Summer in January

Today we have been married for 5 months!!!! Time flies. :)
Happy five month anniversary, sweet husband!

What a gorgeous day it is outside! I think I am about to go for a walk, but I am not sure if I have enough time for the entire "walk route" before Belmont gets home. We are about to go visit his grandparents to help them take down all of their Christmas decor. Somehow *all* of our Christmas decorations are still up, including our tree. I keep rebelling against this fact and telling Belmont we should take it down (especially because it's a fire hazard), but he loves it and says it's cozy. We'll have to see how long it sticks around!

Yesterday I had a great lunch with some girls from church as we discussed ideas for this semester's small groups. I will be leading a group of 7th- and 8th-grade girls again this semester with my friend Leah and am looking forward to what God has in store. As we talked, I realized how different each of us are and what each of us brings to the group. I have been reminded a lot recently of the need of friendship and cultivating relationships that we have. My dad preached a sermon the other day that talked a lot about the body of Christ and reminded me of a quote that I love by C. S. Lewis, after a friend of Lewis's had passed away:

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him 'to myself' now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald… In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious 'nearness by resemblance' to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying 'Holy, Holy, Holy' to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.”

Such true words. I am prayerfully looking for more ways to develop the relationships with which I have been blessed.


This week, the husband and I have been helping to count inventory for his dad's company. We have finished almost everything except the linens, but I think that will wait until next week. Today was a company golf outing and I stayed home to be domestic. I haven't gotten a ton accomplished, but I did buy a few things that I am excited to try out! First of all, I got some probiotics which are high up on the "awesome" list. My pharmaceutical sister assures me that there's a high possibility of them helping to equalize my tummy so that I will (in the future) no longer be lactose intolerant! Awesome! Because this whole staying-away-from-cheese-and-ice-cream thing is not winning any awards. B.o.r.i.n.g. and sad because I used to live off of dairy.

(If you think that I am weird and wonder why I blog about dumb stuff, read no further. The next experiment is not traditional.)

In other natural-products-I-like-to-test-out news, I got things to test out so that I can stop using commercial deodorants (hopefully). I have been using a clear liquid kind that doesn't leave stains on my clothes, but it is freaking my skin straight out. I keep using it because there was always so much left, but I am finally on the tail end of the batch and my skin is not happy. Not one bit. So I researched some recipes on Pinterest (thanks to a spark of interest from Shannon) and found quite a few varieties that people have tried. I was about to go out and buy all of the ingredients (beeswax, cocoa butter, coconut oil, shea butter, etc.) but then realized that people had posted on the blog entry and said that various factors in the recipe work for different skin types. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I realized that I might go out and invest in a fortune of ingredients only to have the experiment fail. Ack! What's a girl to do? So I kept reading people's personal comments and found a few ideas that I would try.

• Idea #1: Use a few drops of essential oils and let them dry. Then dust your skin with arrowroot powder (in the baking soda family) and voila! you have wonderful smelling skin that stays nice!
• Idea #2: Use Milk of Magnesia. Seriously. Many of the comments said that they had tried it and it was awesome. And inexpensive. And recommended by various health nuts!

So I got the supplies for both of those ideas. I didn't want to just pick one because I feared that if one failed, I would go back to my skin-irritating-chemical version. So I have a back-up! And I can always use the essential oils, arrowroot powder, or Milk of Magnesia for their traditional uses if all else fails.

Getting excited to see how this works...!

In other news, I need to pack and get the snacks ready for the road trip! Got some organic apples from Trader Joe's for $0.79 a pound! That's the same per/pound price as the apples that we sold at our fruit stand in Tennessee! You can't beat it! And they're organic! Love.

Hope you are all soaking up the gorgeousness of this day!
Happy Epiphany!