Perfection

Today was just one of those days, nothing bad happened, there was nothing to make me sad or upset. Yet all day there was a cloud over my head. However when I got home, all was redeemed.

On my drive home I enjoyed the sun shining and good music to make me smile. As I got out of the car my dog and husband greeted me at the door welcoming me home. PD was very excited and wanted to play so I ran around the yard enjoying more sunshine. After a while I lied down on the grass and looked into the sky. The sun started to wash away my day and leave happiness. Phil came and joined me and we lied on the grass with our dog just enjoying the day.

After a while we got up and moved to the porch to our hammock where we snuggled up in the warm air and I slept. There is nothing more perfect and peaceful than a warm spring day snuggled on a hammock with my head on my husband’s chest sleeping peacefully. These moments make all the bad ones better.

OH and guess what? I wore a skirt and sandals for the first time this season… all is well in the world.

Our New Tile!

Here are pictures of the bathroom so far! Phil is working on the grout today... We might be able to use it TOMORROW!

Ladies and Gentleman… We Have TILE!

Over the weekend we made some great progress on that bathroom that I am totally excited about! Phil and I were both volunteering at church this weekend, so our time to work on projects was quite limited. My goal for the weekend was to completely tile the shower, however in order to do this we had quite a bit of prep work first! Saturday after getting home from church around 7:30pm we had to fur out a wall and put up the cement board so that we could tile the next day. Then Sunday when we got home from church we hit the bathroom hard! After a few road blocks… like not having the correct tools to cut natural stone and a trip to Home Depot … we started the actual tiling around 4pm. It started out really difficult, but after we both got hang of how to work with the stone and a good system down it started to go up really fast. My sister was our runner and helped us sort the stones and always made sure we had enough ready. Because the mortar would dry out if left out, once we started there was no going back, so we were up tiling until 1:30 in the morning! It looks awesome and both Phil and I are really happy with the way it turned out. Now I just need to stay awake at work!

Today we are going to do the grout, then tomorrow we can seal it and we will have a fully functioning shower! I am very excited for this!

I will post pictures soon... for some reason they will not upload today!

Finally Friday

This morning I have been working on things for running for World Vision… and man this stuff gets me excited!! Honestly, I am sitting here itching so badly to get out and run. There are about twenty-five people who are running with Northwestern for World Vision! It is so cool to see others catch the vision for what we are doing and join us. Also just having the accountability and support of others is going to be great… now I just need to be able to run!

It feels strange to be looking forward to something like this knowing it will probably be the hardest I have ever made my body work and not be able to train! Honestly God is teaching me how to rely on him so much right now. Even these last few days I feel like I have grown so much, and I am feeling thankful for the things God is bringing me through.

Over the last few weeks I have been going through some pretty rough stuff with my family that I can’t share right now, but have been really weighed down and feeling pretty lost. At the start of this week I realized that I really needed to get some things out, but really did not know who to turn to. So I just started to pray that God would bring people into my life, and he has! Over the last two days there have been a few people that I have been able to talk to and I am SO grateful! Those of you know who you are, thank you. Honestly the conversations and the love and compassion you have shown me has been overwhelming.

This weekend both Phil and I are volunteering at church. In between things we are also hoping to get the shower tiled in the bathroom! We will see how far we get… Hope everyone has a great weekend!

On reading...

Yesterday I was working on a paper for grad school and started looking through our book shelf to find some resources for the paper. As I was looking through them I realized that there are a ton of books on my shelf that I have bought and never read. You see, I like to think of myself as a learner, and really, I do enjoy learning. However sometimes my intentions and actions do not line up. As I looked through the books I realized there were so many good things I could learn and got excited about being more intentional about reading things.
SO, here I go… I am going to start being more intentional! The first book I am going through is Praise Habit by David Crowder. My Mom gave it to my a while ago, and I have just not made it a priority, but that’s going to change! The book is about how our whole lives are praise, not just our worship or “set aside times.” In the first chapter he talks about how he as a kid would “find” God in different things, church, bible study, camp ect. Then as a junior in high school went through a traumatic time and felt lost in “finding” God. To hear how he started living a life of praise from this is really cool. I am looking forward to reading the rest and sharing what I am learning!

What books have you read latley that you enjoyed?

Job Update: Phil has a few different options from his company; it looks likely that he will start on Monday again. We are very thankful for Gods provision through this all. I feel like every time we are in this situation we grown and learn more about who God is. It is just amazing how God takes care of his children, he sure it taking care of us!

Bathroom Update: We have taken the last few days “off” since we were fairly burned out from the weekend! However that is about to change! Tonight we are going to finish the plumbing to the bathtub and get the cement board up on the walls so we can tile! My hope it to be able to have a working shower by next week! Phil is at Home Depot right now getting a few more things including a toilet that we are going to install temporarily until we are ready to tile the floors.

Thanks for your comments yesterday, its so great to know I am not the only one!

Where’s the re-set button?

Some days I would like there to be a reset button for my life. Or for that matter a rewind would work well to. The things that I do and say sometimes I wish so badly I could do over, unfortunately time keeps moving on… This morning was one of those mornings. I woke up at 4am, wide awake ready to start the day, only it was 4am and who starts their day that early when they don’t have to… so I made the choice to stay in bed, just for the record, I should have just gotten up! Since I could not sleep I laid there thinking, not good productive thoughts but ones that dragged me down. I thought about how frustrated I am to not be able to run, how because of my injury I stopped caring about what I eat and working out have slipped greatly… how I am frustrated by a dirty house… the dog snoring on the floor next to me… how once I got up I would not be able to find the things I need due to a torn apart house… and other such thoughts that made me in a sour mood by the time I finally got up.

