Thank God for Fridays

Hey, friends! This week has been a bit of a roller coaster, but it was nothing that we couldn't handle.

HOWEVER, I personally am thrilled that it's the weekend. Hello! I finally get to hit the yard and get it looking nice again. 

It's our year of living intentionally at our house (we have gotten a late start though) and we're trying to make the most of the time we have. 

Here's a little how our yesterday went:

What we did:

I had an eye appointment early for CONTACTS! Woo hoo! I can't tell you how nice it is to not have my glasses sliding down my face constantly. I went to push my glasses up the other day like I usually do and I managed to stab myself in the eye.

I'm a genius. 

That evening, the kids and I went to Papaw's to teach them how hard work in the yard earns them Oreos. 

Unfortunately, too many Oreos kept Sofia up with a tummy ache last night. 

Be glad I don't have a picture of that...

Josh and Sofia worked on replacing our headlight in the car.

She didn't learn much other than how to be ridiculously cute....

While Josh was at the store getting the headlight parts, he surprised us by buying Frozen! We've watched it 3 times already. When we aren't watching it, we're singing the songs. 

Our poor Josh. 

What we ate:

While I was waiting for my eye appointment, I was researching and thinking of snack ideas for the kids that involve fruit (since it's about to  be pretty affordable) but I wanted it to be more than just fruit. 

I like to complicate things. 

I found some strawberries on sale and grabbed two boxes and some vanilla Greek yogurt. 

Snack #1:

Yogurt dipped strawberries

Yeah, it's basically what it says. 

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Dip strawberries in Greek yogurt a few times and lay on the cookie sheet. 

Let freeze about an hour. 

(I say an hour because I'm lazy and forget to check on things for a substantial amount of time sometimes. This was one of those times. They may be done sooner.)

When fully frozen, cut tops of strawberries off and cut in half. 

I stored mine in a freezer bag. 

Snack #2:

Strawberry frozen yogurt pops:

Take half a container of strawberries and 1 cup Greek yogurt and place in a blender. 

Liquify the fire out of it. 

Pour into ridiculously cute Popsicle molds and place in freezer. 

I didn't measure when I made these and ended up with a yummy smoothie afterwards. Kind of like a "good-job-at-making-these-fun-snacks-Mom" reward. 

Snack #3 

Peanut butter dipped banana slices:

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 

Take two bananas and slice each slice thick enough to stick a Popsicle stick in it. 

Melt 3/4 cup peanut butter in the microwave for 30 seconds. 

Stick popsicle sticks into your banana slices and dip into the beanit butter until covered.

 Lay on cookie sheet for an hour or until frozen. 

Again, I stored these in a freezer bag. 

For lunch I made lemon chicken on a garlic butter/ Parmesan covered bed of noodles and garnished with cherry tomatoes and basil. 

I don't have a recipe for this because I threw it together and then decided to take a picture because I thought it was pretty. 

Oops

What we read:

Our lesson books for our first Sunday school class!

We teach our first class tomorrow. We're nervous, of course, because we don't know the youth well, and they don't know us. But we'll manage!

So, there's our Friday, friends!

Have an awesome weekend!

God is Working on Me

I debated about really writing anything about my faith, my church, or anything of the God nature on here because I was afraid I would lose my audience.

Quite frankly, I've lost some friendships throughout my growing process. I don't feel the loss was intentional or angry, just a growing apart process. It happens sometimes and I was afraid to lose anything else. 

This blog has always been a mish mash of DIY, day-in-the-life, and me getting my thoughts and opinions out in writing. So, there's never been a difinitive theme to my blog. This has been bothersome to me because it breaks all kinds of blog and author cohesiveness rules. 

But, you know what? 

My personality is a mish mash of random ramblings, so it's fitting my writing would be the same. 

Anyways, I've decided to go ahead and include posts about my faith in here since it's also a huge part of my life. If you don't particularly want to read these, then I understand. If you choose to quit reading my blog because of them, I just want you to know that I have appreciated your following and I hope one day in the future we can be friends again. 

With that being said, this last week has been depleting for me. I tend to have rose colored glasses about most situations. As most adults know, however, this world is really good at turning everything rose colored into that nasty gray that snow turns after it's been plowed. 

