Friday Favorites: vol. xi

After a hiatus for moving and packing, I'm back with a few of my favorite things from the past week.  Maybe you love these things, too?  

1.  Soda Stream

I've been intrigued by Soda Streams for several years, and I was given one as a housewarming gift two weeks ago that I am LOVING!

The pink grapefruit above was the only time I flavored an entire bottle.  Now I just add a splash of syrup or more to the bottom of my glass if I want.  As far as I know, besides the little travel tubes of Crystal Light, the concentrated flavored syrups of Europe haven't made it to the States.  They make it easy to add a little or a lot of flavor to your water according to your taste.  I want to try this recipe for Lavender Lemon sparkling water, but until then my favorite flavor of the moment is Mojito, which leads me to my second favorite thing.

2.  Mojito Flavored Anything

I found these delightful popsicles that taste of cucumber, lime, and mint, and they are so refreshing.  The syrup I've been using is just the lime and mint, and it makes beating the heat fun.

3.  Short Hair

I got my hair cut in our new small town last week, and not to overuse a phrase, but it's helping me beat the heat, keep cool, etc.  When I caught sight of my short ponytail in a mirror this week it made me feel so happy not to have the weight of all my long hair there anymore.

4.  Reading Unbroken

I know I'm several years behind in reading this book, but oh, my goodness.  It is so intense.  I have so many thoughts.  I haven't finished yet, because it was too good not to read out loud to K.J., so my reading is relegated to after the kids are in bed now.  Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to put it down yesterday.  My very first takeaway from early in the book as Hillenbrand describes what a holy terror Zamperini was as a child and teenager was that it could be such an encouragement to parents.  Without that strong rebellious, fighting spirit, he probably wouldn't have survived what he did on that raft.

5.  Reading my first of Noreen's novels

Since I had to find something else to read during the day I picked up the first in a series written by our gracious hostess.  There's been an added enjoyment in reading Katharine because I've now heard her tell several of the stories that make an appearance in the book.  It makes the book a much more personal World War II novel since it was written by someone who lived in this world.   Included in the back of the book is a glossary, and she explains what phrases like in the field and their cover was blown mean.  These are such familiar terms to us now, and we all know what they mean, but it struck me that in the '40s, this was new slang.

That's it for this week, friends.  What have you been drinking or eating to beat the heat?  What are you reading by the pool?  Any good WWII novels to add to my list? 

Popping in to Cyberspace

Hello there, world.  This reconnecting to the world via computer is brought to you by an afternoon's trip to a local mall to keep cool and connect to the internet.  I just had so much fun looking at pictures from my last post at the beginning of the month compared to the pictures I took yesterday.  We've come a long way, baby!

I last left you with a nice clean empty space.  The very next day when boxes were delivered and we began unpacking it looked like this:

Holy moly.  It's been a long time since I've moved an entire household.  When we moved to England we didn't bring much with us, setting up house afresh.  Things have a way of multiplying.

First, I tackled the bookshelves.

And then we borrowed a drill and hung some pictures.

And then we had to go to IKEA and buy an extra bookcase.  Side note, James thought IKEA was another country.  It might as well be.

And gradually all the piles got dispersed, and K.J. took boxes to the attic, and it kind of feels like all of our things were just made for this room.

It feels good not to be stepping over a million piles and trying not to knock over boxes when I walk now.  

And the room where there was no kitchen!

Move-in day looked something like this:

At the edge of the picture are Sabrina and Caleb, without whom this transformation would not be possible!

It looks like a real kitchen now!  It's incredible.  We still need to get a backsplash to cover over some old tile that partially covers the wall above the sink, and we're hopefully having a special plug installed this weekend that will enable us to use the stove.  We're so grateful and settling in to the suburbs nicely.  James has taken over feeding the dogs, and we're enjoying visits with Noreen.

I'll sign off now because my daughter needs to answer her e-mail. 😊

Perfect Timing

When I was in high school our church youth choir took a musical on tour that included choreography to go along with all the songs.  As I sat here thinking about God's perfect timing and provision over the past few weeks I found the words from one of the songs popping into my head.  And 19 years later I could still stand up and perform the moves, too.

"He's got perfect timing, He's never a moment too late.

He's got perfect timing no matter how long you must wait.

You think your life is on hold, but God is still in control.

And while you're biding your time, keep his promise in mind,

and be faithful to know who you are!" 

Shout-out to all my Arab FBC youth group peeps.  

But truly God's timing has been incredibly perfect this week!  We needed to move out of Gerald's apartment the last week in June, and the guest house we're moving to was emptied of furniture and a sink installed, along with plumbing for a washing machine just before that.  The very week the guest house was empty a team of college students from Missouri were scheduled to be in Paris ready to complete a service project for our church.  When K.J. contacted the moving company storing our belongings in England they said they could deliver the first week in July, just after the mission team left.  Great is his faithfulness in all these details.  

And how could we thank the team from Hannibal LaGrange University enough!  I now know more people from Missouri than I ever have before, and they were all such a joy to meet.  

If you follow me on Instagram you've already seen a few before and afters, but I thought I'd share the progress made here.

This is the biggest bedroom of two, which the kids will share.  I took this picture on our first visit to the house.

Our hostess's sons cleaned out furniture and packed away books.  K.J. and a friend pulled up the carpet one day, and the team sanded, stained, and varnished the wood floor, as well as cleaned, dusted, and touched up paint on the trim.  This week it looks like this, and it's just gorgeous.

I can't take my eyes off those floors.  It feels appropriate to thank the grand organizer of all this work again for providing all the plans and tools and materials.  Nicky, you are amazing!  This is the room that will soon be filled with Legos and school books.  

This room was being used as a guest room but is going to be our living room.  Furniture was cleared out, and carpet was removed, and look what we discovered under the carpet!

It's such fun tile, isn't it?  

The walls had a texture similar to stucco, but it was a lot pointier.  The team manually sanded it down making it a little less dangerous and a little easier to paint.

The light isn't good in this last picture, but we painted the walls and the trim white, and we'll probably spend the next month watching Netflix while we scrape old glue and such off the tile.  This room gets really good light when you open the shutters, and it will be our living room and most likely dining room, too.

The kitchen needed the most work, mostly because it didn't really exist as a kitchen!  The walls were covered with a fabric you can still see in the picture below.  K.J. and Ryan (who helped rip up the carpet) took it all down, and we scraped off two layers of wallpaper, plastered, and painted.  It was a great transformation!  

Day two, and things were looking better...

By the end of Day 3 it was looking much more like a kitchen!  The built-in cupboards got a fresh coat of paint as well as a little pop of color.

We plan to buy a stove to go to the left of the cabinets, and there is a refrigerator to the left of that space.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  Another kind provision from the Lord was buying a fridge, washer, dryer, and microwave from one British family moving back to the U.K.  It was a bargain and we got it all in one place.

We got word today that the moving company will be arriving at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, so the next pictures will be boxes everywhere.  Woo-hoo!!