Words for Wednesday: Magic of Beginnings!

If you read the last post, then you know we finally did it! We bought an RV. Just a  little pull behind travel trailer and she (her name is Flo) is my newest love (introductions to come soon). I had been dreaming of her, hoping Babe would finally just say, "ok, let's live a little dream" and planning all kinds of wonderful adventures 

And then the day came, the purchase went through and I was ecstatic... but, I was also scared! 

This dream is something I have held onto for a while. One that I hadn't let go of like I tend to do with others. But then the reality of a dream fulfilled sunk in and I was nervous- I AM nervous. Nervous that it was stupid, worried that it wasn't good timing, that maybe it was an impulse decision. But as this weekend approaches (the weekend that we get to actually go pick her up, stay in it for the first night and bring her home) I am trusting in our decision to follow a dream! 

I am excited for the magic of this new beginning, doing something completely new to us and doing it together. I read somewhere that once a dream is fulfilled it's gone, that that dream no longer exists, but I don't believe that. I believe that the dream only grows, that now the dream of hitting the open road has traction. I believe that the dream doesn't die, it just morphs and changes shape. That dream now holds within it thousands of tiny little dreams; dreams of all the places that the we will go, all the adventures we will have and all the new things we will learn about each other and ourselves. 

And so I am trusting in that;

 I am trusting in the magic of new beginnings! 

August Currently

I can not believe August is actually here! Figured I would join in on the Currently August fun for a little catch up of what has been going on in my world!

CREATING:

I haven’t been creating much lately, though soon I will be putting some finishing touches on some pre-created pieces that will be going in our kitchen!! Yay for a handy father-in-law and awesome antique finds in Georgia. However, while on vacation we did do a little shopping for a backpack drive and created some back-to-school encouragement signs to add to the backpack. You can read more about that here.

WISHLISTING:

Big news folks!!! We finally bit the bullet and purchased an R.V.!  I could not be more ecstatic about our new “baby”! I will share more info about Flo (short for FloRida ReVa) once we pick her up from the shop, but for now I have been Pinterest crazy putting together a wish list of all the best Florida adventures to take! Any good ones I should add to my list?!

HOPING:

I am hoping to get the house organized this week. Which means more so that I am hoping a little organization fairy just miraculously shows up at my house. Either that or I hope to somehow acquire some organizational skills between now and Monday! Here’s to hoping…

EATING:

We spent a lot of time eating on vacation. I don’t often cook at home anymore. With just the two of us, plus our busy schedules, we just tend to stick to our usual meals that don’t require a lot of prep (tacos and popcorn are staples on our weekly menu; we’re super healthy I know). Being on vacation with two kids in tow means popcorn and tacos just won’t cut it and the eating out bill gets a lot higher. So, I had the chance to cook and I realized I miss it. I think my favorite this week was Frogmore Stew. It’s simple, only one pot and very little clean up!

Recipe

1.) Set a large pot to boil. Throw in some Old Bay seasoning (I don’t really measure this anymore, just however much I feel comfortable with that day).

2.) While water boils, rinse and cut up medium red potatoes (leaving skin on). I then sprinkle those with garlic salt and a little more Old Bay and place them in the pot. Boil for 10 minutes.

3.) While tatoes boil, split ears of corn in half (I usually do a half an ear per person) and cut up smoked sausage (we prefer Kielbasa, but it just depends on the heat you want). I salt the corn with garlic salt and more Old Bay and then throw both the corn and sausage in the pot. Boil another 10 minutes.

4.) After 10 minutes is up, put peel-and-eat shrimp (deveined and cleaned, but still in the shell) into the pot and boil until the shrimp is pink (usually 3 minutes).

Voila!! You are finished! Enjoy!

WATCHING:

Oh bless, this week it has been nothing but Toy Story and Rugrats and American Girl movies. Thankfully we were able to throw The Sandlot into the mix or I might have gone bonkers! Maybe watching those once would have been fine, but hearing two American Girl movies play on repeat three times in a row (each!) was enough to have me dreaming of it at night! Excited to get home and finish watching me some Once Upon a Time haha! That and I checked Alien out from the library and Babe and I plan to watch it this week. Shockingly enough for someone who loves old scary movies, I have never seen it.

One other sweet piece of news is my newest little nephew, Ryker, who was just born this morning (post written previous to birth)!! I'm off to go upload some pictures of his sweet little face so that my sister can see them all. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

Linking up with these lovely ladies for August Currently: Jenna and Anne

And Five of Friday: April

More Than a Backpack

Our church is hosting a backpack drive. It is something we do every year. Last year my husband packed a backpack for a middle/high school student. This year I was really excited to get my niece involved. So Saturday morning, while on our yearly trip to Big Canoe, Ga. we packed up and after making a quick stop for some produce at the local farmers market, we pulled into the Dollar General.

