Question: What is the #1 not-fun thing  guaranteed to delay your bedtime?

Survey says: Your hound dog gets sprayed by a skunk on your back porch at 10pm and then runs into your kitchen.

So that happened. I’ve never been so grateful for Dawn and baking soda in my life. Thankfully, we got to Maggie before it had a chance to sit on her for very long and I don’t think she got a full dose of the spray. Andrew says the house and dog now smell “better”, but I can’t really qualify that for myself (sinus infection). If you come over to see the house, just lie to me and tell me everything is fine.

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All of the wallpaper is DOWN. What a project! The kitchen was really a bear. We ended up using a scoring tool to prick the wallpaper, a spray treatment of hot water and fabric softener, and days of picking and scraping. Now, we are geared up to sand and paint!

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We are wanting to get our bedroom completed pretty quickly. There is something to be said for having a clean, pretty place to lay your head down when the rest of the house is in upheaval. We needed a new, bigger mattress, so I have been working on putting together our new bed. I was so excited to find this custom Chapel Headboard by SchoolHouse Workshop!

Sydney and her husband are local here to Middle Tennessee, which makes this piece even more special. I love the raw wood + soft edges. You can check out @schoolhouseworkshop on Instagram to see more of their beautiful work. They have completely renovated an old school house into the most amazing home!

Our bedroom has a lot of character. There is a fireplace, the dentil crown molding you saw in an earlier post, and space for a sliding (maybe barn?) door to the bathroom. I am wanting to keep things neutral and romantic, but with modern finishes.  Here are some of my inspirations for how it will all come together.

 

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A few weeks ago, I did something. Something reckless. Anti-establishment, even. Ready? I deleted the Facebook app from my iPhone. (I can see the horror on your faces as you read.)

I have never been one to sit down and spend an hour on Facebook. I am the one who checks it for 30 seconds during any downtime, 10 times a day because it’s there. And before I go to sleep at night, I always made a quick scroll through my social media. Right after the massacre at Pulse, my feed exploded (again) with “Pray for Orlando”, “Love Wins”, and countless linked articles with a variety of opinions about could/should be done to prevent similar events. It’s been said before that people are the boldest behind their computer screens, and the number of stances made me dizzy. So much noise. Which is to be rightly expected  in the wake of tragic, senseless hatefulness .

I’m sure you have all heard the phrase “Keeping Up with the Joneses”… Trying to mold your surroundings to mimic someone else’s relatively upscale way of life. After the Pulse killings, I realized I was keeping up with the Joneses in the sense that my brain was trying to catalogue and keep tabs on everyone’s noise… everyone’s stance. Gay nightclub massacre! Self-proclaimed Christian pastors declare it a good thing! Eat Chickfila! Don’t ever eat Chickfila! Baby attacked by alligator! Here’s why we are boycotting Disney! Where were the ‘no swimming’ signs! Toddler escapes into gorilla enclosure! What a neglectful mother! And that doesn’t even begin to explore the political commentary.

In my scrollings I came across a quote, and it suddenly dawned on me why social media seemed so noisy.

“My God. Shootings, murder, sexual assaults, and violent rhetoric everywhere I look… This world needs a savior outside of itself. Stop telling me “there’s goodness inside us” if we just look deep enough. I’ve already looked. There’s more than enough selfishness, narcissism, violence, and pride in us to keep us where we’re at.

-John Booker

Jesus fixes things. I know because He fixed me. What He says makes all the sense when you can let go of yourself and what you think you know. Please don’t get me wrong… I am not one to be thrown off or easily offended by a different opinion, and that’s not why I deleted the app. I am a Christian, so I do my very best to base my worldview on the Bible; but I am not affronted or surprised when other people do not do the same. I remember what it was like before I fell in love with Jesus. People make sense of tragedy the best way they know how. Many of my friends and I have very different outlooks on this life. After the deaths in Orlando, my heart was broken. Broken for the people killed, their families… but more broken for how dark and hopeless our world is. Facebook kept throwing the darkness in my face.

I think I have checked Facebook about 5 times online since I got rid of the app on my iPhone. Did I do it because I am weak and need to be surrounded by people who always agree with me? No. Do I need it to keep up with current events? Nope. I watch and read the news daily. I deleted it because there is enough noise in life right now without trying to keep up with the Joneses’ opinions… and also because my heart is more broken than ever for people to know a Savior who brings light to darkness.

If you are a Christian, you are called to live your life with the love of Jesus as the spotlight. In the wake of this week’s tragic killings, do that. Be salt and be light. Forget you. Forget the Joneses.