And it's Friday again! I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to see this week end. I'll save the stories of car breakdowns and fingertip slicing for another day...

ANYWAY...

Here's what I'm loving this week:

1) The Irish Sea (and these photos) :: We spent the morning of our anniversary on a beach in South Dublin. These days are few and far between, so when the sun is shining and there's reason to celebrate, we must take advantage of it. And we did. Iced coffee and pastries and Asher finding rocks and the beautiful sea. Thank you Ireland. You made our anniversary spectacular. You can also look at our wedding pictures here if you are so inclined. Keep in mind we were married before Pinterest. If our wedding were to happen today, I can only assume there would be a distinct increase in the number of homemade feather boutonnieres.

2) I love gay people and I love Christians. I choose all. | Momastery :: I'm not gonna get nitpicky about the whos, whats or whys of gay marriage (yes, this is a cop-out). But I will say this. I struggle, I pray, I'm trying to get to the heart of Jesus, and I want to be so filled with His love that it spills out, a wellspring of Life. I want to live this:

The point is – if you’re hungry – you are all welcome at my table. None of you is less welcome than the other. This place is a banquet table for gays and straights and prudes and hoochies and cheerleaders and tuba players and pharisees and alpha moms and slacker moms and tax collectors and fishermen and choir girls and heathens. It’s a banquet table where people who are different can come together and share a meal and maybe not change each other’s minds, but possibly soften each other’s hearts.

3) Finding a Feminine Theology in C.S. Lewis's Narnia | Her.meneutics :: I love the Her.meneutics page and the variety of issues they tackle, from abortion to stay at home (or breadwinning) moms to missional theology to literature. And I really love it when they talk Lewis. But this guest post was a little wanting, trying to paint Lewis in a corner on feminity and theology using just a part of his work and not the whole. I would love to have seen a broader and more intimate analysis of his feminine theology within the entirety of his work, particularly Till We Have Faces (which I am admittedly prejudiced towards). You just can't say: 

"we're confronted with an aspect of his writing that can make some evangelicals uncomfortable: his portrayal of women," 

and not touch upon Faces, his final novel.What do you think?

4) Picmonkey :: I'm a graphic designer who knows next to nothing about photoshop or some such tomfoolery. So I post-edit almost all of my blog photos with Picmonkey. This is an absolutely free service allowing you to crop, customize, retouch, frame and lay graphics and type on your photos. There are upgraded features for a yearly fee, but I'm not ready to make a long-term commitment (as of yet).

Finally...

5) The beach waves hairstyle :: I see this all over Pinterest, I've seen tutorials and graphics, I've seen things done with a flat iron and sea salt that should not have to happen in order to achieve a "natural" look. But I'm gonna confess to you. I love this trend. Here's my own, easy, exclusive how-to:

Step 1: Roll out of bed.



The end.

Also, this is your friendly reminder that Google Reader is ending in just a few days. You can still find me here, receive my posts in your inbox (sign up over here in the sidebar ------->), or get your blogs all in one place via Feedly or another online reader.

As always, you can jump into the chaos on Facebook or Twitter. I hope to see you there!

What are your favourites from this week?

No affiliates linked above. These are just things I love and want to share with you. Enjoy!

Sentimental birthday typo

We just celebrated Matt's birthday this week, and like all things with Big Plans, the day got little out of whack. I came down with a bad full-body cold and the weather dipped below freezing, so our fun day out with Ash in the city was a no-go.

I decided to redeem the day by special ordering snow (thanks, God) and designing a subway art picture to commemorate the life Matt and I have lived together all these 13+ years. I've seen these everywhere online and thought to my delusional self, "That can't be that hard." And in truth, it wasn't. I just picked an idea - cities we've called home - played around with fonts and layouts, and voila! Homemade pressie for husband of the year.

I mean, really, look at this touching, yet simple, sentimental work of art.  I was seriously so proud of this I posted it on Facebook so people could ooh and aah over my wifely awesomeness. Oh, hey, what's that? A typo?! Yeah, so apparently, not that awesome. I am queen of submitting, publishing, printing, sending of anything and everything right before discovering the typo. This is just the latest in my line of almost perfection.

But Matt, he loves it anyway. He says it's an homage to one of our favourite albums, (Come on Feel the) Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens. And maybe he's right and it's only for us, anyway. And he can't spell, either. Match made in heaven.

