I've Moved

Hi, we moved to a new blog: click here to keep up with us.  Follow the new blog if you're interested.

Thanks,
The Lowthers

Taking a Break

Taking a break from reading fiction for a bit.  This is going to be tough.  I love fiction.  Sometimes reading novels becomes an idol in my life because I run to my stories rather than run to the bread of life.  Sometimes? Ok, frequently.  It's sad, really.

So, I've resolved to not read a fiction book until I've finished the books that our church is plowing through this summer in our small groups. 

For now, I'm reading the following:
Bible-going strong(ish) on my reading plan
Radical-David Platt (summer reading plan)
Gospel-J.D. Greear (summer reading plan)
Don't Waste Your Life-John Piper
Power of a Praying Wife-Stormie Omartian

This is harder than it sounds for me.  Have you ever just wanted to escape and turn your mind off?  That's what I do when I read fiction.  I engross myself in the characters and basically escape from reality.  I'm in the middle of a 5-book series and have put the brakes on.  Screeeech.

I need to fill up my mind with useful stuff, not junk.

Pray for me!  Pray that I will be filled with the knowledge of God, that I will taste and see that He is good, that I will eat of the bread of life and be satisfied. 

We're also in the midst of preparing to go to Africa!  Our church has adopted an unreached people group and Brian and I get to be a part of team 2!  We and a another couple leave out the last week of June.  The people we will be visiting are a part of an oral culture so we have been brushing up on some key Bible stories to tell them.

Pray with us that the Lord will be preparing hearts to hear and understand the Word and that many would repent and turn to Christ!  We long to see the nations reached with the Gospel of Christ.  More details about the trip to come.

Need your Opinion!

So, Brian and I are preparing to paint the exterior of our home!  We're excited and daunted at the same time.  We need your help!  Below are a few ideas we're throwing around for updating the colors on our siding, shutters and doors.  We can't decide if what we've picked is wonky or right-on!  Let us know what you think!
There's a few so bear with me!

Classic French Gray w/ Needlepoint Shutters (1)

Storm Cloud w/ Black Swan (2)

Night Owl w/ Iron Ore, Decisive Yellow Door (3)

Peppercorn w/ Naval (4)

Proper Gray w/ Folkstone, Nappery Door (5)

Serious Gray w/ Web Gray (6)

Smoky Blue w/ Cyperspace (7)

Wall Street w/ Naval (8)

Ready, set, vote!  And these colors are far from set.  We may end up with none of these!

Bedroom Makeover: Frames

We knew we wanted to put something over the bed.  We tossed around a few ideas and settled with a frame collage.  We brainstormed ideas of where to get inexpensive frames.  We were working on a fairly tight budget for this project.  Brian’s mom offered some old off-white and brown frames that she had in her attic.  We pounced on them.
Once again, we turned to trusty spray paint to get them looking a little more modern and our style.  You’ll notice we chose another bold color.  As I reveal more of the room you’ll understand that the blinds and the frames are the brightest pops of color.  So we figured it would be ok to make them a statement.

I guess you get a better shot of the blue blinds here too.  Sorry, again, can’t give you a great shot because it would reveal too many other things. Once we got the frames on the wall we had to decide what we wanted to put in them.  Below shows what made the final cut.  In order starting clockwise from top left: Washington Monument, NM (some huge field, sorry Bec can’t remember the name of it), Ferris Wheel on Santa Monica pier, wedding photo, NM sky, Savannah staircase, NM highway (it’s hard to see, even in person).

The frames may look crooked in this photo…but believe me; Brian did an excellent job measuring and leveling to make sure they came out juuuust right.  We like them. 

Bedroom Makeover: Blinds

So, another item we made over in the bedroom was our blinds.  We originally had these ugly orangebrown wooden blinds.

  Ick.

We saw this on Pinterest and wondered out loud if it was really doable to paint your blinds.  Our verbal processing went something like this:

DH: sure, let’s try it.
Me: really? won’t it turn out kinda crappy?
DH: nah, we’ll just lay them flat and spray paint them.
Me: what about the edges and sides?  we should take each slat out to paint them.
DH: good point.  and while you’re at it wash them off (they still had dust on them from our ceiling job we did 3 years ago…ack!)
Me: well, I guess here goes.  and if we hate it we can just go buy new blinds.

  There was SO much spray paint dust. Everywhere. Even got some blue boogers…

About mid-project, we realized these blinds, although ugly, were rather expensive being real wood and all.  Periodically had project-remorse until they were finished.

  What do you think?  Sorry; I would show you more, but it would reveal too much of the other make over items.  You’ll see them in a later post and if you don’t have an opinion yet you can let me know later.

I think it took about a week to get everything painted and cured.  We ran through about 8 cans of spray paint for this project.  Definitely wasn’t cheap, but way faster, smoother and easier than brushing them.