The Abundant Life Project

Welcome to the new blog, friends! 

I hope you found your way over here pretty easily from the old space.  I've been tinkering over here for so long now that it already feels more like home to me.  Hopefully it soon will to you too!

First things first, if you're a subscriber of posts (meaning you have posts sent to you through email whenever a new one appears), you will need to re-subscribe to this web address.  You will no longer receive updates from Give Everybody Nice Sweaters as new posts will no longer go there.  (But never fear, all the posts from there are over here now too!)

Why The Abundant Life Project?

I'm glad you asked.  :) 

Long time readers probably noticed several months ago that the layout of the old blog got a little wonky.  I'm by no means a techy person so I don't necessarily understand it all, but I think I was using a template that expired (?) and so it automatically switched to a default one that was not so great, to say the least.  It really limited me on what I could do. 

Obviously that had to be addressed. 

Also, I felt like it was time for a change.  It's crazy to think that I started blogging three and half years ago.  At the time, I had no idea if it was something I'd keep doing or not.  While I've definitely had some long...pauses, if you will...during busy times, I'm glad I've kept it up.  This is the scrapbook of our life and I want to be able to share it with our kids someday.  Three and half years is a LONG time when it comes to anything tech-related (would you keep a cell phone that long these days?) so we were definitely due a little upgrade.

I loved Give Everybody Nice Sweaters.  It continues to be one of my very favorite song lyrics.  But I suppose it didn't really make sense to anyone who showed up looking for a free winter wardrobe.  Ha!  Those people were probably very disappointed to see my blog.

So I was ready for a new name and with that, a new look.  I mentioned it to my favorite Tech Support, Matt, and he jumped on board to help me.  But first, he introduced me to Squarespace.  That means nothing at all to you non-bloggers, but it's a new platform that promises to be better all around - from writing posts to uploading (and editing!) pictures and on and on.  Now, normally I don't like learning new technology - I'm perfectly fine staying in the semi-dark ages - but Tech Support Matt made me think I could do this so I got out my credit card and bought in. 

But still, why The Abundant Life Project?

Oh right.  The name.   

Here's the thing: I am so not good with coming up with clever titles.  Nothing rhymes with my name.  There's nothing witty about what I do.  We don't live anywhere unique.  I just really could not come up with anything. 

And Doc?  Well, I love him but he just really wasn't coming up with anything good either.  The best I had come up with was playing off the literal location of our new house and calling the new blog The Corner House.  Turns out, though, that there are already a bunch of corner house blogs out there.  (Just google it!)  I really didn't want to be one of many.  I wanted something a little more unique than that.

Finally, one Sunday morning while we were getting ready for church, I thought I had it.  I was leaning hard towards something like The Family Project that had a tagline along the lines of "from power tools to sewing machines."  I really hadn't figured out the exact wording but it seemed to touch on all the main things I blog about.  There was the Family part, which I definitely ramble on and on about!  And the power tools tied into all of our renovations or restorations or woodshop creations.  The sewing machines is probably the newest main topic on the blog, but I have a feeling it's here to stay a while so it made sense to include it too.   And the word "project?"  Well, I cannot tell you how many times I'm asked "What project are you working on now?"  People who know me know I've always got something in the works.  I'm just living from project to project.

Later that same morning, while sitting in church mulling over how I would exactly word everything, our preacher started talking about living abundantly.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

— John 10:10

Hmmm...now that's food for thought.  Isn't one of my biggest projects to make sure I live abundantly?  Doc and I talked about it and we think characteristics of living abundantly include being generous, caring, thoughtful, happy, forgiving, and, as Doc put it, being the sunshine on someone's rainy day.  Y'all, that's something I can get behind.  That's what I want to be. 

I was torn.  Do I go with the name I'd been brainstorming all morning, or focus more on this idea from church and call the new blog something like Living Abundantly?  I had no idea.  I texted Tech Support Matt to see what he thought and, because he is a genius with all things creative and brand-y and design-y, he suggested smashing the two names together.   

And that's how The Abundant Life Project was born.   It helped that the domain was available for purchase too.  :)

So yay!  New space!  New name!  I hope you like it.  I promise I won't disappear for so long again.

Now, it's not quite perfect yet.  I'm still learning how it all works - it's COMPLETELY different from wordpress - so bear with me if things get wonky occasionally.  I can be a slow learner and sometime technology makes me want to cry.  But I'm trying my best here!

