The Myth of Safety

I've been waiting and waiting to post on our first few days in our new home because, truth be told, I'm still processing. On Thursday, March 28th we turned a page in our still newly-married Shaughnessy life and moved into our new home we had so patiently waited for and had been graciously given by the Lord. But that day will also forever be ingrained as a day that rocked us to the core when we awoke to someone aggressively attempting to break into our precious new home on our first night there.

I'll never forget the sound of our doorbell being rung repeatedly, the kicking and pounding on our front door, the echoes of our empty rooms and hallways and the sound of this terribly mistaken man demanding us to come out. I woke up to the doorbell in a panic and immediately shook Ryan awake who quickly called the police. I'll never forget the moment I thought he had broken in and was walking around downstairs and the utter feeling of helplessness as we literally had nothing to defend ourselves with. I was shaking and praying and hiding in a corner, desperately crying out for the Lord to save us. Finally after what felt like eternity, several police officers arrived and we could hear the hum of a helicopter above. They swept our house, inside and out, and concluded that he had gotten away.

Now, almost a week later, we're trying to figure out how to move forward...how to not live in fear, not think every sound our house makes is a replay of that night, reclaim our excitement and joy in our new house and yet not live in naivety. The honest to goodness truth is that nobody ever thinks that something like this will ever happen to you--until it does. We were so fortunate that this guy didn't break anything significant or expensive. Sure we have a significant dent in our door, we need to replace some window screens and a door knocker, but that's all minuscule in comparison to what could've been damaged or taken. But he did take a lot from us: our sense of peace and comfort in our new home.

If anything, the experience has caused me to think a LOT about where my security lies. In those quick moments of fear and defenselessness, we were at the will of whatever this man wanted to do. But even in those moments, we were still under the will of the Lord...and ultimately under his protection. We weren't even supposed to be staying there that night, but due to our electricity cutting out 2 days early at our condo, we packed suitcases and brought the bare minimum until we officially moved in on Saturday. For some reason, the Lord placed us there to experience it that night. His will is perfect. He has a reason for everything.

What has been the biggest help is reminding myself every second of the day the promises and the steadfast truths of our great Protector: He is with me, He is my God, He will strength and help me and He will uphold me (Isaiah 41:10). The truth is we don't know what tomorrow holds (Proverbs 27:1), safety is indeed a myth, and only the Lord truly is our Protector--not walls, not deadbolts, not guns or alarm systems. Even living in a neighborhood known to be extremely safe like we do can't protect us from the unknown. I'm still learning to rest in this reality in light of our safety being shaken. I'm still waiting for peace to fully sink in, to be able to fall asleep soundly and to feel "at home" in our new house. The Lord never said we wouldn't encounter fears, but rather that he will sustain those fears.

Cast your burden on the Lord, 

and he will sustain you; 

he will never permit 

the righteous to be moved. - Psalm 55:22

Let the Moving Begin

So today, our moving process begins! We've been living in a chaotic disorganized condo for the past week and it's been driving me crazy. We've got boxes galore and I haven't bought a good load of groceries in 2 weeks so we've been having interesting dinners to try to have less food to transport to the new house. Which also translates into we haven't been eating very well hah! For example, last night we had perogies and chips and salsa for dinner. As if being a horrible cook wasn't bad enough, I've hit a new low.

For someone who likes order and everything in it's place, there's nothing like literally having everything out of it's place to stress you out! I can't even look at that picture for too long...and that was a few days ago, it's gotten much worse! For sure, the awkward kitchen appliances are the hardest to pack. Like how do you pack a heavy stand mixer? Or the unnecessarily large chip/dip tray? Or the Keurig? I've realized that I've inherited a quality of my father's. And that is being awesome at packing. It's like a giant puzzle/rubiks cube. Which is good because, Ryan is self-admittedly NOT good at packing. He's been filling holes with spackle and packing his books. Books he can handle ;) Gotta love his effort.

My parents and brother are coming and up and are staying as our first house guests this weekend. We'll round out the weekend celebrating Easter with our Harvest family, surrendering our condo keys to our landlord and a big Shaughnessy-Hopper brunch at PJ Skidoos. Hopefully, we'll all still be sane at that point. It's definitely going to be a full weekend and without a doubt a joyful one too!

This weekend we took advantage of a furniture sale and bought ourselves a nice new sectional L-shaped couch...luckily it has to be ordered otherwise we would have no place to put it at the moment! Ryan has always wanted a couch with a chaise to prop his feet up. We also bought some gallons of paint and two ceiling lights to replace some ugly outdated ones. I have a feeling we'll be spending lots of time (and money) at our good friends Lowes and Home Depot. We're excited to get in there and finally roll our sleeves up!

Happy Easter everyone! The tomb is empty!

It's Official! We are Homeowners!

So guys, it's official, we own a house! Last Thursday, we signed lots of papers (I got LOTS of practice with my signature; still trips me up!), met the sellers and were handed the keys. I never in a million years thought we would own a home as early into our lifetime and marriage than now, let alone in the expensive and competitive area we currently live in. We are incredibly grateful and lucky to be homeowners at 23 and 24. I just also have to say how proud I am to be married to Ryan. He handled all of the details, made sure we were both well educated to make good decisions and let me pin things while he handled the nitty gritty details.

Can I just add how cute my husband looks??!

