a little crafting

I've been dying to exercise some crafting cravings I've been having lately, but a majority of the projects I've seen are ones that cost for supplies.  And to be honest, there's not an extra penny to be spent right now for us.  And if it doesn't cost, it requires sewing.  I'm just now learning, so those projects (at the moment) are out.

Finally today, I stumbled across this little beauty on pinterest.  So I robbed  Mark's dresser for an extra t-shirt.  It's a no-sew, transform-a-t-shirt-into-a-fun-vest tutorial.  So I did it and am very happy with the result.  A new item added to my wardrobe that didn't cost a penny.  Man, that feels good.  So here are the pictures of the process for me.  I messed one step up, but luckily it didn't affect the final product (and yes, even though it's not pictured, I did cut the design off the front of the shirt).

Sorry, I don't have another picture of the finished product other than the one above.  I know it could be better, but I was too excited to post this to take the time for a photo shoot, especially with a crying Roscoe letting me know his nap was over.

it doesn't have to feel important

With that last post and the shut-down of my facebook, I made it appear as if I'd be blogging every day, keeping everyone up to date on the daily pictures of Roscoe and all the exciting tidbits of our days together.

Welllll, at the moment it's not that exciting.  I stay busy with little things throughout the day and making time to blog takes effort.  When there's not much exciting going on, I find blogging difficult and resultingly unnecessary.  The day through my eyes goes something like: wake up, feed, change, play, nap, feed, change, clean, nap, feed, errands, change, nap, cook, feed, put to bed. 

I find it ironic that I used to be the first to defend the mother who was feeling like she didn't have an important job/contribution.  Of course you do!!!  Are you kidding?!  You've got the most important AND most challenging job in the world!  Fast forward a decade or so and I would have never guessed that I should have been preaching to myself.

Please don't misunderstand, I love our little Roscoe Porter  more than my feeble words can communicate.  I just never expected to struggle on a daily basis with the mundane-ness of stay-at-home-motherhood.  But I'm not delirious enough to think that this struggle will get easier once I can communicate with Roscoe (I've got friends and family ahead of me as proof that that's not true!)  However, the day in/day out caring for a baby who can't live without my help definitely doesn't FEEL like anything important.  I keep reminding myself that this everyday life is missional, kingdom work.  But I feel things so deeply, throw myself so fully into everything I do, that I want the important things to FEEL like they're important.  So if I don't get that vibe, the struggle begins. 

This is why I'm thankful that our faith is not based on our feelings.  They're so misleading and fickle.  Still training myself daily to place my hope and identity in Christ.  But that's soooo much easier said than done.

behind the shutdown

I feel kind of funny dedicating an entire post to defending/explaining my reasons for shutting down my facebook page, but it's kind of hard to explain the reasons on facebook when I no longer have a facebook.  So hopefully the curious are here reading to find out.

These are not in order of importance

1)  I wasted too much time.  At any given moment of any given day, I was logged on to facebook on the computer and/or my iPod.  There were times when I'd be spending the day with family, or I'd be busy with life, only to find myself tethered to a device hours later to catch up on the status updates that I had missed.  Even if nothing interested me, it was a checklist mentality.  I had to see everything in the news feed.  It was controlling me.

2)  I got tired of the changes and resulting news feed.  I'm with everyone on the "leave it the way it is" and "why change a good thing?" complaints.  But at the same time, it was annoying to see only updates about why people liked/didn't like the change.

3)  It simplifies things.  Mark and I have been going through a lot of changes in the past year or so, towards a simpler way of life.  Back to gardening and such.  We use cloth diapers for Roscoe.  We don't own a TV (although we've never had one).  Weeding out facebook seemed appropriate right now.

4)  Facebook doesn't need me.  Not like you have to be needed to have social networking.  I did enjoy the contact with people and the ease of updating everyone on our life.  But facebook doesn't care what the individual user wants.  It doesn't matter if 95% of their users dislike what they're doing, they are going to do it anyway.

5)  We've only seen the beginning of the changes that will be made.  And at least for now, I don't want to go through another round of frustration.

6)  Motives behind having facebook.  For me, I would spend time trying to think up the best status or position Roscoe in the best way for the best picture to get the most comments/likes.  That's just not necessary.  I need to get away from the people pleasing craving.

7)  I could never get facebook to show me the updates I wanted.  I really didn't care about half of what was in the feed, but no matter what I tried, they would only put on my feed what they wanted.  You can't control it as much as you think you can.  Because of that, I felt imprisoned by it.  (Why keep something you don't like?)

It may seem like I'm treating it too seriously.  I probably am.   There's more to life than facebook.  And if I'm itching to get back to a computer or a place with a wireless connection so I can log in on my iPod, then I'm the one with the problem.

I will miss seeing updates from family and friends who are far away.  And who knows, this may not be a permanent thing, but for now, at least this week, I need to step back and not let something as trivial as facebook be such a big and controlling part of my life.

book signing

This past Saturday, my mom and I went to a book signing for Emily Freeman's new book, Grace for the Good Girl.  Her sister (who calls herself "the nester") was hosting the shower. (How's that for enough links to keep you busy for a few minutes?)

It went like this: I follow the nester's blog, and mom follows Emily's blog.  I saw on the nester's page that she was hosting a book signing party for Emily, and that anyone could RSVP by email.  Mom had been reading Emily's blog and had purchased the book, read it, and linked a video to facebook about it.  From how it appeared over the internet, my mom really enjoyed the book, so I figured the book signing was worth mentioning.  Although (and you have to know my mother to understand this), I had a feeling it wouldn't go anywhere.  The last thing I expected my mom to want to do was go to a house she'd never been to owned by a person she'd never met (or head of) to get a book signed by another someone she didn't know.  But upon asking, she immediately said yes.  Go mom!

