Compassion Bloggers are in Uganda!

Although I wish it were me, I am excited about what these bloggers are going to be sharing from across the ocean. This is the 5 year anniversary of Compassions first trip partnering with the blogging community. This is exciting to me since from these visits thousands of kids have gotten sponsored and are now able to have regular meals, schooling, AND find out about the love of Christ through Compassion……just by reading a blog post.

Meet the Bloggers Bound For Uganda January 27-31 Joy Wilson (aka Joy The Baker) has tattoos and a sweet tooth. What's not to like? She's an author, podcaster and blogger who writes more personably than so many of her food-blogging peers. Get to know Joy here. Jeff Goins is a writer who teaches and inspires others to be writers. He's the author ofWrecked and The In-Between and a sought after communicator. And he owns a bow tie. Read more about Jeff here. Myquillyn Smith (aka The Nester) is a home blogger... but not really. She subversively and warmly uses conversation about decor to talk about family, beauty, priorities, creativity and faith. She hates to fly but is boarding a plane with us for the second time. She wrote beautifully in 2012 fromTanzania. More about Myquillyn here. Emily P Freeman is the author ofA Million Little Ways andGrace For The Good Girl. Emily wrote so compellingly for Compassion from thePhilippines in 2011 and this time around she'll be sharing a room and malaria meds with her sister, Myquillyn. Learn more about Emilyhere.

It is easy to get caught up in the project side of blogging and forget one of the real reasons I started to blog. To include Jesus in a way that would inspire others to want to get to know HIM and to help others.  

So this is one of the easiest ways to help someone. Sponsor a child. 

 It is only $38 a month. 

That is like giving up your Starbucks Double Mocha Latte Caramel Machiatto each day (Don't go asking for one of these, I just made it up). Can you give that up??? Now I know that may be a "Heck No" or other verbiage that would mean the same thing. I get it. I like my fun things too. 

But for us it is really just coffee……

for a little sweet girl on the other side of the world….

it means life.

so please consider sponsoring a child

Click on this link:

http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm?referer=133530

 and it will lead you straight to all the beautiful faces waiting for sponsorship.

The goal for this trip is to get 400 sweeties sponsored so let's do this!

You can follow along by visiting here:

http://compassionbloggers.com/trips/uganda-2014/

and you can follow them on Twitter:

#compassionbloggers

Thank you in advance for stepping out in faith and love.

Always being renewed,

Personal Goals for 2014

I don't usually make goals or resolutions because I am usually a "take me where the wind blows me" kinda gal but as I have gotten older, I am attempting to be wiser and more focused in my time management. Although the wind can blow you to some pretty awesome places, it can also get you off track fairly fast as well. I am trying to add balance in my life because I have become more and more aware of this need in the past few months.

I also did not want to  share this on Day 1 of 2014 because it is still so hectic at that time for us and therefore not a time to be able to reflect accurately on what I want to accomplish. I just want to dig out from under the pile of candy canes, tinsel, and crap everywhere to find a seat for heaven's sake.

So I have given it a few weeks and wrote things down as they came to me. I wrote down goals for myself and goals for my family (they don't know these yet…should be exciting), goals for blogging, and goals for the house/projects.

I'm going to share personal goals first because these I hope will build character and thus affect everything else. Like the Trickle down economics theory except I don't think the economic benefit has quite gotten to us yet. Maybe next year….

Okay here they are in a very particular order because I am organizing them in order of importance:

1. Regular Bible study - now I do manage to get up around 6am each morning and sit down to study my Bible. However, my focus has been way off this year. I get up after 30 minutes and can't remember what I read or the verses that I underlined. So I am really praying that the Lord will focus my mind on Him so then I can be changed into someone that looks more like Him in action and deed.

I find that when I have had a good time in the Word, my day goes better and I am a much nicer person. I also want to be a good example to my kids that reading the Bible and praying is a necessary part of their day. But if they see me "studying" and I am not changed, then to only is it for naught for me but for everyone that I come in contact with. My Jesus will not look too exciting and desirable if I don't start working a bit harder on this. That is why this one needs to be #1!

2. Listen to my husband's sports talk podcast http://drewandtomsports.podbean.com regularly. Yes, this is number two because he has been my biggest supporter of the blog and regularly hands out my business cards for my furniture business. He's my marketing manager apparently and is way better at it than I am. He started this sports talk podcast about a year ago with his buddy and it is great. And by great I mean phenomenal. It is clean which I love because so many are not and as a "girl" I find it very informative which is saying something.  I don't always agree with his point of view but it has lead to some interesting conversations for us so that is a win. I try to listen when I think about it but sadly, I am not on top of it. So I want to up my support of him in a big way this year.  If you don't mind- pass this link on to your husbands/ brothers/friends/co-workers. I think they will get a kick out of these two.

