Podcasts I'm Listening to || Part 2

I'm an avid podcast listener! I listen to them a lot when I'm driving, when I'm running errands and during nap time. So many great shows, I wanted to share a few of my faves I've recently found with you. To see a few more of my favorites click here for the first installment. 

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Around the Table || Hosted by two best friends, this podcast is like pulling up a chair with your girl friends. Episodes 27 & 37 are two of my faves. 

Journey to Balance || I met Retha briefly last Fall at the Influence Conference. I've loved following along with her and her podcast. I love that it's intentionally called journey to balance, because aren't we all on that journey? Join her and listen to some inspiring guests, two of my faves were her interviews with Ashley Abramson & Kara-Kae James. 

Mom Struggling Well || I found this podcast last Fall as well, I've loved being introduced to new and inspiring women through her podcast. Listen to episodes 1, 27 & 30 if you're new. 

She Percolates || I found these gals last Fall when a good friend of mine was on their podcast. I'm loving that they ask each guest what their perspective is on success. I love hearing everyone's different answers. 

What are some podcasts you're currently listening to? Share your faves below.

Learning to Lead without Title or Position.

I shared a bit on Periscope last week about this topic, this is probably one of the most single important lessons I've learned about myself and Christ these last seven years. 

Let me back up, my husband and I have been involved in some sort of ministry or another since before we met. When we met we both knew that someday we'd serve the local church together in ministry. We moved to Arizona seven years ago to take on a youth pastor position at local church here in Phoenix. After a really rough couple years the church finally ended up closing its doors. We were left without a church, a job, hurt, confused and wondered what God was doing in all of it. 

I thought we'd quickly move right back into full time ministry. After several interviews with churches God was closing doors left and right. We decided our next move would be to settle here where God had us and make the most of life. We found a church, my husband entered into Grad school, I was still working my full time job outside the home, we had another baby a few years later and God has been faithfully providing for us these last 5 years. 

We found a church where we stayed at for four years. During those years God used that time to help grow us together, heal our hearts and we learned to serve together more so than we'd ever had before. We served our local church, we helped lead small groups, we helped out with several ministries, my husband led worship, we helped behind the scenes and God taught me some big lessons through it all. 

God broke my heart and spirit for the people of the church during this season. He allowed me to see them as he would. For a long time I feel into the lie that I was only a leader or had influence if I had a title next to my name. If I was a Pastor's wife, if I was the head of a ministry, if someone knew what I was doing an approved. The list could go on and on. The truth was, I needed those four years just me and the Lord. 

I needed to be in a season where I could learn to lead without title and position. Even more so God worked on my heart to teach me to be a better leader, that it wasn't about me. It wasn't about my own agenda or about building my kingdom. It was about building HIS. 

It was about doing ministry, serving the church and serving my family even if no one saw it or noticed it. He saw it. He noticed it. It mattered to him. 

One Wednesday evening we'd just gotten done leading our small group at church, my husband was having worship practice after church that evening. We had one car at the time, so the kids and I stayed at the church till he was done. We played in the nursery for a bit before making our way into the church to hear Daddy sing. The whole day I was dreading our late evening ahead, I was dreading that we were going to be at the church for so long, that Ava would miss her bed time and our evening was going to be crazy. 

As I sat there that evening I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to me;

"I see it and it matters to me."

That small confirmation that the Lord sees our work, he knows who we are was what I needed. And I realized that this was a valuable season, these were valuable lessons. No, my husband and I were not pastors at a church full time. No one knew all the things we did, or have always know all our history but I was no longer living under the lie that people needed to know my name or know if I was the "head" of something or not. 

No, this was a valuable season because God opened my eyes and showed me how to love his church, his people. He taught me to lead without title and position. 

I'm not sure where you're at in your season right now. Maybe you are a small business owner, maybe you are in ministry yourself, maybe you are in a season of mothering small children. Whatever your season God wants to teach you something in it. He wants to help you flourish and thrive. He wants to reveal more of himself as you draw closer to him. He wants you to know that he's placed in a specific season for a reason. As we strip everything else away we begin to realize it's just all about Jesus and loving his people and pointing them closer to Him. 

Spring Walmart Finds.

Hi friends! You know how much I love sharing finds with you, today I've got a round up of the latest things I've found from Walmart! Sometimes you walk into Walmart and you find some things worth purchasing; here's my recent finds! 

Which was your favorite? What's your favorite thing you've ever found from Walmart? 

Vanilla Bean Pizzelle with Vanilla Heavy Cream.

This post is brought to you by Fly Joy, all opinions are my own. Thank you for helping support brands who make this blog happen. 

This month's micro adventure campaign for FlyJoy was inspired by creating an ethnic cooking adventure at home. I was excited about this theme, because who doesn't love food? We do around this house! Thinking about what I wanted to high light this month, I knew dessert needed to be apart of it. 

FlyJoy sent us the most delicious Dutch caramel wafer cookies, my family couldn't get enough of them! They ate the whole bag in just a few days. I knew I wanted to use them in my dessert. 

I headed to World Market to find some yummy supplies for my dessert. I found these Pizzelle Italian waffle cookies and got the flavor "dulce de leche." I also picked up another bag of Dutch caramel cookies. I found a small bottle of vanilla syrup, I knew that would be a nice touch to use in my heavy cream I was making. 

I also picked up some vanilla bean ice cream from the store to complete my dessert. 

I placed the Pizzelle on a plate then topped it with the ice cream, and then topped that with one of the Dutch cookies. See where I'm going with this? Lots of sweet yummy goodness all stacked on top of each other. 

Then I whipped up some homemade whipped cream, using heavy whipping cream and added some of the vanilla syrup to it, to give it more sweetness and flavor. 

