The Legend of the Dogwood.

There was a plaque hanging on the wall at my grandparents home that told the legend of the dogwood tree. I remember walking by a seeing the picture of the dogwood blossoms and when I was very young, my granddad would pick me up and read me this poem:

In Jesus' time, the dogwood grew

To a stately size and a lovely hue.

'Twas strong and firm, its branches interwoven. 

For the cross of Christ its timbers were chosen.

Seeing the distress at this use of their wood

Christ made a promise which still holds good:

"Never again shall the dogwood grow

Large enough to be used so.

Slender and twisted, it shall be

With blossoms like the cross for all to see.

As blood stains the petals marked in brown,

The blossom's center wears a thorny crown. 

All who see it will remember Me

Crucified on a cross from the dogwood tree. 

Cherished and protected, this tree shall be

A reminder to all of My agony." 

The dogwoods are blooming at our home and every time I see a dogwood blossom I am reminded of two things: First, I am reminder of my grandparents. They had an abundance of dogwood trees in their yard. I am reminded of the plaque that hung in their home and the many times I would ask my grandparents to read me the plaque. Even though I knew what it said and they had read it time and time again, my grandparents never minded hoisting me up just one more time to tell me the legend of the dogwood. My grandmother would tell me how special the dogwood tree is because it is the tree that Jesus was crucified on. The dogwood tree had a special duty and all the other trees were secretly envious of the dogwood because this was such a great responsibility as a tree.  

The second thing I am reminded of is the tremendous sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He died on the cross for our sins so that you and I may have life. Now whether or not Jesus was crucified on a dogwood tree is unknown. The story is simply a legend but the tree as well as the blossom of the dogwood will remain a reminder of God's love.

The blossom is in the shape of a cross to remind us of the story of the crucifixion.
Each petal on the blossom bears an indention and a red mark to help us remember the nails that we forced into Christ's hands and feet.
The center of the blossom reminds us of the crown of thorns that was forced on His head.

On this Good Friday, we remember.

I do hope that when you see a dogwood blossom that you will thank God for sending His only Son to endure a tormenting and humiliating death upon a cross. And thank Jesus Christ for the tremendous sacrifice He made for you and for me.

Sunday is coming.

One Room at a Time.

So for the most part we are moved in and getting settled. Is our garage still full of boxes? Well, yes but we're working on that. ;)  The fun part to me is decorating. I think it's the best job in the world...only I don't get paid to do it. Maybe I should have been an interior designer. The only problem I have with decorating is making decisions. I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to paint colors and home decor, so naturally Pinterest is like an extension of my right arm. I find it's the perfect place to organize all the craziness that's floating around in this head of mine. 

I wanted to document the way our home looks now, just as we are getting settled and calling this place our own. It is bare with nothing on the walls. The paint colors are not our own choices but we are so looking forward to the next phase - the making it our own phase. 

This little breakfast nook has much potential. When I look at it I see cafe curtains... 

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 a round wool rug maybe similar to one of these...

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Months ago I saw images of a coffee bar on Pinterest and loved the idea. We have less counter space in this home than in our previous home, so a little coffee nook has been the perfect solution for us! We just used our old dresser than was in our closet and put it right in our breakfast room. One day I plan to paint it a fun color, but for now it will work.

My inspiration for our coffee bar: I plan to put some shelves up and hang a few favorite pieces of artwork. So much to do!

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Hope you've enjoyed this brief tour around our little breakfast nook. Hopefully next time you stop by, it'll look quite different. We had a meeting with our painter guy today and he has big plans for our breakfast nook, as well as our living room, foyer, dining room, master bath....oh wow, there's a lot to paint in this house!

Stay tuned for another room soon! I'll try to share all the rooms as what they look like before they see the likes of a paint brush and of course after, so stick around! :) And if you're on Pinterest, be sure to follow me at cbbuie. See you there!

The Cardboard House.

A few months ago I ordered this from Amazon because I mean seriously how cute is it? But what would we need with a cardboard playhouse. We have no kids and really no room to put it. My intention was to have something fun for kids to play in at our home in Arkansas. Several of my friends have small children and I literally had nothing for them to play with except for tupperware. Also, my nephew Landon might get a kick out of it. But since I ordered it, we have moved to Louisiana and this got packed away with everything else and was never even opened. 

This evening we had my oldest brother Chris and his family over for dinner, so I thought this was a great opportunity to set it up and let Makaylan play in it. But when I opened it up (for the first time, I might add) I realized just how big it was. Wow! I mean, I should have realized since little kids are supposed to be able to go inside of it! ha. 

Hazel immediately went inside and loved it! Of course she would. She loves anything she can get inside, climb on top off or sleep in. Boxes are her best friend. When she saw this box, she probably thought she died and went to cat heaven. Realistically, I could put a bed, litter box, water bowl and food in there and I swear she'd never leave. 

But Hazel wasn't the only one who loved the playhouse! Maykaylan (or Kay Kay as we called her) went in and out several times, went around to all the windows and peeked out. It is the perfect little playhouse! Oh, and I forgot to mention that since it's cardboard, the kiddos can color on it with either markers or colors! I'll have to let the kiddos color on it each time they come over. It may take a while to color this whole thing! 

36 hours.

