by Amy | Mar 1, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Projects
I know. You’re thinking, “Who is this adorable girl eating meatloaf so gracefully?” Well, paws off. That’s my sister. She rocks. She rolls. She’s pretty much awesome in every way a person can be awesome. {And believe me, I know awesome.}
Here’s the thing with Sis. {I call her that, you can call her Erin.} She’s a lefty, a borderline ginger…and she was born on Leap Day. So, all in all she has really defied the odds. I doubt that happens very often. Since the 29th of February doesn’t come around every year, that means we celebrate her on the 28th. Which is…today.
Given that today is her birthday, I thought it appropriate to share something amazing that she has come up with. Now, this is classic Erin. Lists, organization…that’s her ball game. {She is a kindergarten teacher after all. No organization=no sanity in that arena.}
Recently she and her husband put their house on the market. {Sidenote…if you are in the Elkhart, IN area, or would like to move to the best town in America and would like a super cute, well kept, sweetly landscaped home–hit me up. I know a good one that just came up on the market.} Now they are hunting for their next place.
If you’ve ever bought a house you know the process can be stressful. One showing after another and another and another. Eventually they all blur together in your mind. You forget what you liked and what you didn’t. Even if you take photos, some of the details fall through the cracks.
Not to mention, the tension that can come up between spouses when house hunting. You’ve got your eye on an old, needy fixer upper with good bones. He’s got his eye on something from the last 20 years with a room big enough for his Call of Duty game nights. Uh-oh.
To take care of this issue Sis created a worksheet that they take with them on each showing.
Pretty genius…am I right? They go to each showing and fill out this score sheet as they tour the house. Then they add it up and keep it with any photos of the property. As time goes by they will have a clear record of every property and how it scored with them.
Love this idea? You can download this template right here. Or make your own. You can do it in Word or Paint or just write things down on a sheet of paper and copy it, or if this really hits home for you…you can use this one.
Happy house hunting!
Amy
by Amy | Feb 27, 2013 | Blog, Devotional, The Art of Faith
Derek and I work with the youth group at church. I don’t feel especially qualified, but I do feel especially blessed to be around those teens every single week.
This year we’ve slowly been working our way through the Book of Acts. A few weeks back we discussed this passage: Acts 14:21-28. You can click over to Bible Gateway to read it…or just read my paraphrase.
Basically what is going on is this. Paul and Barnabas {a killer ministry duo} have just finished a multi-national evangelistic tour. They could circle around, cut a corner and go back a different way than what they came, or return along their same path. Cut a corner, get home sooner…or take the long road, revisiting towns that attempted to kill them.
Doesn’t seem like a tough choice.
But Paul and Barney decide to return the way they came. They wanted to go back and check on all the new believers that had heard the Gospel on their first pass through. They wanted to follow though.
And that’s the message we tried to convey to the teens: follow through. The importance of following up, especially when it comes to new believers. In my mind, I find it important to follow through in all of our relationships. Sometimes I’m not very good at it, especially if it means following up with someone I don’t know very well. You trackin’?
Tonight someone followed through with me. It was someone I didn’t think I’d hear from again, but she called me up and left an encouraging message.
A few weeks back when I was visiting Dallas for the Strip Church training conference I recieved some startling/unexpected/emotion-rolling/hard-to-handle news. If you know me, you know that sometimes I can go over the edge with emotions. I just need to cry it out. So I was in the car, driving 70 mph down the highway, crying my eyes out. I decided that wasn’t the safest choice, so I pulled off at the nearest exit to collect myself. When the tears had stopped, I went inside to buy a drink. {I had that thick post-cry slobber clogging my throat.}
An older lady {I put her at mid-60’s} was working the checkout. She {out of habit} asked me how I was doing. Now, mind you…my face was a wreck. We are talking smeared mascara, puffy red eyes, pink nose, swollen lips…the whole nine yards. I didn’t have the energy to lie, so I told her I’d had better days. At this point she took her hands off my Aquifina and looked at my face. Then she sincerely asked how I was and what had me so upset.
I told her. Then she held out her hands and took hold of mine. She closed her eyes and prayed over me. In the middle of the gas station, with a line behind me. She prayed the Holy Spirit would be on me and give me peace. That I would have joy in my heart, strength and patience to endure. Then she asked how she could follow up with me. I had a business card in my wallet, so I handed it over to her.