Oh!  Before I wrap this up, I'd love your thoughts and opinions.  What do you think of the new space?  Love it or hate it?  Have a better name idea?  (I suppose it's not too late to change it again...)  Something missing that you'd like to see?  Font too small?  Too light?  Pictures too big or too small?  Please leave me a comment!  Actually, even if you don't really have anything to say, leave a comment anyway...I haven't really tested to see how those work yet.  Lemme know if it's easy or hard to do. 

After you comment, be sure to check out the test posts I did.  There's a super yummy and easy recipe for you, an update on our never-ending rental house saga, and some fun pictures of my favorite little girl! 

Once again, welcome to The Abundant Life Project!!  Glad to have you here.  :) 

Fun fact: While writing this post, I typed the word "abundant" wrong every. single. time. and had to backspace to correct it.  I may have chosen poorly on this new name... 

Fun fact #2: My husband's real name is Matt (but no, not Tech Support Matt).  I think I'll call him that from now on.  :) 

Rental House Update

It's been a while since the ceiling fell in at our old house.  Almost three months, I think.  And, thankfully, a lot has happened in those three months.  The condition of the house is much, much better, but it got a lot worse first.

When we last talked, I showed you these sad pictures of our living room with no ceiling.  

Before we left on our beach vacation, we had lots of choices to make.  The extent of the damage was so great that nearly everything in the house had to be replaced.  Not wanting to hold up any renovation progress, we quickly selected hard woods, carpet, tile, paint colors, light fixtures, vanity, and who knows what else.  For the most part, we stuck with what was already there. 

Mid-summer, we visited the house to check on the progress and saw that LOTS of demo had taken place.  While the ceiling had already been patched and looked much better, everything else had been torn out.  Gone was the upstairs carpet, all the hardwoods, bathroom fixtures, and window blinds.  When our contractor removed the hardwood floors, they found standing water on the foundation so they had to wait a week for it to dry out and then had to let the new wood acclimate inside the house.  Talk about a long drawn out process! 

We stopped by a few weeks later to see that the new hardwoods were in and the thin set was drying in the master bath.  The new chandelier was also hanging in the dining room.

Work continued until finally, about two weeks ago, we visited the house one last time before our tenant was set to move in the next day.  The new carpet had been installed; the new hardwoods were in; the master bath had been tiled; and new light fixtures were in.  All the walls had a fresh coat of paint.  We learned that they also had to re-tile around our fireplace, and that was finished.  While there was still a lot of cleaning up and finishing touches left to do - including hooking up bathroom fixtures and setting kitchen appliances back in place - it was finally starting to look like a real house again!

Practically a brand new house!!

So that was the last time we saw our house.  The sealer was going to be applied to the stairs and banisters later that same afternoon and then our tenant would move in the next morning.  A terrible situation was coming to an end. 

If only it had all ended there.  What we know now is that the new vanity in the master bathroom is four inches too short.  Grrrr.  And it was custom made so a new one had to be re-ordered.  Thankfully, it's set to go in this Friday.  Also, the tenant complained of the master shower leaking.  Grrrr again.  Luckily this is a fairly easy fix with some re-caulking.  So, fingers crossed, by the weekend the house repairs will be D-O-N-E. 

But we all know the landlord fun never ends, right?   

We received a formal complaint from our HOA this week about the noise and parties that go on at our house.  Apparently, our tenant likes to party hard and, as the email sent by a neighbor said, is turning our house into a fraternity house.  Parties go on until the wee hours of the morning and the party-goers litter our neighbors' yards with cigarette butts and vomit.  Awesome.   

Our management company is working on the situation and giving some kind of "cease and desist" letter to the tenant.  If he doesn't clean up his act, he'll get the boot.  It's possible that less than a month after our first major landlord renovation, we'll get to serve our first eviction notice!

Ay, yi, yi.  When does it ever end? 

30 for 30

Long before my birthday arrived, Doc and I started talking about what we wanted to do to celebrate it.  It was a big year (30!) and so Doc wanted to make sure we did something more than just a dinner out.  As you already know, we ended up ringing in my birthday while on vacation in Puerto Rico, but I wanted to do more than that.  We talked through some different ideas and decided that to celebrate my thirty years of life, we would do embark on a challenge to do thirty random acts of kindness.  At the time, I had no idea this was a whole trend.  If you do a google search on "Random Acts of Kindness" you'll find loads of websites where people have done this same thing for various reasons. 

