It’s just as beautiful as I imagined, I thought as I gazed at the scene set before me. Perfectly imperfect white brick buildings protected by mismatched red shingles: Retreat.
I settled into my room and started digging through my swag bag. Flipping through the pages of a beautiful magazine, my sister said “Did you read this page?” Pointing to a long story that I passed over, “I think you should.”
For the past few weeks I have been feeling convicted. Not just a nagging conviction, it’s really been relentless. Pile on persecution in the Middle East, broken peace treaties, thousands fleeing from Ukraine to the borders of Russia with a side of me complaining about having too much stuff, and you’ve got a picture of how I’ve been feeling for the past few months. Through all the house searching and buying, questions of how many bedrooms, bathrooms, porches, even number of kitchens has come up- I’ve considered becoming a minimalist, part of the tiny house movement, a renter, a house flipper, a model home buyer…who knows what all I’ve considered. Because I feel that something is wrong here, like life shouldn’t be all about me or my home.
Update: Unfortunately, Tabitha’s Threads is no longer a ministry that I run. That said, I’m working towards incorporating some sort of sewing ministry into my company in the future. Feel free to browse this post—it’s still my heart. I’m looking forward to the day when I can update this and direct you to a new sewing outreach!
You’ve heard me mention it before, but you might not be quite sure what it is yet. Today I’m going to talk about my other website, Tabitha’s Threads.
Tabitha’s Threads all began with lunch. I was visiting with a friend of mine after church one Sunday. He happened to run a girl’s orphanage and halfway home in Chile. He talked about these beautiful girls as if they were his own children! Intrigued, I asked all about how I could come and see them, help them, play…whatever they needed. He went on to tell me all about it and mentioned that there isn’t any heat. My American brain couldn’t fathom how these people live without heat—honestly, I still don’t get it. But that one comment sparked an idea:
What if, rather than spending thousands of dollars to go there, hang out, help one time, and then leave, I provided the people that are already there with things that they need?
I know … I’ve been there too. Completely inspired by Property Brothers, Income Property, and the handful of other good-looking people on HGTV, I’ve thought to myself I could do that, wait…and I could make $120,000 with one house?! Count me IN! I’ve been around the house flipping business for a few years now and have watched some really huge checks get cut, but I’ve also seen some serious cash and time invested for one or two thousand dollars. It’s hard to curb the home equity bug, but when you don’t have $300,000 to invest on a single home, get inspired to do the next best thing: build equity into your own home! It’s been a struggle in purchasing our first home, trying to balance realistic goals and inspired frenzy. But once I did the research, I was surprised to find that building equity into your home isn’t as fun, or as hard, as I initially thought. Be sure to check out what I found before tearing down walls and gutting the bathroom.
A few weeks ago I made a friend. She’s 9 years old and so much fun! We’ve been eating ice cream, going swimming, and wandering around my house trying to find something to cure the boredom that comes with summer. But then, she spotted it, “You have one of those?! You’re so lucky!”
Somewhat bewildered, I looked around for anything that I possess that could possibly interest a 9 year old and asked, “My sewing machine?”
And so it began.
Ah summer, ah Pinterest… two of my favorite things! Today I want to show you my top pins for summer 2014! Be sure to check out my whole board and follow me on Pinterest to keep the good pins coming! I love the feel and inspiration that comes along with summer. Hopefully these inspire you too.
It’s official! We have moved out of our first apartment. It’s so bittersweet—we are absolutely in love with the Wheaton area and our great community of friends. But we are thrilled to be closer to our growing families. We aren’t quite sure the exact location of our second place, so for now we are staying in southern New Jersey with my in-laws. I’m getting some much needed time off from working, and Steven is picking up my slack and working full time. After leaving, I realized that I never gave you the full tour! So here it is: our first place.
Ah, the joys of first-time home buying…it takes about 5 seconds into the process to figure out that men and women are different. Let’s be clear, men and women are looking for different things when it comes to a home. So, how do we take both into account in the same environment?
With a name like Depression glass, it’s surprising that it is one of my happy things…you know, things that just make you smirk! It might be the memories of countless hours spent with my mom and sister in antique stores, or the pride of continuing my grandmother’s collection, or even the thrill of the hunt—whatever it is, I love collecting Depression glass.
How to use Pinterest…seems pretty straightforward: you look, you love, you do! But it’s not always that easy, and Pinterest has some great features that will make your room, party, or dream home pin-perfect! In this post, I’m going to give you eight suggestions for how to use Pinterest to its full potential.
Though radioactive purple may be a surprise for the Pantone Color of the Year for 2014, Emerald Green, Tangerine Tango, and Turquoise, are just a few of Pantone’s previous choices in the past few years…and they were right about those! Will they be right with yet another unexpected prediction?
