Wednesday, July 04, 2012

What's the Buzz...

I had a friend from high school that would always sing "What's the buzz, tell me what's happening" from Jesus Christ Superstar.  So as a call out to Katie Baedke, here's "the buzz" from the Farley household.

I'm totally enjoying time home with Will this summer.  I try to plan an outing at least every other day, and then have a small to-do list on the days that we stay home.  It's been a little harder to want to leave the house with the extreme heat lately, but if I stay at home for too long I go pretty stir-crazy!  We've been going on lots of walks, been rollerblading/biking with dad, meeting up with friends in Ames and at different parks, and we even went grocery shopping without any help from dad one day!  (It's the little things that are suddenly so exciting!)  Just when I think we're getting into a routine though, something crazy happens with Will's body and everything is thrown out of whack.  He had a long two-week growth spurt where he acted almost collicky every day.  Then as soon as that was done, he started sleeping through the night (yippee!), which has seemed to change his eating needs during the day.  All that to say, I'm realizing that our routine may change from day to day, and I just need to be okay with that!

Let's see, what else?

- We put our Webster City house on the market again, and are PRAYING WITH FAITH for God to sell it in the next three months.  I've been doing a lot of thinking about Jesus' statement that if we ask for anything to the glory of God, He will give it to us.  Also praying that God will grow my faith and wipe out the fear that so often comes with asking for something from the Lord.

- We've had some really fun visitors - my best friend Katie Suddarth and her husband Eli came for an awesome visit, and then our friend Dave Wiebe from Kansas stopped through to meet Will.  We love visitors!

- We've gotten to go boating twice with Will, and it feels almost empowering.  It's been great to figure out ways to do the "normal" life activities with a baby...life isn't over as we know it, just a little different!

- Chris and I are re-doing our budget and praying about how God wants us to live life from this (debt-free!) point onward.

- As of June 18th, we've been married for 7 years!!!   How the time has flown...

- We're praying about finding a place overseas that we can invest in over an extended period of time...go there twice a year, raise money for that specific place, line up other volunteers, etc.

- I've been so thankful to be living with my parents lately!  It's always been great, but it feels like this home has morphed into something awesome since Will was born - just so supportive and loving, it's so fun.

- I'll say it again in case you missed it the first time - Will is sleeping THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!

- I've started talking with the full-time choir director up at Webster City, and we're organizing the room/storage areas and starting to form a vision for what next year is going to look like.  I'm pretty excited, but am starting to feel sad about not being home with Will full-time!  I think it's going to be a lot harder than I expected to even be gone just two days a week.

- I'm working to catch up on my bible/book reading, since I have totally slacked since March.  The end of school and then Will being born took me out for a good three months!  Gotta get back on it if I'm going to reach those goals!

- We have decided to change our foster care status to "respite only" until we move out of my parent's house.  We've been doing more respite lately, and it feels really fun to stay involved even when we can't take long-term placements because of emotional and physical capacities.

- I've kind of "resigned" myself to being back in the states indefinitely, since it's been very clear that God brought us back here to learn some things.  It feels good to have come to that point emotionally (not longing to be back in India or somewhere overseas), because I'm now becoming focused on intentionally living well here in America, whereas before I felt like I was in a sort of holding pattern until we could move again. 

- Chris is thinking about going to a "Power and Love" conference that our cousin Jason went to.  It's basically about allowing the power of the Holy Spirit to work through you, and sounds really neat.

- We're working to find new and exciting things to do here in Iowa.  I'm realizing that even though I've lived in this area for basically my whole life, there's a lot of things that I've never done or seen!  Anyone have something we should check out in central Iowa?

- We went to the fireworks at the capital last night with some family/friends...totally sweet!

And there's "the buzz" from the Farleys!  Happy 4th, and stay cool!

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Loving Me Some Shutterfly

I just want to say that I. LOVE. SHUTTERFLY.  Why, you say!?  Let me tell you!

1. It's simple.  I don't have to have a scrapbooking station that takes up a whole corner of a room!  I also don't have tons of paper scraps and stickers lying around everywhere...

2. It's reproducible.  I made a scrapbook of the trip that my dad and I took to Chile to visit Matthew, and was able to order a smaller version for him for Father's Day.  It would have taken HOURS to make another scrapbook for him the old way.

3. It's cheap.  When I scrapbooked the old way, each scrapbook probably cost between $300-$400 by the time I was finished.  These books cost between $50-$75 each depending on how patient and resourceful you can be with coupon codes. :)

4. It looks good.  I especially love how big the pictures can be.  The old way, I used to get all 4 x 6 pictures...and in a current book I'm working on, I've got a full 24 x 12 spread!  It's pretty sweet.

5. It's small.  Each book is about 1/2" thick and extremely light.  The old way, each book was 3-4" thick, and was HEAVY!

6. It's stored.  If there's a fire and our new books get burned, I'll just order new ones.  If there's a fire and the old books get burned, I lose tons of work and memories.

7. It's multi-taskable (is that a word?!).  You can work on multiple projects at the same time.  I'm currently working on a "Will, Year 1" book, a "Ladakh" book, 2 "India" books, a June 2011-December 2011" book, and a "2012" book.  That would have taken up an entire room the old way, jeez!

Just thought I'd tell the world...I'm Lovin' Me Some Shutterfly!