One Thousand Gifts

I was thrilled when my mom gave me a copy of Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts.  I have been wanting to read it, and hadn't sprung for it yet.  I have read less than two chapters so far, and am purposely reading slowly.  Why?  Because I can tell already...this is a book to be savored.  Like a rich piece of dark chocolate you let melt slowly in your mouth, I want Ann's words to soak slowly into my soul.  This is a beautiful book that is destined to be a classic.

Now, I have a confession.  I joined Ann's online gratitude community many months ago--pledging to document 1000 gifts in my life.  I did it for a while and posted some of my gifts here on theGoodlife.  Then I let it go.  I'm not sure why.

My mother in law gave me this beautiful journal for Christmas, and I quickly decided it would be my new 1000 gifts journal.  I started again at #1 in January.  And then, before long,  it sat waiting for me again...

Ann's book, which makes a case for living fully and gratefully, has challenged me to pick up that journal and start documenting my daily gifts again.  I will try to do it nightly.  I will try to post gifts again here on Mondays as a form of accountability.

Here a few of the most recent gifts listed:

62.  the privilege of disciplining my daughter:  I know that sounds weird, but when her actions deserve consequences, it is a privilege to be part of training her to be the woman God has called her to be.  She knows that, and although doesn't like the consequences, she settles into them, secure.

63.  girl's night at becca's:  I was invited to spend the night with some dear girlfriends.  We ate yummy food--cheeses, jams, berries, olives, bread--talked about our food journeys, laughed and delved into an art project they planned.  God is challenging me in the area of faith--so I made this collage.

the girls:  Carly, Becky (several days overdue!), Cathy and Becca

65.  the freedom I have from God to let go:  I don't have to be in charge, to make things happen, to manage.  He's already doing that.  I'm often getting in the way.  What joy it is to let go.

66. pickle wrote her first song with her guitar:  how I love to hear her sing and play...even if her first song was a tribute to Justin Beiber.  Really.  {smile}

Enjoy your day, bloggies.  Look for the gifts in your day!

A baby shower!

Any mama whose been nurturing a life inside her for months and months deserves a party!  My friend Becky is due next week with a little boy and the groupie girls and I threw her a shower on February 5.  It came together really well, and I'd thought I'd share some of the fabulousness.

me, Beth, Becky, Carly, Kerry

When you stick four heads together, you are bound to come up with some great ideas.  Here are my favorites from the shower:

1)  Letting go of the light blue.  No offense to you traditionalists, but we just couldn't get excited about doing a light blue shower.  So we decided to go with the color scheme Beth found on some mommy-pretty invitations--navy and lime green and white.

tissue paper poofs added a festive touch

a simple centerpiece with ribbons and pillars

 clothesline of baby boy clothes

3)  Three Words:  Fruit. Infused. Water.  Carly's mom put together this beautiful water decanter with fruit.  It tasted amazing.  I couldn't believe how refreshing it was!  (if you want to do it yourself, Carly's mom says put the ice in first, then slide the fruit around the outside.)

I want some now.  mmmmm.

4) No group games.  It was a large guest list, and the last time we had a crowd at my sister's shower it was almost impossible to get everyone in the same room, no less play a game.  And everyone would rather visit anyway.  SO, we had various stations set up around the main rooms.  At their leisure, ladies could get food, visit, guess the baby food, sign up to bring Becky a meal, sign a keepsake, guess facts about baby-to-be, and guess the price of various baby items.  After about an hour of this open-house style, we gathered whoever was interested and Becky opened her gifts.  We also announced game winners and awarded small prizes.  It worked GREAT.

guess the baby food!

5)  Fabulous food.  Everyone made something, and a few others helped too.  The menu for this morning shower:  cupcake balls, croissants, raspberry chocolate chip scones, snicker salad (do you know about the amazing treat this is???), hawaiian cheese spread, egg casserole, fruit, and raspberry bars.  Y.U.Double-M!

It was so fun to honor our beautiful friend, Becky.  Can't wait to meet her little boy!

