Messy House, Quiet Heart

 Last week Javi went down for an unexpected nap around 9am. (He usually doesn’t go to sleep until 10 or 11am. That day he took both naps! Hurray!) When he dozed off, I immediately started to plan out the tasks that I could accomplish in the next 30-45 minutes. I had laundry to get going, dishes to clean up, and clutter all around the house.

As I walked into the kitchen, a little voice in my head said “This would be the perfect opportunity to spend some time with Jesus!” See I had just been telling Lover the day before how I’ve yet to really find enough consistency in my schedule to work my morning quiet time back in. and now I was faced with an unexpected nap.

So, I reigned in my inner neat freak, grabbed my notebook and Bible and sat down for some distraction free study time. I’ve been working on a study about living a victorious life and it’s been really awesome. I’ve been struggling with the feeling that “I can’t do this (whatever this may be)”, “it’s too hard”, “I don’t know how to live victoriously” and the like, so the dedicated time to really study out some verses was really awesome.

My favorite realization from my study time? The definition of the word “overcome” means “get the better of”. So when I read
“be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” I imagine Jesus saying with a smile – don’t worry guys! I’ve got this!
At the end of my study time, signaled by a two foot tall little man in the other room, my house was still a wreck, but my heart was at peace. I’m so glad I let the dishes sit a little longer. It was so worth it.

Simple Living

We are wrapping up a two week long trip to Tampa Bay, FL, and I am excited about heading home, even if it means returning to snow and cold for a few more weeks. Home is just so... home-y, you know? :-) And obviously, as you read here on the blog, I put a lot of effort into making our home a cozy and welcoming place to be. We are so blessed to have a large, beautiful home, with tons more space than we know what to do with. And I work hard to ensure that we are not simply amassing a collection of stuff that will mean nothing when our life is over.

But every time we go away for a week or two, I look around our hotel room and I am amazed. In this case we packed two suitcases, a backpack and a rolling carry on, and an infant carseat. And in those four luggage items, we fit everything we need for day to day life for two weeks. Now, obviously there are some exceptions. We're eating out almost every meal (breakfast is included at our hotel) so I don't need a kitchen, and that saves on a lot of space. But we have all our toiletries, several changes of clothes, some toys for Javi, and a few other niceties like a laptop and my cameras.

I've had to do laundry twice since we got here, as we have so few changes of clothes. I pretty much do that amount of laundry anyways, as the little man loves to coat us and himself in spit up and drool and other body fluids. :-) But it was one load of laundry, completed in about two hours.

We've shopped for snacks and a few breakfast and lunch items twice, and those items are filling up the mini fridge and the shelves above it. It's really quite amazing. This room is approximately the size of my kitchen and dining room, and has a king size bed and a split bathroom - and we are living in it with great comfort.

It really is a reality check on how much stuff we actually need. Obviously there are things that would make our life easier that we don't have here. But the reality is that our lovely house back home is filled with things that we don't really need. And that brings me to a few conclusions.

First, we are so, incredibly, bountifully, blessed. We have so much, when so many people around the world have so little. This reminds me to be thankful for the abundance that we have, and also to do more with that abundance for others.

Secondly, I want to continue on my quest to live a simple and uncluttered life. It was a real eye opener to me when Javi was born - how quickly the stuff started accumulating. And right now it is my responsibility to corral his stuff, later on it will be my job to teach him to live simply.

And thirdly, wherever I am, if I have my husband and my son, I have everything I need to be content.

All you get is random...

