...am excited to celebrate my grandfather's birthday!!! This time last year, we thought that he was dying--he was in a coma and not doing well.  It's amazing how much can change in one, short year. 

Happy Birthday Grandpa Pete!!

...am excited to wish my sister-in-law 'happy birthday' from far away!!! I hope it is a sparkling and awesome day for you Cristale!!!

...am a bit too tired from a late night spent with my college roommate and her family. It is wonderful to play catch-up and watch as two worlds collide. Who would have thought that they would ever visit small-town-USA?! I'm sure glad they did.

...can't wait to run. I didn't get up early enough this morning, but I'm going to pound the pavement tonight once it cools off enough.

Wait.

Who am I and how am I looking forward to running??

The heat must be getting to me.

Yea...that has got to be it.



Picture Credit

A Melody

Waking up this morning was a chore...I love sleeping in on rainy days.

There is just something about rain that makes me want to snuggle in for the day. When we have children,I am going to teach them that a rainy day means movies, lots of snuggles, and tons of time as a family. Instead of rain meaning that the day is going to be dreadful, it will become a special day for all of us. I hope the 12 kids we will have, love our future rainy-day traditions. ;)

12 kids...ha! Oh how the carpenter would be surprised! 

Do you know what the best sound in the entire world is?

Rain on your rooftop.


My family owns a few small cabins in Algonquin Park, Canada. It is my favorite place to vacation. After driving about six hours to get to the lake, we then take a half hour boat ride to the cabins. 


Yes, you can only get to it by boat.

The definition of amazing.

There are no phones, tvs, or electric (other than the generator that we use at night). We bathe in the lake and go on canoe trips daily. It is wonderful.

Yet, I love this place infinitely more when there is a storm rolling through. The sound of the rain on the rooftop is such a beautiful noise to fall asleep to. Nature at its finest.

One thing I never expected, when we purchased this house, was to have a little piece of our Canadian haven, here in New York. The first night that it rained this past month, I about peed my pants. Well maybe not really, but I was pretty darn excited to say the least. Our bedroom has the perfect rain-on-the-rooftop sound!!

We don't have an attic, so we don't have that sound barrier between the roof and our bedroom.

Perfection.

The most simple things, make me ecstatic.

This house is a keeper.


picture sources: here, here, and here.

Being A Stay-At-Home Wife

It would seem that a stay-at-home wife has tons of time on her hands. Wouldn't it?

Wouldn't you also assume that her house would be 100% perfect all the time because she actually has the time to clean it and organize every square inch of it?

And wouldn't it be safe to say that she is the most perfect wife in the sense that she is never overwhelmed and always has plenty of time to fulfill all of her husbands desires and wishes--meaning that the laundry is always done by the time he gets home, there is always a hot meal on the table, and she is ready to spend an evening waiting on him hand and foot.

Yea...

Not.

True.

I am a stay-at-home wife and I do have tons of extra time on my hands...but the pressure that is associated with this role is overwhelming and often leaves me paralyzed. I am so overwhelmed by all that I could and should do that I sometimes don't accomplish anything!!!--its a tangled web that I have weaved.

It's funny because I think I put on a pretty good front. I think people assume that I have it all together. My house is usually straightened up when people come over and I am able to do a lot of work for my church because I have the extra time to devote to it! But, this is sooooo not the case. I soooo don't have it together. In fact, it is rather the opposite. I'm usually a second away from going utterly crazy.

Behind the scenes I am frustrated, overwhelmed, and I feel insignificant at times because I'm just a stay-at-home wife. I mean seriously, what do I do that is so important?!

Well, I will tell you what. I'm determined to change this mindset that I have. As a woman, don't we always seem to have such a self-defeating attitude?? Why can't we ever be good enough for ourselves, when we are such a blessing to those around us?! If aren't stay-at-home moms, we want to be. If we don't have a career, we want to have one. If we don't...then we want....

Being a stay-at-home wife isn't really what I had in mind when I started college almost six years ago. I originally started off going for international business. I had high hopes and dreams of taking my family's local business and turning it into a national real estate investment and developing firm! I had huge dreams and knew that someday I would be traveling all over the world via my own private jet.

Well, that is not what God had planned for me.

Little did I know that I would do so bad in accounting (i.e. have NO interest in it) that I would end up changing my major because of it. Sure I got the basic gist of things and I still feel like I could have passed that class if I tried harder, but I really believe that I wasn't meant to go into business. So, I graduated from Messiah with a degree in Human Development and Family Science. This degree was nicknamed the "M-R-S" degree. Yea...I'm the poster child. Nice to meet you.

