Outside Update

I'm horrible at thinking of creative catchy titles for my blog posts.  That title doesn't exactly scream MUST READ! but it is to the point and let's you know what you're gettin' in to, right?! right.

I've been wanting to post some updated pics of the outside of our house for a while but once we got the flower bed lookin all prettied up it grew weeds in the past few weeks so I've been needing to pull them before I could take an updated after picture and show it! So yesterday was the day I got my pullin on and now it is back to its original glory.

Let me preface by saying yard work is to Adam and I as a diet is to Santa, torture... We do not like it.  In fact, all 3.5 years that we lived in Raleigh we hardly did yard work besides cutting the grass which is a boy job of course :) I planted some flowers with my mom once and they got eaten by bugs which further deterred my "interest."  We pretty much just "maintained" what the previous owners had done.  We actually drove by our old house a couple of months ago when we were in the area for a very short amount of time but we squeezed in a drive by.  It has to be like a previous owner privilege right? creepy drive-bys whenever you want?  Anyways they had done SO much to the yard and it looked really good.  In fact they removed a bush that we were kicking ourselves after seeing it and wondered why the heck we didn't remove it when we were there! Oh that's right we HATE YARD WORK.  We were happy to see that our first house has been well loved and cared for :)

Back to our current house.  Here is a picture of it when we moved in to refresh your memory.

Our house is sorely lacking in the curb appeal department.  I have things I would love to do so hopefully over the years it will improve, but for now the inside will definitely come first!  We at least wanted to make it look a little more loved.  Cutting the bushes down on the left side and fixing the bed on the right side of the picture.  We figured it was now or we would have to wait a whole year before we could plant things again.  The bed on the right was in such a disarray we figured the best plan was to just rip everything out and start again.  Nothing matched, some of it looked dead, and there was no real order to it so out it came.

Here's Adam ripping out some bushes.  We actually thought it would take us all day to clear it out and then we would plant the next day but it all came out really easily. 

Here it is all cleared out and ready for some plants.  Oh except for that ginormous tree-bush thing at the end that Adam broke a shovel trying to get out.  It was a beast and it was ugly. 

We headed to lowes that afternoon and decided on Azaleas.  They seem to do well here as lots of people in our neighborhood have them.  And this is definitely the most we have ever bought from the gardening section at lowes.

Here it is looking a little more loved.  Everything is a little more green which helps.  The bushes have been trimmed and azaleas have been planted in the flower bed.  We have plans to add some more stuff but for now this is a lot easier on the eyes.  We're happy and I'm sure our neighbors are happy too.    

So ta da!  I doubt I'll have an outdoor post again for a while.... about plants at least.  I would like to paint the front door but am trying to figure out the best color. So we'll see!

Guest Post

Hey guys! just checking in to let you know that I guest posted over at my friend Leigh's blog today.  She is doing a series called, "When our words wound."

So here is my post about The Waiting Stage of adoption.

And to catch back up on the series the first one was about:
Infertility
and the other was
Raising a Special Needs Child

and make sure to check back for the rest of the posts coming up I know they're going to be great!  These are such important topics that help us relate to our sisters in Christ a little better so check it out!

a little living room update

It's about time for a little house update don't ya think.  I and we have been working on stuff but getting everything clean enough and picture worthy is another story.  BUT we had our homestudy update this week so the house got super clean as to impress the new social worker of course.  When in reality they kind of just breeze through your house, but we still wanted it to be presentable.  It was however difficult to let some things go since we have 2 rooms that are still full of stuff as well as 2 bathrooms that need wallpaper removal next.  See what I did there? I said next meaning we have 1 less area in the house without wallpaper! woo hoo! pictures to come when we finish painting.  For now we'll just talk about the living room.  Here is a refresher of what it looked like.

Now furniture has been placed after several rearrangements much to Adam's chagrin and new paint is finished yay!

We went with a grey in here and we really love it.  Anyone else never know if it is grey or gray? The color is Rockport Greay (how 'bout I spell it this way :) by benjamin moore.

