Here I Swap 2020

 

Mug quotation: "It’s got to go bang and it has to be fun, otherwise I won’t come!" - Karlsson, from The World’s Best Karlsson, by Astrid Lindgren

You guys. We have been swapping mugs for four years. 

FOUR. YEARS. 

 What started out as me being all millenial-ish AKA miffed that other people were having delightful little swaps and the Lutheran ladies weren't in on the fun has turned into all of us being one year away from a five-year-anniversary of mug swappery! 

 Earlier this year, a lot of you joined in the non-mug mug swap, where you sent e-gifts to our pastors, deaconesses and others on the front lines of spiritual care this year. It was great seeing firsthand how big the hearts of LCMS women can be. 

So here we are--finally--ready to swap real mugs again in 2020. Two things I ask in advance: (1) Please don't sign up in you aren't 100% committed to sending a mug. I like this swap. I don't like having to follow up with people because they didn't uphold their end of the deal. Don't be that girl. (2) Thank you in advance for your patience. I've got a four little children and a husband to care for, and this mug swap--as fun as it is--isn't my first priority. They are. So thank you for being understanding if I don't reply to a query or email super fast.

Now . . . are you ready to swap?

SIGN UPS ARE NOW CLOSED! 

 1. I'm going to pair you up with another Lutheran gal and send you both the information you'll need to know about one another (names and addresses, etc.). You're matched up with one person, and she's matched up with you.

2. Put together a little care package for her. Add as many goodies to the package as you'd like -- as long as it doesn't cost you more than $20.00 -- but you have to at least include a mug. (I mean, this is why it's called a mug swap.)

3. Stick that package in the mail! (But seriously, for real, because having to track people down who don't hold up their end of the bargain makes me grumpy.)

4. Give your mailman the friendliest wave ever while waiting for your package to arrive. He holds the keys to you getting that mug . . . and maybe the presidential election . . . so go easy on him. 

Make sense?

 If you're 21 or older, sign up by clicking this link and filling out the form. 

• Sign-ups close October 9, and you'll receive information on your swap friend by October 28. (Yes. It may take that long to send all the emails out. I'm a wife and a mom of a four-year-old, a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-month old. Thank you for understanding.)

• Send the mug/package -- along with a little note with your name and how she can connect up with you -- by November 10.

• Post a picture of your swap package when it arrives. Use the hashtag #hereiswap2020 on Instagram, Facebook, or whatever socials you're currently digging.
  

• Finally, I'm hoping this swap remains a helpful, joyful way for Lutheran women to encourage each other, but unfortunately, I can't be held responsible for your partner's actions. If she doesn't send you a package, feel free to follow up with her via email or tag her on Facebook. Let the Law do its work.
• Now let's get swapping!
  

2017 Here I Swap -- Fall Mug Swap update and FAQ

Hi, ladies. If you signed up before midnight on Friday, August 25, good news! You're in.

Also . . . 507 of you! We did it! We hit 500. Whew.

When will I get an email about who my mug buddy is? Between now and September 11, you'll receive an email outlining your mug buddy's style, fall loves and other information.

Any suggestions on how to put this package together? As a reminder, after reading up on your new friend (feel free secretly to check out her social media pages too!) and getting a feel for her style, head to Walmart or Home Goods or any place in between to put her fall swap package together. Please spend at least $10.00 but no more than $25.00.

When do I need to mail the package? Send the package -- along with a little note with your name and how she can connect up with you -- by September 25 so that she receives it in time for October and the Reformation.

Packaging tips? Be sure to wrap your mug well. Bubble wrap is your friend! One layer of tissue paper ensures that your buddy will receive a broken mug with only a handle to drink out of, which is virtually impossible.

What happens when I receive a package myself? Post a picture of your fall swap package when it arrives. Use the hashtag #hereiswap2017 on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. You can meet even MORE Reformation-lovin' ladies that way!

