KidMin mojo

This morning went really well with the kiddos. (By the by, I'm having quite a lot of arm pain tonight so this might get cut quite short.) I felt really connected to them. And I'm glad for that. I feel a renewed passion. My ideas are flowing quick, and I'm pumped for going to the office tomorrow. It's been stirring in me for awhile now, but I've been thinking of looking at going back to school (yikes!) for either a theology or Christian formation masters. Started looking at options today, and there is a lot going on there. It wouldn't be this year that I did that, but at least I'm starting to look. It doesn't really make sense, but I'm not sure why my heart is suddenly not so set against never going begrudgingly back... I sort of have a sense of what I really want to do. At this point anyway. We shall see.

Tried out my new brand of organic rooibos tea this evening which was very nice. A little more vanilla tasting than the last kind, but it will do since I haven't seen that brand anywhere. We also burned a wood wick candle tonight (yum), and it had such a lovely crackle sound as it burned. I'm a fan.

I'm hoping to find air plants somewhere soon. I found a nice tutorial for making plant holders, and I want to do that for in my bedroom and on the big, bare wall above the couch in the living room. I just think that a little greenery in a room goes a long way to brighten and liven the space.

In other news, my To Do list grows and grows for the summer. But I'm loving that right now. Because I feel inspired, productive, and useful. It's a nice thing.

Old friends in new places

We had a wonderful day today. Last night E Cleves came over, and we had a lovely time laughing, dancing, and visiting. Then today we packed up and headed to Elkhart, IN to visit our friends Kyle and Chelsea.

It was so great to be with friends. Good laughter as well as deep moments of relevant conversation. I so appreciate my friends. I woke up not feeling very well so it took us a bit longer to get on the road, and it pretty much continued throughout the day. Lots of migraine, but lots of good times. I don't think the good times were hampered by the pain. Which is nice because that really doesn't happen often.

Anyways, commence photos!!

Our first stop of the day was at Blue Hat Coffee in Coldwater, MI. It was in this gorgeous old house from the 1800s, and the coffee was some of the best of our lives. E had a dark roast Ethiopian coffee, and I had a Diamond something or other medium roast. Both lovely. It was just such a nice place and such good coffee. Definitely a place to which we must return!

Chelsea made us a nice lunch of chicken salad on croissants, and then we just visited for awhile. I'm not sure quite what time it was, but we decided to head to Middlebury, IN and explore the heart of Amish Country....

We simply had to stop at Rise and Roll Bakery and get cinnamon caramel powdered donuts. Delish. Then we went on an adventure down the Main Street and found the Krider 'World's Fair' Gardens. They were designed and displayed at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair. Then they were transported back to Middlebury. But such a cute little place...

Post gardens we took a ride through the countryside to a mall that they really liked, and then ended up at a restaurant called Granite City. I had a chicken caesar wrap and a coke. Very nice and good atmosphere. We then headed back to their apartment, talked music, and played a couple of games. Then it was a 2 hour drive home in the rain, a Skype with Disch, and that brings us to now. It's bedtime. Sunday school is going to happen far too soon!!!

1 part drama, 2 parts emotion

Well, I accomplished a lot of short term planning today. I have this week's stuff figured out, and pretty much have the next month figured out, too. I have a  couple supplies to find, but other than that, we are set to go on KidServe for June. I'm working on logos right now for the upcoming events. Lots of graphic stuff at the moment.

This afternoon we took Dexter on a mini walk, got some Sunday school supplies, and got nachos. (Had to move Taco Tuesday to Thursday this week.) I watched some Fixer Upper while Kelsey was away to a soccer game. Then we went and got cereal (Meijer has my favourite Mom's Brand Marshmallow O's that used to be only available in Canada!!), and recorded a bit of video for Scooter: Just Dance Dance Off 2K15.

Now it's bed. I'm emotional tonight. I'm guessing something to do with being up to Fairview and Grandma not being there? So I'm just a little touchy. Add in a flair for the dramatic... You get a supercharged B who's a little upset for no specific reason and doesn't really know what to do with her feelings. In this case, as per the usual, I vote for sleeping them off. If sleep comes. Fingers crossed and prayers lifted high.

Also. Timehop informed me that this was my profile picture 3 years ago, so that had me emosh from the beginning of the day...

Also, here's a video of Dexter reacting to The Who being played on the radio while we were on our way back from up north.

Back to the ordinary

I am home to Lansing now. It's strange to have what feels like two homes... pieces of my heart in both places. I'm content either place, mostly. But always slightly missing the other...

In my absentee day from blogging I had a whopper of a migraine, and then felt better toward evening. Dad and I adventured so I could take a video of it raining. And then Sol and I tried to do the same, but the rain stopped. Ended the night with ice cream and karaoke with Courtney. Here's a photo from Mio Pond adventure with Dad:

So anyways today.... once I finished the lengthy process of showering and resting from showering, I headed out to camp and checked out the paperwork that I needed to be able to make informed housing decisions. Kathryn met me at the program center, and we chatted for awhile. I went East Side with her and looked at her extensive To Do list. She is on day 2 of creating a program. I do not envy that task at all. Luckily she has a lot of previous ambush/program data to help her out.