My brain has been too scattered lately to put together a proper post, and we are currently three hundred miles from home... so today all you get from me is scattered. :-)  Here are a series of completely random things rolling around in my brain. :-) (Both times I typed brain, I first typed brian. See what I mean about scattered?) ;-)



First up, I finally finished Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. :-) Which means that I am right on track for my goal to read a classic a month, if this month were February. :-) But it's shaping up to be a wicked hot summer, so me thinks I will have lots of time to sit and read while avoiding the heat. (and any other responsibilities that may come my way) :-) I struggled with Oliver Twist, because Dickens wrote the majority of the book in the colloquial language of Londoners many years ago, and it was a little hard to follow. But I managed to get the gist of the story, and enjoyed the suspense that he built from the very beginning. Boy could that guy tell a story! :-)



When I am feeling scattered, I make lists. This week's list of choice was yet another house list, things to complete, replace, repair, etc. broken down by room. It was therapeutic. My goal is to have it all done in the next five months. (This is one of three pages) Ha! :-) That would be awesome, but it's so not happening. :-) Seriously, though, making a list makes me feel like I have a plan, and that makes me happy. I like plans. When we bought Wendhurst Castle, we talked about how long it would take us to fix it up and Lover threw out "five years" very casually, with no commitment to actually being done in five years. I strongly disagreed, stating that I couldn't see it possibly taking us this long. Ha. We're in year four, and still haven't tackled the big stuff like kitchen and bath renos (although we ARE renovating an entire basement) so me thinks Lover's estimation of five years was generous. :-) He's so much better at predicting how much time things will take than I am. Darn math geek. :-)



We have now stayed at this hotel twice, in two different rooms, and they have the same print in both bathrooms. I love it. (Sorry for the crappy pic, its in a hotel bathroom with no natural light) I love the vivid green, and the way the little rain drops look like watery ladybugs. I think I need to recreate a pic like this and hang it somewhere in my house. :-) Maybe in MY bathroom? :-)



Living in a hotel for a week while Lover is at training means that I have a lot of free time. Which, of course,  I use productively for things like business work, reading etc. Or possibly playing SIMS. Please tell me I am not the only person over 20 years old that still plays this game... hello? It's just so gosh darn fun.



And finally, because I told you this post was completely random, this is my all time favorite mascara. Maybelline's Classic Volume Express in Brownish Black and Waterproof. It's the only one that doesn't end up all over my eyes by the end of the day, washes off fairly easily, and goes on thick and non-clumpy.  I've tried other Maybelline mascaras, CoverGirl, Clinique and even that new Physician's Formula Organic stuff. All terrible. Maybelline took this off the shelves for a few months while they redesigned the packaging, and I nearly had a heart attack. I feel like maybe I should stock up on this for the next fifty years. Will I still wear mascara when I am 77? I feel like it is a strong possibility. Does anyone know how long mascara keeps unopened and in its original packaging? :-)

 

So that wraps up Random Thoughts on A Thursday. Bet you're glad you spent this time reading my crazy thoughts, hmm? I thought so. :-) Check back next week when I will hopefully not be so scattered. No promises though. :-)

 

Friends.Lovers.Soulmates. Chapter 1

I can barely remember a time when I wasn't friends with Lover. His family moved to my city when I was just three years old, and our families became great friends shortly thereafter. Lover is the youngest of four children, and I am the oldest of four. That worked out perfectly to put us both very close in age. I have three brothers, so I've always been more comfortable around guys than girls, and it wasn't long before Lover and I were fast friends.

As I said, our families were also best friends (my second brother was named Jonathan David because of the friendship between our fathers) so we spent a lot of time together. And when I say a lot, I mean hours upon hours. The best memories I have of that time are playing games at our house, dressing up like some sort of crazy hobo people, and reading lots of books together.

When Lover 's family came over for dinner, the running joke was trying to figure out how many times his dad would say “all right kids, time to go!” before he was actually serious and they had to get their coats. Once we counted 16 times. We never complained, because it always gave us more time to spend together.