The plan was to knock out our 30 acts of kindness before we left on vacation, but time just did not allow.  So we started right after we got back and spent about a month completing the list.  I don't have pictures of everything we did, but I have quite a few.  We ended up not doing thirty different acts, but instead focused on effecting thirty different people.  That means some "acts" could be counted more than once since they hopefully brought a smile to more than one person.

1.  My mom and I were getting lunch at Wendy's and decided to pay for the order of the person behind us in the drive-thru line.  The cashier actually ended up running up to our window where we were picking up our food to tell us how excited and thankful the girls behind us were after getting our note.

2.  I left a dollar on a vending machine at work so someone could have a treat on me.  (Could argue that this could've gone to four people since everything in our vending machines just costs a quarter!)

3.  Doc's assistant at work was heading out of town with friends, so he gave her enough money to buy a round of drinks for the group while they were on vacation.

4.  I nearly swerved off the road one day while I was gazing at the most beautiful tulips in a flower bed.  I ended up turning around to leave a note in the mailbox telling the homeowner that I loved admiring them.

5.  You know those websites that offer services for free?  You know, the ones that you always go to and maybe at the bottom or off to the side they say something like "This website is run by volunteers.  Please consider donating so we can keep it free!"  Yea, I always ignore that little message.  But one day I stopped and donated on a website I use to resize photos so that it can continue to be free.

6.  What little kid doesn't love getting something out of the toy/candy machine?  I put a quarter in every slot of this bank of machines.  Hopefully more than one kid was able to get something!

7. For Easter, we (I mean, the "Easter Bunny") got Wyatt a pair of tickets to a basketball game for a boys' night with his dad.  Doc ended up getting much better tickets through his work so, rather than selling the original tickets we'd already purchased, Doc gave them away the night of the game.

8. At the same game as mentioned above, Doc and Wyatt were sitting in an area where wait service brought food and drinks.  Doc bought drinks and snacks for the other people in his row, who ended up being friends of a coworker but not actually people he knew. 

9. through 12.  One night Doc and I had to go to the church for handbell practice.  It was on a Monday so I decided to leave "Happies" on the cars in the parking lot.  I knew it would be a small crowd so there were only four other cars besides ours.  On each car I left a bag of candy with a note that said "Mondays are bad.  Hope this treat makes yours better!"  (I left one on our own car too so we didn't look suspicious.)  Later that night, I checked facebook and saw that one of the girls from handbells had this as her status update: "I had a random act of kindness on my car after handbells that completely turned my crabby mood around. Such a little thing can make such a difference. I will pay it forward tomorrow!! Thank you stranger!"

13.  We had a nice dinner out with friends one Saturday night and Doc and I had several gift cards we planned on using.  Rather than using them all up, I asked the waitor to bring us back $50 on a gift card.  Before leaving the restaurant, we picked a couple to give the gift card to.

14. through 16.  I left popcorn on three Redbox machines.  Who doesn't love popcorn with their movie?

17.  Also on a Monday, I left a candy bar with a note in a random neighbor's mailbox.  I know getting a candy bar after a long day at work would definitely brighten my day!

18.  Very similar to the one above, I left a treat in our own mailbox for our mailperson to find.

19. and 20. I placed two $5 Starbucks gift cards on two random cars in my work parking lot.

21. and 22. I had two more $5 Starbucks cards so one afternoon while I was in my old neighborhood, I stopped by the mailbox area of my old apartments and dropped them off in two random mail slots.

23. Rather than just throwing it away, I left my magazine (with a note) in the pocket of my airplane seat so that the next passenger could flip through it.  (I hope it was a girl that enjoys celebrity gossip like I do!)

24.  I had lunch one afternoon with a couple friends and their babies.  There were three small babies at our table and even though they were actually really well behaved, I decided to pick up the check for the couple seated pretty close to us.

25.  Doc was planning on buying a coworker's lunch one day and a stranger ended up getting in line between the two of them.  He decided to just buy that man's lunch too.

26.  We had a lot of extra candy after Easter so I took a bag of it to work and left it in a conference room with a note.  Candy always makes meetings better.

