Nightstand Organization

As I mentioned in this post, I'm still on an organizing kick. I had a pretty productive Sunday and got a lot of spaces organized/cleaned! I guess I am starting my Spring cleaning early. :) I have some things to share from Sunday, but I wanted to show you guys another quick organizing project I accomplished last week while I was still snowed in at home.

This is one of my nightstands. Well, how it looked before I got sick of looking at it. (Yes, there is a lot going on with that wall in the background, but that's another post for another day!)

I sleep with a fan at night so that explains that, but that Pez from Easter and all those papers on the bottom shelf had to go. Actually, it really doesn't look that bad in the picture, but in person it looked like there were 3,000 papers about to tip over at any given time. Basically, this is the spot than whenever I get home from church or Bible studies, I just toss all my papers/books there. Every time I would walk through my bedroom I would see that stack of papers and it really started to bug me.

I had been putting off doing this project because I was really hoping to find some cute bins, maybe at Target or Homegoods, to organize my nightstand belongings, but I never did :( So being stuck at home for 3 days in a row was enough to make me accept that I just had to use what I had and I finally got to it.

Here's what I did:

I had 2 of these baskets in my "office" - can't really call it that yet because that room is a joke - for over 2 years. I was planning to use them in there, but never had a good reason for them so I brought one into my room and stuck it in the nightstand. It fit perfectly! I couldn't believe how nicely it fit. I even took a picture and sent it to my mom to show her.

Anyway, I stole some old folders from my file cabinet that weren't being used anymore (I'm going to have to re-label them once I get some labels) and made one for holding sermon notes, one for my papers from small group at church and another for studies for a Bible study that my roommate and I host.

I also popped in my Bible and notebooks in because I generally read scripture on my iPad (look at me! So 2014!) instead of the old school way. I added a little Ikea vase to hold my post it flags and a pen for when I am developing my studies or reading through a book. So now I have my "Jesus basket" all ready to go and whenever I need to plan a study or have my quiet time, it's a lot easier to grab what I am looking for! Also, it's much easier to put everything back where it should go.

Look how nicely this basket fits into its home! :)

It's a beautiful thing.

Full Weekend

On Friday, McKenna and I left to attend a retreat with our church's youth group. I lead a group of girl's and every year the whole youth group goes to Chi Alpha which is where we spend time hearing speakers, worshiping, growing closer in small groups and hanging out. McKenna and I also went last year and had a wonderful time so we were looking forward to doing it again this year.

We arrived around 7:30 pm and everyone split up to figure out where they were going to stay for the weekend (an important choice of course). After that I got the first picture of the weekend.

Oh McKenna... If only you knew then how little sleep you would actually get over the weekend...

I'm not really sure about this next picture.

This was where I kept my stuff. I can't say where I slept because I didn't sleep too much (what do you expect on a trip with teenagers?).

The common area was pretty amazing. We had lots of space and places to sit and of course game consoles. 

We had a Kinect and played lots of Dance Central - love that game! I'm a sucker for pretty much any of the dance games.

How cool are the lights in this next picture? Love the industrial look.

I loved these shadow boxes with the shirts.

After our initial session we were all able to go and hang out in the huge gym. Yep the church had an amazing gym with a second floor track.

 

We also had root beer floats and as many chips as you could eat. So healthy, right? 

There was also a pool table, air hockey table, foosball and another thing that I couldn't figure out. The air hockey table was homemade - how cool is that?! I want a DIY air hockey table.

This was the stage for our sessions.  I loved that there was a disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

On Saturday McKenna and I had to leave for a while to go to Thanksgiving dinner with our mom's side of the family. My grandfather is the oldest of 8 children so the family is huge.

Yes, I wore converse to our family's Thanksgiving dinner. No, I was not the most under-dressed person there.

When we returned from the dinner, the other kids were having nachos. So even though I had already eaten, of course I ate some nachos! McKenna couldn't find a regular plate so we gave her a plate shaped like a stop sign so of course McKenna let her artistic side take over:

And in closing, take a look at this:

That lovely lady was just outside the main room.

McKenna and I had such a fun time and it was wonderful to share the weekend with a great group of kids.

I Didn't Know How Much Power Meant to Me

It's been a rough past few days. I don't know how many of you know, but I live in northern Alabama and last Wednesday, my town (and several others throughout Alabama) was hit really hard with several tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. I am very blessed as my family is safe and sound and our houses weren't damaged at all. However many families in our area and in our church family were not so fortunate. One family very close to my heart lost their home. We're are all so thankful that their whole family is alive and well though.

