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!

august 2015 recap

It's hard to believe August is over. It's gone by so quickly. It's funny to me how sometimes something that happened at the beginning of the month can feel like years ago, and sometimes it feels like only yesterday.

At the beginning of August we took a quick trip away for some very much needed rest. We were only gone about four days, but it was just what we needed.

If you've never been to the Biltmore, I highly recommend it. This was my second trip, and I'm trying to talk some friends into going at Christmas time. :)

We did some hiking and "nature viewing".

The entire family got together for my mom's birthday. It was a combination of her birthday and eating the fourth of July food we'd had to put in the freezer since no one was around for that holiday. It was a week early, so on her actual birthday I made a supper that catered more towards her favorites. :) (salmon, avocado salsa, roasted carrots...I've posted the recipe, and each time I've made it we wonder why we don't eat it once a week. ;) )

Anyway, when the entire family gathered, we simply grilled out, Mama made an ice cream and peaches recipe from the Biltmore Cookbook, and we enjoyed a relaxing evening....inside, because the bugs were insane.

It was a blessedly un-busy month comparatively speaking. It began cooling off a little bit, but I think we're having an Indian Summer because it's getting hot again.

I hate to see summer end. School has started back, life is returning to a scheduled pace, and while I enjoy the structure to my days, there isn't as much room for spontaneity. August was a nice farewell to summer festivities, and I'm excited to see what Autumn holds. The full calendar in front of me says it will be anything but dull!

Have a lovely evening, readers. You will hear from me soon.

| AUGUST SNAPSHOTS |

 

southernisms | sweetness of the south pt.1

Hey, y'all! How's your Mama 'n 'em?

Do what? Come again? What a way to open a blog post!

I know it had been a month of Sundays since you'd heard from me last time I posted, so I decided to do another one right away. All summer I've been coming up with a list of things about the south I'd love to share with all y'all, but that would be the longest blog post ever so I decided to do a series of posts, starting with this one, which to me is the tune of the south.

I reckon I'm allowed to be proud of where I'm from because I was born and raised here, so don't pitch a fit if you happen to be from the north, bless your heart. You be proud of your heritage, I'll be proud of mine.

One of my favorite things about the south is the freely made up, strange, and never questioned expressions. Once you start using them they stick to you like stink on a hog, and never you mind if it's one you made up on the spur, sometimes you just gotta get your point across.

"The south is the one place nothing ever has to be explained to me." I know what all of these expressions mean, and if you think the ones you read here are silly things we only say once in a blue moon, then you've got another think coming. I've only included those I hear at least every week, if not every day.

In my family my grand parents have five kids and forty 'leven grandkids.  We all live a hoot 'n a holler away from them and when family get togethers come around we're up and at 'em because everyone brings a dish. We always bring plenty because there's a slew of people and we don't want to have to be scrounging around for extras when we're fixin' to eat. Lemme tell you what, you've never had rolls like my grandma makes. They're slap-your-mama good, and she's always got some on hand when we go over. We tend to pig out and get full as a tick, but we'll stop when we've had a gracious plenty. If you've never been to a family potluck, well I never. Y'all ain't right. 

You'd better watch yourself, or your Mama'll jerk a knot in your tail. I don't know how many times I've been told, "don't be ugly!" If you ever start thinking you're too high falutin' to heed that warning and get too big for your britches, then you're dumb as a box of rocks. You'll make your mama mad as a wet hen and get yourself chewed up one side and down the other.  If you don't straighten up you just might get her dander up and cause her to fly off the handle and lay into you quick as greased lightening. Then she'll be upset as all get out so nip it in the bud for heavens sake! Stop being such a persnickety knucklehead, you're getting us all discombobulated.

Manners are first and foremost and you must never let someone think you're speaking ill of a person. For example, "He's ugly as a mud fence, bless his heart." or "Poor thing, he's old as dirt and ain't got a stitch 'a hair." Compliment someone's cooking and you'll like to tickle them to death, but insult their sister and you'll tear them all to pieces and possibly cause them to have a come apart. Lord have mercy we wouldn't want that!  

My daddy always said that if you can't say nothing nice, don't say nothing at all, and Mama will tell you to hush your mouth when you start talking ugly because that one lady can't carry a tune in a bucket. Just don't cause a stink about it, ya hear?

When asked if you like the fruitcake when you've got a hankerin' for pie, say you surely do and thank you kindly, ma'am. You can wash it down with some sweet tea and go home in a little bit. 

Good heavens, it's hot! The humidity's getting on our last nerve. Summer is spent hay hauling, bean picking, chigger scratching, and spending most of your day in the humid, hotter than blazes out-of-doors. Shew-whee, by nightfall you feel like you've been chewed up and spit out, but just hide and watch us do it again the next day because we hang in there like a hair in a biscuit. Pretty soon we'll have put up all of the harvest and will be in high cotton, ready for bonfires and hay rides. Autumn will be here directly and we'll praise Jesus for the breeze.


Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we'll be having dinner on the ground once it cools off. Everybody'll be puttin' on the dog - girls  dressed pretty as a picture and the boys all decked out. Mama's are tickled pink when you act like you're somebody.

Well if that don't beat all - I've used a lot of southern expressions! There are so many I left out because there just isn't enough time!  Maybe there will be a second one on southernisms? Who knows?

There might be one or two that don't make a lick 'a sense to you, so just ask me and I'll try to explain them! And it's not just the old timers that use these expressions, I asked my friends which ones they used regularly and that's where most of them came from - and they're all under the age of 25!  (9 out of 10 of them said "bless your heart" is the one they use the most.)

"Goodness gracious, hun, I can't think of an expression on the fly like that!" But we did, and here they are.

