Are you a striver??

strive

 [strahyv]  Show IPA

verb (used without object), strove or strived, striv·en  [striv-uhn]  Show IPA or strived, striv·ing.

1.

to exert oneself vigorously; try hard: He strove to makehimself understood.

2.

to make strenuous efforts toward any goal: to strive forsuccess.

3.

to contend in opposition, battle, or any conflict; compete.

4.

to struggle vigorously, as in opposition or resistance: tostrive against fate.

5.

to rival; vie.

I am a striver!  If there is a problem I try and fix it.  I love to learn, I love to read, and hence I have every self-help book known to man (not really but I have A LOT of them).   When God convicts me or even if I myself recognize a problem, I pray a short prayer and go on my merry way trying to fix it.  It’s not necessarily that I don’t think God won’t fix it.  Probably more like I can fix it faster or I don’t need to bother God, he’s busy.  Of course it's not because I am a control freak.  

God recently brought a verse to me to really study, to digest as He is getting ready to take me to a whole new level.  The verse is Isaiah 42:16 

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths will I guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them.  I will make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do for them, I will not forsake them”.  

Now 20 years ago God brought this verse to me when I was going through some really tough things that he was growing me in.  It was all very unfamiliar and I could relate and cling to this verse.  When He brought it to me this time I saw something that I had never seen in this verse even after meditating on it for several years. ( I love it when God‘s spirit does that!! ) What I saw  this time was this: 

 “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths will I guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them.  I will make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do for them, I will not forsake them”. 

Now, I knew I was blind in the ways I felt he was leading me and I knew that it was also very unfamiliar where I was being called. I knew I’d encounter rough places.   But this verse had a whole new meaning to me.  What was going to be happening to me was going to be HIS doing, HIS leading, HIS working, not mine.  Not once did it mention what I had to do, just what HE would do.  I have never seen this, ever. Not going to my bookshelf to find a book on “how to do it” was unfamiliar, but I am setting out on a new journey!!  You are part of this journey.  It will be very interesting to see where He leads. I am retiring my striver status!!

 

Is God leading you anywhere new right now that is unfamiliar? 

Banquette Seating Part 1

My husband and I have been slowly making changes to our home.  One of the things we wanted to do was build some banquette seating in our kitchen. When we have everyone home we have 13 people (14 with my mil).  Here is a picture of some of us playing a game at Christmas.  Please ignore the crappy picture.

  We were trying to come up with a way to create more seating
 for all of us and decided to do banquette seating. 
 So my handy hubby got to work.  

Here is a picture of the space before the seating was added.

He started with building a base for the cupboards with 2 x 4's cut to his measurements.

We used 4 hickory kitchen cupboards 3- 15 x 30 and 1- 15 x 36 and placed them on the 2 x 4's.

He then placed 1/2 " plywood cut to fit on the cabinets.

The next step was adding wainscoting to the walls.

He then added the chair rail to the wainscoting.

Painted the plywood and wainscoting and chair rail black.

Total Cost: $550.00 (not counting the cushions) 

Total Time:  12 hours

I'll show you Part 2 when we get the cushions.  We are having them made professionally so that they will hold up with our whole clan on them.  :) And then redo the floor!

We made a $40.00 Farm House Table.  You can find it  HERE:

I linked up to these parties:

 

Free Birthday Printable

I told you yesterday that I would share one more gift I had.  I made a 5 x 7 printable for my daughter in law and framed it and put it in the box.  I'm excited that she'll have a special birthday celebration even though we can't be there.

Feel free to grab a copy of the print below and celebrate 

someone in your life even if that someone is YOU!

Download 5x 7 print here:

Download 8 x10 here:

Make a choice to Live Well!!!

Birthday Party in a Box

My daughter in law who lives in Atlanta is turning 30 next week. My son is taking her to San Francisco to celebrate them both turning 30.  My daughters and I wanted to celebrate with her even though we couldn't be there.  So we thought a Birthday Party in a box would be fun.  Here's how we made ours.

  Grab a shoe box and some wrapping paper.  Wrap your box.

We  got out the silhouette machine, some fun paper and cut out a banner.

                                                            

                             

We purchased 30 small gifts.

I grabbed my nifty organized tissue paper holder. And got to wrapping all 30 presents.

Just a side note, I am soooo impressed with myself for thinking of this idea (not even a Pinterest idea)  Love seeing all the colors in my gift wrap closet. And so easy to find a color and use.

And the finished project minus one last gift which I'll show you tomorrow!

Have you ever done something like this?  What did you put in your box?

Update:  My daughter in law LOVED her gifts!!  

I linked up to these parties:

 

Happy First Day of Spring!!

I hope where ever you're at you are having as nice a day as we are in Northern Michigan.  It is 84 degrees outside right now.  Our town made the NBC nightly news last night for breaking record highs.  The last three nights we have slept with windows and doors open.

Now you remember that on March 3rd we were hit with a blizzard.  When we pulled into our driveway the plowed snow was so high that we couldn't see our house. Here's a little reminder:

Here are some pictures around my house today.

Will they bloom in March?? 

My flowering crab apple getting ready to bloom!

We had fish that lived in the pond over the winter.

 Aren't these phenomenal???

Frogs are already out!

Our waterfall is running already. ( I know it's in great need of cleaning)

I hope you are enjoying God's beautiful gift to us.  I sure am!

Are you wasting YOU and a Free printable!

  

"Some people drift through their entire life. They do it one day at a time, one week 

at a time, one month at a time. It happens so gradually they are unaware of how

 their lives are slipping away until it's too late". Mary Kay Ash

Download grey 8 x10 here:

Download grey 5 x 7 here:

Download teal 8 x10 here:

Download teal 5 x7 here:

How about you? Are you going through the motions?  Are you wasting your life?