I was fine for the rest of my drive. And I have had a certain amount of peace ever since. Honestly, I never thought I’d hear from her again.
Until tonight.
She {DeDe from the gas station in Texas} followed through. I missed the call, but I’ll call her back. I’ve never had a small act of encouragement touch me in this way.
The point is following up matters. Interacting with one another is a good first step. But the joy, peace and love that we plant at that initial moment will wither if we don’t follow through. As humans we need support. When we reach out to one another we need to take the long road back…to check up on our people. Lucky for us, it doesn’t mean we need to face the threat of being stoned. Just a phone call, or a text, or a facebook message. Just to check in and let them know that our meeting was sincere; not just habit. You can even be more basic than that: actually pray for the needs a friend expresses to you. {How often do we say “Oh, I’d love to pray for you,” only to forget? I know it’s happened to the best of us.}
This week I challenge you to follow up with one person. Friend, family, stranger…whatever. Someone who you connected with. Follow through, see how they are doing. Allow God to bless them through your encouragement. If that’s not enough to convince you, just trust Gavin DeGraw:
“You have to follow through
You’re gonna have to follow
Oh, this is the start of something good
Don’t you agree?”
Amy
by Amy | Feb 26, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Fitness
Do you know what winter hands are? I thought I did. Then I moved to Practically Canada.
The chapped hands of my past pale in comparison to what is going on with my knuckles right now. And it’s not just the knuckles. My whole hand is rough like someone ran sand paper over alligator skin. I’m telling you, I’ve never experienced hands like this before. The cold weather makes them bad. Cold season hand washing makes it worse.
If you looked only at my hands and guessed my age, you’d probably put me in the ball park of 75 years old. So gross.
So I reached out to locals. How the heck to they deal with this every winter? Newsflash…winter still has several months left up here. My hands will be bloody, chapped stumps by then if I don’t take action now.
I got a few pieces of advice. Lotion followed by socks over the hands before bed. Mary Kay hand scrub. Body butter. But the most unique tip is the one I’ve found to work the best. Are you ready to heal your nasty, winter hands? Go to your kitchen and get out your Crisco.
Wait, what? Crisco?!
Yes, you heard right. The very sweet, very northern yoga instructor at my gym clued me in on this little home-miracle. Just open up your tub of solid shortening and smear it on your hands. Then cover your hands with a pair of soft socks or gloves. Wear them to bed, or for 30 minutes at a time. You’ll seriously be amazed. It’s time to defeat our winter hands once and for all.
Amy
by Amy | Feb 21, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
Remember Lydia? Her sneak peek was up on Valentine’s Day. Well her session is finished and a disc of images is on its way to her proud mommy and daddy. I have to say, this little girl has personality…and I love a girl with attitude. She’s all smiles and giggles. She laughs out loud at herself and made us laugh along with her. I cannot wait to see her grow!
This session was shot in my lovely friend, Ellen’s home while I was visiting Louisiana a few weeks ago. I’d love to set up shop in your living room. Drop me a line…let’s set up a session! And, as usual…to see more of this adorable session go on over to the Facebook page. {You might as well like it while you’re there.}
by Amy | Feb 20, 2013 | Blog, Crafts, The Art of Projects
Pretty right?
This may be one of my favorite wreaths ever. I’m kind of a wreath junkie…so that’s kind of a big deal. It’s pink and romantic {a little late for V-Day} and just so gosh-darn pretty. I needed something to replace that awesome Pottery Barn knock off snowflake wreath from Christmas time. It’s really time I begin looking forward to a day with no snow and blooming flowers. This is a perfect fix.
I’ll tell you this: It was easy, but it wasn’t fast. Commit a few hours or a few nights of TV watching/multi-tasking and you too can be the proud owner of a wreath just like this. All for the low, low material cost of $9. Here’s what you’ll need: (more…)
by Amy | Feb 19, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Adventure, The Art of Fitness
Here’s the problem with skiing. They give you a map of the trails before you go up the lift…but the map is 2D. Sure the trails are color coded…black diamonds are the most difficult and clearly marked. But alas, the map is still utterly flat.