27.  While pumping gas one day, a man approached Doc with somewhat of a sob story about how he needed to get his son's truck home and had just spent all of his money on a new tire.  Doc gave him $20 for gas money so he could get home.  Later, when Doc told me about it, he was worried he may have gotten scammed.  I told him not to worry, that he did the right thing.  Sometimes you just have to give people the benefit of the doubt and do what you know to be the right thing. 

28.  I recently found a blog through Facebook that I'd never stumbled upon before.  I spent an hour clicking through posts and fighting back tears as this woman had just lost her 5 1/2 year old little boy.  She and her husband have gone through more than any one couple should ever have to, and yet the words on her blog are so eloquent and uplifting.  I don't know her, and she certainly doesn't know me, but I made two donations to organizations in memory of her sweet little boy.

29. and 30.  Do you love getting snail mail as much as I do?  I picked up these two "just because" cards and put them in the mail to two friends I hadn't talked to in a while.  So easy!  Why don't I do that more often?

So here's what I learned from this little challenge:

• Being kind to others makes you feel good.  Like, really good.  In most instances, I didn't get to see the recipient's reaction, but in the few times that I did, I loved it.  It made MY day better to do something to brighten someone else's day.
• Most of our kindness acts revolve around money or paying for something, but that doesn't have to be the case.  I thought of several ideas that would be free, but time (and weather) just didn't allow them to work.  For instance, you could mow a neighbor's yard while mowing your own, walk someone's dog, sit with a newborn so the mom can shower or nap, etc. 
• There were several kind things we did during this time period that I didn't include on the list because they were things we would do normally.  Things like taking a meal to new parents, holding doors open, passing outgrown diapers on to a friend's baby, etc.  I wanted this list of 30 to be things that we had to think about or go out of our way to do, things that took us out of our normal routine.
• Sometimes, it's hard to put yourself in a situation to perform a kind act.  I tried to hard to pump someone's gas, but no one ever pulled up while I was there!  Same with sharing an umbrella with someone - there wasn't anyone in need on the rainy day I was out and about.  When I wanted to pay for someone behind me in the drive-thru line, I had to wait for someone to come along.  I guess sometimes you just have to keep your eyes open and let the opportunity for kindness find you.  If you're trying to will it to happen, it won't.

I'm glad I took this challenge and hope that it's something I continue to do on a regular basis.  Doing something for someone else will never dampen my day, so why wouldn't I do it any chance I got?  And after the events of last week, I think this world could use a lot more kindness. 

What about you?  Done anything exceptionally kind for someone lately?  If you haven't, maybe you should!  Tell me about it in the comments.

Stitch Fixed!

Warning: Everything about this is going to sound like a sponsored post, but I assure you it is not.  I just really like this idea and thought you guys might like it too! Have you heard of Stitch Fix?  I had not until a coworker told me about it around a month ago.  She had signed up for it and told me about and I was hooked in about 5 minutes or less.

Here's how it works: First you sign up and fill out a very in-depth style profile (takes about 10 minutes maybe).  They ask all kinds of questions to figure out what you like, what your body shape is, what you like to show off, and how much you want to spend.  I don't think they miss anything. 

The next step is the hardest - you just have to wait.  After filling out your profile, you have to wait for an email saying you can schedule your first "fix."  It took one coworker 2 weeks before she got her email; I think it was 2.5 weeks for me. 

But once you finally get that email, that's when the fun begins!  You log on to your account and schedule when you want your fix to arrive and you pay $20.  So what's the "fix" that's going to arrive?  Glad you asked.  It's a box of five different style items that a designer hand picks specifically for you based on how you filled out your style profile.  It can be anything from pants to dresses to jewelry to scarves.  (Of course, you can use your profile to opt out of receiving things you don't want.  I said no outerwear, no jewelry, and no silk.)  So basically someone is shopping for you and you never have to leave the house!

Is it all yours to keep?  Sorta!  The fix arrives with an invoice listing the price of each item.  You can keep as many or as little as you like.  The $20 that you paid to schedule the fix gets applied to your total, and if you choose to keep all 5 items, you get 25% off the total.  The downside is that if you send back all five items, you lose your initial $20.  It does not roll over to the your next fix.

Ok, enough chit-chat!  Let's talk about my first fix.  I scheduled it to arrive last Monday and it was like my own little Christmas party!  I love getting packages in the mail. :)

First glance of my five items.

