January 10, 2014 by Stephanie

Friday Filter: Book “The Worn Out Woman”

Upon the move to KY, I was anxious about making a new friend base. And I knew that church hunting may take awhile due to traveling and Tom and I’s various tastes in church services.

Not wanting to leave the connections I had made in Iowa behind, I reached out to two girlfriends of mine with the idea of doing a women’s devotional virtually. The three of us share a lot of philosophies and beliefs, and made it to church together on a few occasions. I knew they would be good women to “meet” with regularly. One for my sanity, and two for spiritual growth.

Now we all live in 3 different states: Iowa, Indiana, and Kentucky. Bummer.

After kicking the idea around with several different book titles and how we wanted to actually enact this plan, we finally settled on this book.

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Being in a highly demanding field and with our roles at home, we felt like this would be a great read full of discussions about how we can simplify our life and wake up our spirit.

The way that the book is structured makes it really easy to do a group devotional. There are 18 chapters which are fairly short, and make for a pretty quick read. In the back there are suggestions of discussion questions. There is also a note section for each chapter as well, which I found interesting to find corresponding Bible verses.

We video chatted once a week when our schedules permitted about a chapter or two (sometimes three). It took us most of the fall semester to finish the book even doing several chapters at a time because of our “full lives.” I don’t think we met for most of November…

We would spend about half the time chatting about the chapters, and then the rest of the time was catching up and being a support for one another.

I will admit, that this would not be a book that I would recommend readily. Most of the things are pretty self-explanatory and ideas we had heard before (especially for us 3 coming from a helping profession and with Master’s degrees heavily inundated with counseling skills).

I think we were all disappointed as well on the lack of scripture throughout the chapters as well since we had set out to do a Bible devotion. Like I said it does have some references in the notes section in the back to the Bible, but not every chapter had it.

However, it does serve as a great pick-me-up and a good reminder on the little things we do every day that wear us out. All three of us were starting some new things in our life that were a tad stressful to our loads. One was starting her PhD, the other going through the Dave Ramsey financial class plus moving houses (again), and I was just all kinds of new down here. So in that retrospect, we did have a lot to talk about with each chapter, but it became more of a release than a life changer. The chapters just became a starting point for our discussion on how things were going. The book did helped us realize we weren’t alone and was a reminder about attitude adjustment.

My favorite chapter was the “Yellow Umbrellas.” This portion discussed random acts of kindness and encouragement. Everyone wants to feel special and needed, so even little things can make a person’s day. There is a wonderful story about a man who randomly bought an elderly woman flowers while in line at the store. She said that she had not gotten flowers since her husband passed. These flowers meant the world to her in her time of loneliness. This is really the only chapter that resonated with me past finishing the book. It was just so touching and endearing to think about the small things we can do for one another, and how in turn that can lift our own spirits.

Favorite Passage: “On days when you are feeling negative and irritable or just plain worn out, let the simple pleasure of doing random acts of kindness lift your spirit. It’s like giving yellow umbrellas to cover the rainy days of life.”

(I had thought about making Yellow Umbrella my blog domain for a bit. I was so inspired by this chapter, but with How I met Your Mother being all about the mystery woman with the yellow umbrella, unfortunately most variations of that title have already been taken.)

I even had it planned out that this would be my header before I decided to nix the idea and have plans for a different direction. I just love this photo though.

This does specifically gear towards women, however I think the concepts are universal. As I said, most of them are pretty obvious concepts. This book will repeat what any self-help/distressing book is going to say. This just had the undertones of a devotional.

All in all, though, we had some great discussions. This chat was something I know that I looked forward to each week. It was a great way to stay in touch and gab about life.

Thanks to technology and Google Plus, we can all video chat at the same time which is awesome!

We have picked out our next devotional and will be starting back up this weekend!

Have you ever done a group devotional? Do you have book suggestions for us in the future?

January 9, 2014 by Stephanie

Brother Birthday!

Today is my little brother’s 26th birthday.

While I know there were almost 3 years I survived before him, I cannot remember my life without him.

Being only three years apart, Randall was around for most of my life.