We also hung curtains.  With a sneak peek of the paperless foyer that makes me oh so happy. 

That wall over there by the fireplace is wood paneling.  But not like the kind you might be thinking.  It is actual wood slats so it is kind of cool.  I really like the texture and dimension it gives the room.  Upon further inspection while painting we realized that every board had a small crack in between it and was not filling in with paint.  So I had to caulk in between every crack before I could continue painting.

Here are some up close after caulking

We also changed out all the outlets, switches, and faceplates.  Everything in the entire house is cream with brass plates.  Yuck.  It is amazing how much more updated a room feels when going from brass to crisp clean white!

and yes you may be looking at this picture thinking what looks off? that would be because all the outlets are upside down.  and there is nothing we can do about it.  so we'll just call it a house quirk.  The ground wire is too short to be able to flip the outlet to its "correctness." so our outlets will be upside down and proud like lady gaga, they were born this way.

There is still lots of decorating and picture hanging to do.  We have yet to hang a single picture.  I'm having commitment issues so hopefully we'll I'll be able to work through that and get some stuff up on the walls soon.

As far as the fireplace goes I'm having serious coveting issues with this one:

This one was done by my BFFs over at YHL. I mean we're practically bffs right? oh the marble.  It's so preettttty.  Maybe I can talk my hubby and father-in-law into tackling this for me? they do love to tile! 

So that's what's going on.  We did some yard work this weekend so I'll be able to share those as soon as I take a good after photo.  Thanks for stopping by! 

New look + New name

My blog got some new duds.  It was kind of in the state of like if your mom made all your clothes but no matter what there was no way it could look like something from Abercrombie & Fitch.  Side note: is that even the "it" clothes anymore?  Does the cologne wafting through the air vents and scantly clad employees still draw them in?  on that note you couldn't pay me to go back to high school... moving on... I did all I could do but it was time to make my blog a cool kid.

I have been contemplating a blog makeover for quite a while but just wasn't sure which way I wanted to go or what I wanted to do and basically I just couldn't commit silly I know... but I had some birthday money and decided to stop being non-commital and go for it!  So I contacted my friend Leigh who designs blogs and gave her my likes and dislikes and voila! She was great to work with and I would highly recommend her if you're looking for a little bloggy facelift :)

As far as the name I hadn't really planned on changing the name but one day after thinking over these words I thought why not?!  I have been reading Comforts from the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick and she has used tethered multiple times which is actually one of if not my favorite word.  To me it is steeped in symbolism.

She said:
 "....our lives are tethered to love.  Woven into every thread of our existence is the concept that love is the most important thing about who we are."

she goes on to say:
"The story of redemption is, in its purest form, a love story, but it's a love story unlike anything you could ever imagine.  It's the story of God's love for you but this love isn't just a sweet sentiment inscribed on a greeting card destined for the next week's garbage bin.  It's a deeper and richer, and honestly a bit frightening.  It's love that is willing to afflict itself and its beloved for a greater good. The story of your redemption is a story of fierce love."

Who better to be tethered to than the ultimate source, author, beginning, and maker of love itself. 

So I hope you guys enjoy looking at it as much as I do :)

Deep in the heart of Texas

Adam and I headed to Cowtown - Funkytown - Panther City - Queen City of the Prairie - Where the West Begins - The Lone Star State last week (all nicknames for Ft. Worth and Texas in case you aren't up on your texas town nicknames). 
Adam had never been and it had been a long time since I visited, which was last during my childhood summers of going all over the USofA to SBC conventions with my parents.  Not nearly as bad as it sounded.  I got to go to cool places, do fun things, and when I did have to listen to preaching it wasn't all that bad... life of a pastors kid and youngest child privileges I guess :)

Our agency requires that you attend a special training they call Pathways if you're adopting a child older than 2.  Basically several years ago they realized as more older children were being adopted rather than just babies, parents were not well equipped to handle the difficulties that an older child who has memories of the trauma they experienced in becoming an orphan holds on to when they enter your family.  So we headed to our agency to learn all that we can to help our little guy attach to us and thrive one day.