I brewed some coffee and added the syrup and cream to that as well. I love the look of a contrast between the coffee and heavy cream, so so good! 

This was such a yummy treat for my family, they loved it! So simple and easy to make as well. Let me know if you try this one, I know you'll love it! 

What are some of your favorite foods or desserts to make that are inspired by other countries? 

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How We Painted Our Kitchen Cabinets

This post is brought to you by General Finishes, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting brands that help make this blog happen. 

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The kitchen is done friends! Que the hallelujah chorus and all the praise hands! This project took us a total of 3 weeks to complete. This may or may not by typical but for our situation with two kids, and extra activities this is how long it took us. I can't wait to share with you exactly how we did it, but first let's take a look at how the kitchen looked before just after we installed the tile back splash. 

We used General Finishes Milk paint in snow white and their satin top coat for this job. I was excited when General Finishes agreed to work with us, because choosing the right type of paint was perfect for this project. We chose not to sand or prime our cabinets, this is what worked for us.

Here's a few preparation thoughts from General Finishes;

Sanding:

If your project does not start well, it will not end well.
The most critical part of refinishing a piece of furniture happens before you open a can of stain or paint – it starts with the sanding. Prep sanding is absolutely essential, but often it is not necessary to strip away an existing finish.
When preparing an existing finish, start by cleaning with a Scotch Brite pad soaked in a 50|50 mix of denatured alcohol and water. Let the surface dry for 2 hours and then lightly scuff sand with a Klingspor AO 220 sanding pad. Wipe away the dust with a non-sticky tack cloth made for water based finishes or a water dampened rag. Once the surface is dry, apply your finish! We always recommend applying finish to a hidden area of your project before getting started.
See this GF video tutorial on preparing a surface with an existing finish: http://bit.ly/1AUuJo0
 

Deep cleaning:
In cases where the project has a lot of buildup, we recommend scrubbing with a detergent such as Spic and Span first, followed by a rinse, and then by the 50|50 mix of water and alcohol. Let your piece dry thoroughly. You can use commercial furniture cleaners such as TSP but check the label for phosphates - they will leave a residue behind that requires rinsing.

Sanding is essential because it lays the groundwork for your entire project:

1) Sanding roughens up the surface and creates "tooth" on existing finishes for improved adhesion. Finishes will not adhere properly to an smooth, slick surface. Even if the paint holds up at first, problems could appear over time.

2) Sanding helps clean the surface. This is extremely important in kitchens where oils from hands, splatters from food, grease from cooking, and chemicals from cleaners are spread across the surface. These surface contaminants will cause discoloration and adhesion problems. Sometimes, wax or chemicals from cleaning products (i.e. products containing silicone) permanently contaminate the finish and often cannot be successfully removed.

Primer:
Primer should be applied when using white or light colored paints. Raw wood can bleed tannins and existing finishes can leach dyes and stains. The discoloration is more apparent on white and light colors. We often recommend a coat of primer, and then an optional secondary coat of light grey paint before applying the final color. The only way to predict whether bleed through will occur is by testing your entire procedure ahead of time and letting the finish cure for 7-10 days. However, tannin bleed through can occur months after refinishing. Primer may be able to prevent this bleed through but there is never any guarantee with difficult wood species such as Pine, or existing finishes that contain aniline dyes.

We recommend using the following white pigmented shellac based stain blocking primers: Zinsser BIN, Kilz or 123 Stain Blocking Primer.

Preparing raw wood:
Preparation of raw wood surfaces only involves sanding, not cleaning.
Sandpaper that is too fine can seal the pores of new raw wood, preventing the absorption of stain or the the adherence of paint. Here are a few GF guidelines:

Sandpaper grit used to prepare raw wood: http://bit.ly/1S63v2H
General raw wood preparation instructions: http://youtu.be/Tl4s34DZolc
Water based wood stain and wood species: http://bit.ly/1X2P8gg

I've used this type of paint before you may remember on our bathroom cabinets and Zane's bed, so I knew there would be some prep involved. Here's what we did to prep our cabinets for painting. 

We used a gentle soap to clean the cabinets and wipe down all the dirt and grit from the cabinets. Once they were all clean we let them dry, this process didn't take long. 

After the cabinets were dry we started painting and I quickly noticed after doing a small section that there were some gaps in the trim where the cabinets came together. I grabbed some all purpose sealer made for kitchen/baths and filled in all gaps around the trim work and in the cabinets. Then continued with painting. 

For the painting I used a foam cabinet and door roller, and sponge brushes (those were .79 cents) to fill in paint in the trim of the doors and cabinets. 

With this type of paint you will see some of the wood grain show through a bit, so because I wanted to get most of that gone I did about 5 coats on the cabinets. Luckily this type of paint dries quickly. 

We repeated these steps until all the painting was done, then we added the General Finishes Satin Top Coat to help seal and protect the paint. 

Looking better already ready with just a few coats of paint! 

Now, for the beautiful after of our cabinet painting! We still have a couple more things to do to the kitchen before it's complete, like add the work work to the bar area and figure out what we're doing with the pantry door. 

We had a gift card to Lowe's so we used that to help buy our hardware and only $41.18 out of our $100 we budgeted for. You can see the rest of the budget break down below:

paint: donated by General Finishes 

paint supplies: $44.91 actual ($50 budgeted)

cabinet hardware: $41.18 actual ($100 budgeted)

This was by far the biggest DIY we've ever done, and I'm so glad we decided to do it ourselves saving us tons of money. Yes, it was time consuming but we're loving the results. I cant' wait to share with you the entire kitchen reveal! 

*affiliate links used.