Here's my account if you really want to know. This is mainly for me. These past few days are days that I will remember forever.

The day of the storms I arrived at work like normal and for several weeks we've had terrible thunderstorms and threats of tornadoes, so when I heard the forecast I was not at all worried. Around lunch though the clouds outside my office window were black and and the clouds were coming from east and west. My office mate and I looked at each other and said, "That's not good...." It started raining hard shortly afterward and the schools announced they were letting out early for the day. My mom had gone out of town on business so I was supposed to keep McKenna (my little sister) that day. After the schools let out I went to go pick her up and the sky was still black with heavy rain pouring down.

I picked her up and we made it home with her friend in tow because she didn't want to stay at home by herself. We played games and hung out and then I made dinner. McKenna's friend was still there and her dad called to say that he was on the way and he had spotted several funnel clouds on the way over. This made me nervous. When he arrived, he came in to stay for a few minutes as the storm had worsened. Then the power went out. Fortunately I had just finished dinner so we were able to eat. That was the last good meal we had for days, haha. McKenna's friend and her dad left during a break in the storm and we sat down to play some cards in the dark. The sirens had been going off all day and they were still going off. It was raining sideways and trash cans were blowing down the street, but we were fine and nothing happened on our end. We listened to the radio and could hear about all of the damage going on around town. It was crazy hearing about all of those things going on so close to us while we were so unscathed ourselves.

I figured that the power was going to come on any minute, but it did not. After playing games for most of the night, we went to sleep. The next morning we still didn't have power and the DJs on the radio informed us that we would most likely be without power for 3 days, then they said 5-7 days. It was all so unclear. They were saying that most of the transmitters around our county had been destroyed in the storms. According to the DJs, a nearby town had full power so of course everyone would be going there for supplies and gas. I talked to a co-worker (which was a miracle as cell coverage was almost non-existant and my phone was almost dead anyway) who informed me that there was no power at work so I didn't need to come in. The schools were closed, work was closed, traffic lights were out and we only had 1 bag of charcoal. My co-worker told me that a Publix near my house was open so we decided to go there for food.

Publix was a madhouse. ALL the bread was gone and there was no charcoal. We were so happy to find some water and we bought a ton of junk food (I still used some coupons though! haha). We hoped that maybe the power would come on that day, but that was just wishful thinking. To make an already long story a little shorter, we were without power until this morning... But as much of an inconvenience as it was, I am just so happy that my family is safe and that we are safe. If anything would have happened to McKenna or my mom, it would have just destroyed me..... I know that I'm not a mother, but the attachment I have to and the love I feel for McKenna is so strong that I just cannot imagine anything bad happening to her. It would break my heart.

We are beyond blessed and we've had a lot of time to bond these past few days as we've been home (we stayed at my mother's place) sharing meals cooked on the grill and playing games by candlelight.

We're still praying for our neighbors affected by the storms and trying to figure our what we can do to help them rebuild their lives.

Chi Alpha

This past weekend, starting on Friday afternoon, I participated in a youth group retreat with my church called Chi Alpha. I've been volunteering with them since January and it has been an extremely rewarding experience. I was so excited to go on this trip and it did not disappoint. For those of you who don't know, Chi Alpha means Christ first.

We went to a church about an hour away and we stayed there in the gym. Obviously this is where worship was held. The two rooms across the way are where the boys stayed and the girls stayed in two rooms behind where I took the picture.

We started out by playing the new XKINECT!!! Or however you spell it. It was actually really cool. If you haven't heard of it, it's similar to the Wii, but you don't have to hold anything. You just move and it picks up on your movements.

Me and my fellow group leader Meaghan. I love her!

After our first worship session, the craziness started.... We had a food relay. There were 3 rounds. The first round we had 3 tins filled with pudding and gummy worms and we had to either use our elbows to get gummy worms out of the pudding or stick our face in to get out gummy worms. Whichever team got out the most gummy worms in a certain amount of time won. The next round we had to mix a huge thing of root beer and ice cream and drink it the fastest.

 

It was crazy and we all had brain freezes by the end of it.

After that we had to eat pumpkin pie the fastest. It was intense.

The church also had this game room next to the gym: a pool table, two foosball tables, an air hockey table and a ping pong table. Niiice!!

And finally, me and my amazing sister!

We had an amazing time! Chi Alpha!