Step 1: Receive awesome picture frame as wedding present. (With a special meaning to you… totally unbeknownst to the gift giver… see story below)

Step 2: Approximately 2 months later find perfect location to place afore mentioned awesome picture frame. See this picture posted from November of last year? Yeah… picture frame is up with the standard black and white picture that was included.

Or two weeks ago when I posted about our garland in the bonus room:

3. Wait 2 months, need to order some pictures for a shower you are hosting,  and decide to add on a picture to put in this frame you have been nicely displaying of two total strangers.  Choose a picture and wait for the mail to arrive.

4. 3 days later, get mail, hurriedly open the package because you can’t wait to see your pictures. Set pictures on counter.

5. A week later get tired of moving the pictures around the kitchen counter where they won’t get bent or spilled on and add them to the pile at the bottom of the stairs to take up next time you go (which you rarely do because you are really in a hurry every time you run up and down the stairs).

6. Take picture upstairs and set it in front of the picture frame to ensure it looks good.

7. Leave it this way for 5 months because for the life of you, you can’t remember to bring a screwdriver upstairs to unscrew the plastic covering to put your picture in… despite the fact that you had AT LEAST 2 screwdrivers strewn all over the floor in front of this shelf the entire time you redid the laundry room. 

8. And there you have it folks… your 1+ year process of putting up a picture frame… courtesy of yours truly.

This is a totally true story. I was talking to a couple of my good friends about this blog and specifically the never-ending to do list of owning a home in general. And how everyone has those things that they walk by in the house a million times and they just never seem to get done.  This is a lot of how my spring has gone… And now we are venturing towards the halfway mark of the year and I’m not sure where the time has gone, or when I’ll catch my breath. (I’m sure never…) But its a great life, and I am grateful for all of the busyness that fills my days… even when (and maybe especially when) it takes me a year to put a simple picture in a simple frame.

And speaking of that frame, this frame has a story.  It was a wedding gift from a great couple in our church. I’m fairly certain they don’t even know how special this frame is to me. We opened it after we got back from our honeymoon, and I couldn’t believe the phrase on it: All my love, all my life.  You see… I have the greatest parents in the world.  And they have always shown me what it is like to truly love someone, how to be excellent parents, great friends and to love and serve others first. I have always been grateful to have been shown what an excellent marriage looks like. Yes they fight and get upset, but they love, REALLY LOVE each other. One of the things they have always said to each other is AML AML: all my love, all my life.  It is something I grew up hearing them say, write on gifts to each other and knew it was one of the ways in which they told each other they loved the other person.  I have never heard it anywhere else until I saw this present.

It was such a beautiful gift to be able to think about their life together and love for each other as my husband and I are starting our journey together, even if it did take a year to be finalized. But maybe that’s the point… we will love each other always, through the ups and downs, the busys and the not so busys, all my love, all my life.