Patio Pallet Table

I completed my first piece of furniture using a recycled pallet and I am pleased with how it turned out.

I learned a few things about pallets and now have a better understanding of how to work with them and have hopes for completing a set of benches for our back patio as well.

I need to find a few more pallets though.

I did pick up 10 small pallets from the Marion landfill this weekend – all of them solid oak and weathered a bit.

I’m excited to figure out what we can do with them and to find out just how difficult they are to work with – oak is very hard wood after all.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the table I built.

Planting Potatoes

It has finally come to pass that we were able to plant our potatoes.

Our goal is to grow enough potatoes to last until March or April of next year – we did that once a few years before moving to Turkey and would like to do it again.

I’m not sure if we ordered enough seed though – it’s been a while since we’ve done this and so we lack the recent experience we need to know exactly what we are doing.

But we are keeping records so that we can keep track of what we planted, what did well and how much we produced.

At any rate, it was a lot of fun to prepare the garden beds and plant.

Colorado Rose potatoes – we’ll see what these are like.

In so many ways, gardening and growing our own food is just another part of cobbling together a lively hood, a life here in the states.

It is a slow journey, one that recently has felt a bit buried in the darkness of discouragement and wondering if we can do this.

But there is something about digging in the dirt, about laying down seed with the hope – and the faith – that from that dark grave, new life will grow forth.

I believe.

Artisan Envelopes: Homemade and Completely Unique

Over at my other blog, The Everyday Language Learner, I began a new venture to get people to send me postcards from where ever they live, telling me why they are readers of the EDLL blog. It’s a way to build the community there, to share people’s stories and to get postcards.

I like postcards. I like letters in general. Getting a good, long letter from a friend is like a gift. After finding an uninterrupted space of time, I’ll brew a cup of coffee and find a good seat from which to enjoy the letter.

I’ve never done that with an email.

My wife is an even bigger fan than I of all things letters.

For her it is an art form. The letter is important but so is the paper it’s written on, the envelope it is sent in and the stamp.

I’ve been given the look more than once for putting a plain American Flag postage stamp on one of her hand-made envelopes.

For Consuelo, letter writing has become a bit of a cause – one worth fighting for.

As we have been looking for ways to cobble together an income over the last six months, I’ve encouraged her to think about finding the convergence of her passions, her creative giftings and the economic realities that require income generation.

That is where I hope everyone can find themselves – making the money they need to live through the passions and skills that both bring the most joy and do the most good.

It is what I try to do over at EDLL.

And now Consuelo is ready to give it a try.

Artisan Envelopes and Stationary

We would like to introduce a new series of products – hand-made artisan envelopes and stationary.

Each envelope is cut from a beautiful wildflower guidebook whose pages swelled and binding broke when it found itself sitting in the bottom of a box that found itself sitting in a puddle of water.

The envelopes are all stitched – no glues, no staples – just thread. Each set of eight envelopes comes with 10 sheets of recycled stationary.

$10.00 for a set of eight

If you are interested in getting a set of envelopes and stationary for yourself or as a gift for a loved one, just send an email to me and we will send you a Paypal invoice and put your purchase in the mail. (Shipping is included in the price)

You can contact me here: aarongmyers@gmail.com

If you love these envelopes, please take a moment to share this post with your friends and help us spread the word. Thanks!

Of Pallets and DIY Projects

I have of late become interested in using discarded packing pallets – those ubiquitous wooden piles you see behind most every store – to build things.

I’ve seen a fair share of ideas online and have pallets for the taking – as we all do.

Two projects have wandered in for now.

The first will be to turn a very clean, nice pallet that I found on the farm into a coffee table of sorts for our back patio.

**Our future table for the back patio.**

The second stack of pallets is set aside to become the future home of a small rabbit, a pet for the kids. I had a rabbit when I was young and now they want one too.

I think I have enough wood in the three pallets to build a good sized hutch for the four footed future family pet.

We’ve done some research, looked at what others have built online and have a fairly good idea of what we want to build.

Malachi insists on a living roof so I think we will grow alfalfa up on top, an easy snack for a hungry hare.

I’ll post more pictures as the projects come together. Right now we are deconstructing the pallets, probably the most difficult job, but not nearly as difficult as some would make out.

