things i love thursday

I firmly believe that in every situation, no matter how difficult, God extends grace greater than the hardship, and strength and peace of mind that can lead us to a place higher than where we were before.

-Andy Griffith

Doing these lists every Thursday has made me realize how quickly the weeks go by. This will probably be the last post for a little while because life is about to get really busy. It's only Thursday, but this week has already sucked a lot out of me. Do you ever have those weeks? You just get a little bit more "in your head" and maybe a little overwhelmed and you find yourself ready for the weekend and a long nap where you don't have to think about anything. As Scarlett O'Hara would say, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about it tomorrow."

those friends again

Catching up with the ones who've moved away and kissing their babies and getting those sweet little hugs.

Hiking with the ones nearby and discussing life.

Staying up until 11pm eating chips and laughing at snapchat filters. It truly is the little things. 

ten of my favorite people

pasta salad and chicken salad

It's up close to 80° again today, and those are the perfect things to eat. 

pumpkin everything

Pumpkin chai, pumpkin bread, pumpkin creamer, pumpkin candle, pumpkin cupcakes...pumpkin is a funny word. Most people around here say "punkin".

missionaries  

I sat in on a Missions Conference 2 nights this week and got re-energized for our own. The missionaries and their presentations always tug at my heart - especially when they expose their own heart for the people they're called to. 

This particular presentation was very special - we've know this missionary for so many years, and my church has built over 20 of these orphan homes. He is moving and changing this country because he truly cares about them. https://vimeo.com/178260459

thanksgiving

It's one week away! I may be "behind" on a lot of things, but holiday preparation is not one of them!

poem of the week 

Y'all ok with these? I just love them! (Plus, I think this one's neat because he wrote it for his brother.)

Hymn for My Brother's Ordination

Related Poem Content Details

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Christ to the young man said: "Yet one thing more;

If thou wouldst perfect be,

Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,

And come and follow me!" 

Within this temple Christ again, unseen,

Those sacred words hath said,

And his invisible hands to-day have been

  Laid on a young man's head. 

And evermore beside him on his way

  The unseen Christ shall move,

That he may lean upon his arm and say,

  "Dost thou, dear Lord, approve?" 

Beside him at the marriage feast shall be,

  To make the scene more fair;

Beside him in the dark Gethsemane

  Of pain and midnight prayer. 

O holy trust!  O endless sense of rest!

  Like the beloved John

To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast,

And thus to journey on!

I hope each of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I, for one, am very excited about it! Thanks for reading, what do you love today?

things i love thursday

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

-Aristotle

Two weeks in a row, what do you know? Look at me go!

I love dumb rhymes.

the weather

Y'all, it was 30° this morning! What a change from last week! There was ice on my windshield and I shivered all the way to work - finally!

holiday season

Can we just say it's here already? I mean, it's too early for Christmas but Thanksgiving's in two weeks and today the kids are going to be at the house and I think we'll do some Thanksgiving crafts and teach them how to do a skit (update: Amie said she tried and it did not go well. ;) )

fall back
I don't like the fact that it's dark at 5pm and I get sleepy at 7pm and I feel like I'm always running late for everything while I'm actually an hour early, but other than that, it's great! Honestly though, it's really nice not getting up while it's still dark, and it feels like the days get off to a better start somehow. Plus, when it gets dark so early there's not much else to do but read a book!

answered prayers

The months of September and October and the first part of November were incredibly difficult for my extended family. After weeks of unanswered questions, a nearly miraculous recovery, and a few weeks of healing, today all is well again. We're planning Thanksgiving as usual and no one is ill. Only God could could have made that possible.

the election. is. over.

