Friday, October 29, 2010

Roof Transformation

As you can tell from my lack of posts, there hasn't been a lot going on at the Wilkins house lately. We did get a new roof this week (well, actually it was all done yesterday) and I was very impressed with the company that did it: Red Cedar Roofing.

They were considerably cheaper than other companies (which made me a little skeptical of their work) but since my sister recommended them, I decided to go for it. They turned out to be fast, friendly and clean (what I appreciated most). I couldn't believe that they even took care to dust off my front porch chairs!

Our old roof was 15+ years old and we knew it needed to be replaced when we bought the house. In fact, the people who "flipped" our house spray painted the roof black to make it look better.

Here's the transformation:

(It actually looked dark black in person)


I really wish I would have taken a "before" picture (the one up there is just from the real estate site) because you can't really see the transformation. We're happy with the results, though, and are glad we don't have to worry about what bad weather might do now!

Monday, October 18, 2010

2nd Annual Pumpkin Painting Party

This weekend, we had the Second Annual Pumpkin Painting Party with our nephew, Grayson. Last year, he was only about 14 months old when we painted pumpkins with him, so I was excited to see how much his motor skills had improved over the last year. He used a paintbrush instead of his fingers, making the whole event much less messy - a bonus!

Checking out the eyes on Uncle Levi's pumpkin

Picaso in the making

Doesn't he look so focused?



After pumpkin painting, we went to the playground at the school by our house to enjoy the beautiful day! This spiral slide was funny because Grayson would always start out on his bottom and end up on his belly by the time he reached the end.

He's a big boy. Very determined to climb things. Levi's hoping for a future rock climbing buddy.



Sadly, we sent him home with a bump on his head. He was running down the hall and didn't quite make a turn in time, hitting the door frame head-on. Despite the "boo-boo," I think we all had a fun day.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Fall's Unexpected Surprise



When blooming time came a week or so ago, we discovered a rose bush hiding in the midst of a strange shrub/weed/tree in the backyard. What a nice surprise!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I don't think you ever got to see this...


...our new bathroom cabinet! We waited FOREVER for this thing, but it was well worth it! After the "14-day build time" turned into a month, it finally arrived in the mail. I had nagged the lady on Ebay about where it was multiple times, only to find out she had a dear friend die, slowing things down. That made me feel really great about being impatient. Anyway, it's here and we can FINALLY stop living out of a box on the floor!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Responsibilititis Part II (a.k.a. my longest, most honest post ever)

Since my last post on this topic, I thought I had made progress. After listening to several people’s advice, I started trying to do things differently to help my feeling of constant overload without making myself feel irresponsible. For example, I started consciously making things for dinner that yielded leftovers so I could enjoy nights without cooking while still eating delicious home-cooked meals.

It’s been going pretty well up until recently (tonight) when I had yet another meltdown. You see, Levi’s work schedule changed after my last responsibilititis post and he started taking classes at OCCC toward his paramedic certification, which means that just about the only time he has at home is filled by sleeping, eating breakfast and working out. He used to have time to help with dishes, laundry and sweeping the floors, but now I am responsible for almost every home task. Thankfully, I haven’t had to start mowing the lawn…yet!

Tonight after working an hour later than usual, I came home to two unexpected bills that were wrongly charged us, meaning I now, in addition to normal chores, need to spend several hours on the phone with several different parties to get the errors fixed. After calling said parties, I discovered everyone was already closed for the day. A feeling of exhaustion at the thought of all I was responsible to do overwhelmed me and I took an hour-long nap.

Strangely (not really), the nap didn’t help remove any of my responsibilities, but it did help me get back into the right perspective. After a trip to Braum’s for a chocolate shake (that would surely help, right?), I filled up the bathtub with the hottest water I could and settled in to do my daily Bible reading.

I’ve been following our church’s read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan, and although it’s been great, I can’t say that I read something every night that is quite as applicable to my life at this moment as tonight’s reading. Tonight, part of the reading was in Ecclesiastes where I found this verse:

“For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” – Ecc. 4:8b

This particular passage discusses a family-less man asking this question, but I felt it was still applicable to me. After all, for whom have I been toiling and depriving myself of pleasure? My first obvious answer was Levi, but when I looked more closely at my motives, I found that I’ve actually been doing it for me.

You see, I want to be Wonder Wife. I want to be the one who has it all together, even when she has little help from her husband (not for his lack of willingness, but rather a lack of time). I want to be the person who always has a clean, picked-up, cutely-decorated house because that makes me look good (even though we haven’t even had people over to see how good I look because of Levi’s packed schedule). I want Levi to see how hard I work during my off-work time because I don’t feel right about sitting around while he’s working so hard. I want to feel like I deserve the appreciation he gives me for working so hard. How vain and selfish am I?

The funny thing about all this is, not only do I deprive myself of pleasure, but I also don’t even get pleasure from working so hard. I’m realizing how true Solomon’s repetitive statement in Ecclesiastes is that everything we do is like striving after the wind.

After coming to terms with all this tonight, I asked myself another question. If I don’t think I should be working so hard for myself, then who should I be working for? The answer is God.

Colossians 3:23-24 says “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

You may be asking yourself if working for the Lord is even harder than working for men. In some cases, that may be true, but in my particular situation I believe that I need to continue to work hard, but realize that God actually does want me to enjoy this life that He has given me. Plus, I need to understand that working for the Lord means more than just doing my work in a way that is glorifying to Him. It means working for His approval instead of man's approval, which is far from what I've been doing.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 says “And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.”

This verse shows that joy is actually primary, not secondary to work. It “will go with him in his toil.” How can it go with you if you don’t have it to start with?

This has been a big breakthrough for me. I’m very thankful to God for speaking to me through is Word tonight, and I pray that this might not be a fleeting realization, but a life lesson that I continue to learn more deeply in the days, months and years to come and that it would ultimately make me more like Christ.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Home Decor Solution #1: Replicate

I'm usually not very creative when it comes to home decor, but I don't want just a blah style everywhere. Since we bought our new house, I've been scouring design magazines and blogs for home decor ideas. After continuing to feel uninspired for a new idea, I decided to just copy people. They'll never know, right? Here are a few of my recent (successful) attempts:

Mine


Inspiration

Mine

Inspiration
See that lovely blue shutter? That's all it took for me! http://thenester.com/

Mine

Inspiration

How do you decide on home decor? Do you like to create or buy things pre-made? What are your favorite design blogs/magazines?

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Fall is here!

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is bringing out decorations, especially those that have something sentimental about them. Here are a few fall/Halloween decorations I put up this week that are special to me:

We put this haunted house out at every year when I lived at home. My mom gave it to me after I got married.

This ghost's name is Gertrude. I made her with my Grandmother Dodson when I was in elementary school and have hung it outside for Halloween every year since.


These fall leaves were the very first holiday decoration I bought after getting married. I'm excited to use them for years and years to come! See last year's post about them.


Monday, October 4, 2010

How does my garden grow?

Yesterday was such a pretty day, so I decided to get outside and plant some mums for fall. This was my first planting experience (besides the potted plant shown in the last picture that I somehow managed to bring back from the dead once we moved), so we'll see how it goes.