As I stomped around the house (ok I am not proud to admit that, but it’s the truth) I thought about how frustrated I was by different things, I let new things start to bother me and continued down the crabby (ok maybe way more than crabby) road. The whole time I was thinking, poor me, I am such a victim. I mean seriously… it’s not my fault I broke my leg, the house being a mess because the bathroom re-model, defiantly not my choice….. After running around trying to find clothes, shoes, makeup, food and being fairly unsuccessful at most, I made enough noise to wake Phil up, who sweetly asked me if he could help with anything. Oh course my mood was so sour by this point I answer with a stream of “this is wrong… that is wrong… I hate this mess… why are we doing this… there is no food… blah blah blah. Poor Phil, he took the brunt of it.

After my tirade finished, Phil got out of bed to come over and hug me, I started to realize how dumb and immature I was being. Guilt washed over me, and I realized that all the things I was mad and upset about I choose. I am not a victim in life, but somehow I had fallen into the trap. After apologizing to Phil I ran out the door (since by now, I was running late as well).

I got into my car and the first song on the radio was the new song by Kris Allen, Live Like We’re Dying. The basis idea of the song is that we are only given so much time in a day so we better live with a purpose and make every moment count. OK, it hit me again. What if I get in a car accident on the way to work and my spew of anger was the last encounter I had with Phil? Is this how I want to be remembered? No, I want to make every moment count. As I drove I started to realize that all the things I was so upset about and wanting to blame on someone else was 100% me, not anyone else. I am the one who broke my leg, I knew something hurt, I made the choice to keep on running. I am the one who wanted to re-model the bathroom and knew full well that would mean a messy house for a while.

So where is my reset button? I would like to choose a different path this time. I would like to wake up and start my day with prayer, to thank God for another day to live, to love, to show this world Christ’s refection. To kiss my husband goodbye and tell him that I love him more than anything. Though I cannot re-do my morning I want to learn from it. I am choosing to take responsibility for my life and I am determined that even if it is slow progress to place God at the center and live every moment like it is my last, cause who knows, it could be.

As I continue with my day, my prayer is for Christ to be the center of my life, to be where I fix my eyes…

Center

You’re the center of the universe

Everything was made in You Jesus

Breath of every living thing

Everyone was made for You

You hold everything together

Christ be the center of our lives

Be the place we fix our eyes

Be the center of our lives

We lift our eyes to heaven

We wrap our lives around your life

We lift our eyes to heaven, to You – Charlie Hall

A Bathroom to Remember…

Yes it happened, we officially have no bathroom! Yes, I do realize most people would view this as a negative thing, and while I do miss my bathroom close enough to get up in the middle of the night without opening my eyes, we are one step closer to a newly remodeled bathroom!

Friday Phil and I discussed it and decided that we wanted to get going on the project and that since he is still unemployed this would be a great time to start a massive project like this. We started the project by heading to Home Depot on Friday and getting the supplies we needed.

Then Friday night with the help of our great friends, Charlie and Lindsay, completely tore the bathroom apart! It was way more work that we expected, the walls were a inch and a half of cement with a wire mesh entwined in it, Absolutely NO fun to get off the walls! By the end of Friday night we had all the walls down. Saturday we were able to finish tearing out the ceiling and floor. The ceiling was unbelievably nasty, first it was plaster, then sheetrock, then a batting of insulation, and last but not least a foot of cotton like insulation that POURED out of the ceiling ALL over us. We were totally covered with this nasty stuff. The floor was tile also and had close to an inch of cement also with mesh. Phil was amazing and was able to get it all up! Sunday we decided that the house was so unbelievable dirty we needed to take a time out and clean so that we could live somewhat normal lives amidst the construction. After a few hours of cleaning EVERYTHING, the house was back in shape. Though I am happy to report it is almost just as dirty again… sad day! Phil and Robbie, a good friend, were able to get the bazillion pound tub out of the bathroom, and get the new one in place! One step closer to new! Monday we did some electrical and put up new insulation in the ceiling and sheet rocked the ceiling. We also brought a full truck load and trailer load of construction garbage to the dump… it was over two TONS of stuff! Amazing… our house is going to be lighter! Thanks to Phil’s parents for letting us borrow their truck, we could have not done it without it!!

Ok, I am exhausted! We are both so encouraged by the work that got done and are really looking forward to a new bathroom. From this point on we will be working on tiling around the shower, sheet rocking the walls, installing new vanity, toilet, linen closet, floor and many other things.

My physical therapy appointment went really well on Friday! My therapist is awesome and was so helpful. I learned so much already and feel like this is really going to help me heal and learn how not to injure myself in the future. Even though this has been a pain I am so thankful for the people who have come alongside me and are helping me on the road to recovery.

Ok… are you ready….? Enjoy some pictures… I am sorry if you get dirty….

On our way to Home Depot!

Our Home Away from Home!

The empty trailer... soon to change!

The nasty old sink!

Lindsay putting the first few holes on the wall

I have waited for this day for so long!!

Do you like all the dust in the air?!

We put up plastic in attempts to keep the dust out of the rest of the house... kinda worked!

Trying out our new bathtub in Home Depot... yes, we are those people....

Ultimate man... pizza in one hand, tools in the other! (This was breakfast... oops)

Emily trying out the goggles we got for tearing out the ceiling... she is so cool!

A torn out bathroom with old plumbing!

Amost all done...

Getting the new tub into the house!!

The NEW tub! I covered it with target bags so that it does not get scratched up!

PD our dog hates loud noises so he hid in Emily's room with his head under her bed... very funny!

New insulation in the ceiling!

DRYWALL!!! :)