All in all it has been a fun project to work on with my son. And that makes it worth it no matter what the end result looks like.

paint1 — **Next up, a home office. image credit**

Spring! Finally Here.

Our winter here in South Dakota has seemed to drag on a bit further into spring than I would have expected.

It is our first spring in the states in over five years and so I have been looking forward to it with some excitement.

In Turkey, I always relished that first morning that I was able to comfortably enjoy our balcony for my morning routine of journaling, reading, prayer and quiet.

The birds singing, the air crisp and the feeling of fresh air a marvolous reminder of the beauty of this world. I’ve been looking forward to that moment here as well.

We have a nice back patio too and I’ve been getting it ready; sweeping off the leaves, cleaning the winter grime from the few pieces of patio furniture we have, and waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting seems to be a theme in my life. I’ve been back in the states now going on ten months and I’m still waiting to feel settled, to feel like I can settle.

I came across a quote from Paulo Coelho the other day that seems to mark my progress.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.

Perhaps a little melodramatic but it in some ways gets to what I’ve been working through these last months.

For now I wait and hold to Charles Stanley’s words:

The Scriptures contain many stories of people who waited years or even decades before the Lord’s promises came to pass. What modern believers can learn from the patience of biblical saints like Abraham, Joseph, David, and Paul is that waiting upon the Lord has eternal rewards.

This morning I ventured out to the back patio for my first morning outside in the fresh air this year. It is supposed to be 78 degrees today.

Spring is here.

Singing with the Birds

I had written earlier about our waiting for the birds to begin to show up at our kitchen window feeder and boy have they come. We now regularly feed 30 or more birds and a grown variety of species. We also have three very hungry squirrels who show up occasionally to entertain us.

Here are a few pictures of our feathered friends!

Crazy Love by Francis Chan – A Book Review

I just finished listening to Francis Chan’s Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God for the second time. I read it first a few years ago while we were home visiting from Turkey.

Now we have returned permanently and it was just the book I needed to remind me of what I want to be important in my life.

I’ve always really enjoyed Francis Chan. I listened to his sermons on iTunes and have shared his Balance Beam video countless times.

Chan is decidedly a Jesus follower and this book is written to the church in America, those who would call themselves evangelicals and Christians.

He is a straight shooter and a hard hitter. He reads the Bible and when he comes across a command, he obeys it.

Chan’s writing style is much like he preaches. He weaves personal experience with the scripture of the Bible in a way that is easy to follow and compelling.

Crazy Love is a challenging read. Chan’s conversational writing is easy to digest but he keeps coming back to these points that we seem so often to rationalize in our lives as followers of Christ.

Chan calls us again and again to step out of our comfortable, highly managed lives and into a life of discipleship.

“But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.”

This is one book I would buy for friends and would like to read with our Sunday school class at church. We need to be shaken up at times.

Crazy Love will do that!

>>Click here to get your copy of Crazy Love. <<

Here are a few quotes from the book:

Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.”

Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”

It is true that God may have called you to be exactly where you are. But, it is absolutely vital to grasp that he didn’t call you there so you could settle in and live your life in comfort and superficial peace.”

…when we love God, we naturally run to Him-frequently and zealously. Jesus didn’t command that we have a regular time with Him each day. Rather, He tells us to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ He called this the ‘first and greatest commandment’ (Matt. 22:37-38). The results are intimate prayer and study of His Word. Our motivation changes from guilt to love.”

This book is written for those who want more Jesus. It is for those who are bored with what American Christianity offers. It is for those who don’t want to plateau, those who would rather die before their convictions do.”

Other Books by Francis Chan

Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples

Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit

Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity and What We Made Up

*All links to the books in this post are affiliate links. While the price won’t change for you, you will be helping me out by purchasing products through these links. If you do so, Thank You!

Box Cars in Waiting

Do they tire of ceaseless sitting,

of knowing their created purpose –

hauling loads –

yet remaining unused, unmoved,

unhitched from the engine that will move them?

Have they seen the schedule,

the timetable of upcoming action?

And do they know – in their waiting –

the calling that awaits?

Waiting without knowing –

a most difficult task.

4/22/2013

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Cobbled Together

Thoughts on faith, the great commission and our cobbled together life.