3. Exercise! Criminy do I need this. I even took before pics in my bathing suit for motivation. Yikes! I was going to post them but when I started looking at them up close, I really am trying to grow the blog and not sure this is the best way of doing that. I think I will keep them just to hopefully stop myself from shoving  chocolate into my mouth during times of stress.  

Needless to say, I don't have to do this to see the cellulite. 

Now anyone who would look at me would say I am thin. And I am, I am not trying to brag here. But clothes are really great for hiding things like the picture above and I highly recommend them...at all times. Especially since you can be arrested if you don't.  

But there is a thing I call skinny fat. And by that I mean, my weight may be good but my fat/muscle ratio is heavily tilting in the wrong direction and has been since I turned 40.  I am saying this because often people get mad at me and say "what do you have to worry about, your skinny".  As if thin people can't have days when they feel bad about what they look like. Hello, can you say monthly cycle! 

Yes, bad, bad, bad days indeed.

You also don't see the layer of fat that I have on my belly because I am very good at dressing myself in clothes that camouflage it. Low waist pants where the waist band hits exactly in the middle of the pooch are great at hiding it. High waist? only if you want to emphasize the pooch. But trust me, it is there and has slowly gotten more visible to me over the past year of total and complete non-movement.

Guess what? We all have body issues. We all have our own little food addictions. Thin people need to exercise just as much as someone trying to lose weight. Not because they are trying to lose weight but maybe because they HAVE lost weight and want to keep it off or just because it is healthy.

If I don't start making exercise a priority now, it will just get harder and harder as I age.

 I am not trying to lose weight for sure. That is not my goal. But the greater your fat/ muscle ratio is the greater health issues can develop and I am trying to curb that now before I "have" to do something about it. Plus, my dad is a diabetic so that is on my mind as well.

UPDATE: I have started doing the 7 Minute workout and it is great. I have already seen improvement. No, I still have cellulite but now I can do 15 modified push-ups where a week ago I could only do 5 before dying! Woo Hoo! Small victories. 

I also bought the app for the 7 minute workout because you can modify the time of each exercise and the rest period once it starts to get easy for you so you can continue to improve. And it tracks the days that you workout so you can stay motivated. 

I will try and keep you posted on how it is going.

4. Reading- I love to read and one of my greatest joys once I graduated from grad school was reading for fun! You forget that that is an option when all you have been doing is reading research papers. Blah! 

I am trying to make it a priority for me to read at night before I go to bed to read for enjoyment. This means I actually have to put myself to bed at a reasonable time so I don't fall asleep on my book.

If you are a reader, please let me know of any books that you have read that are worth it. I know that this will be a luxury for me so I want to read books that are not a waste of my time. Stuff that will be thoughtful and not trashy so please comment with your  recommend reading lists!

5. Scheduled - so for all of the above to happen, I will need to be more scheduled in my approach to life. This can get a bit hairy as I have never, ever been good at keeping to a schedule. I am really good at organizing one and writing one down. My roommate in college used to marvel at how I would create a new schedule for every semester. I would beam at it upon it's completion. I would proudly push pin it into my cork board above my desk and stare at it proudly some more. Hoping that this was the one that I would finally keep.

What an accomplishment! 

What a load of crap! 

I wasted more hours creating schedules that I never kept. What did I learn from this?

Schedules need to have some flexibility or I will feel trapped. Trapped? yes, trapped. I usually made the schedules with every minute accounted for with no wiggle room for fun. 

I have discovered that as a creative spirit,  I need some small measure of being able to deviate from the schedule. I think I went too far on the deviation side and have become very poor at managing my time!

So I am once again going to write down things I want to accomplish each day  and then give a 2 hour window in which to accomplish them. It's a start and if it works for the cable company, I think it should work for me too. They seem like they are making some serious bank so I am going to start here and see how it goes!

So there it is. My wish list for 2014. I'll try to keep you updated on how these things are going. Would you all be so kind as to keep me accountable by checking in on me? Thank you because I know you will! 

True friends do not let friends avoid the list!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies!

Read more at http://diyshowoff.com/2013/04/01/that-diy-party-10/#xgMAcRCgRocl5vmh.99       

 

 

http://www.remodelaholic.com

More Industrial Look Shelves

Although I was sick over Christmas and managed to fall on icy steps, I did get one project done for the hubs over the holidays. He has this little room shall we say in the basement, and I use that term loosely…it's more like a dungeon than a basement….with a TV, a meat slicer, a red formica table and chairs (awesome find!) and an over-sized couch. Needless to say, this could be termed a man cave but it is more like a "1950's style deli/wine room".  He and his brother recently built a small wall to hang the TV and hide all of the cords etc. It does look much nicer and bigger.

…...but where to put those video games and the cable box? They were hanging out in some old beer boxes which are always tres chic. My husband is a simple man and values function over form. So when he asked me to get him some shelves, I knew it couldn't be too pretty but I have a hard time doing "any old thing will do as long as it is shelves".  I wanted to move the basketball rack shelves down there but he likes them in the living room. I looked for a few weeks and then decided to build something because he was getting a bit antsy. I had seen a few of these industrial look pipe shelves around the web and decided to try my hand at them.