After a sufficient warm up at Huff Hills, where Derek and I skied over the weekend we began hitting the harder trails. Now, as you can imagine, I’m not a pro. I’m even a bit on the clumsy side {go figure}, yet all that taken into account, I’m a decent skier. After going down the hills marked with circles and squares I got more adventurous and went down one of the black diamonds.
It went great. Fast, fun…I didn’t even hit anyone.
Now, back to this 2D map. Skiing is a sport about three dimensions. Especially the vertical dimension. As in steep drops. We did really well on the hills we went down and made it a goal to hit all of the trails offered. Fine. Just fine. Until…
We found ourselves going down a trail called the Cougar. I then found myself faced with another problem of skiing: Once you start down a hill, you are committed. The flat trail map didn’t clue me in to a drop that seemed to fall off the end of the Earth. It didn’t tell me that the hell, excuse me, hill was a death trap.
The slope started off fine. An exhilarating drop much like the other diamonds we’d gone down. Then the trail leveled out for a moment. So level I was able to come to a stop to look at the view. After taking in the scenery I noticed that the slope seemed to have disappeared. I was now standing on the edge of a cliff {at least that’s how it felt…my story, I’ll exaggerate at will}. And here is where the second problem of skiing came into play. Once you go down, you can’t turn around and pick another trail.
It’s not like at the amusement park, where a kid stands in line for the scary roller-coaster, only to chicken out at the last second. That’s an easy fix. Skip the ride, go out the exit.
When you are on skis, you have one choice. Go down.
After freaking out for a moment, I gathered my nerves and pushed off. Swoosh…one drop down. A small level out, then another big drop. Knees bent, stay cool. Then, the world became a big jumble. It was like I was inside the plastic case of a game of Boggle. Everything was totally shaken as I tumbled {sans grace} down the hill. You know that scene from The Princess Bride when Wesley falls down the hill toward the Fire Swamp yelling “As…you…wisshhh”? {Watch it here.} Yeah, I’m pretty sure it looked like that. Or at least that’s how it felt.
The skis were off, my hat was off, I was a big snowy mess. Luckily there I was now at the bottom of the hill, just a slight easy slope back to the ski lift. I laid for a few moments, then put myself back together and met Derek at the bottom. He hadn’t fallen, but he did say, “Yep…wasn’t expecting that.” Needless to say, I was a bit gun shy for the rest of the afternoon. Overall I was okay, too. Nothing broken, just one bruise across my back. I’ll take it.
The warm weather was only a special weekend treat, though. Today we are back to a high of -9. Seriously? I hear things start to thaw out around April.
On a totally different note, thanks to all of you who were so kind and supportive yesterday when I opened up about my new ministry project. I’m totally jazzed to tell you more about it. I just love you all so much.
And speaking of things we love…remember Lydia? Her full session will be featured on the blog Thursday. So be sure to come back. And tomorrow I’ve got a killer wreath tutorial ready for your enjoyment. See you then!
Amy
by Amy | Feb 18, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Faith
Pretty bold graphic, right? But read the bottom…don’t get crazy, and please don’t leave the blog. I assure you I haven’t lost my mind.
If you’ve been around a while you know that my life can be some what unpredictable. I’m a hobby/skills/learning/adventure junkie, so I tend to try all kinds of things. Let me be perfectly clear: I’m not going to be working as a stripper. (more…)
by Amy | Feb 14, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
Hey all! Happy Valentine’s Day. I’ve always liked this holiday…even though I spent a lot of V-days dateless at home or out with the girls. Yes, believe it or not, this Awkward Annie wasn’t too popular with the boys growing up. {Crazy, I know.}
At any rate, I hope you find something to fall in love with today. Even if it’s just a new series on Netflix. {I recommend Pretty Little Liars or Revenge…or Freaks and Geeks–If you are looking for a date with the boob tube.}
While I was down in the dirty south I fell head over heels for a baby named Lydia Joy. Holy smokes this is a cute one, folks. Her momma and I are friends, and tragically I headed to Practically Canada before she graced the world with her presence. So while I was in town we set up a portrait session for her. I’m so glad I did. Enjoy this LOVE-ly sneak peek. The full session will be coming to a facebook page near you next week!