Now, we wait! And pack. We'll be moving in Easter weekend. I'm already finding with the little packing we've done that we have a lot of stuff. It all hides in the kitchen cabinets and drawers, people! We've had several sweet friends offer to help us move and are attempting to move sans moving truck. I have a feeling this will be the last time we do that. I'm anxious to get into the house, start painting and really making it ours. And you know, put my Pinterest board into action! The house doesn't need a ton of work, but there are some minor changes we'd like to make that I think will have big impact!

And while we're still talking about big news and change, just yesterday I put my two weeks in at my current job. For someone who doesn't like change, a lot of change is happening! The job that I almost took around this time last year held onto my name and passed it along to another smaller accounting firm who was looking for someone in marketing. They reached out to me on LinkedIn and over the past month, I've been talking and interviewing with the firm to see if it would be a good fit. After a lot of careful prayer and thought, I decided it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. The best perk is that my commute will essentially stay the same (instead of doubling). Oh and they're right down the road from a Potbelly. Just saying. I'm excited for the fresh start and what's ahead! I see many-a grilled chicken and cheddar with mushroom sandwiches in my future!

Thank you to all of the family and friends who were our prayer warriors, advice-givers and sometimes just a listening ear through the homebuying AND new job process! We feel so supported and loved and couldn't imagine going through life without the awesome support system we have. I can't say enough how blessed we truly feel and how moved we are to see the Lord orchestrating the big and small pieces in our lives.

The Travel Bug

One of our favorite things to do now that we're married is traveling to places we've never been to before, just the two of us. We haven't wasted any time doing some traveling here and there in the Fall and Winter. We've been to New York City, Charleston and Boston within the past three months. But I'm still feeling the travel bug! It's bad when you've just bought a house and don't have the budget for places like Europe or St. Lucia. Sigh.

Doing what we do best: Eating

I have to say, one of my favorites and most memorable trips so far was this year's Valentines Day. Ryan pulled the best Valentine's ever and booked a hotel in DC at the Dupont Circle Hotel for the weekend. He's a keeper! Even though it's practically our backyard, we had so much fun really exploring the city we live in just outside of. As per usual, our whole itinerary revolved on where we were eating. It's proof you don't have to go very far to really "travel". We got to (finally) visit Eastern Market. I've heard so many of our friends rave about this place and now I know why! There are so many adorable vendors and eclectic things people are selling. Of course, now that we're gearing up to move, I'm always looking for fun things we can hang on the walls. We found the "Map Guy" and bought a map from the 1800s of the Amalfi Coast, one of our favorite spots from our honeymoon. I'm excited to hang it up! I already can't wait to go back during the Summer when there are even more vendors/fun things to see! If you ever come up and visit us, we will definitely be taking you to Eastern Market!

On a side-note/house update: We finally have an official move-in date! We'll be moving in at the end of March. So since today officially marks March 1st, we get to say we're moving in THIS month! We're so pumped!

Virginia is for Lovers: DIY String Art

Sometimes Pinterest seems like a sea of endless possibilities when it comes to DIY. When I was planning our wedding, I got severely overwhelmed by the amount of tiny details I could DIY. Sure, I loved the look and the level of personalization but the problem was, I didn't want to actually have to do it. It would have been too time consuming to actually make 21 table numbers in string art. Which is what I initially wanted to do for one of the many projects. I quickly scaled back a lot of things, and even completely nixing some of them. When Pinterest turns you into to a perfectionist-driven bridal breakdown mess, it's time to reevaluate what you're doing.

Now that wedding planning is behind me, I'm tackling some of the projects I didn't get to do on a smaller scale and all home decor-style. I think homemade and personal art always looks 10x better because it really defines your house. I always wanted one of those dark wood string art pictures of Virginia to hang since we met, fell in love and live in Virginia. Sure, I could've bought one off of Etsy for $35+. But really, this was so easy to do, and super therapeutic to make (not to mention did NOT cost $35 to make)! I used a combination of tutorials from different pins and decided there's no real wrong way to do it. 

Supplies: 

-8 x 10 wood canvas (I got this one from Michaels), but really you could use any piece of wood lying around

-1 package of 11/16" linoleum nails (I did have to go Home Depot for these babies, it was worth it) You could use any nail that has a large enough head to keep the string from slipping and where the nail is short and stubby. I had about half of the nails left over.

-Wood stain (I used some leftover wedding stain)

-2+ bundles of embroidery floss in any color you like. It depends on how big your outline is, but I always ere on the side of having too much in case I underestimate.

After staining the wood canvas and letting it dry for a day, I was ready to start nailing. I Googled "outlines of Virginia", found one I liked, and printed it out. That simple. I contemplated for forever whether or not I should attempt to include the peninsulas. The nails would've been too close together and it would've looked like a mess so I decided to stick with the basic outline--aka skipping the peninsulas. I placed my outline right over top of my wood canvas and started nailing away. The tighter (closer together) you make your nails the more accurate the outline will be. This is especially important for complicated outline states (like Virginia). For states like Colorado, South Dakota, Utah, etc. I'm sure you could be a little more liberal with your spacing.

After lots of nailing, I ripped the paper outline off of the wood canvas. Then the fun part-- stringing the floss. I used the random method so that I could get the best coverage. You just simply need to knot the string to your first nail (you can cut the excess if it's too long). I went through about 1 and a half bundles of embroidery floss until it was completely covered.

And voila! I stuck a sawtooth hanger in the back so that we can eventually hang it in our new house! And now I'm wishing we lived in 5 other states so that I could create a collection. I just may do an Italy version to represent our honeymoon since we loved it so much. But that boot looks mighty intimidating!