So mom and I took off last Friday for an overnight trip in Charlotte.  The whole trip turned out to be very refreshing and fun, filled with relaxation at the hotel as well as shopping (as if that wouldn't be included).  Roscoe was very well behaved.  And that little booger....... as soon as we walked into the estrogen-filled house for the signing, he went crazy.  Seriously, his eyes lit up and he was all smiles, reaching for girls and smiling at everyone and pretty much just being the little heartthrob of the event for the time we were there.

I haven't read this book yet, but my mom says it's incredible, to the point that she's wondering if Emily followed her around for a case study for the book.  I'm excited to read it once I'm finished with my current book.

Oh, and check it out.... Mom and Roscoe (and my jelly belly) made it into the pictures on the nester's post-party blog update.

finding contentment

I struggle with the balance between transparency and complaining.  I sincerely don't want to come across as a martyr or complainer in posts where I'm trying to be open.  So with that disclaimer, I'll share something that I've been dealing with for the past month or so.  It is closely related to the post I made recently about being "tied down" to home.

Mark and I were blessed with the ability to buy a house in January 2010.  This house is about 890 sq ft, 3 bed, 1 bath.  As you can probably imagine, fitting 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen and a living room in 890 sq ft makes things a little cramped.  Our room fits our bed (a king sized Mark got for FREE before we met), 2 nightstands, and his dresser.  My dresser is in Roscoe's room, along with some bookshelves, a papasan chair (that doesn't fit in the living room), and his dresser and crib.  The other bedroom is the office/dog's room.  Until we get Mark's shed together where he can put his tools, that bedroom is a junk room of sorts.

Here's the best way for me to describe the house as it stands right now (as far as decorated and put together)..........  Any of you understand what I mean when I say "carpenter's house?"  There's a big tradeoff you make when you have a handy man who can fix anything.  You're house is always in a state of repair.  I'm NOT putting Mark down with this, it's just the way it works out.  After all, carpenters spend the day working, right?  Repairing people's houses and making money off that.  When they get home, they usually don't have the time or energy to fix something in the house they live in, and I can't blame them!!!  Not only that, but I can't pay Mark to work on our house (as nice as that would be), so he's just got to get materials here when he can, piecing things together little by little.

So our hallway has gone through a year and a half long transition from carpeted, crappy drywall/trim to hardwoods, new drywall, and (what's in the process of ) new trim around the doors.  But not all the doors have trim.  We knocked out a hole in the wall between the kitchen and living room to open things up a bit (which we LOVE).  That's still not all trimmed out.

Here's the struggle:  I am simultaneously thankful for the fact that God gave us the ability as young twenty-somethings to buy a house, and discontent with the fact that it's not the most beautifully decorated or put together.

Where this struggle stems from, I have yet to figure out.  I'm not sure if it's a my wanting to appear a certain way (to people) or if it's just my perfectionism manifesting itself in a desire for everything to be orderly (for myself).  Even in a small house, it's possible to walk in and feel this cozy, magazine-like feeling about the way the house is put together and decorated.  But for different reasons, ours can't be like that right now.  I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal.  It doesn't even show up on the radar of things that matter.  But for some reason, I struggle with wanting that perfection, to the point of giving disclaimers when people come over.  Why do I need to do that?!  We have a house, a roof over our heads, a place the sleep, a great mortgage for a couple starting out.  Sure, add another child in a couple years and this place will feel really small (in fact, it's already starting to with Roscoe crawling around).  But it's way more than we need or deserve.

Why can't my heart grasp onto what Paul says in Philippians 4:11-13

.... Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circunstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

sweet sleep

I was putting laundry away yesterday and walked into Roscoe's room to find this...  (All I had close to me for a camera was my phone, hence the poor picture quality)

How is it that he gets so big so fast?  It doesn't seem long ago that I was walking into that room and seeing the itty bitty guy all the way in the corner

I love taking a peek at a sleeping baby.  It's like a medicine.

table rock

The hike Friday was beautiful.  It didn't feel too hot, and the humidity wasn't too high either.  So aside from the fact that I was more out of shape for this hike than any other, it was a great time.  Thankfully, on the way up Beka was telling me a story (Mark was way ahead), so I didn't have to worry about saying much back.  I didn't have the spare breath!

Aside from the very beginning and a few places towards the top, the entire hike looks like the picture to the right.  There are a lot of rocks acting as steps.  The trail to the top is a little over 3.5 miles.  For this mama whose daily exercise consists of lifting a baby, pictures like this are the reason my calf muscles are still cursing me today.

I snapped the picture below left because I love when you can see tree roots scatter out above ground.

Pictures don't do it justice, but below right is another example of the ascending terrain. 

The comment was made that you realize how small you really are when you're looking out from the top of a mountain.

The battery for the camera died before I got a picture of the tree I really wanted (go figure!), but this can suffice.  The beginning of the changing of leaves.  To me it was more rewarding than ever for this to be one of the first trees to see changing colors, because it was towards the top of the mountain.  None at the bottom were like this.


So aside from the physical exertion that had us (excluding Mark the Machine) dying at the end, this was such a wonderful day.  And to be honest, even the pain involved was worth it.  Mark and I are already planning another trip in November, but this time with another couple, one of whom does not like hiking at all.  So he'll be tasked with staying back at the shelter preparing a grilled feast for us hikers upon our return.