I got nothin'...

To blog about. I haven't had anything going on lately but I thought I'd check in on the blog anyway. I was afraid if I didn't I might fall back into that slump of never blogging again. Come on, you know you'd miss me! Let's just pretend, alright? It's Saturday night and I haven't left the house, mom's house that is, all day. Chris went back to our house yesterday because he had to work last night. He's on night shift through Monday night and I'm hanging out here. I have to teach my Sunday School class in the morning so I'll head back to Dalton on Monday or Tuesday. These were taken the last time I thought Sunday School. I alternate with a couple from our church so I teach every other Sunday. This last time it was just these girls and we had too much fun! How could I say no to these faces?

The sweetest

Clearly not my idea...

So, what have I been up to since I last blogged? I'll show you...

Reading. Period. That's all. Reading what, you ask? Earlier this week I finished The Da Vinci Code, and tonight I just finished Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult. I absolutely loved The Da Vinci Code! I know a lot of people won't read it due to the content, but I thought it was an awesome read. I'm a huge fan of movies like National Treasure - those treasure hunt kind of books full of historical content (whether embellished or not). I highly suggest it! Handle With Care was good too, but too similar to My Sister's Keeper for me. Anyway, that's about it. I guess I better get ready for bed so I can get up and see my kiddos in the morning! Maybe next time I'll have something more interesting for you!

Living for the weekends

Life in Dalton is pretty uneventful. Chris works an odd schedule, but with the company change over his schedule has at least become a little bit more regular. Sometimes his days off are during the week and sometimes the weekend. I especially love when he has the weekend off because it feels more normal to be off when the rest of the world is off. I already wrote about our trip to Chickamauga Saturday, so I won't bore you anymore with that! Saturday night we sat outside watching for meteors until after midnight. We saw several small ones and a few pretty spectacular ones! It was the perfect night for a meteor shower - cool, crisp, and clear. I wrapped up in my favorite blanket and Chris fixed us hot chocolate and apple cider. We had so much fun searching for constellations and counting down the days until it's officially fall!

My cute husband on the back patio

Sunday was our first visit to First Baptist Church of Dalton. Like I said, Chris works a lot of weekends and the weekends he is off we usually go home and visit our home church, FBC Cornelia. Our pastor, Eric Spivey, recommended this church to us because he knows the pastor well. We really enjoyed our visit but nothing will ever take the place of our home church! We met a lot of friendly people and enjoyed their phenomenal choir. We will definitely be visiting again, probably this upcoming weekend.

FBC Dalton - looks so similar to FBC Cornelia

The rest of the day was mostly spent hanging out at home. After church we went to the grocery store and ran a few errands. I made another shutterfly book before my free code expired. I am expecting several orange packages in the coming weeks!

Our porch flower - the only thing I've ever kept alive (with Chris's help). Meme would be so proud!

 Now Monday is almost over and I have nothing to show for it! It's been raining outside all afternoon so I haven't been anywhere. I've been working on a few small things at home and doing laundry. Chris will be home in about an hour and it's the perfect night for Chili! Chris is off for seven days starting this Friday so I'm just counting down for another weekend :)

A heavy heart

There is so much on my mind tonight. My heart feels like it is hanging, broken within my chest. I have lost four grandparents and other family members over my lifetime, but never a close friend. My heart aches for the family and friends of the life that was taken so tragically this week. For all the young lives that have recently been lost in our community. I can't imagine what it would feel like to lose one of my best friends. Seeing all this pain and hurt around me makes me want to be sure my friends know how much I love them and how thankful I am to have them in my life.

Tonight we had a memorial service of sorts for Jordan in the youth room at our church. There was worship music, scripture, and a whole lot of tears and prayers. So many people are grieving the loss of this life and it causes strange emotions to stir deep down in my heart. There are the obvious emotions: pain, sadness, grief, anger. Somehow I also have feelings of hope, love, and joy in witnessing how truly special Jordan was to everyone he came in contact with. Walking into the youth room tonight I could feel the sadness covering the room. You couldn't miss the sound of ripping tissues, sharp breaths, and sobs coming from every corner of the room. Adults and teenagers alike. Best friends and acquaintances grieving the death of a sweet friend. 