What if I don't get an email from you? If you gave me a fake email address or one you don't check often, chances are, it's gone forever. But if you gave me a real email address and haven't heard from me by the end of the day on September 11, feel free to shoot me an email so that we can see if my email ended up in your Spam box or waltzed off elsewhere in outer space.

christmas in the country 2015

We have four dogs -- four -- which is roughly three more than I ever planned on having. Chris takes two of them with him to the dairy. Two stay at the house with me. But when we're gone, and they're all at home, all four love to eat packages left by the UPS man, the FedEx guy and the mailman. 

Like the time Blackjack ate through a box and then took a bite out of a cutting board meant to be an engagement gift. 

Or chewed up some pictures. 

Or Winchester and Colt ripped up a dish towel. 

Or Wally gnawed up a box and carried around the coffee cup inside it. 

It's really kind of a pandemic. 

So when a Christmas in the Country 2015 package ended up in our garage -- hidden but in one piece -- it was nothing short of a Christmas miracle. 

Christmas in the Country is the brain child of four bloggers who encouraged women involved in agriculture or farming to sign up, swap gifts and make friends with other women in the same field. 

I received the loveliest package from Darcy in Idaho. She's expecting her own little one! And knows all there is to know about cows! And takes gorgeous pictures of her life on the farm! And puts together the sweetest box of goodies! 

All the exclamation points. 

She included a beautiful Christmas FiestaWare tablecloth (which I have already put to use during Advent and the 12 days of Christmas . . . with our FiestaWare, no less), a Christmas print made by a local gal (which promptly found its place on our piano) and a gift card complete with book recommendations. 

On top of that, she added peppermint bark (which tastes pretty darn amazing frozen, just FYI) and delicious smelling vanilla candles and the kindest note from a fellow sister in Christ. 

Her care and thoughtfulness were a true treat . . . and not just because the dogs didn't demolish them first. Farming can sometimes seem like lonely business -- especially when your Great Pyrenees tries to eat coffee cups -- but thanks to Christmas in the Country and a new friend gained,  the agricultural world just got a little smaller . . . and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

You can head on over to the blogs of the four ladies who hosted the event -- Jamie, Lara, Laurie and Kirby -- to learn more about the ladies who were involved in the swap. I put together a little vintage-esque package for Kelly at Old Blue Silo, another blog you should probably just go ahead and bookmark right about NOW.

And Darcy, again, thank you! 

Christmas Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles

My friend Sarah and I recently discovered that we have been baking Christmas cookies together every year for four years. We started out baking for an afternoon in my dinky kitchen in my little apartment in St. Louis, and now we've graduated to her spending the night and a Saturday baking away in the farmhouse kitchen.



She's a baking guru. As in, she made two cheesecakes while I . . . sat and was largely unhelpful. 

(My farmer also pointed out that the filaments aren't touching on my light bulb cookies, thus rendering them defunct. This is how you know you're married to a handy man.) 

Sarah also whipped up these Christmas Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles from Lauren's Latest, which were so tasty that I had to hide the ones she left us in the back of the freezer so my farmer couldn't find them. 

PLUS, you can get all the ingredients at Aldi, which is a big deal for those of us who don't like making nine stops at fourteen different grocery stores while out shopping. #thestruggleisreal PLUS PLUS, they have milk in them so . . . dairy!

This Christmas, channel your inner Sarah, hollow out a half hour to mix these truffles up, and pop these bad boys in the fridge/freezer for enjoying with your friends and family. 

If my mouth wasn't full of one right now, I'd tell you that you won't be sorry you made these. But . . . since I'm licking sprinkles off my fingers, you're just going to have to trust me on this one.

Deal? 

Christmas Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles

1 cup white cake mix
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon Christmas sprinkles + more for decoration
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips or vanilla almond bark

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, whisk cake mix, flour and sugar. Stir in melted butter, vanilla, milk and sprinkles. Mixture should be moist and be able to hold its shape easily when formed. Using a cookie scoop, form mixture into even balls and refrigerate 20-30 minutes.