Regardless of how you voted (and I sincerely hope you did), it's over now and Donald Trump is our president elect. I wrote a big long thing on how I feel about all of it this morning and just now deleted it because there's no point in publishing it. Let's just remember that the most important changes will be the ones we decide to make inside of our own homes, we can lead by example, and as Christians, our orders have not changed. We'll respect those in authority and pray for them, regardless of how we feel about it. (I think feelings should be left out if it more anyway.)

a clean car

Can I confess something? In all of my neat-freakish, tidy tendencies, I HATE washing my car. It is without a doubt my least favorite responsibility. The inside stays neat as a pin 99.9% of the time (any trash is removed from that thing the moment I pull in my house). The outside, on the other hand, has to get pretty embarrassing for me to grant it worthy of a washing. It got a bath Monday though and I must say I'm quite enjoying it!

friends

The older I get, the more dear they become. I love my friends like they're my family.

And I leave you with Longfellow because...I mean, c'mon, it's Longfellow. I don't really need a reason, do I?

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

Related Poem Content Details

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The tide rises, the tide falls, 

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; 

Along the sea-sands damp and brown 

The traveller hastens toward the town, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

Darkness settles on roofs and walls, 

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls; 

The little waves, with their soft, white hands, 

Efface the footprints in the sands, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls 

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls; 

The day returns, but nevermore 

Returns the traveller to the shore, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

P.S. I loved reading what you loved last week, so please feel free to use my comment section to list the things you love Thursday!

things i love thursday

Wouldn't life be much more lovely if we could learn to be continually grateful for the things we have instead of fretting over the things we don't?

Y'all, I'm cleaning out my drafts folder! There is no telling what I'll be posting on here in the coming weeks - or maybe I'll just delete them - either way, this was in my drafts from last week but I never finished my list! I'll start a fresh one in a minute, but I always like to ramble for a little while first. 

Do you ever go through a big "cleaning out"? I do! My sister-in-law told me I'm perpetually cleaning-out, but I just don't like stuff! If I haven't used/worn/looked at/read/touched it in awhile, why in the world is it still hanging out with me? Last week I went through my closet, packing away some summer stuff and mingling in my winter things. (This was a mistake since it was 86° yesterday and has been in the 80's all week.) I went through clothes, books, shoes, receipts, bills... I'm not an overly sentimental person, so when it comes to papers I have to go though, well, I don't really have any to go through. I'll keep cards for awhile, but I went through a big letter and card throw-away a few months ago so I was proud of myself for only having a tiny little stack of papers! (P.S. If you've ever sent me a card, I do keep it if you've written something on it. I just don't keep it forever :/)

Then I got on my laptop and noticed I had lots of emails stacked up so I hit the "select all" and then "delete forever" and whoosh! They were gone! (minus my personal email where I save all y'all's comments) I then went to my texts and remembered I'd also deleted all of them a few weeks ago - I don't know why all of this is so satisfying for me, but apparently it's so satisfying that I wanted to tell you about it!

Anyway! Do you wanna know some things I love Thursday? Here we (finally) go...

squeaky clean windows |  Bananagrams | organizing (see above ;)) | new towels | candles | Amazon Prime | coffee in the mornings (it really does help! I get why everyone drinks it now - it's 6:15am and I'm already going strong - talk to my mom if you think this is normal for me) try it with half heavy whipping cream/half pumpkin spice creamer. Mmm | tea parties with Lena Rae-Rae | OUR CHRISTMAS CARD IS DESIGNED & ORDERED AND MY POEM IS WRITTEN! hallelujah | Thanksgiving plans (favorite.holiday) | Darlene Rose's testimony (she spoke at our church years and years ago and I listened to the 2-hour long recording again recently. I cried for the whole 2 hours, but then again, I cry over everything) | maple trees (I can only ever identify trees in the fall, and even then only maple) | frosted lemonade (see 86°) | cooking | windows open all day every day |  all things Missions Conference! (this makes me more excited than anything else)

notice the pinky raise ;) just on the wrong hand!

A friend sent me this recently. I've had this poem memorized since 8th grade, and it's still a favorite. It was actually the first one I ever memorized, and the only one ever required. It sparked my love for good poetry. This is a beautiful recitation, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

 There are some things in life never to be revisited, and that's ok.

I hope you're having the loveliest Fall! (I read somewhere that in the U.K. they say Autumn because of the French word "Automne" and later the Latin "Autumnus", but in the U.S. we call it Fall because "leaves fall down" ;) ) I'd love to hear some things you're loving this Thursday...or Friday or Saturday, whenever you read this!