Nothing could be said to mend the broken hearts tonight, but Dr. Weaver said something to the room that really resonated with me. He talked about the meaning of a "full life." What do you think of when you hear those words? Better yet, who do you think of? I'll tell you who I thought of - I thought of a lady in my church that means the world to me. She and her husband have been married seventy years and they are still an active part of our church. She is the one who witnessed to my grandfather and brought him to the Lord before he passed away from cancer. Although they never had any children, I know she gave the gift of life many times through word of God. I'll be forever grateful to her.

It just so happens that she is over ninety, but that alone is not what made her life so full. It's the lives she has touched and the glory she has brought to God's kingdom that make her life so full. Dr. Weaver tried to explain that it's not the number of years on Earth that matter, but what you do with those years. I had never thought of it that way. The love for Jordan in that room alone showed just how full his seventeen years on this Earth were. He lived a life of purpose - isn't that what we all want to work toward? I know I do. I want to live everyday as if it is the only day that matters. At the end of my life I can only hope I have lived a "full life." 

Tonight I'm sleeping on a heavy heart. But first I'm saying extra prayers - prayers for people I know and people I don't. I'm praying for peace, comfort, and strength for them in the days ahead. I'm praying God wraps his arms around them and that they walk toward him and not away. Won't you pray too?

I may never eat s'mores again!

I wrote a couple of posts ago about the beginning of Camp Agape and Vacation Bible School at church. Well after all the Agape campers got checked in and settled into their "cabins," they all headed over the city park for some fun and food with our church family. Everyone was asked to bring a dish (I'll save that one for next time) and a dessert. Haley and I always get really excited when we are asked to bring a dish - take a wild guess what we do first... Obviously go running to Pinterest to search for our next masterpiece. WRONG. Since we knew we would be at church all day on Sunday we had to make our dishes Saturday night and planned to store them in the church refrigerators the next day. 

The church provided hot dogs and hamburgers for everyone and we all brought everything else. As you can imagine all the usual side items were present - baked beans, slaw, potato salad, etc. We assumed there would be a multitude of cupcakes, brownies, and cookies as well so we wanted to make something different. Since the picnic was essentially a big cook-out we thought it would be fun to bring s'mores for the kids. What kid doesn't love s'mores? They tasted delicious - they just looked like a holy hot mess. I think the photos speak for themselves.

My first encounter with marshmallow creme - yum!

Lookin' good!

Everything seemed to be going alright up until this point... The chocolate was way too thick for dipping

Nope, not even close

So we improvised. Hey, let's just scoop the thick mess into a ziploc bag and make pretty designs (like all those fancy people on pinterest!)

Okay, okay, this might work...

NOPE

In two seconds time our ziploc bag had a giant hole. That looks appetizing, huh?

Last but not least, we decided to just spread the chocolate on top - if you didn't know any better they look pretty good, right? 

S'mores evolution. 

Disastrous. 

I'm not a very patient person. Ergo, I'm really bad at breaking the graham crackers. Oops. 

So in the end we covered them all with chocolate and put them in the refrigerator overnight in hopes that the marshmallow creme and chocolate would harden. Unfornately, that was not exactly the case. In case you were wondering marshmallow creme does not harden - it just turns into thick goo! More bad news: they don't hold up so well when it's ninety-something degrees outside. The good news is they tasted delicious and the little campers loved them! Just don't ask Hal to make you any because she's still traumatized...

Shower gifts put to good use

Last weekend my mom and sister visited Chris and I in Dalton for the night. The wedding was over a month ago and I had yet to unpack the vast majority of our shower and wedding gifts. I had absolutely no idea where to begin with the giant pile shoved behind our couch. This had been driving me nuts for several weeks...

