House progress

We've been our house for 2 months now and though our "to-do" list is still much longer than our "done" list, we've made some good progress in the living room, dining room, and extra bedrooms. The biggest change we made was refinishing our hardwood floors. We had hoped to paint right away too, but alas time has gotten away from us and we have yet to break out a brush. We'll get there eventually.

For now here are some progress pictures of 4 rooms in our place:

Living Room Before


Living Room Progress (still to-do: paint, hang pictures)



(curtains, friendship balls hanging in the living room, and extra/accent chairs in the dining room)

Dining Room Before


Dining Room Progress (still to-do: paint, hang pictures and clock)




Guest Bed/Laundry Before


Guest Bed/Laundry Progress (still to-do: paint, buy bed frame)




Front Bed Before


Front Bed Progress (still do-do: paint, hang pictures, get headboards for the beds, get a dresser)






Any suggestions for paint colors? We already bought gray for the main floor, but now are thinking that we might just paint the one "accent wall" (currently peach) to match the rest of the walls (taupe). What about the bedrooms?

Gardening

One week until my one-month-iversary with my garden! And things are actually growing!


Green pepper


Cucumber


Zucchini Squash



This is a huge accomplishment for me already. Especially since I went away for 10 days to visit my parents and didn't quite know what to expect when I came home. When I left there was lots of rain in the forecast, so when my parents asked me who was watering my garden I answered, "The sky."

The sky was not faithful to its promises, however. Or maybe the weather-person needs a new job. In any case, a friend was kind enough to water for me after 4 dry days and then it finally did rain.

When I got home the plants were all growing nicely in their designated rows, but some friends I did not recognize came to visit. So today I weeded my garden for the first time. Or I hope I weeded, at least, and not "vegetabled." I don't really know what a weed looks like versus what a vegetable plant looks like , so I just played a nice game of "guess which one of these doesn't belong??" with myself and pulled a bunch of crap out of there. We'll see in a few weeks whether I pulled the right things!

So far I can say one thing about my garden: I've learned a lot! Which is a nice way of saying I've made a lot of mistakes and hope to not repeat them next year. My parents are already doubting that I'll even have a vegetable garden next year. Those doubters (hi dad!). We'll see.

In any case, I already know my garden is way to big for how many plants I have. Next year: smaller garden. I'm also contemplating doing a raised square foot garden next year instead of a regular in-the-ground one. I *almost* did one of those this year, but some more experienced gardeners told me not to invest the money building one of those (lumber, soil, etc) until I knew whether I really liked gardening. Some of my friends have their square-foot gardens on facebook and I LOVE them. So lush and attractive. Since I planted right in the ground on a slope (only part of the yard that gets full sun), mine's a bit (okay a lot) of a crooked eyesore right now.



Don't tell it I said this, but I wince I little when I look at it. Next year will be prettier.

I'm also contemplating just going with container gardening next year. I had a few plants leftover (back when I thought my garden was "full"- yea right. Who wrote the spacing requirements on my seed packets??), so I planted them in some extra pots I had around. Look how pretty.



I *think* these are tomatoes. But I'm not entirely sure.

And my indoor herb pot looks pretty great too. Although in hindsight I wish I would have done one for cilantro and one for basil; this one has both and the cilantro is over-powering the basil. And although I love cilantro, I was more excited about the basil. I might just have to get another one of these pots and dedicate it to basil alone.



Basil in salad, basil on a sandwich, basil with goat cheese (on pizza?), basil in scrambled eggs. Mmmmmm. What else can I put basil on? ;)

Where I come from

I come from a family of five in a beautiful little city in the wonderful country of Canada. And I'm lucky that where I come from is only a six hour drive from where I am.

Which means that I get to visit fairly often. And I get to stay a long time when John goes out of town. Like this week: John is in India with some friends from church and I am in Ontario, visiting family and friends. (Am I allowed to say that we're an international couple this week?)

The best part of coming back to where I'm from is remembering the sweet routines, the daily traditions, that make our family what it is.

