Bathrooms and Wedding Gifts

You know how couples sometimes exchanges gifts on their wedding day? You've seen pictures of the bride trying not to smear her makeup while she clasps her new bracelet, and likewise, the groom wipes away a tear as he opens his monogramed cuff-links, because we all know cuff-links are one of the main reasons guys spend years dreaming of their wedding day. Well, believing Jordan wasn't aware of this, I took it upon myself to inform him of this lovely tradition a month before we were married. And on the eve of our wedding, he gave me the most beautiful pearl ring. I'd always wanted a pearl ring and I wore it down the aisle. I gave him two rock climbing harnesses because his love language is me participating in sports with him. He didn't wear his down the aisle.

What I didn't know was that Jordan had been secretly designing another gift long before I mentioned wedding presents. While I was finishing our wedding plans in Chicago, he was living in our rental house in Denver and building me a tub room. Jordan knew my deep love for taking baths, as well as my weakness for claw-foot tubs and had purchased one off Craigslist. He braved the creepy warehouse near the stockyards where it was stored, managed to get the 200 pound behemoth down the stairs by himself by rigging a pulley system with the backyard tree and a rope, and survived the great flood of 2011 that occurred in our basement when the plumbing went awry. And all because he loves me.

And yes, I did say rental house. We never mentioned to our landlord that in addition to painting a few rooms, we'd also installed a tub, and I lived in constant fear of him showing up wanting to inspect something in the basement. But somehow he found out. Before we moved, he casually mentioned, "Oh, and I heard something about a bath tub in the basement. You're gonna take that out, right?" Of course we weren't going to leave my wedding present in the basement for his next renters. However, the pulley system wasn't going to cut it for hauling the tub up the stairs, and I probably owe the sweet guys in our small group thousands of dollars in chiropractic bills for carrying it out for us. Oh, and for carrying the armoire. And moving the piano. Twice. I have a penchant for ridiculously heavy furniture. Thanks, guys.

So we moved, and the tub room was no more. But the claw-foot was about to find a brand new home in our 1890's Victorian, only a few blocks away. This is the story of our very first bathroom remodel in our very first house. 

Below is the bathroom the first time I set eyes on it. I wish you could smell it. Let it be known that the first time we walked through this house I told Jordan, "I could never live here." And this bathroom was a major factor in that decision. However, a few days later, we put an offer in, and became the owners of this lovely space.

If you're wondering where your legs are supposed to go when you're sitting on the toilet, the answer of course, is inside the tub, which is a minor drawback. But, on the plus side, you can get started washing your hands while you're still on the pot, as the sink is conveniently close. Just make sure not to jab your ribs against the corner. The only aspect of this bathroom that I actually liked was the red rug with a little Scotty dog. Jordan wouldn't let me keep it, though. I think he burned it.

This is a view of the bathroom after Jordan took everything out. Including the floors. I didn't know you could remove the floors. How silly of me, thinking that was an integral part of the construction. Notice, it was a Jack and Jill style bathroom, meaning there were two entrances, coming from each of the bedrooms. We ended up closing off the door to the second bedroom, to give us more space inside the bathroom.

Living in a house without a bathroom takes some creativity. I'm happy to report that I never resorted to peeing in the backyard, though I can't say the same for everyone in our household. We were really only without a flushing toilet for a couple days. We had several weeks without a shower, though, so I decided it was a good time to join the local gym. When they wanted to know why I was joining, I had them check the box for the yoga classes, since I didn't see one that said "showering facilities".

Growing up, my great-grandmother had black and white checkered tiles in her kitchen and since I am obsessed with style from the 1930s, I obviously wanted to incorporate them into our house. This bathroom was the perfect place. That man is Mr. Luby, and he and his wife are the most generous people I've ever met. He came over and showed me how to cut and lay tile. And after I'd laid three, he did the rest. 

But I did all the grout!

It's a really messy job. Not for the faint of heart.

Once we had floors again, Jordan stuck the fixtures back in. And I quit my gym membership.

Then he put in a beautiful wainscoting wall. And I painted it, because that and photographing our progress are my main contributions to our remodels.

He stuck some crown molding around the ceiling to be fancy. And I painted it.

And he textured the walls with plaster, to match the rest of the house. And I painted them.

We chose a fresh, minty green for the walls. (And we threw in a charming goodwill nightstand to pile all of our extra bathroom stuff on while we contemplated purchasing some sort of shelving unit.)

 

The window needed a bit of attention, and the aforementioned, amazing Luby family came over one night and scraped all the old gunky paint off the trim and the glass.

And I painted it.

This was the sink we inherited, and I had grand plans of painting the wood black and calling it a day.

But Jordan, meanwhile, had bought a child's dresser off Craigslist, cut a hole in the top and turned it into the most beautiful sink vanity in history. He painted the counter top black using water resistant spraypaint and he cut out the middle of the top two drawers to make room for the bowl.

And tada! The finished product. 

My claw-foot tub now dwelt in beautiful new quarters, no longer living in fear of getting evicted by the landlord. It was freshened with a creamy coat of white paint, and a fancy removable shower head.