We left very early in the morning on Wednesday

We got to Texas about 10:30 their time and once we got our rental car we headed towards downtown Ft. Worth to find some lunch because well we had been up for a very long time at that point and were hooongry.  And let me just say for the record I have never seen so much road construction in my entire life.  I think every major highway between dallas and ft worth were being worked on.  Seriously from the airport to downtown ft worth - all road construction.  Not so easy for people from out of town trying to find their way when there were a thousand detours! I feel really sorry for all the residents that have to deal with that for a very long time! yikes!

We have a friend here in SC from Ft. Worth so we were able to get the scoop on a few places :) We ate lunch at Joe T. Garcia's - classic Tex Mex.  It was really good and a really cool atmosphere that we did a terrible job taking pictures of, truly.

Adam said he was channeling his inner-christy for this shot ;) who does a great job at capturing memories so well that I often steal her pics! 

You can kind of see those red flowers in the picture well they lined a really cool fountain thing but there were people sitting everywhere and I would've felt kinda dorky if I would've gone over to take a picture of it. So that was as good as it got.

so. much. food. we had no idea how big the portions were or we totally would've split it.  I guess we should've known, you know what they say! everything's bigger in Texas! ba-dum-bum-CHING!

Here was a pretty fountain right next to our table.  Has to be the most elaborate outdoor eating area I have ever seen.  There was also a huge bar area that wasn't even occupied at that time of day. 

After a very necessary trip to Starbucks we checked into our hotel that afternoon and then we went to a dinner theater place that evening.  Any Raleigh people if you think about Raleighwood this is like a million billion times nicer than it but the same idea. 

We were still stuffed from lunch that we just got something light to eat.

We finished off the day with a fun trip around Target which I sorely miss! It had some cool views of the city at night.  Doesn't really do it justice...

The next morning we got up early and headed to Gladney.

Pathways was a 2 day session taught by a child therapist who has so much experience, it was great hearing all of her stories and wisdom.  All of the information she taught was based on The Connected Child and the TBRI (Trust-Based Relational Intervention) principle that the author of the book Dr. Karyn Purvis teaches at Texas Christian University.  She is basically the child attachment guru and if you are adopting and haven't heard of this book you MUST read it no matter what age your child is!

Gladney fed us so well we were really impressed!  We weren't sure how it was going to go but they had breakfast, lunch, and lots of snacks and drinks for us as well.  They keep the trainings small because there is a lot of interaction and discussion going on.  The CEO of Gladney came in at the beginning to meet everyone there and then both days at lunch he sat down with each table to get to know everyone better.  It was very thoughtful and we were definitely impressed.  Here is the room set up.

And a secret shot Adam managed to take of me eating breakfast.  They had lots of candy and "fidget" toys to help during the long day.  Although the training was from 9-5 it really didn't feel that long.  They did a good job of giving us breaks and the information was very interesting. 

We got to meet our caseworker too which was super neat.  The group went out to dinner together on Thursday night and we sat with our caseworkers so we got to talk with her a lot.  It helped me understand some things better and I know that it will just make our referral call that much more special after having spent time getting to know each other.  Adam said it was definitely strange thinking that if we hadn't changed our age range we would've gone through an entire adoption without meeting our caseworker face to face or setting foot in our agency!  We are very thankful we got to go and that they have a program like this to make sure their adoptive parents are equipped.  It just made us that much more grateful for this agency. 

Friday night after it ended we headed to a Sushi place that was AHmazing! Seriously the best sushi I have ever had!

We were exhausted after that so we crashed for the night.  It was funny because the very first thing the instructor said when she started was don't be surprised if you feel very tired or drained at the end of this and she was right.  It was so much information and a lot to take in but we are thankful

We headed out at the crack of dawn again on Saturday morning and were back in Charlotte by 10:15.  It was a great trip and we feel more equipped for when Silas joins our family.  We are ready!!!