I let Makaylin know that this was a special day, that we weren't shopping for her, but for another child. She was curious and so we talked about why. We talked about how when kids start kindergarten, like she will in a year, the school asks for them to have a backpack and all kinds of school supplies. We discussed how school supplies cost money and how sometimes there are kids whose families have a hard time affording those supplies. I may be biased, but she's a pretty bright little 4 year old and this seemed to make sense to her.

We rolled into the store and I will be honest, I was nervous. Dollar General is a kids dream! There was so much for her to see, so much for her to say, "I want that." But we headed straight for the school supplies and got cracking. The first thing she saw was a Frozen backpack and next thing I know she was fast at work. Her own little personal mission to make another little girls day a happy one. It was so neat to see her smile and see her little brain work through what she wanted to get. Everything she picked she picked with love.

"Oh she will love this Aunt Mel!!" 

"Oh this is the best! Here let me put it in the cart." 

"The flower folders are so beautiful (giving them a hug). She will think they're perfect (putting them in the cart)." 

If Uncle Andrew accidentally slipped something in the cart, he would get a "remember Uncle Andrew give it to me first." This was big business she was attending to and she had to make sure every item passed her little hand inspection. 

It was a wonderful experience! 

One I am so glad we got to do together. But, it was what came after that made this story not only so much more than a backpack for the general experience, but also so much more than a backpack for our car ride back to the cabin. You see, as we were checking out, Makaylin was telling the lady that the backpack wasn't for her but another little girl. The lady, being sweet and trying to encourage her, said, "your mommy and daddy must be so proud of you." We get this often, people thinking that she (or my other niece and nephew or the kids I nanny for) is our child. It just happens. Most of the time she just says, "that's my Aunt Mel." But this was different. On this day she chose to say, "My daddy is in heaven." 

Now this was probably because we had already been talking about him on the way to the farmers market. She heard his name in a song Babe and I were discussing and said, "don't talk about my daddy." I let her know it was someone else named John, but that she could talk about her daddy whenever she wanted to. And from there the questions came... "Why does he have to stay in heaven? Does God love daddy more than me and that's why he had to go to heaven? When can I go to heaven? I want my daddy to come down." 

It's those questions that wrench at the heart, but it's also those questions and more importantly the answers to them that set us all free... "He stays there because God made heaven so wonderful that we want to stay with Him, but daddy's always watching over you. No, baby, God's heart is so big he loves everyone equally, no matter what we do, God's love is big enough to love all His people. It's not time for you to go to Heaven now, God wants you here with us, we live life here on Earth for a while to learn to love well and to teach other people about Jesus. And I want to see your daddy too sweet girl, but someday we will get to see him again and all be together in Heaven forever, that's how Heaven works we get to live with God and Jesus in a real, never die, forever." 

She had changed the subject after that. Quickly switching from the deep questions of life to thoughts on pool swimming and rock sliding as only kids can. 

So it was there on the surface when that sweet lady mentioned her daddy. You could see the look on the woman's face, but we assured her that yes, we are a very proud aunt and uncle, that Makaylin's parents were proud of her, thanked her and walked out. And then it opened sweet conversation about what her attitude that day revealed. We told Makaylin that we were so proud of her. We asked her who else would be proud of how happy she was to be giving to someone else. She replied, "My mommy." And we asked who else, "My daddy!" To which we replied, "Yes, baby, even in Heaven your daddy can still be so proud of you." And we asked who else, "God!!" "Yes, big girl, God is so proud of you. Did you know that what you did today helped you have a heart like Jesus. You gave to someone else without thinking of yourself. You loved and cared for someone who needed help and that's how Jesus loves us. And God is very proud of you!" 

God is proud of her and I am proud of her.
I am thankful for her sweet heart. 

I am thankful for the chance to have heart talks about her daddy. 

I hope it helped her heart, but I know it helped mine. 

I am thankful for backpacks for a sweet little girl somewhere in Orlando. 

And I am thankful that a Frozen backpack has the ability to be so much more than a backpack. 

Words for Wednesday: Grief and Glory

I have been absent from this space for a few weeks. Life was in that flux of space between grief and joy and I wasn't sure which emotions and feelings I felt like sharing (or really which ones I even felt) and so I didn't write at all. Which, I have realized in turn, is bad for my soul. I discovered a while ago that, even if I never post publicly, I need to share the words that choke up my heart. In writing, just for myself, over coffee, with others, internally, externally and most importantly with Jesus. 

