Meet the Shaneyfelts

The Blog-tember Challenge: Day 4

Day 4: What are you passionate about?

I linked up Wednesday with my days 1 and 2 combined post and loved participating in this challenge!  It’s really a great idea and I’ve loved being able to connect with new bloggers that I’ve never read before.  And I love today’s prompt.  When I find something that I love and am passionate about, I give my all.  It’s in my nature.  Sometimes I over-extend myself because I love so many things, and right now I feel like I’m in a season where I’ve over-extended myself.  And I’m working on finding the balance.  I know this is just a season in my life, but it’s hard to see past the stress.  Okay, rant over and now onto the things I’m passionate about!

1. The Lord--I became a Christian when I was 13 and my relationship with God really grew during my college years.  I can thank my college church, Baptist Campus Ministry, and my BFF/roommate Janie for the constant accountability.  My quiet time deepened this summer after reading Don Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.  I’m constantly humbled each time I learn something new about The Lord and His extreme love for me.  Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  This is a verse I try to constantly remind myself of, and I strive to glorify God in every single thing that I do.

2. My family–Now that Dustin and I are our own little family, I’m so passionate about us glorifying God in our marriage.  I know we fail at that a lot, but God shows us so much grace that we strive to show each other that same grace and mercy.

3. Making our house a home–We just built our first home and I’m having the best time decorating it!  I plan on decorating it for fall this weekend–it’s September, so it’s practically fall to me haha!

4. Reading–I LOVE reading so much!  It’s such a huge passion of mine that I’m getting my master’s degree in library media.  Unfortunately, because I’m in grad school right now, I have very little time to read for fun.  And if I do pick up a book to read leisurely, it takes me so long to finish….think a month per book which is so not like me.

5. the Abide Women’s Ministry at my church–We are in year 2 of our women’s ministry at church and I’ve been so encourage by what God is doing in the hearts of the ladies at my church.  I pray that these ladies will be transformed by the Gospel and will hunger to know Him more.  I also pray this for myself.

6. My friends–I feel like this is such a given, but I had to put it!  Now that I’m an adult, some of my friends don’t live close to me anymore.  We really have to schedule our time together and don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like.

7. Baking–Yes!!!  I love baking.  Literally, if I’m stressed out or had a bad day, I will bake something.  It’s not the eating part that eases my stress, it’s the baking.

8. Blogging–Next month will be my one year anniversary of blogging and I didn’t know I would love it as much as I do.  It’s such an uplifting and encouraging community and I’ve made some great friends!  I can’t wait to re-do my blog next month in honor of my one year blog-iversary 🙂

To see my Day 1 and 2, click here.

The 2015 Blog-tember Challenge: Days 1 and 2

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who looked at–and even commented on–yesterday’s post!  I really love these house tours because I really love looking into people’s homes and observing how they’ve worked to make it a home.  I know that may sound weird but it’s so fascinating to me and I’m so appreciative that people have allowed me to come into their homes!  Check back the first Tuesday in October because I already have the next home lined up and I am so excited to blog about it.
I’m so excited to be participating in this year’s Blog-tember Challenge!  I kept up with it last year (I didn’t have a blog last September–just read them!) and had forgotten all about it until I read my friend Victoria’s blog yesterday.  So here’s Days 1 and 2.  I’ll try to do as many as I can, but….grad school 🙁

Day 1: Introduce Yourself!

Hey, y’all!  My name is Sarah and I’m from a small town in Alabama.  I’ve lived here my whole life except for the four years I moved away to college, and I still stayed within the state–Roll Tide!

I used to be really overweight (think size 16 getting tight) until I started Weight Watchers and lost the first 35 lbs.  I then used what WW had taught me to lose the rest–which was a total of over 50 lbs!!  That moved me to a size 10 (and sometimes 8).  
This is a before and after of me right after I reached my goal weight.
 I’ve actually gained 10 lbs back (see why below) but I’m still in a size 10.  I’m working on losing the weight in a healthy way and still loving my body.

I got married a year ago to the best guy I know, and we just celebrated our one year on July 26th!  He’s the most patient and fun-loving guy I know!

And he’s the best dancer!

We just finished building our first house and moved in last month.  We have loved learning how to be homeowners and I’ve learned that I’ll be filling this house up little by little.

