Day 0: T minus Take off Saturday, Jan 28 2012

That’s right.  In just a matter of hours we will be in the air on our way to beloved France.  I can’t believe I haven’t posted on The One Armed Chef in 10 days!  Sorry!  We have had a crazy busy week.  A good week truly.  I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such family and friends.  People who love us and believe in us and want to hear our story and pray over us and tolerate our mess ups too.  A big thank you to:

*birthday meals with Dad

*baby snuggles with nephews

*chats with sisters while cousins run wild

*friends who let us live with them for a week and give us their school room!

*dinners and coffee with so many precious friends

*house churches with more little people than big people

*”big” church that let us ramble on about Jesus and France

*a ladies Bible study that let me crash in on their dig into the Word

*cute little Valentine presents from a loving Grandmommy!

*early Birthday cards from far away loved ones

*many, many emails from friends and family near and far

Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!  What a truly lovely week!

My next post will be from PARIS!!!!!!

And if your mind wonders to us around 1pm tomorrow your prayers would be appreciated.  We will be flying over your head.

Til’ tomorrow…

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Day 9: Pawning off Children ;) Thursday, Jan 19 2012

There comes a point where there is simply no way to pack and clean when there are 4 lovelies under your feet, pulling out their favorite toys and books and they just want to change their clothes one more time.  There comes a point where what is washed needs to go straight into the suitcase and where no more dirty clothes are added to the mix.  There comes a point where it is pointless to tell these lovelies to tidy up their rooms one more time.  There comes a point where you must remove the lovelies to go be lovely at a friends house and play with friends toys and read friends books.  And that is what today and tomorrow will be!

I feel as though I have been packing in circles and cleaning up the same things and washing the same clothes and today it must be finished.

We leave town on Saturday.  We still have a mile long “to do” list and a few more “goodbyes” to say.  We fly out of another city and have a nice week there to say “goodbye” to those friends and family too.  So technically all our things don’t have to be flight worthy yet, just van worthy.

So “thank you, thank you!” to the friends that are taking on my children today and tomorrow and making these next 2 days possible!

And now for a fashion update:

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And I promise these are not the only boots I own! Just haven’t caught the other great finds in a pic yet.

I think my next post will have some pictures of our mountain of suitcases!  (hopefully all filled and ready for the van!)

Blessings!

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Day 11: Fashion Forward Tuesday, Jan 17 2012

Learn to tie a scarf.  Check.

Find a new fashion in old clothes.  Check

Begin to pack a billion suitcases.  Semi-check.

Wait.  Let’s back up to the new fashion in old clothes.  What do I mean?  you ask?  Well.  I just got tired of the blue jeans and blah top from Old Navy look that produced a frumpy, slightly chubby look for me.  It was just O.K.  But it was also art-less.  There was no joy in putting the “outfit” together.  It was just maintenance.  And I was getting tired of paying even a small amount of money on clothes that would fall apart within days of wearing them!  grrrrr.

So I decided that the old navy frumpy Emily was not allowed to go to France.  I started looking at name brand, designer and couture clothing for inspiration.  I looked here and here.  Fun huh?

But I still didn’t want to nor could I pay the money for the looks.  SO.  Voila la Thrift Store!  And here is the results:

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Apparently I am drawn to a more vintage chic look than anything else.  Oh and skirts.  The skirt is the cure of the frumpy blah feel!  Brilliant!  Now I feel artsy and feminine and creative and inspired and full of life!  And I am now ready for France.  Well, at least my wardrobe is.  Now I just have to put it all in one of those billion suitcases.  sigh.

Oh and if you want to shop vintage thrift “locally” check out this!  Love it!!!

I have a few more looks to share but I haven’t captured them on camera yet.  If you were at Vineyard this past Sunday you got to see the blue tights with the fun brown and green skirt already.  And some lovely finds are still waiting for the right accompaniment to compliment them.  Stay tuned…

Oh wait!  I forgot.  Please also share any places that you have found great vintage finds!  Online?  Another blog?  Local store…perhaps somewhere in Paris?  Share the vintage love people.

 

 

If you are trying to keep up with our journey to France you might also be interested in this and this.

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Day 14: Journey International answers questions Saturday, Jan 14 2012

We have been preparing to present Journey International and our hearts for France in a couple churches.  Here it is for all of you in the blogoshere too!  Enjoy!

Visit JourneyInternational to read today’s guest post!

 

 

Wow!  Really?!  just 2 weeks?!  breath in. breath out. breath in………………..breath out.

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Day 19: Scarves are for France Wednesday, Jan 11 2012

In an effort to embrace the french way of dressing I am learning the art of scarf tying.  I knew you all would want to learn too so here is the best video on scarves.  Even if you are not a scarf person this video is fun to watch!

Enjoy!

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Pack and Pay it Forward: Day 21 Sunday, Jan 8 2012

Our plane leaves in 21 days.  I have my house moderately cleaned to where I think I can begin to purge the clothes drawers.  We made a round 1 list of things to pack.  It seems rather empty; there are a lot of unspokens that will take up a lot of space.  I didnt see the need to write down “socks” 42 times.  :)  Wondering if I should attempt to do school with the kids this week or just pack it all and focus on people.  Hmmm.  Maybe I can come up with a happy medium.  Peter has put in his last day of work (ya, that’s a bit scary!!!  Goodbye income!)  And yet even with all these things we need to do and pack up we are leaving so much behind.