Lover's family moved to Spain a few years later. As five and six year olds, our primary concern in this move to another continent was how we would keep in touch. That still makes me laugh. Truth be told, I was devastated to be losing my friend, and so we came up with an ingenious solution. A secret code! With two older sisters, and my nosy little brother, we knew that we didn't stand a chance of privacy unless our letters were “Top Secret.” This was back in the days of airmail, when you sent all your letters, written on super thin paper, in one envelope to save on postage. And so the code was born. Here is our code breaker,



You'll notice that there are important words on there; horse, America, orphan(?), parents and steel. I'm sitting here, twenty years later, trying to figure out why we would have needed to talk about steel in our 6 year old letters. Hehe. Anyways, we did use the code, for quite a while. Here is one of Lover 's letters to me back then.



He explains that you can indeed grill in Spain, but you have to go out to the country. He also asks about my new baby brother's name (my second brother). Oh, and in Spain the weather is hot. :-) I love these letters. They are all so silly and quirky.

And so, for the first year that Lover lived in Spain, we exchanged letters and talked on the phone once in a very great while. And then my parents gave me the greatest news ever – WE were going to Spain to visit Lover!

To be continued...

I was three, and He was four

This is Lover and I, at approximately 6 and 7 years old. This is, understandably, one of my favorite pictures of the two of us. We have literally been friends forever, or at least since we were three years old. Isn't that incredible? At our wedding reception we had one of those slideshows where we show pictures from birth to now of each of us. And my favorite part was that we had pictures of us, together, from almost the very beginning. Our families met when we were little, and we somehow managed to stay friends over the next twenty years, until we fell in love and "took our friendship to the next level." :-)

Over the next few weeks, I want to tell you all some of our story, how we were friends when we were kids, best friends with an ocean between us, how we invented a "secret code" to keep Lover's sisters and my brothers from reading our letters, to finally falling in love at 20 years old. It's a long story, but it's a great story. But first, before I get all verbose, I will tell you our story from Lover's perspective.

"We met when we were three and four years old,

and she has been following me around the world

ever since."

A Happy Life

Lately I have been thinking a lot about happiness. And contentment. And how both of those things are intrinsically linked. Someone was asking me the other day about my job, and if there are any elements of it that I just really hate. I sat there for a few minutes thinking about it, and wondering at the fact that there literally isn't anything in my life right now that I hate. Part of that is that fact that I am incredibly blessed  - all my needs are provided for, I don't have to work a "normal" job, I have a husband who loves me, more family and friends than I can barely handle, and a "job" that feels like playing every day.

The other part though, is that I am learning to be content. Are there things about my life that I would like to be different? Sure. I'd love for Wendhurst Castle to be completely renovated. I'd LOVE it if Lover didn't have to travel so much. I'd love it if my family, and my adorable nephews, lived closer.  But, I am not going to dwell on these things. I am learning to simply accept the different things in my life as pieces of a puzzle that all add up to create the wonderful life that I enjoy.

We've spent nearly four out of the last ten months away from home, and that was really hard. At the same time, it was really easy. I'm learning that even though my preference may be for one thing, it does not have to have any bearing on my mood, attitude towards others, or my enjoyment of each day.

When I spent a month in California in August, it was really hard to be away from Lover. It was frustrating to lose time to work on the house, to see friends, to enjoy "my life." But, I got to spend gobs of time with my little one year old nephew who I love to death, get to know my brother-in-law a lot more, and be a blessing to them at a time when they were really in a difficult place. And I honestly loved doing it.

I guess you could say that I am learning to roll with the punches. :-) Paul said, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Lately, this verse has made me chuckle, because I have taken it literally to heart: New York, California, Pennsylvania, or even Canada or Spain. But the message there is so much more than just superficial. It means, in a nutshell; "no matter what is going on, I will choose to be satisfied with the life that has been given me."

And that, my friends, is what it is all about. Learning to accept the life God has given you, and being truly grateful for it. Lover said recently, in a conversation about trials and blessings, that some people have trouble seeing the blessings when they are in the midst of  a trial. But, when our perspective is on the blessings that surround us, all of the sudden it is hard to see the trial in the midst of the blessings. I couldn't agree more.

