Projects, People & Prayers

-:- Projects -:-
We are finally starting a few, simple house projects now that Noah has the free time and we can actually start SAVING some of our money towards things like that. We are currently in the process of picking out paint colors & carpet for the upstairs bedrooms (excluding Liana's room which was done last Spring). Once we've picked out what we want we'll just have to wait a few months until we save up the cash, but all in all I'm pretty excited about it! My friend, April (who has much better taste than I) will be helping me make some color decisions and I so appreciate people who's giftings are different than mine!

We also started work on our deck. My parents, sisters and husband chipped in and purchased me some long-desired deck furniture for my birthday. We got a really good deal and I'm excited to get rid of the mis-matched, hodge-podge of furniture currently gracing our deck :-) The furniture is ordered and en route, but we decided it won't do much good if we have to put brand new furniture on a desperatelyneedstobepainted deck ;-) So today hubby is power-washing the deck to knock of loose paint chips, dirt and generally prep the wood for paint. We picked and purchased 2 paint colors for the deck. I'm nervous about it, but also excited! We picked a nice dark navy blue for the floor of the deck and an off-white color for the railings and lattice. We also picked an awesome poppy red for our 2 Adirondack chairs which will be newly located in our front lawn and NOT on the deck at the risk of it looking too patriotic all year round, haha. We won't have room for the bulky Adirondack chairs on the deck b/c of the new furniture so to the front lawn they will go! And they will be making a statement now with their burst of color ;-) I put swatches of the colors we're using below in case you're interested.

Hale Navy

Butterfield

Poppy

-:- People -:-

We're kicking off the summer with lots of family celebrations and time together. Since this is my favorite pastime I've been anticipating some of these events for a while. Tonight we head to our cousins' house and I meet one of my cousin's children for the 1st time (cousins on my husband's side). We'll be having a bonfire, talking and lots of laughs I'm sure!

Noah starts work at Fisher-Price (FP) on Monday. He is relieved to be starting and I am relieved for him! He really does have hard time when he doesn't have a specific, on-going task in front of him to work on. We did pretty good keeping him busy with converting and editing my family's home videos and now the deck project, but (in truth) he could easily handle these projects while he was working full-time and probably prefers it that way. My husband is a hard-working, multi-tasker that doesn't handle idleness well at all. But I suppose overall that's a good thing and I am sincerely grateful for his diligent personality :-)

Liana & I are busying ourselves with walks, time at the park, house-hold chores, learning to talk, learning to walk, menu-planning, strawberry everything and helping Daddy wherever we can.

-:- Prayers -:-

Noah got hired at FP as a temporary contracted position. It will last for 3 months at which point the hope/prayer is that he will be hired full-time by FP. His bosses at FP have expressed that that is their plan and goal as well, but we'd appreciate prayers for favor and full-time hire during this next season.

Summer (and particularly THIS summer) is a very busy one! It's full of fun and exciting things, but busyness can drag even the best of the extroverts down and we tend to lean on the introvert side of things as it is. Prayers for maintaining a healthy balance are perpetually on my docket ;-)

Genuinely living my life for God and not for myself is something ever on my heart. What that means, looks like and how it's implemented are all things I mull over in my mind. I know that I need the Holy Spirit for my life to reflect even a glimpse of this prayer, but I also know that it's possible because of Jesus' blood shed for me. I want to be changed, to grow and to live according to God's vision for my life. And the challenge continues! I am daily reminded of my own shortcomings, impatience and criticism and I need redemption on a moment-by-moment basis. But I prefer it that way...painful as it may be to witness it :-)