Hey Y’all!
My BFF, Jessica, and her husband are in the midst of an adoption journey (check out their blog). Please check out the shop she has on Etsy, Filigree Shoppe and adopt an accessory for yourself or a friend!
Fav leather wrap bracelet:
Fav tote:
I’m continuing to word-vomit about living simply and what all it means to me/us… In addition to the weekly meetings my husband and I hold, we also shoot encouraging quotes/scripture back and forth to each other to spur one another on. This morning I received this quote:
Planning is a process of choosing among those many options. If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us.
– Richard I Winwood
Now, I have NO CLUE who Richard I Winwood is {after a quick google search, turns out he is an exec with Franklin Covey}… but he hits it right on the head. If we do not choose to be intentional about planning we, in essence, are choosing to be victim to circumstance.
In some cases being a victim of circumstance may not be a bad thing and spontaneity has moments of greatness. (I’m also a believer in planning times for spontaneity… how ironic?) However, the risks of not planning out our time and/or finances can (and, I believe, will) rob us of peace. Time-wise we may over-commit and let people down. Or we may meet those commitments and let our family down by neglecting to spend quality time together. We may decline an opportunity to serve our friends only to realize in hindsight we could have helped them and still maintained our responsibilities. We also may find our minds spinning at night with the “Did I remember to…” or the endless list of things we haven’t done. Financially speaking, friends may be in need and if we give we are unsettled because we aren’t sure if we gave too much and are going to struggle to meet our own responsibilities. On the flip side, friends may be in need and we choose not to give because we don’t feel confident in our own situation.
There is a freeing confidence and security of knowing where we stand (with time or money). Knowing the path our feet are currently on and where we are headed. Life will happen and sometimes the path will be altered — we can’t always see what is around the corner. It is much easier to make adjustments/’go with the flow’/adapt if there is a foundation (predictable pattern) from which our choices are made.
There are bound to be times where we fail, no matter how hard we try. Times when we seem to just fall on our face. Times when, even though we thought we had it all figured out and our intentions were good, it just goes completely awry. In those times, we can cling to the cross and know that God is ultimately in control, that He is faithful – whether we’ve been making good choices or not.
Couldn’t resist mentioning my sweet 3 year-old niece who has already got a great grasp on the concept of choice. She’s been known to reply to situations (usually consequences) with “Life is choices” 🙂
It has been for-ev-er since my last post. All of my more “recent” posts have started that way…! In many ways it is a good thing. In fact, the only bad thing about it is that I do still miss blogging regularly.
*scroll down if you want to see what we’ve been up to, picture style and skip my wordiness
To build off my last post, Live Simply, I am doing life differently and loving it! (It is a process and I have in no way mastered it… yet 😉 ) In the midst of my irritation and constant purging of stuff over the past few months, someone has joined the party… my husband! I kind of had viewed this as a personal process. Something I was craving, something I was going to do. I did not set out thinking it was something we would do together, but it has been SO encouraging to design this new way of living with my husband wanting to participate! Which brings me to Valentines Day…
For Valentine’s Day, J kept mentioning this great present he was going to give me. He used ‘unsurpassed’ and ‘useful for our future’ to describe it. So, naturally, I was a bit nervous and had no idea what it could be (although part of me was hoping for an iPad, can you blame this tech loving girl?). When I finally got my gift, it was surprising. No iPad, nothing shiny, but more thought and sentiment than anything J has done before. {Except our proposal, in which he incorporated my parents’ story… another post for another day!} He took out time to create a family book/plan for us. He outlined our goals, dreams, and desires — backing them up with scripture and quotes from people we admire and respect. He created questions to spur deeper discussions to help us map out our future. He made a ‘weekly meeting’ outline. On Sunday nights we sit down and talk about the upcoming week, set goals, make sure we know what we have going on and what needs to get done. We discuss everything from bills and car maintenance to work outs, home projects, meals, etc. In the 5 meetings we’ve had, I haven’t gone in to all of them excited and energized, but I always leave them thankful. Our house is functioning better, we are communicating better, and things are getting accomplished – slow and steady!
J and I are making leaps and bounds towards living a simple, intentional, purposeful life which is SO encouraging. I’m so thankful for my husband and his thoughtfulness towards his {very particularly awesome} wife.
Surely I’m forgetting something, but since my last post on here we:
Met our triplet nephews and niece — Carter & Mailon (who are identical) & Lilly
The Trips
Visited HHI (one of our very favorite places on earth! If you haven’t been… GO!) the week before Christmas, and I also played my first entire round of golf!
God's creation is BEAUTIFUL
Daytime isn't so bad, either!
Celebrated Christmas with both our immediate families
Henry Family Christmas 2011
I’m missing a pic from celebrating with my fam…
Attended S&V’s NYE gender reveal party and found out we’re going to meet another niece
The gender was revealed when they cut the cake - very cute!
All the Mrs.Henrys
Took a road trip with my cousin to Orlando where we met my Dad and brother to attend the Capital One Bowl and witness the Husker’s sad loss
Capital One Bowl 2012
Celebrated our 4th anniversary
4th Anniversary
Made our first trip to the Biltmore in Asheville, NC
Asheville, NC
*Side Note: Does the image below remind anyone else of Eureka’s Castle? Totally brought me back to good ole Nick Jr days…
Eureka's Castle fish...
Husband put his mitre saw and nail gun to good use as we updated our dining room with better trim details, ditched the two-tone paint, and added new-to-us furniture (given to us by J’s grandpa, Duv)
BEFORE
AFTER
Met our sweet niece, whose gender reveal party we attended on NYE
Meeting Emma Jane
All ready to go home!
And while there are no photos for the following, they’re worth mentioning. We had visits with two of J’s cousins, we are both playing basketball again, have been spending a LOT of time with our local family loving every minute, and my hard-working/hard studying husband earned his PMP which was SO exciting!
We also were blessed with another nephew on St Patrick’s Day, but we haven’t gotten to meet him yet. The little guy came early and is having trouble with his lungs 😦 Please say a prayer for Dominick.
Laughter. Life. Us. 