We definitely had our troubles as brother and sister. There were many years that I loathed him. Especially those days that he would steal my things or he would beat me at Chinese Checkers. I thought he was a pest for a time there. On many occasions I wondered how we were even related…

Oh yes. This is how.

I honestly didn’t find many pictures that we didn’t have a funny face. The left-hand corner is the most normal picture I could find.

Although we had our ups and downs in our relationship, we managed to be there when the other needed it. With nothing really consistent in our childhood, we were the only thing that remained constant for each other. We shuffled each week together from house to house. Rarely did we go somewhere without the other.

We have been there for every major life event. Granted I didn’t exactly see his daughter be born, and he didn’t see my first walking steps, but you get what I mean.

Our dad took us on an impromptu fishing trip. So naturally since we didn’t have swimming suits my brother and I dived in fully clothed.
This is one of my favorite childhood memories.
I think I was around 8, which would make my brother 5.

I wasn’t always the nicest sister. Once, I convinced him to give himself a swirly for a quarter, and to this day I still owe him that quarter. Somewhere I have a picture of this…

Randall wasn’t always the nicest brother. On numerous occasions we found ourselves in screaming matches with slamming door action.

Typical Glinn Grin

We managed to pull each other up and make each other smile when it counted. We were often the only kids at family and social events, so we had to find ways to entertain each other. And so maybe every day wasn’t great, but most days we fueled each other’s imagination with play school, games, and legos.

Lots of legos, crayons, and micro machines.

Randall was terrified of Batman, who is actually being played by a close family friend of ours. He cried for the longest time.
(Also check out my troll shirt!)

We would pretend that we were Michael Jordan and Muggsy Bogues for hours in the driveway. Even when we played tennis or baseball in the back field, we still were Michael and Muggsy, we felt empowered by them I guess. We accidently broke things in the house from playing too hard. Like the time we played volleyball in the house and it broke a window. Or the time that we were playing circus, and I was the ring leader standing on a flipped over trashcan, and then proceeded to fall through the wicker trashcan. We would dance for hours to Space Jam music, and secretly wish we could be part of the Mighty Ducks team. We watched countless hours of Saturday morning cartoons, which oddly enough Cowboys of Moo Mesa is one of the shows the 90s forgot. All the times that we would sneak into the loft to watch Dad’s TV long after our bedtimes. We had our own band for awhile, me on keyboard and Randall on drums. We would record ourselves on our sweet tape decks, but the recordings I really want to get my hands on are all the news reports we made.

We would play ourselves to sleep.

I was always envious of my brother. He is so smart. He always had/still has better math skills than I do. It used to frustrate me so much when I was working on my time tables quizzes, and he could run laps around me with how fast he would say them before I could even comprehend the problem. He was one of those kids that never had to study but could still ace the test.

Who doesn’t love Easter best? And aren’t his saddle shoes the cutest thing?

He was never scared to do anything. He had bravery like a superhero and had fear for nothing. (Maybe it is from all those times he ran into walls when he was in preschool.) Randall never seemed to care what people thought about him, and lived full out and full on. He could strike up a conversation so easily, and you clearly knew where you stood with him. Even though he was younger, he often stood by me so I could be stronger and less shy. Seriously, he would have to escort me to go get ketchup packets…

We were only in the same school for two school years: my fifth grade/his 2nd grade and for my senior year/his freshmen year. (Our kindergarten and first grade were in a separate building in case you were wondering.) We were in high school band together which was such a neat experience for me in my last year, but maybe not so much for him in his first. We also worked at Worlds of Fun for a couple years together, and it was the start of both of us becoming adults.

So even though a lot of things have changed over the years like our hairstyles and our names (seriously you go by Paul now?), you have always been my bubba.

He was such a cute kid! Now he has a kid of his own, and she is just as cute!

So Randall, here’s to you on your day of birth.

26 years ago, our lives changed.

For good.

(mostly…jk)

Happy Birthday Brother!

Maybe I will mail you what I owe you for the swirly…

January 8, 2014 by Stephanie

30 before 30 Update 2

Here we are for another month’s update on my 30 before 30 list. There is not much to update since we were doing holiday stuff for most of the month and were gone more than we were home for December.

1. Crochet something else besides blankets or scarves-so something that isn’t straight lines.

· This totally happened if you saw my post from earlier this week. Next stop hats!