I am not usually one to shy away from openness. I share a lot on here, because I feel that in sharing pain and our own walk with suffering we all help one another. Reading things where people share their hearts helps me realize I am not alone. But on the wake of the second anniversary of my brothers death I felt things that were new, things I wasn't sure how to voice and so I tried to block them out and not think on them. And then a sermon preached this past weekend was the gentle reminder I needed of the Glory that there can be in suffering. 

Zach Van Dyke, of Summit Church, preached on Romans Chapter 5 (verses 1-8). He preached about the desire for  a happy place, he referenced Inside Out, he quoted Chronicles of Narnia, he shared joy and sadness and he shared that Christianity is not stoicism (listen here). As Christians our hearts will be broken a million times over and it doesn't mean that we can't suffer, that we can't feel sadness or pain or that when we do we should hold it all in. The Glory is IN the suffering. It is in the broken moments when our tears roll down our cheeks and mix with Jesus'. It is the understanding that when we suffer we can also know we are not alone. Jesus' truest Glory came through His most ultimate suffering and it was the thing that saved the entire world. 

Suffering and grief are part of the picture of what makes us human. In this world we will suffer. But slowly time heals and suffering and sadness mix with joy and that joy is amplified by the pain that hides underneath. This second anniversary of John Wayne being gone was a strange mix of those feelings. Two days before was my mother's 60th birthday and my sister's 35th and we did the best we could to celebrate that day with joy, but there is a lingering undertone. It is the chance to be together with family and close friends to celebrate, but the reminder of what's missing is forever there and so the laughter and the tears blend together in a mess of BBQ and key lime pie. And that's ok. 

Last year the grief was so fresh. This year it left us each trying hard to go about our daily business, some even working longer hours that day to have less time at home. We didn't meet up again, instead leaving the celebration of birth our time together as a family. We reached out to each other via texts and we responded to each others Facebook messages on my his still active page. Calls were harder, as if the sound of a voice would be the cutting edge we needed to break past the floodgates until we all went under together. I am not sure if that was the best means to get us through the day, but it was what we all seemed to need. An unspoken bond that would carry us into the day after. And sometimes that's all it is when sadness and joy morph into a relationship with one another; an unspoken bond of understanding that, though the two might seem polar opposites, they need one another in way that other emotions don't. The reminder that this isn't all there is. 

5 of Friday! Popsicles and Adventure

The last few weeks have been full of odds and ends! Here's a few fun ones that I hope you enjoy! 

1.) New Book Review!

I realize that all of my book reviews from Blogging for Books have recently been baby-centered. Nope, still no news! However I grabbed this one because my sister is pregnant and baby is coming soon. I figured she would enjoy this, but I also had somewhat selfish motivation. I have been on a popsicle kick lately. I have been trying new recipes and enjoying the cold treats on hot days (which is every single one)! But I figured what better way to find recipes than through a baby food book. They have to be pretty similar right?! It turns out I wasn't far from the truth. There are perfect recipes for fruit combinations and instructions for how to best prepare food for blending. 

If you are looking for a great baby food book, this one is perfect. I love pictures and this dis not let me down! It is full of step-by-step instructions, great pictures and wonderful recipes to keep your little ones belly full of homemade yumminess! 

2.) Green Tea Peach Perfection! 

Due to yumminess of peach season I figured I would use those for my first real fruit popsicle concoction. I blended up peaches in my food processor and then added a little green tea and honey (always honey!) and voila!! Aren't freezer molds from the Target dollar spot the best?! Yup, it tastes as yummy as it looks. 

3.) Adventure!!

I got my first adventure patch! I started following @adventurepatch on Instagram. It's a place for people to share pictures of patches they have gotten from national park visitors centers with the park in the background. We went on an adventure out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and then followed it up with a drive into Canaveral National Seashore (which surprisingly enough we have never been to) and that's where I got my first patch. My Junior Ranger patch, which is pretty fitting if you ask me, since my husband says I am just a big kid. I got it from a nice man who was checking passes before entering, that seemed to notice the same thing when I asked him where I might find a patch. If you live nearby you should totally check out the Refuge! 

4.) More Adventure! 

Our favorite part of the Wildlife Refuge was the Blackpoint Wildlife Drive! It is a great way to stay cool in the summer heat, but also find adventure! You can stay in the car, you can get out of the car and walk around a bit, or you can get the best of both worlds and just ride out the window!! And don't forget a stop by to see the manatees after the drive. There were so many! 

5.) And now I am off to work on pictures I took of my sweet sister and her family! Can't wait to meet our newest little bean! 

Linking up today for the 5 on Friday and Oh hey Friday ladies!