Sadly, we had to leave it behind when we went to Germany. It was goodbye forever, since we ended up selling the house. I took a final, so long soak, reminiscing on all the Mr. Selfridge episodes and Real Simple magazines and long talks on the phone with friends that that bathtub had seen me through...How many tiring school days on my feet had been turned around with a quiet evening in the bubble bath with a book and a lit candle.

I'll miss that claw-foot tub. But the good news is, the traditional 6 year wedding anniversary present is iron, and I'm pretty sure cast-iron counts, too, so hopefully I'll have another claw-foot before too long. Though, knowing Jordan, I'm sure he's already working on something better. 

The Jesus Fairy Tale

Sometimes I wonder, am I the only one who doubts my faith this often? Every November it creeps in--no, every season I think. It's just so hard to get past the way it sounds like a fairy tale. Recently, we spent an afternoon with our niece and nephew. As we were getting back into the car after a pizza lunch, my six year old nephew casually remarked, "I wish I could have everlasting life." Jordan and I looked at each other, puzzled, certain this son of the church worship leader had already had this conversation with his parents. "Well, buddy," I started slowly, "I think you already do." "I do?" He exclaimed with excitement. "Yes! If you asked Jesus to forgive your sins and to be your Savior, then you will live eternally with him in heaven...remember?" "No, I know that," he sighed as if this were old news. "But I want everlasting life now, on earth," he explained, "I don't want to die." Oh, right. Me neither, buddy.

Maybe this magical place called heaven feels a little far fetched to Jackson, too. He'd rather stay here where he knows what to expect. He lives in Florida, after-all.  Can heaven really get much better? I thought of telling him what I used to tell my kindergartners after they'd become frightened by death after one too many prayer requests for dying dogs, cats, or fish. One would whine, "I don't want to die!" and another would pipe up, "Miss Terrill, what happens when you die?" "Well," I'd smile peacefully,"For those of us who put our trust in Jesus, dying, I think, will feel a lot like waking up from a dream. You know how sometimes you think your dream is real life, and then you wake up and realize it was only a dream and it's time to go to school? That's what dying will feel like. Heaven will be real life and our life on earth will feel like a dream." At least I hope so.

I didn't have time to impart this to Jackson because he had other questions for me. "Where is heaven, Aunt Kate?" "Well," I glanced at Jordan, "Heaven is another world, but it's not very far away. It's, umm, like the movie you watched yesterday. Remember when the kids walked into the wardrobe and they were suddenly in another place? It's like that." "Is that right?" I whispered to Jordan while Jackson continued, "And what will we look like in heaven?" Apparently Jackson considered me a theological expert on all things eternal. The questions poured in: How do we get to heaven? Will we be like angels in heaven? Are there animals in heaven?....

I kept verifying my answers with Jordan, wondering why Jackson wasn't asking his uncle who is currently taking a theology class in Seminary. Even though I knew the answers to most of Jackson's questions, having asked them myself, and answered them for others, what bothered me was that I couldn't guarantee Jackson that those things are true. They do sound like a fairy-tale. There's a bad guy named Satan, and he tempts us to sin. He pulls us away from the good guy, God. But the hero, named Jesus, sacrificed himself so that the bad guy couldn't get us anymore. Oh, and Jesus beat Satan in the end, so now we all get to live in heaven happily ever after. It's the stuff of fairy tales.

*  *  *

My mom told us a story last night about a friend of hers whose son has diabetes. That's the bad part, but the cool thing is that the son has a dog who alerts him when his blood-sugar is off. The dog barks, and the son knows he needs to check his blood-sugar. And usually the dog is right. Even when the dog is home and the boy is 23 miles away. That sounds kind of like a fairy tale, too.

Last week, some friends told us about their friend who was really sick and traveled to see these special doctors in another state. The doctors had performed scientific tests which showed that certain foods we eat have a positive charge that makes them beneficial to humans, and other foods we eat have a negative charge and are detrimental to humans. And it just so happens that the foods God told the Israelites to eat in the Old Testament are all positively charged. And that's not even the crazy part. The scientists tested the negatively charged foods that had been prayed over, and found that they had became neutral! Their physical make-up changed so they were no longer detrimental to a human's digestive system. That definitely sounds like a fairy tale. ...But I believed it.

And I thought of my college roommate, who stayed in bed most weekends our freshman and sophomore years. She slept more than I did each night, if that's possible, because she had a chronic illness. But when she came back to school the fall of our junior year, she stopped sleeping so much. And she stopped having to give herself shots every night. And she stopped having to take a million pills every morning. Because that summer, a friend prayed with her, and God healed her. And that's a fairy-tale come true.

Maybe it's not as hard to believe as I sometimes think it is. If I believe something miraculous I heard through a friend of a friend, or something my mom saw about someone's dog on facebook, why wouldn't I believe the Bible? Not only that, but what is revealed about the One who created the dog who can alert his master from miles away? Doesn't that point to a creator who kind of likes fairy tales? It seems that He has laced our lives with stories that are miraculous for a reason. He's filled the earth with inexplicable things that (most of us) don't totally understand and can't explain. Like homing pigeons, or the way no two snowflakes are the same. Perhaps the very reason for their existence is to point us toward the greatest fairy tale of all that is sometimes very hard to believe, but still very real.