NYC | travel post

New York City is somewhere I've always thought would be so. much. fun. to visit, but never thought I would. Not in my single 20's, anyway. Our family vacations are usually in more relaxing, restful locations so I just didn't give it a lot of thought. (Except, you know, "wow, that would be fun.")

Until this summer at a family reunion talking to one of my cousins about how our traveling friends were all starting to get married and the ones still willing to travel with us weren't interested in the big cities.

"We should go!"

"A family girls trip? Yes!"

"Hey mom, y'all wanna go to New York City for a weekend?"

By the next week we had bought our plane tickets. A few weeks later our hotel was booked. Then we bought city passes, bus tickets, and last Wednesday we got up at 3:30am to get on a plane!

all of our selfie stick photos

We got there at 10:30am, checked into our hotel room (30th floor!)...

...then grabbed coffee and pastries on our way to Grand Central Station. We giggled our way through our first subway ride on our way to Times Square. Wednesday also included the Top off the Rock,  Central Park, and the Museum of Natural History. We ended the day soaking our feet and eating take out Chinese food after walking around 8 miles.

The second day (Thursday) found us on the top of a double decker bus where we saw a whole lot of the city on our way to the 911 monument and museum. We walked what felt like forever to find a TKTS booth to buy our Broadway tickets (sold at half price in 3 locations in the city), then got drenched on the rest of the bus ride but saw the United Nations building, Trump Tower, and a lot of other stuff that wasn't on our list. ;)  We came back to our room late that afternoon and got dressed up to go see Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway (after walking nearly 10 miles). On the way to the subway we stopped at Momofuku's (a milk bar) for their famous cereal milk ice cream (worth it!), and on the way back stopped to take a picture at Tiffany's. Fiddler was incredible, and it also allowed us to see Times Square at night. Since it was nearly a 3 hour play, we once again ate Chinese food because even in NYC, most restaurants are closed at 11pm and we wanted to just eat in bed. We walked over 11 miles that day!

On our third day in the city (Friday) we got up a bit earlier and headed to the Statue of Liberty. It was a cold morning and we rode on [the very windy] top of the Ellis Island Ferry. The statue was beautiful, though, and we also saw Trinity Church ("on the corner of Broad and Main"), the bull of Wall Street, and ate lunch at Shake Shack! It lived up to it's wonderful reputation - I ordered the Shack Burger, cheese fries, and a chocolate malted. We took the hoho (hope on/hop off) bus again and saw some more of the city. We walked around Chinatown, went in "the" Macy's on 5th Avenue (34th Street) and bought some warm clothes at H&M and Forever21 (only place we could afford on 6th Avenue haha) for the 2-hour nighttime bus tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn. We were frozen solid when we got off, so we got a pepperoni pizza from Ray's and a slice of blueberry cheesecake from Lindy's and took it back to the room. Walked over 10 miles again altogether.

Saturday morning we packed our stuff up, got one last bagel and acai bowl, and walked down 5th Avenue. We went in Saks, St. Paul's Cathedral, and got coffee at Ralph's Coffee above Ralph Lauren before heading back to catch our ride to the airport!

We're still catching up on sleep and I have a new appreciation for the quiet calm of my little southern town ("green acres is the place for me!"), but I wouldn't trade this experience or the memories we made for anything. It was an incredible adventure that I'm so thankful to have had.

And since we took pictures of practically everything we ate, here are those... ;)

change

It's fall, y'all! Actually, it's been fall for nearly a week, but this is my first chance to sit and write about it.

Actually, no, that's not true. I've had many chances, but I made gingersnaps with pumpkin dip one day, and then another day it was chocolate chip cookies for a church picnic. On my day off I went shopping for an upcoming trip, got a whole lot of hair chopped off, and celebrated with a PSL! (pumpkin spice latte...except in frappucino form because it's like sipping on pumpkin pie.) 