Life really hasn't turned out exactly as I thought it would six years ago (echm who's does?!). But I'm learning to be ok with it. God has a plan for me. I don't know what it is. But really, yet again, who does? I just hope that mine involves a quiver full of kids ;)

Yup, that one if for you Jonathan! Love you!

All of that to say, I read this post today and it made me realize a few things.

1.) I really need to get my butt into gear--there is so much more that I could and should be doing.

2.) I need to be realistic about what my day to day routine looks like.

The type A personality that consumes me, craves for organization in every area of my life. So, that is what I'm aiming to achieve over the next few months. It is time that I work towards something.

That is why I signed up for a half marathon.

 That is why I am taking my extra time and putting together a slue of healthy-go-to recipes--so I have no excuse to eat poorly.

That is why I am going to kick this whole boarder-line-diabetes and overweight thing in the butt.

That is why I am going to organize our things down to the items that I really do need and not the items that seem to be filling up empty space for no reason.

That is why I am going to work on my poor excuse for a spiritual life.

I believe that God wants our lives to be pretty, but more importantly I think He wants them to be practical and not filled with frivolous clutter. So, my intention is to focus more on Him and rid my life of the things that take away from that focus. I don't want to be perfect, I just want to be intentional.

I am a stay-at-home wife. I don't have children, nor a job, which takes up most of my day. So, I'm going to learn to enjoy this place in my life while I can. I'm going to work on enjoying this place even though I want so badly to be in another. God has a plan. I just need to learn to be patient and learn to enjoy this crazy ride!

Git R Done: A Summer Wreath

Do you remember this post?

Well, at the end of it, I asked y'all to vote on which wreath I should make.

Drum roll please.....

and you picked....

number two! 

Well, it's almost two months later, and this is my first "git-r-done" challenge in our new house! I think I have put off making this pretty wreath, for long enough. I found this beauty via Pinterest and followed the link to this website. It was great to see how she put the wreath together, but, unfortunately, there wasn't any description of how to make the felt flowers. 

So I did some good ol' google searching and came across this website. She outlines five different ways to make flowers. So armed with step-by-step directions I set to work. 

First, I took a piece of pipe insulation and made it into a circle and taped the two ends together. I didn't take a picture myself, but here is an example from first home dreams. It is a really inexpensive, easy way to make a wreath. 

Then, I wrapped it in fabric. I used two of those pre-cut quilt squares that you can pick up for a dollar at Joann Fabrics, Walmart, etc. 

Then I spent a few hours and made flowers out of felt. To give you an idea, I purchased about twelve sheets of felt and was able to get at least three flowers out of each, depending on which ones I made. I also had four flowers that I didn't end up using on the wreath.

I then started attaching them. For this part I used hot glue and some straight pins when I needed them. I secured the first three flowers and was loving how it looked! I almost left it that way, but decided that if it looked good with three flowers...

...it would look even better with more!

Then it was time to hang it! I used some fishing line and used more straight pins and hot glue to secure it to the back. It was a bit too heavy on the flower side, so I took a bit of hot glue and secured it to the window. Because it is secured to glass, the glue should come off really easy.

Here is the finished project!

 Look at those pretty flowers! I could make these all day. They were so easy and so much fun!

I'm very happy with our little burst of color on the front door. Now, we need to work on those horrible stairs! :)

<click here>

Can You Say Built-Ins 5x Fast?

I apologize ahead of time for how many times I say the words "built-in" in this post :)

The first thing that many people comment on, when they walk into our house, is the built-ins in the dining room. I'm a sucker for built-ins as well. There is definitely something charming about the fact that someone took time to build in a beautiful bookshelf, set of drawers, or even a whole entertainment center. The older the house, the better the built-ins.

Well our house had these cute built-ins that everyone loved. I appreciated the charm, but honestly couldn't stand them. Someone would compliment and I would go into a huge lecture about how impractical they were. They seemed old-ladyish to me and I wanted them gone! So I declared war decided to come up with a solution.  

There were two of them. One on each side of the dining room. Plus, there was also a pretty cool built-in that used to house the previous owner's phone (see right corner of picture below).  I really loved that they added visual interest to the room, but at approximately two inches deep, there wasn't much that I could put on them. I'm not really a chotchky-type person.

So I decided to do a bit of revitalizing to the built-ins. I wanted to make them more practical for the things that we owned. I knew that the amount of shelves was limiting the height of the object that I could display, so I decided to take down two of the shelves. My idea was that I would then be left with two shelves to put things on. Plus, removing them allowed everything to open up a bit more. I like simple and airy. 