I stopped by the nursing home on my way out. Which of course took me an hour to get through saying goodbye to everyone. Lots of hugs and kisses from Grandma. :) Then a rush pack job and a 3 hour hike back to Lansing. It was a beautiful day for a drive, though.

When I got home, I got supper, and then Kelsey and I watched the Bachelorette episode we missed on Monday. Now it's time to hit the hay. I'm aiming to do a lot of office work tomorrow and come up with a general list of "due dates" for things for the rest of the summer. I do like my organization...

No place I'd rather be

Sunday, Part one: Church.

3 kiddos today. We had some really good discussion about Jesus and his disciples during the storm. I was pleased with the connections the kids were making. Our sermon was really good today, too. Here are a couple notes I made from it... We know God better, and we praise Him more. Like breathing in and breathing out. Two parts of a whole life. Doctrinal truth and worship go hand in hand. Two parts to make a whole.

Bruce quote of the morning, "Let yourself be disturbed by the words of Scripture. Let yourself be challenged by the words of the Scripture. Let yourself be comforted by the words of the Scripture." And to this I would add, let yourself be moved to obedience by the words of the Scripture.

Sunday, Part two: Home.

I am so very glad that I could come home for Memorial Day. I love my family, and I love the north country. The air is a little easier to breathe up here. And now, for your viewing pleasure, some photos that Courtney and I took on our Instagram walk.

And my favourite of the day.............................

Glad to be home with my family. <3

Backyard dreams

Basically today we put a lot of elbow grease into the yard and garden. I assembled IKEA furniture while Kels planted our box garden.

Dave put a lot of work into the yard. He took out a bunch of rocks, leveled the back part, and put in grass seed.

Once that was all done, Kelsey and Dave tilled a front flower bed into creation (which will be pictured when we get the flowers in), and I took out the flower bed in the back, cleaned up weeds, and put rocks around one of our trees. The petunia bed was good in theory, but it's the most shady part of the yard and the soil isn't soil at all... it's clay. So in a few days, I'll rake the flowers out, I think, since they're mostly dying now anyways.

Once the grass comes in, I think the backyard will be a really pleasant place to sit. I'm looking very much forward to drinking my morning coffee out on our garden sofa. A couple more things to do around the yard, and it will be great!

So now Kels is off at a coach's picnic, and I'm watching some Netflix. I have my lesson all planned for tomorrow, I just have to print a couple things in the morning. I happened to find a board game that goes with Jesus calming the storm randomly tonight as I was browsing Pinterest so I am going to use it tomorrow. Mr. Burt is sick so it might be just Miss Barb and I tomorrow. Or Dave, too, if we need crowd control. But right now, I'm going to get some ice cream and just chill out. It's been a lot of physical stuff over the past couple days, and I need to chill so I can come north tomorrow. Eek! So excited!!

Happy greenhouse times

This is going to be a photo heavy post, just telling you up front. Because today was photo worthy.

So after I blogged to you last, Kels, Karol and I headed to pick out some flowers for the front flower beds that we are creating tomorrow as well as the vegetables for Kels's box garden that Dave just put in on the side of the house. We went to three different places before we found everything we wanted. (We still will have to go back to pick up the hydrangeas once the ground has been tilled and large stones removed from the backyard.) But it was a beautiful day, and we found some lovely plants. My contributions to deciding what plants to get yielded us purchasing Swiss chard for the garden, orange zinnias, and some small blueish flower that didn't have a recognizable name. (The hydrangeas are going to be my big project. Kels is in charge of the front flower beds and garden while I'm in charge of the back flower beds. Kind of, at least.) Anyways, it was beautiful in the greenhouses...

^^^We will probably get the latter two hydrangea plants

Kels and I had a mini photo shoot when we got back and brought all the plants in the house. (There's a frost warning, you know.) So here are some of the bests from that...

Once our plants were safe and Dexter fed and watered, we headed to IKEA to get garden furniture. We ended up finding a table to replace the one that is currently outside (and badly in need of replacement), and it came with two chairs. At Meijer, we found a outdoor wicker couch, and at Wal-Mart, we found two outdoor wicker end tables that we figure can also function as foot stools or a coffee table type thing. Pictures will come as soon as the back yard gets set up. (That's my project for tomorrow as Kelsey is planting, hopefully.) Anyhow, a miraculous thing that I found on this trip:

Healthy, affordable aloe plants!! I'm going to repot them into these pots tomorrow. Mom, decide which pot you would like, and I will bring your plant home to you on Sunday! This may have been my most exciting find of the day. All in all, a long day, but a good day. Now to bed because tomorrow is going to be a big, good day, too!!

Ice cream coma

Well, I forgot to blog last night. So I guess, excitingly for you that means two blogs today. The blog got lost somewhere between the screaming kiddos running around my house and trying to record a video for Scooter. While I'm thinking about that. Now that I have editing capabilities, Courtney especially, you said you would like to have us do videos back and forth? Whatcha thinking in regards to? Give me a holla so we can discuss deats.