Usually I'm reluctant to welcome Fall because I am not a cold weather girl and Fall is the doorway to Winter. However, I've been craving change for some time now and the crisp mornings and cozy evenings are exactly what my soul's been needing. I'm even looking forward to a cold Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year. A new year with new motivation and new chances. Ah, yes, I'm ready for change. Funny how a difficult season can make something you don't normally appreciate so very attractive. I feel like I'm running towards Fall with my arms wide open. Let me forget Summer for a moment and relish in the smells and sensations that are Autumn.

Change is such a funny thing. Some changes we wholeheartedly embrace, welcoming them with every fiber of our being. Some however, even when they are good and the best choice, rip our hearts out in the process. I was reminded of this the other day when one of my older neighbors asked us to help her move. She has made this choice for herself, and in many ways she's excited about it. She will be so relived once she's taken the final step, but regardless of all of that, her eyes pooled up as the rest of her face smiled. Change is difficult no matter how old you are.

72 hours later...

I quit writing 3 days ago because something came up and I closed my folder and it slipped quietly out of my mind. Today, however, I was suddenly bombarded all at once with people emailing, texting, and even telling me in person that it was time for another post. I don't feel like it today. The words I want to write are spilling down my cheeks because they won't form. They are an emotion I cannot describe, cannot pinpoint, do not understand. An emotion I had forbidden, had restrained, but is sometimes stronger than I am.

This changes the entire tone of this post. It started out as a crisp fall morning with a refreshing scent and delicious feel. Now the shadows have lengthened, it's gotten a little musty, and has a slightly bitter aftertaste. I really didn't want to change direction. Change...

I titled this post before I wrote the first word. Before inspiration struck, I had change on my mind. And this is how change works. One morning we've finally let go of those worries and doubts and cares. A few days later we find we've picked them back up and then some.

"Change" has many shapes and forms, can be big or small, can rearrange our lives or simply our minds. We never welcome it exactly the same. Sometimes we're ready, but often we're not.

Ah, friends, I'm laying it back down. I've stopped asking God for help with some things, I've started just giving them to Him. I like to grab them back a lot, I'm selfish and I'm always trying to fix everything, even the things I can't. He is so, so real. You know this, I know this, but we don't always live like it. Sometimes I can't get my prayers past my lips, sometimes He's right beside me, understanding before I've even formed my thought. We should only crave the change He requires. Surrender is so very hard because I don't know where it will lead, but I'm ready to hand it all over.

Have you reached this point with me? You probably reached it long before me. It's taking me a long time, and I have to go one day at a time, slowly changing my mindset, my actions, my heart. It's a painful process, but when I can look back and see the hard choices I've made and His blessings upon them, I'm willing to make more change.

It is time to see how beautiful dead things can be. I refuse to resurrect the old man or to "dig up in doubt what I planted in faith."

thanksgiving week | wednesday

After church tonight we had a "pie potluck" (which we actually called a Pie Social). All the ladies brought a pie or two or five and I had a little of four! We love pie.

With Missions Conference two weeks away, guess which group thought it would be a good idea to learn a new song or two without sheet music? Two and a half hours later...I'm hoarse, but it was so much fun.

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day!!!

thanksgiving week | tuesday

Today was the only day this week with nothing planned... so here's how I spent it!

This will be mailed Friday morning on our way to our families' Thanksgiving celebration, so I'm trying to have it all ready by tomorrow afternoon and enjoy the long weekend!

I bought some fabric for a skirt awhile ago and since today was the only "free" day I decided I "needed" a new skirt for the holidays. It's hanging in my closet right now! (My mom did 95% of it but I'm getting there.)

And finally, around 9:15pm I finished this pie for tomorrow night. I feel so much better when I can be ready ahead of time!

thanksgiving week | monday

 

Making cupcakes AND frosting from scratch isn't always my idea of a good time, but during the holidays it's my favorite thing ever. I started Thanksgiving week early this morning by mixing these up at 7am. I did not have one for breakfast, but the finished product this afternoon was well worth the wait. Try them out! 

An annual party that kick starts the holiday season around here! There were 53 ladies that participated in the White Elephant style ornament swap. It took awhile, but it was so much fun. I'm so grateful for sweet church members and friends willing to host that many people for so many years in a row!

