Currently's

watching// Pretty Little Liars. Ya'll, I'm so not ashamed in how much I love this show.

 

eating// does drinking a caramel macchiato from Starbucks count? I'm pretty sure the calories are there to prove it.

 

planning// pay day is today for us so I'm planning {and watching} how our money is being allocated. It's like my dad always says, we're literally just the clearinghouse for bills. We watch the money come in, breathe over it a little bit, then watch it go out just as fast, if not faster. #adultingsucks

 

making// time to do projects. I'm trying to finish up a dresser I've been working on.

 

dreaming// of Fall weather. Ya'll, it's too hot for this mess and we have a tropical storm headed our way. Maybe all the rain will bring cooler temps?? One can dream.

 

loving// my husband so so much. His leadership, kindness, and love are literally what fuel me. Yes, Jesus and coffee fuel me too but Hunter is just what the doctor called for.

 

 

 

I would like to ask for prayers. We are looking to move (our house is going to become rental property/investment) and received some pretty amazing news on a place yesterday. We're trying not to get too excited but still be hopeful in all that God puts before us. So prayers please for peace in our decisions, for our house to be rented pretty quickly, and for lots of coffee to be readily available. Here goes nothing!

Be {STILL} and know

We spent a good portion of this past weekend doing some woodworking and repurposing. Ya'll, I didn't realize how much using tools and painting and hammering nails and goodness, just how much it would bring peace to my soul. I'm always moving about 90 miles a minute so when something can slow me down (in a good way), it's worth investing more time into.
 

One of the pieces I worked on {she's for sale} was a simple wooden sign done free-hand. I intentionally kept it simple because I feel that sometimes, we tend to over-simplify every little thing. So with the idea that I wanted this piece to be simple, raw, real, and wrote the phrase on it:

 

"Be still and know."

 

That phrase resonates so deeply within my soul at this juncture in life. Hunter and I are going through a period where we know change is inevitable and on the horizons. I like to know how everything is going to play out and when it will play out and the details. I'm exhausting, I know. But I'm learning how to be still. To know that God has us in the palm of His hand and nothing can separate us from Him.

 

So friends, if you're in the midst of a transitional period, or a period of time where you just feel like you need something to change {that's currently where we are}, know that God is with you. He will carry you through this and He's orchestrating so many things in our lives that sometimes we can't even see happening.

 

Be still. And know.

Where {imagination} runs wild

 

The other day, I was having coffee with one of my sweetest friends {hey Amanda!} and we were commenting on how much adulting sucks. What we wouldn't give to go back to our care-free days when the biggest worry in the world was whether we wanted to play cowboys and Indians {yes, get over it all you "I'm offended" peeps} or roller skate until the sun went down.

 

When I was young, iPhones were not a thing and being inside on a video game console was the last thing we wanted to do. My siblings and I were always outdoors - being active and using our imaginations to create the most perfect worlds where we could live in. We climbed trees that, in our minds, towered over the yard. We discovered new species of birds and plants, used them in our search for the great wild animals.

 

On rainy days we ran amok in the house {sorry mom}, pretending we were horses or dogs. My parents had a linen closet that allowed us each to have a full shelf of our own; we would take snacks and flash lights in with us. Daydreaming was part of our every day lives. Occasionally we would watch a movie but we were determined to live life to the max.

 

Oh how I would love to be back in those times where our inner child-like faith was exuberant and contagious. I'm not a parent, and certainly don't claim to know anything about parenting, but I would like to think that Hunter and I would make a point to create a home and environment where our little wild things could roam, play, and dream.

{Fall}ing in love

Let's throw it back to last year

 

Summer was nice and full of sandy toes, sunburnt noses, and way too many peaches. But now I'm ready for Fall - all the beauty it brings with cool, crisp mornings, and the changing of the leaves. I'm daydreaming of bonfires with s'mores, Saturday football games cheering on my Auburn Tigers, scarves and boots and tights, oh my!

 

Fall brings about the excitement of Halloween with pumpkins lighting up front porches. Children start planning what they want to be for Halloween and imagination runs wild. The fair comes to town and there aren't enough funnel cakes and fried Oreo's to last. Caramel covered apples and turkey legs, goodness gracious!

 

Fall brings Thanksgiving and time with family - something that we can never get enough of. Homes are filled with laughter and the smell of a yummy turkey. Promises are made and thanks are given, interwoven with pumpkin pies and rivalry football games. It leads into the excitement of Christmas and all bright, colorful things.

 

Life is lived in the Fall. 

You might be a hunter's wife if....

Already I'm married to a man named "Hunter" (fun fact: that's not his real first name) so it would only be naturally acceptable that I'm married to a hunter. Ha! See what I did there. You can imagine my frustration when my phone tries to differentiate between Hunter and a hunter....

Just to poke some fun at being a hunter's wife (and because duck season is just around the corner - I'm being reminded daily):

Of course I had to throw in a cute scarf while hunting. Fashion isn't dead in the woods.

