the reluctant pioneer

Shifting gears from unpacking to unpacking - from the house to the heart. This seems so impossible, like a million mile journey that must be summarized into a walk around the block. Somehow the events of life: Moving, Mark's Dad dying, reading The Hiding Place, ISIS, the beginning of Lent have all woven themselves into the tapestry of my daily life, creating highlights and deep shadows, places for joy, sorrow, and deep contemplation. The summary of it all is a quote that I found in The Hiding Place: The center of His will is our only safety. His will is our hiding place. Let us pray that we may always know it. As soon as I read those lines, I knew they were meant for me to cling to. I was sad to discover that they've been co-opted by the Prosperity Gospel crowd. I'm convinced that while these lines may  include physical safety, they are a promise of our spiritual safety if we abide in the center of God's will. As we moved... As we witnessed the grac

Before I launch into house projecty stuff, here's a baby bump picture for your viewing pleasure. Baby Speck is now 19 weeks and growing! I think this makes me look all-around smaller than I am in reality, so thanks camera. When I left off, we were hoping to stain the table tops to match our dark floor. Hahaha. Fortunately, we did a test patch on the underside of the sideboard top. It was disastrous. I mean truly awful. I wish I had a picture for you to enjoy the awfulness, but alas, it's been attached to the base and that test patch will be forever out of sight. So, after much discussion, research and initial reluctance, we decided to leave the tops as-is. They really are gorgeous the way they are, it's just that the natural birch wasn't the look we had our hearts set on. We've since come around and realized that in the end, this color scheme marries well with what's going on in the kitchen with the natural cherry cabinets and white corian counters; it p

Here, at very long last, are the before and after (so far) pictures of our dining room furniture. We have yet to sand and stain the tops of the table, buffet and bench. Our hope is that they will closely match the color of the floor.  I apologize that these photos are taken at different times of day, hence different lighting - not to mention the rush in which I took them and posted them which accounts for any blurriness. We purchased the table, bench, buffet and chairs from Ikea. I'll share the links so you can see more professional "before" images of what we were working with. We liked that all these are solid wood (birch, except the chairs which are pine) and very affordable considering the quantities we were purchasing. Norden Extendable Table Norden Bench Norden Occasional Table [Buffet] Lerhamn Chair All these pieces had an acrylic finish and didn't need any further finishing. Had we been going for a different look, they would've been