3. beholden

be·hold·en bəˈhōld(ə)n/ adjective 

adjective: beholden owing thanks or having a duty to someone in return for help or a service.

Thanksgiving is next week and although we have a lot to do to prepare I am SO excited! Here are a few of my semi-recent pictures!

We had a beautiful fall. It was short as always, but every now and then I'll spot a bright orange, red, or yellow tree that hasn't lost all their leaves yet. This was taken in our neighbor's yard, and I love Lena Rae's panic stricken expression!

At a Missions Conference earlier this week I was able to spend some time with my friend and her beautiful little girl. I'm missing so very much of her growing up years, and the time there was sweet.

I'm not a fan orange, but I'm less of a fan of being sick. My mom has us stocked on all these things this time of the year!


That's all for this week! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I hope you all have a wonderful one!

2. appreciative

Y'all. I love Fridays. Like, seriously love Fridays. I think one of the things I miss most about being a kid - or even a teenager - were those endless days in summer when I would wake up, and after falling back asleep and waking up again, get out of bed and think "Hm, wonder what I'll do today?" Now it's more like I roll out of bed at the first alarm because I can't trust myself to go back to sleep, and think, "Hm, wonder how I'm going to get all this done today?" And I know, I know - it'll only get worse the older I get.

But Fridays. Y'all, Fridays! I still have to get up early, but somehow it's easier on Fridays because the sooner I get to work, the sooner I can come home, and as soon as I do, it's "Weekend Chores in Fast Time." Which means: do my laundry, vacuum, dust, and mop my room, clean my bathroom and shower, wash my makeup brushes, tidy my bookshelves, take out my trash, tidy my drawers, and then during the in-between stage of clothes drying and clothes folding/ironing, I plan what I'll do next. (Yes, I do all this weekly because I'm just that way.)

Today, I think I'll bake cupcakes if we have the ingredients and do a small re-purging of my closet. I like to do this every few weeks after the "main purge" because I still keep a few things I'm just not sure about yet. Re-purging is done with a better idea of what I need or use, and keeps my life (and closet) in a more simplified state. I'd also like to wrap up a couple gifts I'm taking with me on a quick trip next week, and order something with my $20 ThredUp credit!

And all this means I have Saturday morning to sleep in, wake up, and think "Hm, wonder what I'll do today?" Because I did all the "need to"'s the day before! I just love Friday because when I'm done, I'm really done, and somehow the anticipation of Friday afternoon and Saturday is almost better than the actual day. I don't know. Wow, this introduction got rambly. Happy Friday!

This makes me so happy. I love pulling all this stuff out of my closet and then giving it away, donating it (the Yard Sale had already ended when I did this), or just plain trashing it. And now I can buy more stuff and do it and again in the spring! This is what I call the Main Purge. The purge I'll do today will have a small stack of things I don't wear anymore. This picture is all the junk that had gotten shoved to the back of my closet during the hectic weeks of summer.

These donuts are everything. As if Friday wasn't already good enough, we've got a whole bunch of these sitting around and they're dwindling quickly. They're dipped in butter and coated in cinnamon sugar. 'nuff said.

I love being an aunt so much. I tend to have more pictures of Lena Rae because she's a girl and she's always ready for the camera, but a sweet lady snapped this picture during our church picnic back in September and I love it. I love that Jace is in the background because he was willing to go down the slide slowly to help his little sister and stop halfway down when she wanted off. He's nearly seven and he'd prefer going down it 100 mph on his head, but for Lena Rae, he'll do pretty much whatever she wants.

Have a wonderful weekend and everyone stay warm! What are you appreciative for today?

1. gratitude

I really wanted to write a post every week of November leading up to Thanksgiving, but the power cord for my laptop decided to bite the dust last week, so I'll just do two in one this week.

There are so many ways to say, show, and give thanks. I tend to embrace the small things so that'll be the theme of these posts!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Stephen, Amie, Jacob, and me. We took one last year that looks really great blown up and hanging in our dining room, but after the photo shoot we did with our cousins for Christmas, my uncle snapped this one and it's been my phone lock screen ever since.

