Breezy Saturday

It's so nice to be able to have the windows open and feel a fresh breeze blow through. There's only a short time we can actually do this in Florida and I'm enjoying it immensely. It's a high of 65 today and sunny. I feel a bit guilty freely enjoying this weather when my parents have had wintry mixes, sleet, and snow off and on for the last week and Matthew's parents have a blizzard happening in Ohio... and no electricity. Guess I should do my best to send some warmth up their way!

Today I was on my way to the grocery store when I noticed that my herbs have sprouted in the pot outside our door. I planted them about two weeks ago - even though January is a bit early for planting. It's Florida... the cold won't last much longer. This year we're going to have cilantro (Matt's pick), garlic chives, and lavender (my pick). With my leftover seeds, I secretly tossed them onto the little landscaped island outside our building. The apartment landscapers never seem to care about that spot, so I thought having some extra herbs pop up would be a nice surprise ;) We'll see! One day, we hope to have a nice spot of land of our own where we can plant to our hearts' content... yes, one day.

I wish my husband was here to enjoy a relaxing, breezy Saturday as well. He's been at work since 7 this morning photographing youth sport teams. When he gets home he'll have just a small chance to rest before we head out to a get-together with our Sunday School class. We both are looking forward to this. It's Mexican themed and I am in the process of making Sopapilla Cheesecake Pie... the recipe looked easy enough so we'll see how it tastes later. I was a bit disappointed as I put the ingredients into the dish because the smell very much resembled breakfast cinnamon rolls and there's nothing really Mexican about cinnamon rolls. Oh well. The recipe got great reviews and I think it'll be yummy served with ice cream.

This past week was a bit rough for me. A very stressful event happened at school last week that carried over to this one. I was constantly reminded to trust God and everything will turn out fine. For me, this was difficult to do because I kept going over every possible scenario in my head that could take place and worried over how I'd prepare for it. After wrestling with this for about four days, I finally began to feel some peace and relax a little. One morning as I was getting out of the shower, this song came into my head and it was perfect:

"I will cast all my cares upon you.

I lay all of my burdens down at your feet

And anytime I don't know what to do

I will cast all my cares upon you."

With this comforting chorus, my prayers, and prayers of others, the incident came to a close this week with little drama. God is so good! I can look back now and see how He handled things and how silly my worrying was.

Matt & I started Crown Ministries this week. It's a faith based approach to dealing with finances the way God intended us to. We've been looking forward to doing this with the small group we meet with every two weeks. There's homework to accomplish, scriptures to memorize, and questions to get us thinking deeply about the direction our financial life should take. Call me a nerd, but when I saw the hard back books, nifty carrying case, and the challenge of homework, I was quite excited :) I'm curious to see what God will teach us over the next 10 weeks.

To finish this post, here is a picture of the latest sewing project - a request by my husband. He asked if I could make him a pouch for his graphics tablet so it's protected in his bag when he travels. We went to JoAnn's Fabrics last week and I smiled to myself as I watched him roam through the aisles of fabric obviously overwhelmed. He decided on simple stripes (yay for easy sewing!) with a soft liner. I hope to have this simple case finished this weekend. It's nice being able to use the sewing machine again and get in some MUCH needed practice. I think I'll go work on finishing it now before we leave.

Goodbye Weekend

Today's been nice - beginning with great weather as we headed out the door to church. We learned and studied in Sunday School (our first time in several weeks being with our age group instead of teaching the juniors/seniors - it was great!), and enjoyed talking with friends. The rest of the afternoon was laid back. We took Sunny to get his nails clipped, Matt left for a church meeting, and I accomplished classroom work and chores :)

I wanted to post a picture of the afghan I'm working on. I didn't get to it last night and probably won't tonight either. Sleep is beckoning me and I must be rested for all the kiddos in the morning!

Here's what I have so far... Now my husband has informed me that the original pattern won't be big enough because he wants to be able to cover up all the way with it instead of just lay it over our laps. With his 6'5" frame, this is no small task. Easy, yes, just time consuming. The colors are a deep red, charcoal grey (I would've liked something less black, but there wasn't this option at the store), and cream. I chose these colors because my bridesmaids wore charcoal grey dresses with red waistbands. I found white yarn, but thought it looked too close to being patriotic/valentines colors and went with cream instead for a softer touch.