I’m a seventh grade English teacher and my husband works in carbon fiber.  I enjoy baking and cooking–mostly baking–and reading, decorating for holidays, reality TV, and being with friends.  I also am a small group leader in the Abide Women’s Ministry at my church, and I have been rejoicing at the work the Lord has done the past year in the hearts of the women at my church!  I strive to glorify God each day in all that I do and think.  I’m so glad you stopped by!


Day 2: Describe your ideal day.  Where would you go and what would you do?

My answer for this may be a little biased since I just halfway finished a grad school assignment, but as of right now, my ideal day would be doing nothing!  Teaching full time and being a full time graduate student has really influenced this answer! haha!

I would wake up whenever I wanted and have the day free to do as I please–that means if I wanted to watch The Today Show all morning I could.  Or if I wanted to go to the mall, then I could.  Oh, and my ideal day would also include supper out so I didn’t have to be home at a certain time to get supper started.  

Is there anyone else feeling like that right now??

House Tour Tuesday–September 2015

Happy first day of September!  Last month’s House Tour Tuesday was so much fun to do, so  I’m bringing you another one!  (I will be posting a house tour every 1-2 months.)

This month we are touring my sister, Rachel’s, home.  She and her husband are in a unique situation in that they are renting a home.  If you’ve ever rented, you know how hard it is to put your own stamp on something that you can’t change–I know, Dustin and I rented the first 11 months of our marriage.  But Rachel has done a great job making this house a home for her and Nick–and she was fortunate enough to be able to paint some too….that helps a ton!  Let’s tour Rachel’s home!

The front door–love her fall wreath!

This is what you see as soon as you step through the front door.  The house they are renting was built in the 1950s and this entire room has the real wood paneling.

Kitchen/laundry
Since Rachel couldn’t paint the wood paneling, she painted the cabinets to brighten the room up.  I would have painted them a creamy white (because I’m so obsessed with white) but Rachel did great adding her own touch!

I bought her this tea towel from Anthropologie!

Living Room

My brother-in-law, Nick, paints really well and he painted this for Rachel for Christmas one year.  She had this picture from a calendar and he looked at it and recreated it!

Guest bedroom

Office

Master bedroom

I love this deer in her bedroom!

Screened in porch–you can see that Rachel loves color!

I debated about putting this in this post since you can see my post-gym reflection, but this shows how organized Rachel is!  She used to have this calendar at home and posted everything on it.  If I wanted to know if Rachel was free on a certain day, I just checked the calendar.  She’s transitioned it into her marriage haha!

I forgot to post this earlier of the sink.  It’s original to the house.

Bathroom

1.  What’s your favorite thing about your house?

The character and how we have made it ours. Before Nick’s dad died, his parents bought this rental house and the land on it so we would have a place to live once we got married. It’s special to Nick to live here on his parents land. It’s a very old house and doesn’t have very much lighting though. The living room–which we made into our master bedroom–has nothing but wall outlets. We have three lamps in there right now. Having the patio entrance with the large doors is great lighting during the day. And our living room that used to be just the dining room is the same way. We’ve put two lamps in and just keep the windows open during the day.
2. If you were to build again, what is something that you would do differently?
We have already been talking about how much we need more and bigger closets and a larger bathroom (and more of those too). We share one very small bathroom right now, and Nick has a pop-up closet in our office since all of my clothes are in our bedroom closet.
3. What’s your favorite memory that you have made in your house?
When we first started fixing up our house, there was a distinct smell that was present. It was a stressful time because there was lots of cleaning, painting, cleaning, wedding planning, and cleaning some more. The other night we were in our bedroom and Nick said, “It smells just like when we first moved in right now.” We talked about how far we’ve come with the house and how much it feels like home now, and we are very happy in it together.
4. Any plans for your house in the future? 
We’re starting to save money to build. We would knock down the current house we live in and build right on top of it. It’s a perfect location–back off in the woods where you can’t hear the road but close enough to town. We love this land. We also like our air conditioning units. They’re ugly, but they are very eco friendly and have saved us lots of money.  So we will probably be using something like that once we build.
5. What’s your favorite store to shop for home décor?
Anything on sale! I don’t think we have anything brand new other than my Lay Z Boy recliner (which I got on sale). Our couch and love seat were a gift from a friend. Our bedroom furniture were passed down 1970’s furniture that I painted with chalk paint. Our coffee table was listed for $150 at a furniture store and I talked the guy down to $80 if I took it home that day. I drove a convertible at the time and it was 59 degrees.  I put the top down and looked like a redneck driving home, but I saved us some money! Anything to save the newlyweds money!