Lena Rae. Emotional, loud, loving, silly - she is the girl this family needed. I love it when she wants to be held.

Jobs. Husbands and fiances (not me of course). Responsibilities. They add up, and suddenly, in four months another friend will be married [Faith]. Then she's moving. And that day off we had is spent shopping and eating and laughing and just having fun in the moment. Recognizing that life changes so quickly and in the middle of a busy life, in the middle of our own personal struggles, hopes, and anticipation we can forget that it'll all be different next year and instead focus on the fact that we're still young and we're still allowed to make silly faces and laugh at corny jokes and title our all day shopping excursions. Tonight we will go to bed with sore feet and exhausted bodies and tomorrow we will wake up and go back to being responsible adults. We needed this day.

Please feel free to share what you're grateful for!

currently | october 2015

I've never done a "currently" post before, but many of the blogs I follow do them, and I always enjoy reading them. I thought it would be an appropriate time for me to do one since I've been "away" so long, and it would catch you up to speed a bit.

reading

A smorgasbord of books. I recently got a free trial of Kindle Unlimited, and I'm pretty sure it's the most genius idea ever. You can "borrow" books and read them for free! I kind of went into rapid-fire reading because I wanted to take advantage of the 100% free month, so I kind of got lost in a bunch of different genres. In fact, I downloaded a two-book series that, although they were definitely Christian novels, I've been so turned around and confused by them I don't even know what I'm reading. This morning I remembered that a book I'd pre-ordered by my favorite author back in the spring has been sitting unread on my shelves for a few months, so starting tonight, I will currently be reading One More Wish by Robin Jones Gunn. (it's a fluffy book, but it's the last in a very long series I began in high school) 

loving

The weather! I don't care how cliche "sunny and seventy-five" is, it's fantastic. It pretty much feels like you can do anything you ever wanted to do - IF you could stop sneezing and coughing for five seconds, but that's just a minor disturbance. I truly love this weather.

celebrating 

Tanner and Amie! Their birthdays are right next to each other - October 10 & 11, respectively. Tanner turned four which kind of blows my mind, and Amie turned 21. We also had our annual Fall Festival/Old Fashioned Day the morning of Tanners birthday, so, needless to say, we were ready for some down time on Monday.

working on

Organization. Simplifying. Getting my life together. Honestly though, it's very therapeutic for me. My closet is about to undergo a switcheroo from Summer to Winter, and I'm oddly excited about that. (Does this mean I need to get a life?) I want to blog the process, but I feel like that might be taking it a little too far! The donation centers in my area are about to be very blessed... 

buying 

Mums.  We do love them around here! My mom has 4 on our porch, and I picked up 12 for our Fall Festival - which doesn't seem like that many, but my car was unprepared for the invasion. They're beautiful though, and pretty inexpensive for a large sized plant!

listening
To incredibly complex classical pieces. Odd opera sounding stuff. My sister is a music major in her last year of college. Pray for us.

anticipating
Seeing the professional pictures from our recent cousins photo shoot. It had been twelve years since our last one, and 5 cousins had been born.

In age order we were boy-girl-boy-girl until my uncle (born 14 years after his sisters) went and had 6 boys!

laughing
At the recreation of our first photo. A few things have changed!

...these are the days for a quick note and iPhone pictures. Until the calendar uses an eraser, it'll have to do!

Happy Autumn!


 

an update

When it rains, it seems the world takes on a somber hue.

My soul is hushed, I lift my pen, and write a song for you.

-Robin Jones Gunn

First of all, my apologies to those faithful readers who keep on checking this blog even though it's been nearly two months since I've updated it. Trust me, I'm more sad about it than you are!

I follow blogs that put me to shame - people who have full time jobs, families, etc., and still manage to keep up a two to three post per week schedule. I've accepted that when it comes to weekly or monthly recaps, I'm a failure. I do pretty good for a little while but then other things take priority and I eventually forget all about it.