2. Do a 30 day photography challenge

· I have plans for the timing. Now I just need to find a good challenge. Any suggestions?

3. Visit 3 cities I have never been to before

· Nothing new here.

4. Tour at least one of the distilleries in the area

· Nothing.

5. Send at least 5 snail mail a month

· We sent all of our Christmas cards, so I happily exceeded this!

6. Become a “professional” photographer

· We are coming up with an Facebook ad for the Clarksville area for a promo in February, so hopefully that pans out. I just need to be patient and be ok with the slow start.

7. Run at least 5 races (any distance)

· I have plans in the works.

8. Go camping with Tom

· We have plans for this for next summer for our anniversary.

9. Pay for the car behind me in a drive through

· Not yet. I will be honest, I don’t seem to remember this when I am in the drive through.

10. See Tyrone Wells live again

· Nope.

11. Tour Fort Defiance here in Clarksville

· This is more of a summer thing.

12. Water ski with my dad

· Also summer.

13. Do a 5K with my mom

· We did talk about it over Christmas, but no plans yet.

14. Take a swing dance class with Tom

· I am still trying to convince Tom to do this with me. This may come near the end of the challenge.

15. Read at least one fun book a month and one professional development book every three months

· I caught up from November. I read two books over break. Blogging buddy, Ellen, and I are planning on doing a virtual professional development read. We picked a book yesterday and will be reading a chapter a week, so I may have this done this next month.

16. Take a pottery or stained glass class

· Things have been too crazy schedule wise to make this happen yet.

17. Learn how to make sushi

· Nada.

18. See both a Clemson and UCM football game live

· This will have to wait until fall.

19. Volunteer with MCFOTS and Special Olympics on a regular basis

· I am loving volunteering for MCFOTS. It is a great shelter. And it is super fun to go play and love on dogs that aren’t mine for a few hours a week. (Well most of the time, last night I was not too happy with one dog who wanted to play chase for a half hour in 20 degree weather. She just wouldn’t come back inside from playtime! Also I sliced my thumb open on a dog treat trying to coax her inside. Overall, though my shift are pleasant and tug at my heartstrings. Two of my favorites got adopted this week. (Which is good, because Tom and I almost ended up with a third boxer.) Like I said, this volunteering gig may be a bad idea.

20. Explore Land Between the Lakes

· Summer plan.

21. Ride in a hot air balloon

· Tom is off the hook on this one. My other half and best friend from college and I are going to make plans for this in Kansas City.

22. Go to at least 10 “new to me” restaurants in Clarksville.

· Since we were gone most of December, nothing happened with this one. We still have 8 to go. Any of my Clarksville friends have suggestions?

23. Stay at a bed and breakfast

· We have the place picked out in our old college town. We just have to find a weekend we can do it.

24. Spend a day without electronics (phone, t.v. and computer)

· So this didn’t happen over winter break.

25. Go to the Kentucky Derby

· Ok so reality sunk in that this will not be a possibility financially. However, I do want to go see the museum. And in cahoots with my sister in law, I want to have a Derby themed birthday party on my 30th.

26. Go to non-touristy parts of Nashville

· No time this month. We did find some cool activities though that we want to do in upcoming months. Tom has a lot of ranges coming up so he will be gone a lot, so we’ll see how the plans pan out.

27.Watch at least 10 movies that I have not seen before that won Best Picture at the Oscars and at least 10 documentaries (not necessarily Oscar winning)

· I didn’t watch any of the films, but I did watch a documentary. I watched “Behind the Myth” which is about the myths behind bully breeds and the horrible laws that have ensued because of it. It was kind of heart wrenching to watch, and I may have cried. It is a little outdated, but it does a good job showing the history of the bans and the grassroots efforts that have sprung because of the stereotype and trying to debunk it.

28. Sew an item of clothing from scratch.

· We did get a new sewing machine. Now I just have to figure out my first pattern.

29. Find a church home here in Clarksville

· We did find a church, but we have been the last few weeks with traveling.