Like Saturday morning garage sale-ing (sailing?). Which as a child I was dragged to, hoping and praying there would be some good toys at the next one, and then staying in the van reading a library book when there weren't. And which, as a teenager, I stayed and bed and slept right through, only to be awoken by my mom barging in my room exclaiming, "Jillian! Look what I got for two bucks!" "Hmmmpfh. Looksgoodmom. *yawn.*"

Now that I'm all grown up I still hate waking up early, but I have a new found respect for anything that only costs two bucks. So I drug myself out of bed and joined my parents, brother and his girlfriend, on a garage sale hunt through the rain.





I got some pretty good deals, although I admit I mostly showed stuff to my mom and let her do the bartering (she's a pro. her moto is "Cut the price in half and go from there." Usually she gets it for her half-price offer too.)




I got this old trunk for only $7!


If I didn't have to lug it all the way back to Michigan I might have snatched this cute little set right up. I'm now thinking about what furniture in my own place I could paint this color!


My mom bartered this painting down to $5 for me! I everything about it. My dad then tried to sell it at the next yard sale when another lady fell in love with it like I did. I had to turn down her pleas. Sorry lady- this one's coming home with me!

Sunday means church, then cake and coffee, then lunch. Dessert before lunch might seem backwards, but that's how we roll. On Sundays at least.



In the summer we eat outside, moving our plastic adirondack around the yard, following the shade. And food always gets served on fancy crystal trays. Just because it's Sunday.







Sunday afternoons are for lazing around, taking naps, watching golf on TV (if you're my dad), fixing up old bikes that your mom found in the trash so you can re-sell them online (if you're my brother), and taking lots of pictures with your camera, wondering when you're going to "get good" at it (if you're me), and just generally being super cute (if you're Hugo).








Family traditions = good for the soul.

The glory of graduation

"Not well traveled
not well read
Not well-to-do
or well bred

just want to hear instead:

well done good and faithful one."

- Nichole Nordeman, "Legacy"

This weekend I reach a long-sought goal: I graduated from seminary! I remember first entertaining the idea of seminary when I went to a month-long seminary "summer camp" type experience in 2003. 8 years later I'm filled with nostalgia as I look back on that summer and marvel at how God has lead me on this journey. I am blessed.


With Mom and Dad before the ceremony (nervous smile!)


After the ceremony: with my brother Wes and his girlfriend Kaitlin.


Me and my handsome husband John!

Our seminary president delivered the perfect address during the commencement exercises. He spoke about glory.

Glory.

A seminary graduation is a strange event, glory-wise. After years of long lectures and late-night study sessions that so often result in very unglorious grumbling, stressful moments, and sometimes a frustrated tear or two, you suddenly dress up in a fancy robe and hood and put on that telling graduation cap and participate in a very dignified ceremony. After you've walked across the big stage and received a firm handshake and "congratulations" from the president people clap and cheer and even give you a standing ovation.

You get to hear about what an amazing thing you've done: you have your master's degree! You're a big deal.


Receiving my diploma and a "Congrats and God bless you" from the seminary president.

But it didn't really feel all that impressive when you were doing it. Mostly it felt normal, like you were just plugging along, completing one assignment after the next. Sometimes it got exiting and others times it got frustrating, but it really wasn't all that glorious.

In his address, the seminary president reminded us that it was in Christ's moment of weakness that he was glorified, that his death on a cross was his ultimate moment of victory. Jesus received glory, but he did not seek it. He sought faithfulness and glory was a by-product. He also reminded us that when Moses saw the glory of God, his face shone but he did not know it. "...he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD."- Exodus 34:29.

That was his prayer for us and now our prayer for ourselves: that we would not seek glory in our ministries, but faithfulness. That we would plug along in our tasks, receiving glory only as a by-product.

And that when our faces glow with glory, we would not know it.

It's nice to wear to wear a fancy robe and receive a standing ovation, but in the end what we really want is to hear these words from our master: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful..."