You might be a hunter's wife if... you purposefully don't buy ground beef, steaks, or sausage because hello. If deer season is successful, you'll have all of that to last you until the next deer season.

You might be a hunter's wife if... you have to/had to plan your wedding around hunting season. And if somebody doesn't come to your wedding during hunting season, you really don't take offense to it because hey, it's what a hunter's wife does.

You might be a hunter's wife if... your smart tv plays nothing except Duck Commander videos about a month before duck season because your husband is trying to get himself pumped up/learn techniques/etc.

You might be a hunter's wife if... you're in public with you husband and he sees ducks or geese on a pond and starts making their mating call (I'm not joking, this has happened numerous times). You also know to just walk away because nobody has time for that embarrassment.

You might be a hunter's wife if... you really are excited about hunting season coming up because that means you get to have your me-time. Which is so overdue by this point in the year.

You might be a hunter's wife if... seeing your husband truly enjoy his passion in life in turn makes you swell with pride and happiness. 

**All of these apply to fishermen's wives... Which I am one of those too.

Little moments

Moments that steal the soul and capture the essence of life - those are hard to come by. But when you do, they make you pause and smile, soak up the time that is the present, and store it for a later date to look back on. Moments make the heart grow fonder and the evil less prevalent. They can be big or small but no matter the size, they are perfect.
 

 

It's when you open your lunch box and your husband has left you a little note. Those handwritten words make you smile and giggle at his attempts to want to learn a new recipe. It's how he signs his name "HW" with a "Love ya". As a lover of words, little notes like these bring beauty to a new day.

 

It's when you are sitting and just being in the moment, as you watch a storm roll in. It brings with it flashes of lightning that stretch from sky to ground. And you realize how infinitely small you are in a world that is so vastly huge. The smell of oncoming rain washes away the dirt and grime from all that life throws at you, and the freshness it brings.

 

It's when you're sitting by the water's edge watching the sun go down after a long day. Knowing that it'll come up again tomorrow, and tomorrow will bring its new set of adventures and obstacles. Tomorrow can hold so much, yet so little. Embracing the here and now moments make tomorrow seem so beyond my reach and that's a good thing.

 

Soak up your little moments today and every day.

When the world seems too big

Recently Hunter and I read through Hebrews 11 and to sum it up, it was reminding Christ-followers how through faith alone, people have been able to accomplish some of the greatest things. It then brought forth a question and statement that's been on my mind for some time:

 

"How can we even begin to explain this to a non-believer and I have felt like we've been up against such odds lately."

 

And when I say odds, I'm referencing to the overwhelming amount of people who are without Hope. I started looking at the vast numbers and became so utterly lost in how we are so alone in our fight for Good in this world. At how brothers and sisters are just living their lives without much thought into their purpose. And how I just wish, wish, wish things could be made right.
 

 

Then I was reminded that it doesn't do me any good in looking at the entire picture as a whole because yes, it is overwhelming and depressing. But if I can look at it day-by-day, minute-by-minute, and live my life on fire for Him, then He will take care of the rest. Brothers and sisters - stop wasting your lives just by going to church on Wednesdays and Sundays because "that's what momma and daddy taught me." Seize life by the horns and live each day with True purpose.

Weekend wonders

Happiest of Monday's folks! The weather here is kinda eh, but it's a new and glorious day. Have you ever walked away from a weekend feeling like it was a successful one? Whether it be in house chores, spending time with family, or even sleeping, it always feels good when you walk away feeling accomplished.

 

We dabbled a bit this weekend in house chores. There's a list about a mile long of to-do's for our house that we're trying to knock out with each free weekend and paycheck. This weekend we tackled the area under our stairs.

 

Our pups are out during the day with fans, shade, water, beds... Ya'll they're spoiled. But they've found this little nook under the stairs that lead out into our backyard and have decided to make a mud pit out of it. You can imagine how gross our house can get with 2 muddy dogs. So we decided to nip that and laid pavers underneath. We still have to go back and fill in the cracks between pavers but it's finished for the most part. It'll be interesting to see how they respond to them...
 

 

 

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but I truly believe in a good small group that you can fellowship with, challenge each other, stretch one another to study God's word deeper... We all need accountability and responsibility in our lives. We have a great small group/bible study/whatever you want to call it. Yesterday we were focusing on a particular part in 1 Samuel and the topic was friendship. We asked each other some really hard questions, discussed more how we can be a light to our friends (both those that know Jesus and those who don't), etc.

 

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My MIL is a fighter ya'll. She started chemo on Friday last week and her "second birthday" is today!! A "second birthday" in our world is this: She's getting some of her stem cells returned back to her body today with hopes that all cancer stuff has been cleaned out from her 2 rounds of chemo. Think of it like this - they removed all her stem cells (the "furniture" if you will), chemo went in and cleaned house (we're hoping it got everything), and then stem cells (furniture) went back into the clean house. Make sense?

 

How have ya'll been? I feel like we don't take enough time to stop and ask each other how we're doing. So tell me - how are you doing?