Our Wedding

Yesterday we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary, so I figured that today would be a great day to show you some pictures of our wedding. I won't go into a lot of detail, but I wanted to show you some of my favorites from the our special day.

Wedding planning is so stressful, but it was all worth it once I was walking down the aisle, about to marry my best friend!



During the ceremony, our pastor asked us to take a moment and look around at all of our friends and family, gathered there to celebrate us. That is one of my favorite memories of the whole day!



Some shots from the ceremony...

Heidi sang From This Moment On, so beautiful. :-)



We exited the church under a canopy of beads, so pretty and fun.



Aren't my girls pretty? They carried Spanish fans, and all four of us were barefoot for the ceremony. Between bare feet and their little flower hair wreaths, they looked like little fairies going down the aisle. :-)



I bet you can guess which of these guys I think is the most handsome. (The one second from the right :-)



I loved, loved, LOVED my dress. It was spectacular, and I felt absolutely gorgeous in it.



We had a quick, sweet little reception, and then Lover gave me the best surprise. I wanted to go somewhere pretty for pictures, and he had booked a private garden for our wedding pictures. It was just Lover and I and the photographers, and it was incredibly romantic and relaxing. The perfect end to our perfect day.



It was like a perfect little secret garden, hidden away from everyone.

They don't normally allow bridal parties in, but they made an exception for us. So our pictures are one of a kind!

Man, I really love this guy. Kind of ridiculous how much. :-) This next one is one of my absolute favorites of the whole day.



Oh, and this is the picture that inspired my birthday gift painting. So pretty.

I know you are all now jealous of my awesome husband and our wonderful life together. ;-) What can I say, I am blessed beyond measure. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Things You Never Knew About Me

1. My red hair is completely natural, but I get asked if I color it on a semi-weekly basis. The first time I was asked this question I was nine years old. I was completely at a loss for words.

2. I have two foreign high school diplomas. Spanish high school end at 10th grade, and upon completion you receive your diploma. Then you may enroll in an optional baccalaureate program for two years, and if you finish this program, you receive another degree.

3. I walk a very thin line between the world of fantasy and reality. Sometimes I can be completely convinced that what I believe is true, even if, well, there is no such thing as a centaur.

4. I am the oldest of four, and Lover is the youngest of four. I exhibit many of the stereotypical firstborn qualities, while Lover exhibits almost none of the typical "baby" traits.

5. I eat ice cream year round, in upstate New York, even if I have to be under a blanket so as not to get too frozen. That's devotion, my friends.

6. I can read an average size novel in two hours. I will probably be able to tell you the whole story, in detail, but I will likely be unable to tell you the title of the book.

7. I can read a map with the best of them, but I've gotten lost on five different occasions going to church. (the one we are at two/three times a week. )

8. My comfort level ranges from 70° F to about 73° F. This means that I am either freezing cold or uncomfortably hot most of my life.

9. My arches on my feet are so high that I can never find comfortable shoes. They are either not supportive enough, or the straps, boot or other shoe part that fits around my foot is always too tight. Needless to say, this curbs my shoe addiction.

10. I have my own invented word that I use when I am upset. Fruggers. At least I thought I invented it, but apparently it is a German word. Now you also know that I don't speak German. :-)

Friday Fav: Sunshine

Well, it seems that my Friday Favs are showing you all about me. I love sunshine. Interestingly enough, for having spent over half my life in the often sun-less town of Rochester, I adore the sunshine. I think partly because I equate sunshine with God's presence. When the sun's rays hit my face, I think "Oh, God is smiling down on me right now." Which he could also be doing when it's cloudy, but I don't think it then. 

In other news, we've had a rough couple of weeks. Our washer overflowed all over our basement so our house priority list went from this:

• Finish rooms we've started on
• Paint Kitchen
  
• Work on outside curb appeal and yard
• Refinish living room and dining room floors
• Work on remodeling basement

to:

• WORK ON MESS IN BASEMENT!!!!!

 ;-)