Saturday Plans

Saturday, I had planned to blog. It was a rainy day, perfect time to reflect over the entire month of April for which I took a relative blog respite. From both this one and the other one. I thought, how clever. May 1st and my last entry was April 1st. Fancy that.

But then, as many of you know, this weekend became something else altogether for all of us here in Middle Tennessee and blogging just seemed superfluous. And not only that, but pretty impossible with power outages, temporary evacuations, and the lack of general interest in anything but checking in with loved ones and watching the news and staying dry.

So, I thought I owed you one. A big one. A blog that would tell you all about the month you heard mum from the Neeleys in which we lived and worked and functioned as normal, traveling to see family, doing yard work, and experiencing another small (in perspective, now) setback of yet another accident.. this time with the new car. But that all seems so minor now.

Here's to May...

Things We're Happy About

Sunshine, Good Weather & A 3-Day Weekend at Home

It seems we can't get enough of this it's September and somedays it feels like October weather. It's fantastic. To walk out of the apartment in the morning and face a chill is quite thrilling. Makes one want to load up on chai lattes, listen to Rosie Thomas (okay, okay, that's just me - Cliff doesn't even know who Rosie Thomas is), and don our best scarves. It makes generally being outside even more enjoyable.

Recent House Developments

Surprise! We've been debating when to break the news to the masses (and by masses we mean all five of you reading this) that there's been a bit of a change on the house front. We have enjoyed and found a great deal of motivation through the House Fund saving process but are now looking a bit more realistically at the reality of what we want in a home, where we want to be, and what the present conditions of everything around us point to.

No, we're not pregnant. No, we don't have house fever. No, we don't plan to live beyond our means. No, we're not doing it just for a tax credit incentive. Yes, we have enough money to make a great down payment on a good home. Yes, we want to stay in Franklin. Yes, staying in Franklin requires considering that the sort of home we want would probably be worth more than $160,000 in 2.5 years. Yes, even interests rates on 15-year fixed mortgages are incredibly low. And yes, we're ready for the responsibility.

And yes, it's been a quick process, largely because we've been fortunate to have all sorts of the right people around us from Cliff's resources at work to real estate agents and mortgage brokers who are on their game. Already we've been pre-approved for the mortgage amount we need for the amount we're planning to spend and have spent (and will continue to spend) part of the weekend roaming about town with our agent looking at homes.

Uh, crazy, I know. There are days where it feels pretty surreal to me, as well. But it feels right. Whether you consider this going back on our word, so be it. Plans change, you know, and sometimes you have to be willing to reconsider goals and opportunities as they present themselves in light of what God is up to.

Being in and Understanding Community

Gosh, we're thankful for our friends. Thankful for the consistency of a night a week to be with men and women who encourage us, challenge us, and share their lives with us. At the same time, we've found ourselves on a bit of a journey in finding a church community to plug back into after slowly feeling distanced from our previous home church. That being said, it has been refreshing to see the Church at work in different church bodies in the area and we're hopeful we'll find a fit here soon.

Uh, What?

Snow in April?

Wow.

On my way to Knoxville for the rest of the day and tomorrow morning.

I could use your prayers!

Not My Typical Sunday Morning

I am writing from home. Window open, birds chirping, countless pages up on my screen about orientation theme development. Not your typical Sunday morning, as of late, but it's beautiful and I am thankful for Cliff's encouragement of me protecting this time.

I am getting ready to leave here in a little bit to spend most of the rest of the day digging deep into a lot of the things we have really been able to get to in orientation planning. There's just something about the annual planning retreat, and unfortunately because of the nature of both the students' and my transition this past fall, we're just now getting around to it this weekend.

So we had dinner last night and walked through group dynamics / processes at Andrew's house for a couple of hours afterwards. Today we'll talk about theme and then plow through Summer Orientation and Welcome Week planning / scheduling / etc. Thank goodness we'll be in the Treehouse (that's what our conference room upstairs in the Beaman is called, because of it's loftiness and proximity to the tree outside the windows lining the room), because it's a beautiful day. I might even get us outside for some of today's work.

I could stand for the weather to stay like this. It's funny thinking about the climate of this past week. Tuesday night we went to our first Preds game of the season (courtesy of one of the Beaman GAs) and it was lightly snowing. Bitter, bitter cold, wind whipping every exposed portion of our bodies... just awful. Thursday night, we were fortunate enough to get two of the Lampo tickets and went back. This time, the weather was just on the cusp of the beautiful day we had Friday and was therefore much milder, far less cold, and just wonderful. It's incredible what can happen in a mere 48 hours in Middle Tennessee, you know?

Anyways, I hope those of you who are local enjoy this beautiful Sunday!

Lucky (Or Maybe Just Ironically Blessed)

To add to the perfect-ness of our recent car purchase, the previous post was necessary.

It gives you a little background. A little idea of how stinkin' cold it is here (than normal) and how stinkin' lucky Cliff is to have a remote start for the new Jeep. Since Tuesday, he's been looking forward to using it, and today was the day.

And wouldn't you know, just last week he had said something like "One day, hunny, when we're rich - I want to buy a car with one of those key fob things that not only lets you lock the car door when your ten steps away but also starts it, as well."

Little did he know we wouldn't have to be rich to get that...

Wowzers, Guys!

The First Snow-el

Man, last night was incredible!

All throughout the day, the forecasts were calling for precipitation but no accumulation of the snow-kind in our area. Sure, they said "south of Nashville" but threw in classifiers such as Tullahoma, Manchester, and a number of places much further south than our own quaint little Franklin.

When I left work early to prepare for last night's Division of Student Affairs annual Christmas party, it was sleeting. When I got out of Publix, where I was picking up my green bean casserole ingrediants, about a quarter inch of sleet had accumulated on my car. When I left the house after cooking for an hour, I stepped out into a winter wonderland, no lie. ACCUMULATION RIGHT HERE IN FRANKLIN. About a half-inch's worth, too!

It's been awhile since we've seen snow like this here and I loved it, even when it took me twenty-five minutes to go all of five miles to Andrew's house for the party. Oh, and an hour for Cliff to go about the same distance except on the craziness that was the interstate. We both had the same mindset. Turn up Mix 92.9 (which has been playing non-stop Christmas music), drive slow and cautious, and enjoy the beauty of this unexpected gift!

We got to the party late, but still managed to get some of the scraps left of everyone's wonderful food they brought as well as much green bean casserole as we can manage (and we still have a half of a huge pan left). Getting out was the hard part, so we just hung out talking and ended up being the last people to leave. The moment we stepped outside, I gasped aloud because it was just so beautiful. By then, the clouds had cleared and an almost full moon was out reflecting off the snow which cast a beautiful blue glow all around. I just wished it had snowed more!

This morning I waited a couple of hours before going in to work because our parking lot was relatively a skating rink. And wouldn't you know, when I finally got up to Nashville there was no snow. What's the deal?

It's December 1st!

And it's SNOWING! Despite the fact that it isn't accumulating, it is so beautiful and rather cheery. It's also the first day of my new job, so that's kind of fun.

We had planned to hit the gym this morning, but a later return home from Cleveland last night called for hitting the snooze. But I still woke up a little earlier than Cliff, opened up the living room curtains to watch the snow, settled into the cozy side of the couch by the reading lamp, and spent some time reading and reflecting on my Advent devotional for the day. I coudln't have imagined a better start to a new month.

I don't think I've ever been this excited on a December 1st. Thank you, Lord.