Becky and me


Hope you enjoyed the glimpse of Becky's shower!

I've been mistreatin'

Have I told you about my blog friend, Dawn?  I am not talking about myself here, bloggies.  Dawn blogs at Beyond Grace and she and I connected early on in my blog-life.  Somehow I managed not to tell you all that she and I got to meet in real life this Christmas!  She lives in FL, and we were just a few hours apart while we visited Dave's folks--so we made it happen!   We had a grand time--Dave and I and Dawn and her family.  We ate lunch at a restaurant and laughed our heads off.  What a treat! 

I tell you this as a prelude to my Life Lately post.  I bring Dawn up, cause I had to laugh when she commented on my last post about the needles, that she hoped my next post would be more "smiley".  So, for you Dawn, a much more smiley post:

I knew since before Christmas that I wanted to make a little color update in my family room when the holidays were over.  That room has had a navy couch, tan chair and dark red accents for a long time.  I had really cute window treatments my mom made--and I'm sorry I can't find a picture--but imagine valances with two fabrics, one floral and one ticking.  The colors were muted and I loved 'em for a decade.  And then, all of a sudden, I was done with them.  I wanted to add a fun color to the room--something I could mix with the dark red ( the room opens to my red kitchen) and that would work with the navy.  I chose one of my favorite colors these days--aqua/light turquoise/robin's egg blue.

I was inspired by the nester's window mistreatment ideas, and by my mom and sis who had already mistreated some windows in their homes.  I decided I could make me some curtain-like mistreatments.  With my mom's help, I bought some fabric on sale the first day I looked.  (Can I just say that is a miracle for normally-indecisive me?!?).  The next night, I did it!  No sewing, just folding and ironing and hanging and fiddling.  All by myself--like a big girl!

Ta-da! Here is how they look in my little family room.  Yes, you can still see the spots where we took the old valances down.  We'll get to painting that soon.    A very different vibe than I had before...but I like it.  What do you think?

I then (of course) needed to replace the valance in the kitchen.  I took some scraps of the fabric from the family room, and a piece of a canvas dropcloth, a little help from my mom and Pickle, and voila!--a little kitchen valance!

I'm fairly proud of myself--mostly cause it all happened within a few days (that's unusual for me)--but also cause they don't look half-bad.  I'm no nester, but it still works.  And I bought all the fabric, the rods, brackets and clips on sale and the whole project was under $90.

How's that for smiley, Dawn?  :0)

the wise bathroom owl

I definitely don't have of those crafty DIY blogs that I love to look at.  I don't post about that kind of stuff.  Oh wait, that's cause I don't really do that type of stuff--just admire what others have done, and imagine having the time, creativity and talent to do the same.

Every now and then you need to shake things up a bit though.  And guess what?  I made something.

You see, we painted our kids' bathroom and got a new shower curtain in an attempt to make it a bit more fun.  I liked the direction we were heading but could not think of ANYTHING to put on the wall in there.  I kinda wanted some super casual artwork--but finding something in the right colors and price range?  I might as well have been trying to like sushi--it wasn't gonna happen.

So in a rare moment of DIY ambition I took a leftover canvas my daughter had and painted my own little picture.  The kids like owls these days, so we went with that.  They really like the finished product:

The word "clean" is made from chipboard letters I had, painted the color of the bathroom walls.  I coined the clever phrase myself (pretty profound, huh?)  I bet owls think that, though.  At least the bathroom owls...

For more creativity, visit Gitz (one of my favorite blog-people).

first haiku since middle school

winter in colorado

amidst days of freeze

golden warmth strongly breaks through

reminding of Hope

At (in)courage (great site!) we have been challenged to stretch our creative wings a little with a monthly artistic challenge. Since I would classify myself as artistically challenged--this must be for me! :0)

This month's challenge was to write a haiku set in winter. So I did. It took 5 minutes. (it's true, but I mention this only as a disclaimer to protect my artistically challenged ego--just sayin').

I'd love to have you join in the challenge! Head over to (in)courage and link up, or post a haiku here in my comments. If I can do it, you can too.