Sprouting before their time!

Eep! Despite the directions clearly reading, "Plant outside in 2-3 weeks," my radishes and sunflowers have sprouted and then some and my green beans are catching up fast! Obviously I am not equipped for the "ya-gotta-sorta-feel-out-your-plants-to-know-when-their-ready-to-plant" aspect of gardening and I'm still about two weeks from building my garden in the backyard. So I have no place to put them!

Radishes

Sunflowers


I called a friend last night for advice and she suggested re-planting in a plastic container (wish I would have saved those old margarine containers like Grandma did...) until I can get them outside in two weeks.

Since it takes a village to raise a child garden, I'm looking for more advice. How long can I keep these plants in their little soil pods? Should I replant them in a bigger container like my friend suggested?

A prayer for planting

Father in heaven,

This is our food and our drink, and it is all yours.
And we ask now, help it grow and that nothing would happen to it.
May the animals not take the seeds, not the blackbirds or the blue jays.

We know you give us this food, and also food for these animals too.
In your Word it says this.
We know you created the animals and birds
and that you give them food also.

We ask, by the goodness of God,
that our corn grow over the mountains and valleys.

We don't have the power,
you have the power,
and all is in your hands.

- Domingo Coc Ico, Se'mesche', Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

~

John and I have been in our new house for almost two weeks now and are slowly unpacking. We are repainting and refinishing our hearts out, but there is one aspect of our new life as homeowners that I am very excited about: having a backyard!


















Alright, so it's not much right now... but I see potential and am on my way to fulfilling it!

Last spring I took a class called "Shalom" at school and, as they say, it changed my life. The class impacted me in many ways, and specifically in the area of ecology. I went from being a person who believed in caring about the earth because it was "a good thing to do," to being someone with a deep and steadfast biblical conviction about my God-ordained role in caring for the earth.

Since that time, John and I have been slowly and surely looking for ways to make good changes in our lifestyle. We started buying our meat from a local farm (where we know the animals were humanely raised), we try to eat vegetarian more often, we switched to eco-friendly cleaning products (probably the easiest change), we just bought a High Efficiency washer, and now: I'm going to try my hand at vegetable gardening!

When I first started toying with the idea of gardening I felt a bit overwhelmed. I'm more of an indoor person and I'm not big on getting dirty, so gardening seemed like a pretty big challenge. Then I remembered a local urban vegetable garden that John and I used to walk by in our old neighbourhood. Their beds seemed so orderly and manageable. If I could have a garden like that, I was ready to take on the challenge!

Enter google. A few searches later and I had discovered "square foot vegetable gardening:" a method of gardening that uses square/rectangular boxed beds to intensively plant a garden.

As you saw in the above backyard photo, I don't have my beds built yet, but this afternoon I took the first step toward growing my garden: I planted my seeds!

Don't tell anyone, but I had to take the easy way out and get one of these starter kits:

















... because last summer I tried to grow cilantro in a flower pot and failed terribly. Like I-only-grew-three-lousy-sprigs-of-cilantro-even-though-I-planted-four-pots-full kind of terrible. Seeds + dirt = I can't do it. But seeds + little packaged soil pods + a detailed instruction manual = YES I CAN!

So this afternoon I grabbed hold of my confidence, my starter kit, and my watering can and got to work.

As you can see on the starter kit package, I'll be growing 12 things: radishes, lettuce, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkin, green beans, peppers, cilantro, beafsteak tomatoes, sweetie tomatoes, and cucumbers.

















Step one: open the kit and read the instructions.

















Step two: place the little soil pots in the "green-house" and water.

Step three: run out of water. Get more water.

Step four: open seed packs and admire them. Hard to believe these tiny little babies will become my summer lunch!

















Step five: plant the seeds.

































Step six: cover, pray A Prayer for Planting, and watch them grow!

In two weeks they will have all germinated. According to the directions.
Another couple weeks and it will be time to plant outside!

Stay tuned for my "we built our gardening beds!" post in a few weeks.