The poem above has always been a favorite of mine, because I simply find it very difficult to focus on writing when my mind is full of life's happenings and things I have to get done. The end of this summer and all of fall has been crazy at our house. With construction and meetings and people coming over, writing just didn't happen. My soul wasn't hushed, my mind was chaos. And so, this blog was pushed so far to the back burner it was washed and put away.

But I want to break it out again. Our missions conference is in three weeks. Between now and then, here is my to-do list:

design, edit, print, fold, and mail the newsletter for December

design, edit, print, and put together missionary booklets

all of the above preparation for "passports" for the children at missions conference

3 different Thanksgiving celebrations

2 houses to help decorate for Christmas

a house to help finish "moving in" to

book hotel rooms for a quick trip to Pigeon Forge

pillow cases to sew

a map to put on canvases
Write the annual Christmas poem for the cards we send out

Christmas shoping

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That isn't even all, but even if it were complete, it is barely a fourth of what most of you have going on! I'm determined to schedule time for this blog because I know I can, because I love this space on the web, and because I love sharing things with people. I love that my blog isn't tied down to one category, that I can share just pictures, a recipe, or something I've written from deep in my heart, and it all "fits" on here. I'll try my best to make it a little more of a priority! Pretty soon, I will "write a song for you".

Quick update...

Our house is nearly complete! We've entered the stage that's half frustrating, half fun - moving back in and decorating! Fun because we're making it home again, frustrating because there's more room for some things, but hard sometimes to find good spots for the old decor. When it's finished, I will put pictures on here, but for now, I still need a little more time!

My nephews and niece are doing well. Lena Rae has entered a very fun stage - trying to stand and copy our words, Tanner still turns my heart into a puddle, Jackson is still our quiet, studious boy, and Jace's head reaches my waist and he's started school!

It snowed this morning, and I loved it. I've had a bad, grumpy attitude about winter. Brrrr.....give me 90 degrees any day! But snow, along with rain, brings that "hush" I was talking about earlier. It rained all day yesterday, and we had fluffy snowflakes falling this morning. The festive spirit has entered me and I'm just biding my time until Thanksgiving when we pull out all the Christmas stuff!!

Today was spent breaking out the Missions Conference files and getting ready for that. It will consume the next three weeks of my life but I LOVE it! Tonight is the first basketball game of the season, and right after the game is our weekly Bible Foundations class...which I still have to study for! Winter activities are here, and the rain and snow were just exactly what my soul needed to get in the mood!

I hope each of you has had a wonderful beginning to this season, and I'll see you soon! Thank you for staying with me. :)

my familiar | summer's end

 

I love to travel. I've been blessed to have flown internationally and be in different countries. I've seen beautiful and historical landmarks in America, and if you gave me a plane ticket and a travel partner, I can't think of many places I'd refuse to go. There are so many different travel destinations on my bucket list that I can't name half of them off the top of my head.The world is beautiful - each place stunning in it's own unique way.

But there is something to be said about the beauty I see daily, that I get to take for granted. The things I hope never change, that will welcome me back when I've been gone.

It's easy to feel stuck in a place when there's simply too much going on, not enough time, too expensive to travel...whatever the reason you can't leave.  I've been there so many times. Feeling the itch to pack a bag and get on a plane. Just to see something different, break up the routine, jump out of your rut.

I've been feeling that for the past few weeks as we're in the middle of what sometimes feels like a hurricane of sawdust and nails. The holidays are coming up and it's just a terrible time to take off work. Planning a trip for April and May seems like such a long way off...and so I decided to appreciate the things around me.

The evenings are getting cooler here. Still a far cry from the nose-numbing nights of deep autumn, but the evenings of driving around with the windows down are numbered. So last night, Amie and I decided to take a drive around some of our favorite places near home. We were never more that 15 minutes from our house, and with cameras in hand, my desire to leave this place for a little while grew to a distant call that I'll revisit later in April or May. ;)

These are sights that comfort me, that let me know this is where I belong.

My familiar.

Come drive around with us...

{as appropriate as it would be, no, I do not live on this road ;) }

 

 

We all have places uniquely beautiful and special to us. These sights speak to me of home. What is your familiar?