This week the world did that to me. Imagine my horror when (SURPRISE!) people were human and let me down with their behavior!

*gasp*

Oh! The horror!

You may have scoffed at that, but really, I had my blinders on about certain things (not just church) this week. 

By the end of Saturday night, I was depleted and skeptical of the world. 

If you know me,  you know that I have honest faith in people to the point of it being crippling to me at times. 

Then, it happened. 

I was let down. 

Imagine a child standing there in awe of their beautiful pink helium balloon... Just staring at it with a big, drooling smile. 

Then, imagine some jerk walking by, poking the balloon with a needle. 

Imagine the horror on the child's face as she watches her glorious pink balloon dangle from a string, shriveled and broken. 

That was me. 

I was angry. 

I was hurt. 

I wanted to immediately prepare for war. 

My balloon was burst. 

I went to church yesterday caring less about God's word. 

I mouthed angrily my worship song during practice. I didn't even really bother singing the hymns out loud. 

I sat in Sunday school participating in the discussion, but really at that point I just wanted to make silly faces at the cute baby sitting next to me. 

I stood, stoically, half-heartedly singing our songs in front of the congregation.

I shuffled/ stomped back to our pew after worship was over and prepared myself to get through my preacher's sermon that I typically enjoy. 

I just really, really didn't want to be there. 

Then it happened...

God placed in my pastor's heart one of the most humbling sermons I've heard in awhile. 

Every sentence made me cringe because it could have been talking about me. 

By the end of the service, I just wanted to get to the car before I burst into tears in front of the congregation. Not because I was hurt anymore, but because I was embarrassed. 

When I arrived at church that morning, I was angry for a good reason.  No one would argue that. However, instead of mirroring Jesus' actions, I was stuck in a continuous pity-party cycle and was throwing a hissy fit. 

I suppose it's that same gene that makes me naive to the world at times. 

We'll call it the Peter Pan gene. 

Or just immaturity. That would work, too.

I hate conflict, I want to like people. 

When I'm mad at someone, I'm mad at them for their actions, but I'm equally mad at them for giving me a reason to be mad at them. I just want to like everyone!

So that's what I have decided to do. 

I've decided to let my love for people overshadow their faults, because I have my faults, too, and I would hope they would show me that grace. 

I don't have to be mad. 

I don't have to feel let down. 

I don't have to be cynical. 

I choose to feel/be those things...

... And I simply choose not to anymore. 

You know what? It's freeing. 

Just as often as I have to remind myself that God is working on other people, I have to remind myself that He is working on me, too. 

I'm so thankful for that grace. 

Year of Pinterest #3- Chalkboard Key Holder

First of all, this project was inspired by many pins, so I couldn't 'pin' down one particular pin. 

See what I did there?

Also, this project was done at night, so the lighting on the pictures is very poor. 

Sorry!

Anyways, we've had the same key holder since we got married. It's painted hunter green (I thought that color was amazing back then.) Well, now it really, really doesn't match our color scheme... Or possibly any color scheme anywhere. 

So I kind of threw together a Frankenstein project and it goes something like this:

First, I found an empty picture frame with cardboard backing ( it needs to have plenty of wood at the bottom to be able to insert eye hooks.) I removed the glass because I want to change the message on mine frequently, but you don't have to. My picture frame was already the color I wanted, so I didn't have to paint it. 

Then I found some eye hooks. Mine were already white, so I didn't have to paint. 

See, this project was meant to happen. 

Once you've removed the cardboard from the picture frame, pull out your trusty Duck brand chalkboard contact paper and cut out the size of your backing. 

At our Wal-Mart, it was with the shelf liners in the home goods department. 

I would show you the picture, but these pictures really sucked. 

After the contact paper is cut,peel the   backing off and place the contact paper on the cardboard. 

Knees! I didn't crop out my knees! 

*sigh* Oh well. 

Push the contact paper covered cardboard back into the frame, and secure it. 

Then have your lovely husband drill holes and place eye hooks on the bottom of your frame. 

Then....

You get this! Woo hoo!

Good luck!