In the mean time, melt chocolate in a double boiler or slowly in the microwave. Using a fork, drop one of the cake batter truffles into the chocolate and roll around to coat. Tap off the excess gently and transfer to cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Top with more sprinkles, if desired.

anne of green gables - #141

Today was Lucy Maud Montgomery's 141st birthday. In this era, of course, there's apparently no better way to celebrate an author than to make a Google doodle out of her. 

Or her most well-known character . . . Anne of Green Gables. 

I grew up on Lucy Maud Montgomery. I've read every one of her books, and as a young girl, I read and re-read them every summer. 

I loved Kilmeny and Eric and Marigold. I loved Emily of New Moon and Ilse and the nickname Star and Pat. 

I loved the movies. I loved Matthew's shyness and Marilla's rough exterior. I loved all the scrapes Montgomery's characters got themselves into and the way they loved country life and only bits of city life, just like me. And I hated that the character who played Gilbert died last year and a little part of me couldn't believe it was real.

I was even fascinated by the odd back story to Montgomery's life: falling in love with a man who didn't love her and rejecting the love of a man who did and eventually marrying a minister she was indifferent to. 

But I will always love Anne of Green Gables the best. And I will always love Anne and Gilbert together even more. I loved their daughter Rilla and their home in Ingleside. And I hated that one of the Blythe boys died in World War 1. 

I can't wait to read each one of those books to our kiddos someday. Perhaps it will be on Montgomery's 142nd or 143rd or 144th birthdays. Or maybe all of them. Because this mama loves Anne of Green Gables just that much, Google doodle or not.

for baby's room

True story: Back in the (college) day, I entered a Hallmark Mother's Day writing contest and won my mom 12 months' worth of expensive and impressive flowers. 

The local news station even came out to interview us. 

That's a big deal in Iowa, ok?

It was really just affirmation of what I already knew: that my stay-at-home mama -- who fed me and schlepped me an hour to confirmation class and homeschooled me and then drove me a half hour to meet the school bus twice a day for a year and helped me through 4-H and listened to all my boy troubles, etc. -- is just the kind of mom I want to be to this little baby.

In other words, Mom set the bar HIGH. 

So when she came to spend a week with us, I really should have been taking care of HER in exchange for all she's done for ME, but somehow it worked out that I just kept asking her to help with more projects. And she did. And they turned out adorably. 

Like this woodland mobile for Baby's room. 

All it took was one hour in Michael's, and there was no turning back. We loaded up on:

• Sparkly adorns and branches. 
• Cute little birdies.
• Glittered pinecones. 
• A nest and some moss balls. 
• Feathers. Because the world can always use more feathers. 
• Peanut butter M & Ms. Those don't have anything to do with crafting, but they are a necessity. 

  

Then I plugged in the glue gun, poured Mom a root beer and got out of her way. 

Trust me. It's better than way.

She tied three strands of colored twine to the bird's nest -- evenly spaced around the edge -- so that it could hang from a hook in the ceiling.

That same twine was cut at varying lengths and tied to the nest so that she could hang adorableness on the underside.

Then -- in no particular order -- she hot glued feathers, sparkly leaves, acorns, moss balls and birds to the twine.

There was a lot of "Should the leaves go with the acorns or with the pinecones?" and "Does it need a red feather or a yellow feather?" and a lot of me saying, "Um...what you just said. Yeah. Definitely that."

The good news? It's hard to screw up. The combination was cute no matter how she grouped items together!

The last step was to -- legit -- feather that nest and add the mama bird to it.

The feathers came in a $1.99 package of a zillion different colors, but we opted for a little pop of red because red is the best color EVER. #commonknowledge

She added a glittery pinecone and an orange acorn for good measure, tucked in two moss balls and then glued the sweet little birdie on top. We decided not to use regular plastic eggs from the craft store because they were tiny and no one would have been able to see them anyway. Go big or . . . uh . . . don't go. That's what we say.

See how easy that little project is? It's not even DIY. It's DIM (Do it, Mom).

