thankful thursday on monday.

after a long weekend of traveling, blakey & i are incredibly grateful to have friends that will pick up tanky at the kennel on a moment's notice.  i'll spare you all of the details, but after arriving 5 hours late on friday & 4 hours late on sunday... making blakey 3 hours late for work sunday night... i cannot tell you how happy i was to have tank home & snuggling on sunday night.

{tanky & his girlfriend, lola}

amy & ogden picked up tanky from the kennel & let the dogs play play play.  & that means our little man is even more tired than usual.  & that means we have a very sleepy puppy on our hands for about two days.  sleepy tanky is my favorite.

{tanky making himself at home.

on the couch that dogs are not allowed on.}

amy & ogden - you two are awesome.  we could not have asked for better friends.  thank you so much!!

& thankful to be home safely after a fabulous weekend in oklahoma with a fabulous wedding, which i will tell you all about this week.

love love,
kjp.

thankful thursday - a place to worship & serve & belong.

i am really thankful for our church home in alabama.  blakey & i have been attending trinity umc for, oh, a year & a half now.  we started our journey with the contemporary service on sundays.  & then we joined a young married adults group, where we have met some awesome people & have grown so much in our marriage.  & now i have finally found a way to serve.

remember many months ago when i told you about my new year's resolution to do service at least once a month?  big fat fail.  blakey & i did a great habitat day in january.  put together a fun care package in february.  & then nothing.  for 6 months.  i really wanted to find service projects we could do together as a couple.  but, alas, residents are really busy.  so i found something fun to do myself!  & to make up for the six months i missed, i will be volunteering twice a month :)

i am helping serve dinner at our church before wednesday night small groups.  yesterday was my first time & i met two super sweet girls about my age, a lovely grandmother of seven boys, & a lovely gentleman.  it is fun to see all of the kids smiling faces & to have an opportunity to spend an hour thinking about people other than myself.

so so important.

i have certainly missed it.

& i am thankful for the opportunity.

{hey birmy friends - if you have been looking for a chance to serve some adorable kiddos & want to join me in the fun, let me know!  i believe they are looking for a few more volunteers.}

i hope you can think of something today for which you are thankful.

love love,
kjp.

happy mardi gras!!!

down here in the south, mardi gras is huge!

did you know that the first mardi gras celebration was actually in mobile, alabama not new orleans?  yes, sir & ma'am, it was.  there is your new fact for the day.

so we had to celebrate fat tuesday at urban!  & a lovely day of baking it was:

 {beignets!}

 {praline cookies!}

{pronounced PRAH-LEEN in louisiana}

{& devil's food cupcakes!}

{hehe.  i am clever.}

i do hope your lenten penances are going well.

i gave up cussing, which is my usual.  i hit three very early on ash wednesday morning but have done quite well since then.  matthew, my fellow urban-opener, & i have made it a fun game.  on wednesday, we replaced cuss words with celebrity chefs.  "paula deen, it!"  thursday's task was 90s country singers.  "oh, shania twain!" it has been quite humorous.  & does actually make me think before speaking, which was the original goal anyhow.  

happy first week of lent, friends!

love love,

kjp.

day of service #1.

my new year's resolution for 2012 is to make a solid effort to do good. 

last year, my resolution was to be more thankful.  after a full year of consciously thinking about all of our blessings, big & small, i truly recognize that blakey & i have a pretty amazing marriage & home & life.  

so now it's time to focus outside of us & on others.  i'm pretty darn excited about it.

to make it feel like a realistic resolution, we are going to attempt to have a day of service each month.  i honestly have no idea what twelve things we will be doing.  if you have any fun or special volunteer/service/good things you've done, please tell me!  we would really appreciate any ideas.

as with most things in life, you ask God to help & He provides.  so i prayed about our january project & received an email about our church's day of service in january!  {no joke.  that's actually what it was called.  how awesome is that.} 

there were a ton of projects to choose from - some indoor projects, some outdoors, some donating, some creating, some physical, some sedentary.  but one stuck out as exactly what blakey would want to do.  & to get him on board with my resolution, that sounded like the perfect place to begin.

framing walls for a habitat house! 

awesome.  outdoors & manly.  i had no clue what i would do, but let's give it a try.

we were in a group with a few 30something dudes from our church at a habitat house just a few doors down from the one we worked on last year {HERE}.  when we arrived there were only a couple of walls up, so we knew we had a full day ahead of us.

 {building one of the walls}

 {holding up a wall while it was being nailed in}

can you believe an entire house can be framed in a morning??  it blew my mind.  there were three habitat workers, a group of girls from the university of new hampshire, a few fellas from hands on birmingham, the lady who would be purchasing the house, & our group.  & we built a house.  pretty darn cool.

{our framed house at the end of the morning!}

month #1 is a success!  looking forward to where God will lead us.

love love,

kjp.

doing a little habitat

blakey & i have been wanting to get involved & give back to the wonderful birmy community we have come to love.  we truly spent the first year of our marriage focused on the "us" - learning to be married, learning to love each other fully, & growing that husband & wife-ness.  but after a year...& a "good" marriage foundation, if i do say so myself...it is time to be real, productive citizens again.  let's now learn to share us!

habitat for humanity is an organization blakey really respects.  he appreciates the idea of people getting together, getting their hands dirty, & helping people who just need a bit of support.  i have actually never worked with the organization before, so i took his word for it & he signed us up for a few hours this past saturday!

it was a really neat experience.  blakey & i worked with one of the habitat project heads to finish up the painting inside a house that is almost finished.  although it wasn't quite the manly project blakey had hoped for, it was pretty cool to see what the end goal is. 

the houses inside of a whole habitat neighborhood are pretty darn cool.  this one was a three bedroom, two bath with an adorable front yard & curb appeal.  & did you know the families pay for their house?  i had no clue.  they pay for all of the materials but are able to afford it because they don't have to pay for the labor.  volunteers & habitat employees do the work.  really really cool.  & once a family buys a house, they volunteer to help other families.  it was a great sense of community on the street.

we were super grateful to have an afternoon to do something good.  & we look forward to doing it again.  although, i think next time blakey will find a newer project, so he can swing a hammer & drill nails & saw stuff!

it definitely put the big sooner loss in perspective later that evening.  at least we keep reminding ourselves of that :)

hope you had a fabulous weekend.

love love,

kjp.