Have a lovely day, darling readers. I'll see you shortly!

 

first in my heart

 "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

It's difficult sometimes. When the dreams and plans you've been building for years slowly start crumbling around you, it's difficult to remember that He's still good. As those pieces of the hopes you've had begin tumbling, you scramble after them, chasing, grasping, desperately trying to put them back together. But the harder you try, the more impossible it seems, and the more scattered those precious pieces of hopes become. Slipping away, impossible to retrieve.

As I've tried to write this for a couple of weeks now, I couldn't get past the first paragraph. I thought of giving examples, sharing some of the struggles my friends and even I have faced in this past year. But when I went back to our conversations, our shared tears and heartbreaks, I couldn't overlook the way every conversation concluded.

"I know God has a plan."

"I'm sure the Lord is teaching me something through this."

"I just have to wait on Him, and trust that He knows best."

Waiting is hard when the end isn't in sight. But the longer I wait the more I find a place of peace. In the moments when I want to question Christ, when I just don't understand and can't make sense of the things He allows, it's as if He shoves a reminder in my face.  For example...

Weirdly enough, two of my very favorite parts of the day are my 7 minute drives to and from work. On the way there, I sip my coffee and listen to music. On the way home, I sip my water and listen to music. The past few days, every song (actually just 2 or 3 because I'm a repeat kind of girl) has been about the sacrifice that Calvary required. How very deep the Father's love is for us, to give His only son to pay our ransom. It was my sin that held my Savior to the tree.

And then this morning, the words and the melody of a song wrapped themselves around me like a familiar, comforting blanket. I don't know what was more meaningful - the words, or the familiarity of the song itself. One I've been singing since before I can remember singing. One I've heard since birth when my parents sang it as they put me to bed, one I've sung in the nursery, when I babysat, and to my nephews and niece. A song sung at funerals, at weddings, during nearly every holiday, and during many church services.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound... How sweet the sound. His grace is amazing, vast, and completely forgiving.

...that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see. Even after salvation, He seeks us out, He finds us.

But my own personal favorite hymn?

Be thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me save that thou art... I think that if we could look beyond the circumstances we find ourselves in and focus on Him, the "things of earth will grow strangely dim" and nothing would matter but Him.

...thou and thou only, first in my heart... Shouldn't this be my goal? For Him to be first in everything? Every dream, every wish, every hope. Him first. Always. "Abhorring all my sin, adoring only Him."

I want to have a family. I want my friends to have a baby. I want health for the sick, comfort for the widow, love for the lonely.

But if not, He is still good.

june & july 2015 recap

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

I'm combining these months because they ran into each other creating such a blur that it just seems like putting them together is the thing to do. It was a couple of really hot and humid months weather wise, but we were too busy to stop and take too much notice. 

Saturday, June 6, my Sunday School class got together and hiked to a waterfall near us. It was a beautiful day, and we went early enough to beat the heat. Our teachers brought sandwich stuff and we ate after the hike. It was a really fun way to kick off summer!

The following Monday we started things off with a bang with our combined VBS and Jr. Camp week. Monday through Friday I was in charge of making sure the 2&3 year olds got to their places. Assembly, class, activities, crafts, and lunch. It was a fun week learning about D.L. Moody, Fanny Crosby, Billy Sunday, George Washington Carver, and David Brainard. The theme - obviously - was American Heroes of the Faith, and each classroom and teacher highlighted and focused on one of the above mentioned names. They decorated their rooms, dressed in period clothing, and were as dedicated and involved as you could ever hope a teacher would be. When adults are moved by a lesson for toddlers, you know something good is happening.

the kids even got to do some pottery this year because our newest church member is a pottery missionary!

We took a little breather the Saturday after VBS to do some laundry and pack for Youth Camp. It began Monday morning and ended Friday night. It was such a good year, and my very first as an official, call-me-Miss-Kelley-counselor. I tend to be overly organized and tidy, and I had 6 girls (five thirteen-year-olds and one fifteen-year-old) in my room. It was anything but quiet and tidy, but it was a lot of fun. It was all of their first time at Youth Camp, so I enjoyed helping them get ready, do devotions, talk about the services, and pray together before bed. I found myself channeling my former counselors and I'm so very grateful for the positive and lasting influence they had on me. 

Two of my best friends since childhood were there as well, and it was so much fun experiencing the flip side of camp together!

Two weeks later, and we're getting into Music School. I didn't get to participate in much of it this year because I was helping with some behind-the-scenes work, but I was able to go to the singing at night and learn some of the songs. It was a wonderful year, with well over 300 people attending at night.

Once again, my friends and I experiencing the other side of what we attended for years as children and teens.

Faith, Kaitlyn, & I. the menu? hotdogs for lunch and ziti for supper!

But the cherry on top of our summer was Douglas Mac being born on July 17 weighing 10 pounds and 2 ounces.

he is our favorite part of summer

This post would have been up much sooner, but we took a quick getaway at the beginning of this month and put everything else on hold. I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer, ours has been busy but we're looking forward to a little free time in August!

| JULY SNAPSHOTS |

I hope all of you have a lovely August!

 

seven | seventeen | two thousand fifteen

 Hello, Douglas Mac.

We've been waiting for you. Did you know you're five days late?

You weigh 10 pounds and 2 ounces. You're 22 inches long. 

I hope you don't mind all of the staring, you're just so sweet and cute. And big.

Your big sister thinks you belong to her. You kind of do, but we all feel that way so welcome to our family.

We will try to get you to call me Aunt Kelley, but Jackson told me it's really hard to remember the "aunt". That's ok.

We believe the more the merrier, so you have made us very happy.