A quick coat of primer and we were left with this:

Significantly better if you ask me. I was starting to warm up to the granny-esk built-ins. Slowly they were becoming more practical for a women of my modern tastes. HA! ;)

The next task was to decide what to display on them. I contemplated this for awhile and then realized that the answer was hanging on the wall in our old apartment.

We were given all sorts of beautiful platters as wedding gifts.  I knew that I may only use them a couple times a year, so I decided to use two of them and a pie dish as art in our old dining room. So, when we moved I needed somewhere new to display them. I decided that these built-ins would be perfect!!

I just took the plate holders and used them on the lower shelves, but the upper shelves had grooves cut into them, so I was able to just rest the plate holder in the grooves without hanging them. The end result was this:

and a little side-by-side action:

I think they look so much better! Oh and our little phone cubby got some paint action as well. From phone to flowers. It's looking a-whole-heck-of-a-lot better!

It Was Worth It

I've had a reality check this past weekend. I woke up to the fact that I have no idea what I am doing. I don't know how to handle this whole house-always-under-construction thing.

Now I know why Jonathan has been stressed these past five months.

I should bake him a cake and tell him how thankful I am for his abilities as a carpenter. :)

I should also thank him for picking me to be his wife.

Just sayin'.

Moving on.

I have to say that people like John and Sherry and Kevin and Layla, make it look incredibly fun and effortless to redo your entire home. There seems to be an endless supply of money that they can use towards their house and they always seem to have the perfect decorative solutions! They are able to blog about every little project or decision they make and they seem to have endless time to take pictures, edit pictures, and blog their hearts out.

I have that this simply is not reality. They are just really good at blogging about the good things! They just manage to leave out all of the stress and frustrations. I mean really...what sells? Happiness or an impending explosion?

Yea, happiness.

I'm sure that they would be the first to tell you that it isn't all sunshine and flowers (or however that expression goes). I'm sure that if you sat down and picked their brains, they would share with you some horrible decorating decision that they made or the huge argument that they had over a shade of white.

Yes. There is many different shades of white.

Trust me.

Been there, done that.

But I think that they would all arrive at the same conclusion:

In the end, all of the stress and frustration is worth it. 


I just have to say that I hope Jonathan and I feel that way too. I have to be honest, I have my moments of, "Will this ever end?!" and then I have my moments of, "This is the best thing ever and I am so thankful that God has blessed us with this opportunity!!" It's a bit of a roller coaster and I am just hanging on for dear life!


I am starting to accept the fact that my house is never going to meet my high standards. They are just unrealistic. I have always had a way that I want our space to look like. Well, when you are under constant remodeling and demoing, that standard goes out the window.


Our floors are currently subfloors covered with area rugs and every room in our house still needs some kind of work done, but, it's OUR HOUSE.


We have so much work  and will, probably, take the next 10 years (at least) to complete it all. But, it's OUR HOUSE.


I get frustrated with the lack of storage space that I have. But, it's OUR HOUSE.


I become overwhelmed by the gardening that needs to be done and the lack of landscaping the previous owners did. But, it's OUR HOUSE. 


It seems that every time I have a stressful moment, God is there to remind me that it is our house. It is our home and our first house together. We will raise our kids here. We will celebrate future birthdays, Christmases, and Easters in this house. So this weekend, when I was having my reality check of sorts, I was also remembering to cherish what this house is going to mean (and already does mean) to us.

It doesn't matter if the house is clean and perfectly straightened up all the time. Our guests don't care and neither should I.

It doesn't matter if the baseboard in our bedroom still isn't done, it's not like it is affecting my ability to breath! My goodness.

It doesn't matter that our gardens are 100% overgrown and really need some work. They can wait and really, who would expect it all to be done in one nice, sunny day?

Yea, this ol' girl needs to pull back the reigns and relax!

Easier said then done, but I promise, I'm really working on it :)

I think Jonathan should bake me a cake and tell me how thankful he is that I realize my faults.

Oh and thank me for picking him to be my husband.

Yea...we are going to be one cake-filled house around here!

Anyways, I think I'm starting to grow up a bit? Is this the beginning of what adulthood feels like? If so, me and my big girl panties are digging it.

I guess I'm off to un-knot my big-girl-panties, oh and maybe go for a run.



Oh and just because no post is complete without a picture, here are some of Jonathan and I throughout the past five years. My how time does fly.

Next post, will have no references to underwear.

I promise. :)