So anyhow, you are getting fresh "morning" Britany. I'm three gulps into my cup of Colombian dark roast coffee so who knows how much filter will really be on at this point. Side note. I've decided that the Four Seasons is my soul music right now. It's on almost constantly.

I can't remember how yesterday morning was. I think I was just working, as you do. Around the mid point of the day, I ate something kind of substantial... leftovers maybe? And then I attempted my most hated of necessities: showering. Showering for the chronically ill person is a double edged sword. I like smelling nice and having washed hair. But the act of showering is so tiring. While I'm in there, I just keep going at as steady of a pace as I can, leg shaving negotiable. I take tepid showers now so I don't overheat, sometimes with the door open for the same purpose. Sit down if I have to. It's just a production. And when I'm done, there is definitely a lot of recuperation needed. I just lay in bed and watch the world swirl around me until it stops. It's been awhile since my vision left, but I think that's probably because I've learned how to chronic person shower. End rant. So anyhow, I showered because I hadn't in awhile, and I do like cleanliness. It was successful, but took me a bit to recover from.

Then it was full on kid min time. I headed to the office. I copied. We ran out and got ice cream. Ate supper. Decorated. And families started arriving. Ice Cream Social 2k15 was in full swing. We had 4 families with kids come and two volunteers. A pretty full backyard. The kids made themselves right at home, got Dexter out of his house, and played with him. He was so sweet with them. Let them hang all over him and be petted. It was a nice time. And I still didn't get rid of all my sprinkles from Melissa's bridal shower! haha

This weekend is Pentecost, and we are learning about Jesus calming the storm. Kind of a lot for the kids to process, but I think it will be good. I'm going to have them "be in the boat" and have the teachers and I create a storm. I'm hoping that it will be memorable in a different way. I'm going to point out to them how it's not like Jesus had gone to sleep and the storm was going on because he wasn't being vigilant... like Jesus was on break so bad stuff could happen. The disciples were safe with him the whole time, they just couldn't see that. Or something. I haven't quite figured out all my exact words yet, I just have the general ideas.

Anyhow, after KidCentral left the house, Kels and I ran out to get me a slip because I realized I only had a half one and not a full one somehow, and it's about time to start wearing dresses. When we got back, we shot a video for Scooter that was mildly funny and hopefully will improve tenfold upon editing. Then we watched some Netflix, and it was off to bed. Well, I assume Kels went to sleep. I was up past 3 again. I'm not sure what point I fell asleep, but I simply could not get comfortable. It was a lot of doze and reposition throughout the night. Anyhow, that explains why I woke up at noon without an alarm. And that brings us to now. Here are a couple more pictures of the ice cream social. The first is from Kelsey's instagram and you can see a chillun and Dexter playing beanbags in the background. The second is mine and is the leftovers. Not too much.

Watch out for my body cramps

This day can be summed up in two words: body cramps.

I worked from my bed. Dexter snuggled. I took breaks to try out watching Ally McBeal, thoughts pending. For supper, I cooked an alfredo chicken esque pasta dish. And now I'm sitting in bed, eating moose tracks ice cream, and feeling just a little bit sorry for myself.

Here are some cutie pictures of Dexter from when we were were snuggling. (Don't worry, Mom. I took my quilt off my bed before letting him anywhere near it.)

Autumn feels

The air caught a cold today, I think. I went to bed in the summer, and I woke up in the fall. And I loved every second of it. Most people were probably not pleased about the turn to cold weather, but I am such a fan of snuggly sweater weather. More on that later...

At some point in the night, I woke with the worst cramp seizing my right calf. The nastiest part of it didn't last too long, praise the Lord, but I slept pretty uncomfortably after that. I hobbled around once I got up; eventually, I was able to put weight on the leg and straighten my foot. Still now it hasn't completely left. If anything, the cramp has slightly extended into my thigh and into my ankle, and I've been trying to walk on it all day.

Anyhow, I can't really remember much of what I did today. I did a lot of typing up stuff for KidCentral. Tomorrow I'm doing prep for the Ice Cream Social and finishing the last touches on all the summer event big picture ideas. While I worked, I put on an autumn candle, made myself a cup of coffee, and snuggled under a cozy blanket. That is so my ideal type of day and working conditions. I found a Yiruma piano playlist on YouTube, and I was seriously all set.

Kelsey and I did a bit of shopping for her when she got home, and then we picked up food for supper on our way home. Tuesday is quite often taco night, and Kels had been having a Qdoba craving yesterday so we indulged in a burrito and quesadilla. Watched the Bachelorette and then it was time to Sweat to the Oldies with Richard Simmons. We dressed in as much neon as possible, as you do, and had a really good time. I would say it will become a staple in our house.

I think I'll close with a few pictures I took of Kelsey last week. She let me do an extreme amount of makeup and contouring and dress her in an old fashioned dress, and amazingness, she looks like a Swedish Sansa Stark from some indeterminate place in time. Check it out. :)

I need to get out my camera and black and white film and shoot a roll again. Love this look.

Oh! I also just remembered, today I was asked to write one entry for a 30 day devotional for people who suffer from chronic illness. So that will be an interesting task that I'm going to embark on! Can't wait to see how that turns out.