We have been extremely blessed to find a family to stay in our house, it will be a blessing to us and to them.  And we have given our van to our church in Knoxville until we get back.  Hopefully it will be a blessing and not break down!  yikes.  We have been blessed time and time again by so many people and it feels great to pay it forward!  

Step by step, little by little we are tying up loose ends and soon it will be time for take off.

What have you been blessed with that you can pay forward to someone?  We love this saying: we are blessed to be a blessing.  

Thank you to all of you who have been a blessing to us and we dearly hope that we will have the opportunity to be a blessing to you one day!

If you find yourself not being able to recall all the blessings, I must recommend this book to help jump start your heart and mind!

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Countdown to Paris: Day 24 Friday, Jan 6 2012

France is happening.  In 24 days.  Um, yes, we are freaking out a bit.  Part of us wants to dig in our heels and declare it all just too much and too difficult and wouldn’t it be so much easier to just work the day job and school the children and love on our people?  And yet our hearts were made for this and yearns for it.  We are beside ourselves with excitement at not just talking about the classic works of art but actually looking at the real thing hanging on the wall in the Louvre.  We are breathless with anticipation of tasting and smelling and feeling and walking and soaking in all that is France.  It is a grand adventure!  Don’t we all read of grand adventures and wish it were us, don’t we get caught up in these beautiful stories and we know deep down it could be our story?  Should be our story?  Perhaps even is our story just unrealized yet.  And here it has come knocking at our door and beckoning us forth and we are so excited and so scared of the unknown at the same time!  And as beautiful as it all is there is still the work of actually getting there.

We await the visas, we look at our hodgepodge collection of old and new suitcases and hand bags that must be expertly filled, no spaces wasted; we think of the road trip and the two planes and three airports that must be navigated with four small children and we wonder: what in blazes were we thinking?!

And the truth is that sometimes you have to press through the difficult to get through to the beautiful.  As Peter likes to say: “That’ll preach!”

Amen!

What difficult are you pressing through right now to embrace the beautiful?  Don’t give up!  It is worth it.

Here is some beauty from our last trip to France in 2009.

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My Go-To Links right now Wednesday, Jan 4 2012

Thou Shalt actually homeschool, not just talk about it:
www.amblesideonline.org

Blessed perspective:
www.aholyexperience.com

Aaack! The children outnumber me!:
www.motheringbygrace.com

The other side of my face:
www.journeyinternational.org

An uplifting place to put my ears:
www.ihop.org/prayerroom

Im drooling:
www.loccitane.com

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Finding my pretty place… Tuesday, Sep 20 2011

I have finally accepted the fact that I’ve been suffering from a touch of post traumatic junk.  I refuse to say the word “syndrome.”  That sounds so finalizing.  ick.  No, it will pass but in the mean time I am trying to find my pretty place.  You know, that place where you can take a deep breath and that smile of restful contentment comes across your face and you think, “now I could get used to this…”  That place.  There are a couple of things that have been that for me lately and I thought I would share them with you.  In case you have lost your pretty place.

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Here is a blog that I recently discovered that has many pretty pictures and art and crafts and poems:

Thoughts and Biro Sketches

And recently I’ve contemplated taking up some low key hobbies to stay in an immersed state of prettiness.  Like maybe knitting?

I’ve begun carrying my sketch book and pencils around in my purse.

Finding my pretty place is like going to therapy for me.  We will be near the Smoky Mountains at the end of the month.  Perhaps we can squeeze in a hike among the changing leaves before we return to the DZ (destruction zone).

Im foreseeing a lovely post about leaves soon, photos, sketches…the works.  I would love to expand my pretty place!  Please share your favorite pretty blogs or books or poems or websites!!!  I look forward to browsing through it all.

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Just pictures Thursday, Jun 16 2011

Here is a quick update on us and I wanted to share some photos of life after the tornado.  This will probably be my last tornado related post.  Honestly, Im just getting tired of it.  Perhaps Im finally ready to move on?

We are finally living in an apartment, getting all settled in and it is starting to feel like home.  The construction on the house is well under way and it will be a much better house than it was before the tornado.  We are still praying and asking the Lord for the perfect vehicle for us.  Not perfect by the world’s standards, just perfect for our situation.  We only need it for 2 years and it needs to hold the entire family.  reliable on road trips would be nice too.  Anyway, keep praying with us on that and if you or someone you know has a vehicle to loan or give or sell cheaply we are interested!

Here are some pics:

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I didn’t label the pics so here is a basic run down:

I took the kids to visit family the day after the tornado, they played and played, it was a nice time away from all the destruction.

We came back and I was able to catch some moments at the house when we had team after team of people flooding in to help.  One shot is of the Shelton State Basketball team.  We were amazed at the outpouring of support and help from complete strangers and good friends alike.  Thank you to all of you!!  They did everything from cutting up the enormous trees to hauling them off to reading to my children while we worked.

Julianna turned seven in the midst of all this chaos!  We had a fun garden party for her.

Blackberry picking with grandparents is a great way to get your mind off things!

 

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