I meant to have this ready to post last Friday (which was his actual birthday) but in the busy-ness of preparing for a vacation I didn’t get it done, but I feel like my dad has taught me so many important lessons, I hated to pass up the opportunity to share what I have learned from my dad with you guys.

He turned 60 on May 23rd and to celebrate we all went scuba diving in the Bahamas.  (I’ll recap that trip later this week)  As our gift my brothers and I put together a book for Dad of pictures throughout the years and ended it with letters telling him what we learned from him over the years.  And since I think my dad is a great role model for how to be a dad, I’m sharing that letter with you:

Dad,

As I am thinking about your 60 years and the legacy that you have taught each of your children, I am overwhelmed by the amount of love and grace you were able to pour out onto us over our 30ish years of life.  As I watch my friends start their own parenthood journey and begin to struggle through how to raise someone up in this crazy world, I can’t help but to feel extraordinarily blessed by having you as a father.  I find myself over and over giving parenting advice to others because you and Mom were brilliant in many of the ways in which you raised us.  When I think about the lessons you taught us, I can’t possibly list them all, but some of the ones which have impacted me the most, I’ll list here.

You taught us to care about the world. As we work with youth and other young adults, it is very clear to me that this has not necessarily been standard practice among others.  The world teaches people to care deeply about themselves, to protect what they are and what they own at all costs, but you and Mom taught us to care more about others and to seek out those who need help: Christmas caroling to the elderly, taking care of the sick, or just being there for the lonely.  And although that is of upmost importance, you also taught us to care about the world as a whole: to dedicate ourselves to public service, to care for the environment and conserve energy (you’ll be proud to know I almost always turn off all the lights when I leave the house), to fight for a better world in whatever career path we chose.

You taught us to think. It is so easy sometimes to coast through life, to do just enough to get by, but growing up, that was never enough.  Your expectations for us were set so high, it felt impossible to achieve on our own, but that was the beauty of it.  We were never alone. I remember night after night you sitting by my side teaching me math or science and always telling me IBIY- I Believe in You. Even as an adult when I struggle with difficulties at work, you are the one sitting next to me, helping me brainstorm or work on problems, and still telling me that you believe in me, even when I didn’t believe in me. It still means the world to me. I hope one day my children know how much I believe in them, even when they don’t believe in themselves.

You taught us to be generous in every way: with our time, our money and our grace.  I am in awe at the way in which you and Mom seem to be able to impact the world around you by giving of yourselves over and over again.  Some of my favorite memories are of deciding where to donate money at the end of the year hovering around the dining table, knowing that that money would go to help others.  But I also remember bagging groceries with you at CCA and working on mission trips side by side with you.  But you were also generous with your grace, you forgave easily and always told us over and over that we were loved.  And not just us, you loved everyone and treated everyone with respect.  That is not always an easy thing to do, and it is a legacy to which I hope I can live up to.

But most of all, you taught us to love God and to participate in his mission. You showed me day in and day out what a Godly life looked like.  I’ve realized how vital that is and how grateful I am for such an excellent role model.  Life is far from easy or perfect, but I am blessed to have had you as an example of how to do it gracefully.

I love you more than words can possibly say.

IBIY,

MJ

My house is the topic of most of the conversations here on the blog and so I got to thinking… If I were to purchase a house again, what would I do differently?  And since I like sharing everything with you guys… I’m posting about it!

I bought my house 3 years ago now, so I feel like I’ve had enough time to really settle into it and figure out what works for me and what I would prefer to have a little differently.  But before we jump into that a couple of clarifications: 1. I really love our house 2. I hate moving, so that won’t be happening anytime soon.

Things I would do differently:

1. A garage with a little more ‘breathing room’.   Our garage is barely big enough for two cars with no extra space on either side… like not even enough room to have our trash/recycle cans in the garage at the same time as both cars. Which means this is what it looks like MOST of the time.

Projects in progress, extraneous stuff, and tools.  Want to pin that image above don’t you?? So if I had to do it again, I definitely want a garage with a bit of extra feet on the side for storage, tools, etc.  Mostly so that the husband would be able to park his car in the garage once in a blue moon.

2. An open floor plan: I love to throw parties at my house, but like most parties, people congregate in the kitchen and in my kitchen there is a massive bottleneck between the kitchen and the living room through the hallway. If I were to do it again, I would love to have a kitchen that is more connected to the living space.

3. Mudroom- I love seeing posts on Pinterest like this and this and I am so envious of having a beautiful place to drop work bags, shoes, etc.  We come in the garage door most of the time, and it comes in directly into the kitchen so my purse, keys, work bags etc end up on the kitchen counters.  So if I were to do it again, I’d love to have a transition space to keep those things from cluttering up the kitchen counters.

Things I would definitely do again:

1. An Upstairs Laundry Room: I haven’t shown you very many pictures of this (mostly because it looks like this all the time), but my laundry room is located right off of the bonus room upstairs.  I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this when I first bought the house, but I LOVE having an upstairs laundry room.  I’m not the best at doing loads of laundry, folding them and putting them away immediately.  Having the laundry room upstairs makes it so that I never have to worry about putting laundry away before guests come, and it feels out of the way.  Plus I think whenever we have kids it will be nice that it is on the same floor as their bedrooms.  Rumor has it kids generate a ton of laundry.

I might feel differently about it if it ever leaks, but knock on wood that won’t happen.

2. A Decent Sized Backyard- I love having a nice sized backyard.  It is about the perfect size… it takes me about 20 minutes to mow, but is plenty of space for Lexie to run around.  And since I had some landscaping done last year it is definitely more enjoyable now.  And i’m doing my best at learning what flowers to plant and how to turn my black thumb into a green one (and of course taking y’all along for the ride).

3. Master on the Main Floor- One of the things I love about the layout of my house is that the Master Bedroom is on the main floor, making it so that the areas that we use the most are all close together, making the house feel small and cozy (while still having a guest room for when my parents come to stay and an office that makes working at home easier!).

And really, I love my house and wouldn’t trade it!  But don’t worry, I still have a long list of things I want to do around the house, so there will be plenty of blog material coming!