Pinning with Karen {an update on my One Word}

It's a lazy day in our home. Matt is away, kids and I are having an Avengers marathon, and the snow that drowned Kansas City has finally made it's way across the ocean. I'm sad to report it's lost a lot of steam and seems to be dropping half-heartedly from the sky like it's given up after such an eventful week. Nonetheless, when a kid shouts, "It's snowing!" even if it's just a microscopic flake or two, we all feel a little festive.

And if you've noticed a round of silence on this here blog, it's because we are still neck-deep in moving, unpacking, cleaning, organizing and personalizing. Most rentals here come mostly furnished, so while we've got a lot of stuff to work with (wardrobes, pots and pans, mattresses), we've also got a lot of stuff to give away, sell, store and clean. Even though it is a rental, we're attempting to turn this bachelor pad of a house into a family home. And since we're on a tight budget, Pinterest and it's plethora of DIY goodies has become my late-night gal-pal.

A few of the gems I've found:

source

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You know I'm not particularly crafty, and DIY stuff usually makes me break out in hives, but I've got a man who builds and a Pinterest board dedicated just to him:

I'm excited to make this house our home, to fill it with people and food and a cozy place to read. And to paint, too. Imma need to paint some stuff. Stat.

My one word for this year is HOME. It's not just about the house where we sleep, but also it's cultivating the people who inhabit it, especially me and my haughty heart. 

Did you pick a "one word" this year? How's it going?

A Tail of an Irish Wolfhound

Our girl is obsessed with many things: arm bands, zebras, lego guys, and super heroes, just to name a few. As part of her ever increasing desire to be part animal, she's taken to wearing white tights, white shirt, zebra hat and a sock for a tail. And as her love for the Irish wolfhound has grown, my next Repurposing Discarded Treasures project literally dropped in my lap:

Ok, so it's a zebra tail. Whatever.

So we've had this bar laying around from an old infant/toddler seat/rocking chair. I think we gave away the actual seat ages ago, but the bar hung on and was used for things like makeshift light sabers, or swords, or eating utensils. One too many poke-in-the-eyes later, I was just one step away from dropping it in the garbage when the husband had a brilliant idea: "For your next project," he says, "A tail for E!"



Now, make sure you copy and paste what we did here. The directions are pretty hard to follow:
1) cut the bar in half, 2) take the foam insides out, 3) cut off the velcro tabs, and 4) tuck one of the tails into child's tights (or if your child prefers actual clothing - shorts, trousers or skirt).

And there you have it: a Human Irish Wolfhound with a nice zebra tail (and an extra to spare)!



Can you see the resemblance?



Fierce! (I think she thinks it's more wolf than dog...)



Your very own Irish Wolfhound-slash-Zebra-hybrid will be so happy, if slightly confused about her identity.

The Thumbless Mitten

I'm really excited to start my new series, Repurposing Discarded Treasures! There are so many amazing blogs out there about the art of repurposing, that I thought, "Hey, I'm krafty! Why can't I do it?" With that in mind, I bring you my very first project:



We all have them. Our favourite pair of socks that we wear every other day inside our trusty, clunky, old pair of Dr Martens. But the years of shoving your heels inside these leathery Mary Jane's have taken their toll. And behold, the hole.

And there is absolutely nothing worse than wearing socks with a hole in the heel and then stepping in the gallon of milk that your child has spilled on the kitchen floor. But you don't want these beautiful heart & argyle socks to go to waste!

So what do you do? Well, you make a thumbless mitten! This project was so unbelievably inspired, yet super easy to achieve. All you do is pick up the sock, put a hand in it - either hand! your choice! that's the beauty of it! - and, voila! A perfectly snug, yet very fashionable, thumbless mitten. Perfect for holding that piping hot (third this morning) mug of coffee, texting your sister that she's late (again!), or driving your child to pajama day at preschool.

The only caveat? The matching sock doesn't have a hole in the heel. Don't worry, though. Bide your time, put on your Docs, and wait for a hole to spring up in another favourite pair of socks. In no time, you'll have a quirky, mismatched set of thumbless mittens. 

And that's a good thing.

Ignore the confused look of your children. Your mitten is perfect.