When I was little I was always in trouble for something - my mentor teacher, Pierre, once referred to his  daughter as a "feral child." My family thought that was also an appropriate name for me! I was always a mess, in a mess, and making a mess. My room was like a disaster area. When my mom would finally break down and make me clean it I would be locked in there for hours! I would have to stop and play with every. single. toy. along the way.

Point of the story is - I am still the exact same way. Unpacking all of these gifts took me days hours because I had to take out everything and play with it! It was like Christmas because I hadn't seen any of it in months! Once we finally sorted through it all I think I ended up repacking over half of it and storing it in our guest room. I only opened up things I was sure I needed and plan to save the rest for when we get a bigger place. Of course the little kid in me wanted to open everything - but my mom kept reminding me that if I needed any of it I could go in the guest room and get it. It would be like my own personal store! How fun, right? The only thing is, I was really sad about having no where to store all the beautiful serving pieces I received. The ladies at church absolutely spoiled me with so many beautiful things! Hopefully one day we will be able to move back home and I can put those pieces to good use throwing showers for other brides and babies.

Until then, my sister came up with a great solution: to use the items as decoration above our kitchen cabinets. Our kitchen is pretty small, but I really like the cabinets. It's functional but definitely not my ideal set-up. I have always loved to cook and definitely need more counter space. I can't wait until we own our own home and dad can build me the pinterest kitchen of my dreams! Having a dad who is an awesome woodworker comes in pretty handy (more on that later!). Anyway - here are a few photos of what we chose to put above the cabinets. I ended up only using a couple of the serving pieces - I was afraid to use any of my metalworks pieces because I wasn't sure if they would tarnish. I'm handling one area at a time so I'll post some more pictures when I perfect other spaces.

Ignore that gaping hole above the stove - I'm working on something to go there right now. Any good ideas?

The small basket holds all of the cups for Chris's Keurig - I hate those ugly things!

Hey, it put all of our old textbooks to good use! I was glad to get all those ugly electricity guides off the shelf! ;)

We finally found a rug we both loved, so now that the living room is almost cleaned up I'll post some pictures of it!

Fun at VBS!

Okay, so ignore the previous post! I had the bright idea to restart my computer and everything was magically resolved. I still haven't learned exactly how to work my mac, so I'm sure it was actually an operator issue! 

I'm going to be honest - I almost went running for the hills after the first day of VBS! I was originally just a fill-in teacher because the original teacher had a very sick baby. He ended up getting worse so she just handed over all the materials for the class and they officially became my little fishies for the week!  As you probably already know, I am a certified middle school teacher who has spent the past school year with some very adult eighth graders! I didn't realize teaching this age would be so different from what I have experienced in middle school. The first day Haley and I were responsible for NINE 3-4 year olds! Nine. Needless to say, Monday was a little hectic! We got our groove by Tuesday and have been having so much fun ever since! We do bible stories and crafts in "the great barrier reef." These sweet hearts have been such a blessing to me this week and I am so thankful for my time with them. Here are a few pictures of my sweet kiddos from the past few days!

Sweet Hailey painting a river rock to remember when Jesus calmed the river

 

They looooove painting!

Sweet sharing friends!

Have you ever seen anything so cute? "Safari day"

Practicing their trumpets at "Jericho"

Trumpets make great telescopes!

Sweet Claire writing the daily bible verse!

Such great writing!

Love this beautiful girl

Worship time in the gym with the big kids!

Love love love this baby girl!

Working hard

Oh, you know, just taking a flying break! NBD

Sweet and serious Shep! Don't miss the cutie in the background gazing at his bff

Be still my heart!

Painting coffee filters to make sun catchers!

M-E-S-S

Working hard!

Every great craft is a little messy ;)

We have had so much fun together this week! They sure have kept me laughing, that's for sure. Kids really do say the funniest things! Tomorrow is our last day and I will miss these babies. Maybe I can get a group photo of everyone tomorrow.... hmm that'll be interesting!