years ago, I went to Florida with friends, and I met up with Christi and ended up having an only-Bekah run-in with security whilst running around in my swimsuit/coverup.)

                Mom and Dad came to visit after we had our room all set up and decorated, so here are a few pictures from that day. Ahhhh, the denim jumpers. I know they’re back. I can’t. I just can’t. I do still have that necklace, though!

                Check out the boxy desktop computer!

                We had a futon for our couch. I spent a lot of Friday nights on that futon, watching reruns of Andy Griffith, eating ginormous slices of Sbarro’s pizza, and drinking 64 ounce Mountain Dews.

                VHS of Mark Lowry for the win! (I had an enormous crush on him in those days.)

                The second semester of my freshman year, Christi and I joined up with new suitemates. Christina and Jenny are both still friends of mine, and I am so thankful for both of them. (Hi, Christina, if you happen to be reading today!) I was a bridesmaid in both their weddings, but that was before blogging days. 😊

                I think this picture is one of the few I have from my sophomore year. Christi moved home that year, and I was matched with a roommate randomly. She was a nice girl, but we had nothing in common, and that was a really rough year. I was grateful Christina and Jenny were still there, because I fear I might have utterly fizzled out of school without them!

                My junior and senior years, I lived in an on-campus apartment suite that had four bedrooms (eight girls) with a common living and kitchen area. That building (Eastburn) has since been torn down, but I loved living there. Jenny and I were roommates all but the last semester, when we each ended up with our own rooms.

                Here are a couple of pictures from those years. I’m not sure which picture goes with which year.

                Those last two years were tumultuous for me. I had love life drama, friendship drama, work drama, and the drama of having no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up.

                The Lord was faithful to carry me through the hard days. And I smile now when I look back at this one picture…with the Siesta Key shirt? That was a souvenir my sister brought back from vacation. Little did I know that a dozen or so years down the road, I’d be in Siesta Key…in a wedding dress!

                My dorm rooms may have lacked the sophistication today’s rooms have, but they were places of growth and learning, and I’m so thankful for the friendships formed within them!!