The first thing I pulled out was a really long silver necklace.  (I apologize in advance for the really crappy pictures...I was too excited to care about decent photos.)  It could be doubled for a long necklace or even tripled for a shorter one.  I liked it, but wasn't really sure I liked it enough for it's $45 price tag.

Next item: a super soft white tank with a mesh trim around the neck and arms.  I loved this because I could wear a white tank every day in the summer.  I always buy tons of colored shorts, capris, skirts, and pants and just need a white shirt to throw on with them.  This would have been perfect, but the fit was not good on me.  It was way too wide.  Major bummer.

Oh, each item in your fix box comes with a card to show you two ways to wear it.  This is awesome for someone like me who usually needs a good visual to know how to wear something!

Next item up was this bright blue racerback tank with gold buttons.  I should've taken a picture of the back because it was super cute. 

One of the pictures on the style card showed it with polka dotted denim pants, and I actually have some of those so I was excited!  In the end, the fit was not the best and I really didn't think I'd wear it much (I usually avoid strapless bras at all cost).  Doc didn't think it looked like me at all either, so I passed on this.

Fourth item out of the box: orange skinny capris.  Love!  Definitely my style!  But definitely did not fit. :(  They were technically my size, but this brand must run really, really small because I could not even get them zipped.  Either that or I'm in major denial about what my size really is.

The last item out of the box was a plum maxi dress.  With pockets!  I love a dress with pockets!  This fit great, except that I was too tall for it to look good.  I think maxi dresses should go to the floor, at least the top of your feet.  But with my long legs, my ankles were showing!

(Note: obviously my style is slightly boring and I really like solid colors.  Your box would be totally different because it would be tailored to you!)

At the bottom of the box was a pre-paid envelope so that I could drop the items that I wasn't keeping back in the mail.  Your return package must be postmarked by three days after your fix's delivery date, so you can't think about it for long!  But the pre-paid envelope makes it super easy to make the return.

This is the envelope that contained all my prices.  I was really torn because I wasn't SOLD on any one item, but I really didn't want to lose my initial $20.  What to do??!

After discussing with the hubs, I decided I was going to return it all.  Losing the $20 was better than spending even more money on something I might not wear. 

So here's how the rest of the process works: After deciding what you're keeping and what you're sending back, you log on to your account so you can checkout.  You're able to check which items you're keeping and just pay for them.  Obviously if they don't receive the other items back they'll just charge your card. 

While checking out, you also get to rate all the items in your box.  This is the part that still gave me hope that this is an awesome idea.  I rated all of my items as really being my style, but described the fit on each one of them and what I liked or didn't like about them.  I also went back to my style profile to tweak it a little (I don't want to receive jewelry anymore).  My next fix is scheduled to arrive next Thursday and I can hardly wait!

BUT - all was not lost with this fix!  Like I mentioned earlier, I have a couple coworkers who have signed up too, and one of them received her box the same day I received mine.  We had agreed to bring them to work so that we could show off what we received.  Turns out, she wasn't keeping everything in her box, and I really liked two of her shirts so I kept them!  She just checked out like she was keeping them and I paid her back.  (I also left a comment in my checkout form that I was keeping two of her shirts so that my stylist would know that I liked them and that the fit was good.)

I kept this button-up shirt, which I think will be great for work this summer.  (Much cuter in person than this photo.)

And this flowy navy striped shirt.  It's really cute on and I'm hoping my racerback bra will work with it so I can continue to avoid wearing a strapless one. :)

 So, anybody else wanna sign up to have someone else shop for you?  Here's where I shamelessly plug that if you do wanna sign up, you should use this link so that I get a referral credit.  Mama likes free money! :)

Questions about the process?  Hit me up in the comments.

Here We Go Again!

Many of you already know this, but our big kids - Wyatt and Anna - are just one year apart.  Well, one year and two weeks, to be exact.  I've asked Doc about this many times.  "How in the world could you have two kids so close together in age?  That's like having a baby while your baby is still a baby!"

And he always kindly tells me that while it wasn't necessarily their plan to have a second child so quickly, it was most definitely God's plan for them.  Can't argue with that.

Except that I usually still add, "Well I'd love for us to have kids close together in age, just not that close."

But, you know...

...history tends to repeat itself.

So here we go again!

Oh hey, one more thing: be sure to check the date this was posted, mkay? :)