All the pieces needed to make this mobile are even pretty easy to gather up. You just need one wonderful mom, some crafting supplies, a baby on the way and a ceiling to hang the mobile from.

It can't get any more DIY than that!

sisters, sisters

Everyone should have a sister . . . even two if it's possible. I'd share mine, but, just kidding. No, I won't. Sorry, kid. You're just going to have to find your own. 

Both of my sisters celebrate birthdays around this time of year, which is cause to give thanks for all the times they've listened to me talk too much and ask too many questions.

Soooooo . . . pretty much all the time. 

I'm grateful for who they are and all they do, for the wonderful wives and mothers and sisters and daughters that they've grown to be. I'm also thankful that we get along 99 percent of the time, which leads me to believe we're doing something right in the sisterhood department. 

Until Lauren and I get into it over something silly. Then Kellee steps in like a human version of Switzerland and talks us all down off the ledge. 

See? Sisters are handy like that.   

It's not always easy being a sister, especially when you grow up in a house with only one bathroom, one sister who French braids your hair so tightly that your eyes end up behind your ears and another who liked to practice her clarinet right around the time the rest of the house was trying to fall asleep. 

But we have learned a few things along the way that seem to work.

• We have parents who made us get along. Don't ask my mom how many times she said the following words to us while we were growing up: "Girls, we don't talk/act that way to our sisters." And after all those years, it actually worked! We were expected to love each other, get along and enjoy each other's company. And we did. And we still do. 
• We talk . . . a lot. We chat or text every day. Don't believe us? Just ask our husbands to look at our phone bills. Verizon totally loses money on us when it comes to unlimited talk and text. And the three-way free phone calling capacity? We wear that thing out.
• We laugh until our sides hurt. Can life get crazy? Of course. But it is big and beautiful and bold? Absolutely! We love the crazy stories that pop up throughout our average days -- of burned brownies, children running around living rooms without their pants on or Dad's latest one-liner -- and we love to laugh with each other about them. 

• We (try) to listen. It's easy to offer advice or tell each other what we think the best next steps are, but sometimes, some of our best conversations happen when we spend serious time listening to each other and then simply promising to keep each other in one another's prayers. 
• We've cultivated similar interests and values. All three of us like the same things: husbands, babies, church, homes, cooking, decorating, nachos with Pepsi, rearranging each other's houses, sarcasm, country music, and exercise. Just kidding on that last one. That word is basically anathema to us. Now donuts on the other hand . . . But it works! When you love the same things, it's easy to love each other.
• I let my big sisters feed me. Lauren's a great cook; Kel's a great cookie and cupcake baker and decorator. I've learned that things go best when I don't try to keep up or outdo either of them and instead choose to sit idly by and eat everything their kitchen produces. Don't ask why it took me so long to figure that out.

Oh, and the cherry on top? We're not afraid to ask each other for help. 

Yesterday I called Lauren from the middle of the Target stroller aisle, and she didn't bat an eye. 

Some days, I even have to ask Kel where to find ingredients in the grocery store. And the weird thing is . . . she ALWAYS KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO FIND THEM. 

Everyone should have a sister . . . even two if it's possible. I'm just sorry you can't have mine. Happy birthday, girlies!

Got a sister? Give her a shout-out!

ordering chickens

When I was six, I slipped in a pile of wet chicken poop, and my middle sister Lauren laughed at me.

It was raining, and our seventy-five chickens were in their fenced-in little yard, pecking around in the dirt outside the chicken house. “Get outside,” Mom ordered us. “Run those chickens in.” 

Nobody wants to deal with muddy, wet, sad birds. Nobody. It’s just downright pitiful.

pocket letters

Farming can sometimes seem like a lonely business. There's no Target on the corner, no Starbucks down the street, no mall down the road. 

It's just you, the land, the animals . . . and that random guy from the city who's actually trying to find your neighbor's house but turned onto the wrong gravel road and ended up in your lane instead.

#apronstories, part 1

I'm a strong proponent of the apron.