Hopefully tomorrow I can crochet another square... maybe finish by Spring? Ok, realistically by Summer :)

It's a New Year!

I'm back and ready to set forth in the blogging world again. It's a bit embarrassing that I haven't posted since September... but I'm going to try much harder this year. My life has been crazy busy since my last post, with teaching and the holidays making time to sit and type a bit difficult. I want to record more events that happen with us Taflans because it's important and satisfying to me to have memories and thoughts stored somewhere that I can revisit in the future. So here's my enthusiastic attempt at blogging more than once every few months...

I'm not going to spend time catching up on all that's happened in the last few months because I'd like to get on to what's currently taking place. I will sum up Oct-Dec. with:

1. My kindergarten class is exciting, a blessing, challenging, and tiring - but I am learning so much as a first year teacher!

2. Married life just gets better and better. We had our one year anniversary Dec. 27th and eagerly look forward to the next year together

3. Our holidays with family in NC and OH were filled with many precious moments. God truly blessed us with amazing parents and siblings :)

You can see photos of 2009 here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2525895&id=5123936&l=e959dc0e8f

Today was one of the most relaxing Saturdays I've had in a while. My husband and I slept in (no work for him today!) and we went looking for garage sales. We enjoy this activity although our routine is usually the same: Stop at many, many homes... ooh and ahh over odds and ends that we think we would like to have... mull over whether it's a necessary purchase... drive on to the next place and do the same :) We have actually bought things at garage sales before, but usually because a great idea comes to mind and we figure we can do some kind of project with an item. A few times we've driven away saying, "Oh, we'll come back later and if it's still there, then we'll get it." Do you know what happens when you do that? The beloved item is always gone! I passed up an amazing country style wooden kitchen cupboard once because I couldn't make up my mind. Deep down I wanted it because we could fix it up and make it so charming, but we live in an apartment and honestly had no room. We said we'd come back and it was gone. I kicked myself for it the rest of the day. Today I decided to actually go with my gut and get something if it's reasonable. I bought cute snowman accents for next year's Christmas/Winter decor. Matthew bought a staple gun for $2. We got to experience our first estate sale today as well. Very, very strange going through someone's house... we decided it was a bit creepy having so many people walking around a house buying food items, looking through linen closets, and walking out with anything they could get their hands on.

We decided to go to Wekiva Springs afterward and have a picnic lunch. I can't believe people were swimming in the spring! Yes, today the high was 76, but it was chilly in the shade and the water is only 72. We enjoyed some card games and walked the nature trail, soaking in this beautiful weather before the heat comes and sucks the life out of things once again. Last time we were there we had a new addition to our growing camera family... a Canon HG-20. Today we had our newest addition - the Canon 7D (very exciting!).

We were in need of a new camera, especially with a wedding coming up in March. Our other camera is still good, but the new Canon is great :) TaflanPictures, our videography/photography business is something we are pursuing with even more dedication. Matthew has had video gigs here and there through freelancing, and our opportunity for filming weddings on the side is becoming more numerous. I absolutely love assisting with shooting weddings! Here is a link to our latest: www.taflanpictures.com/vrbensky

Our website is getting a needed makeover and we hope to book more events in the near future. Matthew loves filming and editing, and he's been doing it for 9 years or so - definitely his niche. He's currently working here in Borders on editing a wedding we shot last weekend (a beautiful one with unique details that make me want to plan a wedding all over again!). We pray God will use us and TaflanPictures for His glory as we meet new people and produce new things.

I think I'm going to go explore the craft/diy magazines before the store closes. I only have 20 minutes! I love being inspired by neat ideas - although usually this inspiration happens late in the evening and by the time I round up supplies for a project, I'm tired and ready for bed :) I would like to work more tonight on the afghan I'm crocheting. I chose colors from our wedding and a simple pattern I found in a magazine. I'll have to post pictures soon. It takes me a while because I'm teaching myself and would like to spend more time on it in the evenings after school. Oh dear school, takes up so much of my time. I think about my classroom as I go to sleep, when I'm out shopping, as soon as I wake up (no exaggeration) - possibly because I'm a first year teacher? There's ALWAYS some cute poem or song I can research, project I can buy supplies for, and techniques I can read about to incorporate in our daily routine. Wonderful job, it truly is... a consuming one, but wonderful and rewarding!

Time to wander on over to the magazines...