A Few of My Favorite Things {FRI}

Ahhh. I've made it to Friday. This has been the second full week since I started back to school and it has been quite an adventure.  I am in a classroom at a local elementary school one morning a week. I am with kindergarteners. It is so interesting because out of 20 students in the class about 17 of them are English language learning. They look at me with their big brown eyes and talk to me in Spanish. Solo hablo un poco de espanol. Sorry. Think about it though, most of these babies (they are so little) have had no preschool experience. This is their first experience in school and before this, they have only been at home with their moms and dads who speak only Spanish in the home. They have a lot to learn, but in just one week I see how they are catching on to what is expected of them in the classroom. I've been learning a lot too. Learning things like that hand sanitizer and wipes will be my best friends this semester. Already after one week in the schools I came down with a horrible cold. When I got to class on Monday with my peers after recovering over the weekend almost everyone of us was sneezing! Okay, so we have a huge learning curve, but we are all staying really positive. These are a few of my favorite things in the past few weeks...

•  The elementary schools that I am spending my days in are just 4 miles from my house
• The college that my brother is attending for dual enrollment is really close to our little house too! He blessed us the other day by dropping by and blowing the leaves out of our yard.
•  Dinnertime. Christian works during the day and has to go finish up his senior year classes mostly in the evening. I enjoy our dinner times together when he gets to come home for a bit.
• The ability to drop by my family's home. When I am home alone and bored I just have to hop in the car to drive fifteen minutes to house that is never lacking in commotion and joy.
• A small house. I have been trying to get into a cleaning schedule that works for us and it has been pretty managable so far.

These are a few of my favorite things in my home.As a wedding gift I received this set of three adorable tea towels from Anthropologie. They were from my best friend and they were the sweetest things to open up at my shower. Everyone had a fit over them and passed them around the room. The first one says They fell in love, the next says They got married, and the third says They lived happily ever after. I love the birds the towels feature. Each embroidered tea towel has one of the phrases along with a cute little scene stitched in. My mom's favorite in the last one that has the little house with the mama and daddy bird with their (little) brood of babies. At my shower my mom yelled out, "There are six babies! There are six! It's a sign!" You can probably guess that my momma is looking forward to grand babies. Everyone, you might as well go ahead and start placing bets on how many kiddos we'll have one day. My mom will smile on you if you pick the higher numbers. : )

Well, as you can see, I didn't resort to simply hanging these tea towels on the side of the sink or near the oven and you would most definitely never catch me wiping my hands on them. My personal designer, my amazing mother, helped transform the towels into curtains for over my kitchen sink and the other one was made into a little curtain on our kitchen door's window. I love seeing them everyday and am reminded of just how sweet life is. They are a few of my favorite things in my home. They just make me smile. 

New Things

This week has been the start to the new semester for me and my husband. So many new things! This stage of life in college has taught me a lot about seasons and how they come and go. I love how college is broken down into semesters. I can often look back at each semester and be able to pinpoint a theme or a particular lesson that the Lord was teaching me during that time. Life is so short and the bible says,

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15 NIV)

We should live everyday with purpose and in such a way that looks to do God's will wherever he might have you. Whether it be sitting in a cubicle at an office job or beginning a new program in school you can be certain that God wants to be apart; playing an active role in your life.

I felt nervous, yet excited on friday going to attend the big orientation for my new semester. I anticipate each new season or semester because I have seen all the things God has done to work on me during previous ones. I have grown up so much and I have been taught far more by walking with the Lord than by any university professor I've ever had. I go into this new and challenging semester with a heart thats ready and willing to be changed and taught. And I know this for certain...it is never how I think that it will be. It's always better. Maybe not easier, but better. Better because I know that my God is in control and that he knows me better than I know myself. He is so sovereign.

DIY Project - Bathroom Closet

I saw this idea on the blog Young House Love a while back and knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do with the linen closet in our main bathroom. I've never had a bathroom lacking counter tops (we have a pedestal sink) so I liked the idea of having baskets filled with our bathroom stuff within reach.

I was mostly excited about painting in inside of the closet a color. I picked a great green and got my chance to start the painting project last night when Christian had to attend his first class. I stayed busy painting nonstop until he came to rescue me and help finish up. It was definitely a bigger job than I thought it would be. Lots of nooks and crannies!

Christian and I have lots of big adventures coming up including getting into a new pace of life with school starting back up. We have had a blissful summer with Christian getting to work full-time while I nannied for a sweet little guy and finished up a summer class. We got to spend a lot of time with our families and essentially got to "play house". Although it is beginning to set in that this is real life. Together. We are very blessed.

Here are some before and afters of our bathroom shelves. One thing that the couple from Young House Love did was even pried out the door jam erasing any sign that there used to be a door there. Christian is working on that this weekend so I guess you could say that this DIY project isn't quite complete. Though I am already pleased with the way it turned out.

We love taking care of the things that God has entrusted us with. I am overflowing with thankfulness that we have this roof over our head and the opportunity to make it into a home. We will have many more DIY projects on the way! It is going to be a great season for the newlyweds on Brookwood Drive!