30. Become a mom

· We both met with my physician before we left for the holidays. The only thing we weren’t already doing that she suggested was for me to be taking prenatal vitamins. Apparently, you should start taking these before you get pregnant as well as the duration. I had no idea. So we got those for free at the base hospital, score! I also had some blood work done this week to check my hormonal levels. We will also be meeting with a fertility specialist in the upcoming month. For some, I know this may seem like we are being really impatient considering it hasn’t been a full year since we started, but the Army is covering all of these expenses so we figured we would take advantage of it while we know we are both here for a bit. Also my physician said that even with everything perfect, there is still only a 20% chance of getting pregnant, so we want to make our odds as high as possible.

I’d say that is still pretty good progression considering what was going on this month. Hopefully January will prove to be fruitful and exciting!

Anyone want to join me on any of these excursions?

Do you have ideas on how I should accomplish any of these tasks?

January 7, 2014 by Stephanie

JollyVoxBox

I recently signed up for a review box from Influenster thanks to a blog friend Erica. A box is sent to you after doing a survey with Influenster. I was really excited to get the box for my very first product review!

These are not big boxes, but they have around 5 small items for you to review. Just the perfect size to try something new and see if want to become invested in that product.

Here is what was in the box:

Puffs Ultra Soft and Strong To Go Tissue Pack: I love these Kleenexes! These have come at the perfect time since this weather is making me a little nasally. I love these travel packs because it ensures that I have a tissue wherever I go. (I am ready to be a mom folks, been carrying the mom bag for years!)
NYC New York Color HD Color Trio Eye Shadow: This is the item I was most excited to receive. I was waiting until we got back from our vacation to go get some new eye shadow, and this is the palate I always get too. I had never tried this brand before, but I love it so far!
Rimmel London Show Off Lip Lacquer: I am not one to use lip color because I am a chapstick girl for sure. I always feel silly wearing anything else, but I am sure I can find someone to try this out since I won’t use it. It looks super fancy!
Skinny Cow Candy: I love Skinny Cow chocolates, but this is the one kind I don’t like because I am not a peanut butter fan. However, as you know Tom loves PB, so these will be gone very soon in one of his pantry raids.
Ducklings Mini Rolls: This item was fun to see as a crafter. This little roll of decorative duct tape will emerge on some craft or labels of some sort I am sure. I love the splatter paint effect.

I did receive all of these complimentary for the review, and these thoughts are my own. If you are interested in getting a box (you don’t have to be a blogger), just let me know, and I can send you an invite. They are a fun surprise!

This is my first box, but the site seems pretty fun by earning badges of things that you have reviewed and checking in your boxes. You can win prizes the more things that you check in, so there are rewards to be interactive with the site beyond just getting the box. It seems pretty self-explanatory from what I can tell so far. The only thing is that I don’t have a lot of the social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter which can earn you more points, so we’ll see how it goes without those.

January 6, 2014 by Stephanie

Crochet Headbands

I have an announcement.

I have succeeded in crocheting something that wasn’t just a straight line!

I crocheted headbands for my adorable little nieces. I did several variations of them.

For all of them, I crocheted just straight rectangle strips. I either did the whole thing in single stitch or double crochet. It just depended on the type of yarn I used.

Then I used a large darning needle to sew the ends together. This is a first for me in my crocheting experience, so I say that is a win for trying something new.

Then for two of the headbands I did flowers. YES to learning beyond the straight line! I used this pattern. It was really easy to do, or I am just getting much better at this crochet thing.

The pieces before.

Then you just sew the flower onto the headband strip.

The finished pieces.

She didn’t realize that it goes over your ears. She also did not want to be my model anymore.

With the other two, I just wrapped yarn over several times to scrunch a piece of it. This is great to cover the seam and the ending stitches, which I always seem to make a mess of. This way is much easier than the patch I made for my first headband attempt.

See how it is just wrapped around there?

I made all of these in about an hour.

Addison wanted to use it as a blindfold.

Since they are for kids, you do not need a lot of yarn. Although, I had to redo one because I misjudged how large my nieces heads are. They are still babies to me!

I happened to use left over yarn from other projects for all of these. Score!

They turned out really well. And since they don’t take up much yarn, I think I have found an easy thing to do with that yarn that I can’t use for blankets. Anyone want one?

I hope you all have a great first Monday of 2014!