I still need to give the wood one more coat of stain and oil them for protection but for now this is it. I also need to come up with some more wood (I am going to use what I already have in the pallet department I think) and add to the back to further cover the cords. He left that little tidbit out about wanting the cords hidden when I showed him my idea. So all I can say is he okayed the open shelving and then came back and changed up the whole thing. He's the client, so I need to make the client happy right? Especially THIS client.

My shelves are 4 feet long and 12"wide. I measured the largest item (the PS3) which was 13" deep and then figured the 12" plank would suffice. I knew the shelves would not sit completely against the wall so the PS3 would fit nicely with that width of shelving. And yes, the lighting is that bright. A cave it is not. More like you get a pair of sunglasses when you come over for wine day. Not my room.

What you will need:

2 pine planks 

7/8" paddle drill bit

clamps

Channel Locks (made in the USA!!)

Vise Grips

4 of everything in this list and it all needs to be 1/2" wide :

18" of 1/2" galvanized steel pipe threaded on both ends

1.5" of 1/2" pipe threaded on both ends

 1/2"couplers

1/2" caps

1/2 "to 1/4"reducer couplers

total cost: $60 

First things first: drill your holes for the pipes to go through. Clamp your two planks together on either side so the holes will line up. then  mark where you want the pipes to go. I used a square piece of wood and placed it in each corner and then marked the top left corner with a sharpie. 

Use your 7/8 paddle drill bit and place the point on your mark and drill. Go slow because sometimes it can seize up if you go too fast. 

Now beat up your wood! Yep, take a hammer, some chain, nails, anything you have laying around and beat it up. When you stain the wood it will look more weathered and old. Remember to do all edges, even the back edge, so it looks genuine. 

Here is a closeup of the dents stained and oiled so you can get an idea of what it looks like. I used some round thinga-majiggys to get the round dents, a hammer (both sides), and my pliers for the edge dings.

Now you are ready to assemble: You can stain now or wait until it is assembled. I waited because I am impatient and I like immediate gratification. I'm working on that this year. I am thinking by tomorrow I should have a handle on that?  Wow, I feel like I made progress already. Normally, I would have said "by the end of the day…" Okay, on with the build!

Take your reducers and screw them onto the bottom of each length of 18" pipe. 

I choose 18" because I wanted my finished  shelves to be about 20" high and with the reducers as feet this gave me roughly about the right height. You can buy larger lengths of pipe and have them cut and threaded to your exact needed measurements….for free!….. and it will actually be cheaper than buying the pre-cut and threaded lengths that I bought. Again with my immediate gratification disorder (IGD from here on in).

Place one plank, beaten side up, onto the pipes and then add a coupler onto each pipe. Tighten down

 using the channel locks and vise grips. 

Vise grips on the left, Channel Locks on the right. The screw type thing on the bottom of Channel Locks allows you to tighten/loosen the locking mechanism to fit various sizes of bolts, pipe etc. for an excellent grip.

To do this hold the pipe with one and the coupler with the other. It does not matter which goes where. Now twist the coupler on by cinching the grips and the locks in opposite directions. Just make sure that whichever is on the thing being tightened, you need to twist it towards the right. 

Remember: Rightsy tightsy; left loosy. 

The coupler is what will keep the took shelf from falling down the pipe.

Add the 1.5" length of 1/2" pipe and tighten with the grips and locks. Add your second plank, beaten side up, and then the caps.

At this point it will be wiggly and not square. And you will start cussing at me. Relax! Do your tightening thing again until it is stable and not moving. This took me the most effort just so you know. You could use floor flanges (you would need 4) and attach them to the bottom of the top plank and only drill holes for the bottom  plank.  However, they are $10.62 EACH!!! so that adds about $45 to the cost of these shelves. But if you like a clean look then go for it. I just wanted you to know that this makes for a substantially more expensive set of shelves.  

 I used Jacobean stain by Minwax and it really brought out all the bangs and dings that I had created.

and it is a nice contrast with the galvanized steel

So there you have it $60 shelves built in 30 minutes. Not bad!

Just so you know, I did not waste my  time styling these shelves any more than this cuz, well, this is real life and this is how my boys want the shelves. Very utilitarian.  There is something to be said for doing what your client wants.  

If I were to do these again, and I might because I love them, I might spray paint the metal a dark bronze. Like these from Roeshel at The DIY Showoff. Hers look amazing and I love the dark pipe.

So quick vote for MY future shelves:

spray or no spray?

…..that is the question.

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies!

Read more at http://diyshowoff.com/2013/04/01/that-diy-party-10/#xgMAcRCgRocl5vmh.99       

 

 

http://www.remodelaholic.com