On Monday night Buie and I were having a pretty typical night around here. We were getting settled on the couch, me with my laptop editing pics (as usual) and we had just started a new series: Downton Abbey. We were just getting into our 2 episode when B got up and started pacing around the room, holding his chest and breathing heavy. He said he felt weird and of course we were both concerned. This had happened once before about a week before - tightness in his chest, shortness of breath, feeling of panic, sweating. I assured him it was a panic attack of some sort since I had experience one or two before. The symptoms kept on for about an hour and after googling the symptoms we had it narrowed it down to two things: a panic attack or a heart attack. And well, since one of them kills you, I suggested he take an aspirin. We changed out of our pjs quickly and drove the quick 7 or so miles to the emergency room. I'm so glad we live close to a hospital, of course, in a small town everything is close.

We were checked into the ER a little before 8:30pm or so and they immediately ran an EKG and checked his blood pressure. I don't remember the exact stats but I just remember thinking WOW! His heart was racing. Well, over 120 or 130 and we were literally just sitting on the couch watching Downton Abbey. It's not like it was a thriller movie or something. His blood pressure was concerning as well but that was not surprising. He had been working to improve his bp and it had actually been improving through diet and loosing weight over the last few weeks.

About 20 minutes about we arrived at the ER, B started to feel better. His heart rate immediately started going down. He was feeling less tightness in his chest. They gave him an IV which helped too, I think. But we still didn't know what caused this episode. They did a chest X-ray which came out fine. The ER doc wanted to keep him overnight for observation to run some more tests. We were honestly surprised. I think we figured once they told us he wasn't in fact having a heart attack, we could go home. But the truth was, we didn't know WHAT caused it...so stay we did... for 36 hours.

That's right we didn't get to go home til Wednesday afternoon. They ran a CT scan, three different EKGs, a chest X-ray, among many others...Needless to say we were WORN OUT of tests! The final test on Wednesday morning was a stress test where B rode a bike and had to get his heart rate up to 180 and he passed with flying colors! :)

So the good news is, his heart is fine. The cardiologist put him on blood pressure medication and think his episode was stress induced. We plan on keeping our lives hopefully a big more stress free (if possible) and work on reducing that bp!

In conclusion, I've discovered several things about hospitals or at least about the one we stayed at.

• they dont have gluten free menus and they serve a roll or biscuit with EVERY SINGLE MEAL. 
• they do not have a comfortable place for the spouse to sleep
• they do not care about your want or desire to get sleep during the night. 
• I think the nurses on the night shift are mad that they are awake so they actually ENJOY waking other people up. (just my humble opinion, of course) ;)

After spending two days in the hospital, we are SO happy to be home and I hope we never have to go back. Our boys missed him so much and sleeping in our own bed Wednesday night never felt better!

Let Joy Be Your Compass.

I had a huge long post written and then I deleted it. I struggle every day with just how honest to be on this blog because I don't consider myself to be a on the surface person. I never was good with small talk. I'm real. This is me. Like it or Leave it. But I know not everyone needs or wants to hear my personal whoas. The truth is though, I've been struggling lately with sadness, anxiety, worry, fear, depression... All of these things that don't typically sound like me have consumed me lately and I've been trying to figure out why. Is it because I'm in a new place? Is it because we still have a garage FULL of boxes to unpack? Is it because my husband still does not have a job? Is it because our house hasn't sold in Arkansas? Is it because I picked up my job and moved my new business to a brand new location and basically started over? Is it because we haven't found a home church yet and haven't even been to church in over a MONTH!? YES! YES! YES! All of these things and more!

Everyday when I pull up my computer to do the usual: check Facebook, reply to clients, check my normal blogs, etc. I come to my blog and think hmm what to write a post about... Nothing. I have nothing to say other than I am overwhelmed. I can't do it. I told Buie today that I just wanted to crawl back in bed today and call it quits. He said, Call it quits on what? I said, ON LIFE!

Obviously, he wouldn't let me quit on life or on anything for that matter. It's nice being married to a former football player & coach - he gives great motivational speeches.

Yes, life is overwhelming and yes there is a lot to do. We are going through a lot of major changes in our life right now. Job changes, house changes, going back to school (for Buie) - it's a lot to take in. So it's totally normal that I want to pull my hair out right?

Something that I'm trying to do each day is to do something that I love - something that makes me happy. In the midst of all of this anxiety and worry, I am trying to take time each day even if it's just for 10 minutes to sit outside and just be still. I am happiest when I'm outside. Today I went outside and watched the sunset from my front porch. Even if the rest of the day is nuts, at least for those 10 minutes I had peace and solitude.

In my life right now there is a lot of chaos...but I choose joy instead. Now someone please remind me of this tomorrow when my alarm goes off, mm..k? :)

Dear Kitty,

Dear Outside Kitty,

We don't understand why anyone would leave you here alone. 

             
Dear Outside Kitty,
I know our dogs are big and scary and I'm terribly sorry that Conner chased you into the woods the other day. He means well. We have two other kitties, Charlie & Hazel, that I hope will one day be your friend, but for now you can be through-the-window friends. :)

Dear Outside Kitty,
You are so pretty and so sweet. We are happy to have you as one of our very own. And if you don't mind, I think we'll call you Lannie Cat because well it just suits you.

Dear Lannie Cat, we already love.