I realize I'm not citing any sources or copying links to articles about these people, so I don't blame you if you're skeptical. But that's okay. Those are my fairy-tale stories and I believe them. You have you're own. You know, those stories you've heard that sound unbelievable except for the fact that you completely trust the person telling you. Or the thing you've seen with your own eyes but you really can't explain? Those are your fairy-tales, and if those stories are true, then maybe the Jesus fairy tale can be true, too.

Captiva

One of my goals for this blog is to document some of the towns and cities we visited in Europe last year, to serve as an online scrapbook until I can get my act together and create an actual photo album. Before embarking on a trip, I always searched google images to make sure our destination did indeed contain crumbling walls covered in ivy, soaring church steeples piercing the sky, and other photogenic offerings. 

Perhaps, if you're thinking of traveling, these posts can serve as your google image evaluation, thereby avoiding five million identical pictures of the most famous fountain in the town, or the random shot of someone's French Bulldog they couldn't bear to leave at home. And if I spend enough time thinking about it, there might even be some sort of encouraging learn-from-my-mistakes lesson at the end of the travel posts, so you can better justify the ten minutes spent roaming my corner of the internet, during which you could otherwise have been exercising, or water coloring, or attempting some other more productive endeavor.

I love traveling, and there is something so enticing about exploring another country. But I learned an important lesson early in my travels, voiced by my dear friend, Rebecca, who spent a year living in Spain, traveling on the weekends, and ended the year backpacking Europe for three weeks with me. She said something like this, "I've realized that the joy in traveling is so much less about where you are, and so much more about who you are with." 

Rebecca was right on the mark. I look back on our backpacking trip with fondness, in small part because of the gorgeous scenery and excitement of discovering new places, but mostly because of the memories we created together on that journey, and the ways our friendship deepened. (You can read more about Rebecca's adventure in Spain here.)

So before I share any of the quaint French villages, or bustling German metropolises, I want to share one of the most meaningful trips I've ever taken, not because of the place, though it is very dear to my heart, but because of the people, who mean more to me than any European adventure ever could. This past summer, Jordan and I spent five days with our friends from college- 10 of us piled into an island beach house in Florida.  I knew it would be fun, but I was unprepared for how life-giving and soul-filling it would be. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

You know how Amy Grant used to sing about her grown up Christmas wish, not for herself, but for a world in neeeeeed....? Well, this is my grown up Christmas wish- that everyone could experience community like we have with these dear people. I feel so known and loved by these friends of ten years. We've watched each other grow up, and fall in love; we've held each other's hearts through deaths of loved ones, marital struggles, job changes, and cross country moves.

The week was reminiscent of our college days as we spent afternoons at the beach, ate family style dinners together, and played mafia and poker into the wee hours of the morning. I made a picture slideshow and Becca brought home movies of our Thanksgiving feasts and our epic treasure hunt.

We spent the week celebrating life...eating Bubble Room cake on Becca's birthday, gathering around Lindsey in prayer when her Aunt passed away, skyping with Annie and Eric, who couldn't be there, the night before baby John was born, delighting in sweet Caleb, alongside Jake and Kristin, while remembering precious Ava, and wishing she was there with us, and rejoicing with Keelan and Maria when they announced that Finton Patrick O'Carroll would be joining their family in December.

One afternoon at the beach was spent affirming each person- an impromptu encouragement circle-noting what each individual brought to the group, what we love about them, and how they've changed over the years. As the sun set, and the hot breezes became warm, the boys pulled out guitars and we sang hymns and songs to God under a blanket of shooting starts. I can hardly explain how full my heart felt that night. I thought I might burst with happiness, but instead it came out in waves of tears--tears of gratitude and overwhelming love for the friends who were surrounding me. When it was black enough that we could barely see our hands in front of our faces, we all ran into the ocean for a midnight dip.

Later on that evening, we snuck onto a bayside dock and released Chinese lanterns. The last one, dubbed the friendship lantern, unfortunately took off before the flame was big enough and it crashed into the water where the light was quickly extinguished. And we all cracked up because nothing could have been a more paradoxical symbol of our friendship. Though we no longer all live in the same dumpy college apartment complex, the bonds that were created through surviving caf food and hurricanes together were strong enough to keep the flame of friendship burning strong through the years. 

Lindsey summed it up well after Keelan sang us the song he wrote about our college memories. The chorus goes like this: "mansions of philosophy/life comes now so quickly/college days have come and gone/how do we move on?" "Well guys," she said, " Obviously we don't."

PS You should stop reading at this point and have a listen to Keelan's song. It makes this post quite the tear jerker if you listen while you look at the pictures.

PPS If you're looking for an affordable and adorable Captiva Island Beach House, look no further. I know the owners, and they're pretty great. :)