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!

strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow

There is peace in the center of God's will.

There is no fear in the middle of God's protection.

There is heartache in this temperal world. What happened in Paris could have happened here. We have no promise that our city, our town, our community, is exempt from terrorist attacks.

It is evil. It is wrong. It is terrifying.

It is the world we live in. It's depressing and it's dark.

There will one day be peace and total security.

Until then, remember that life is a vapor. A regular day spent with family could very well end in a horrible way. Remember it could have been any of us, and never forget to pray.

Today we need strength to face what possibly lies ahead, strength to take in what is happening in our world.

Tomorrow we have hope for a bright eternity where none of this will even be a memory.

In the middle of my comfortable, happy life, I couldn't not acknowledge all the hurting people right now. Please pray with me for them. Even more than they need comfort for their loss, they need Jesus for their future.

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!


 

checking in

Whenever I'm behind on posting something, I get these great visions of myself making some coffee, getting settled in my chair, and expounding on something of great importance or sharing the happy little details of life recently.

However, lately when I've sat down all I've been able to think about is how it would only take a few more hours to clean out the storage room I've been working on for weeks, or how the light bulb in my closet needs changing, or getting out the fall decorations, or that I need to go over my list for the Fall Festival. ...or wondering if I should get out my winter clothes because yesterday it was in the low 50's but today it's in the 80's. What is life?

As I've mentioned before, it's hard for me to relax in the middle of disorder. It's a trait I'm working on, but with the weather as it's been, my room and closet are a bit chaotic. It makes me feel anxious just leaving it, and I truly enjoy throwing stuff out and simplifying my life. If it's unused, out it goes. 

This might be an odd thing to write about, but it's my life right now. There's a lot going on in the church side of my life, and in the home side, I'm having a great time Fall De-Cluttering. It's driving my family crazy, but I'm really enjoying it.

 

Anyway, all that to say that my mind has been on everything except writing recently. My pictures for September are scattered all over the place, and I'm still catching up with the fact that it's already October! I still jot down mental notes of articles I'm planning on writing, and another part to my Sweetness of the South series. But for the most part, I've been focusing on enjoying the changing seasons and making the most of my days.

So I apologize for the silence here recently, but next week looks to offer some time for a real post. For now, I hope you're having a happy Fall, and I'll be back soon with another post about who knows what! 

Thanks for sticking around!