Retreat

For the entirety of my married life, our bedroom has been anything but a retreat. Let's be honest, when you have company coming over, you make sure the areas of the house that your guests will actually need to see are cleaned up (living room, kitchen, bathroom), and the bedroom sort of falls at the bottom of the priority list. So, it's the last room to get cleaned, the room that gets to epic disaster status before it's given any real attention, the room that might take the longest to get organized and cleaned up because of all the laundry and folding and ugh. It would always, always bother me, but I'm not type-A enough for it to drive me to fix it for good...

But lately, I've been going through a season of conviction regarding the way I use my time, take care of/run my homemaking, and prioritize my life. I've really realized that I've lived a lot of life flying by the seat of my pants, never really having a plan or schedule for my day-to-day, ordinary tasks. My lack of intentionality has led to quite a bit of immaturity and dysfunction in my life. Very important things like self-discipline, the spiritual disciplines, prioritizing our marriage relationship, and many others seem to fall through the cracks if you aren't intentional about them, if you don't plan them into your day-to-day life until they become routine. So, I'm 26, a wife of 7 years, a mother to a 1 year old, and I am just now realizing the importance of simple, ordinary things like making my bed. Simple, ordinary things are the ingredients that make up the sum of one's life. They are important because they are the place where every individual on earth spends the majority of their time. If I am not disciplined in the ordinary things, how do I ever expect be disciplined in the out-of-the-ordinary things? Really, this is all about living my life for the glory of God, and I want to honor Him in the ways in which I treat the ordinary.

All this does tie back to my bedroom. Hah. All of the aforementioned has prompted me to do quite a bit of restructuring, streamlining, and even a bit of nesting. I feel as though the bedroom should be a place where Oliver and I can get away from the mess, the toys, the stresses of school and parenting, and just retreat. So, while I've been attempting to keep the bedroom tidy and stress-free, I've also been slowly giving it a makeover. I've added a dresser (to be painted mustard eventually), curtains, a plate wall, and different odds and ends.  I hope to repaint the walls off white or something much less alienesque at some point :)  So, without further ado, here is our little retreat!

I'm considering adding more plates, but I don't want it to be too busy.  What do you think?

[Note:  The wall hanging in the picture above is a print from a local artist in the city in China my sister-in-law, Anna, used to live!  We were so impressed with his work, and we just had to bring one home!  The drum in the corner in the photo below I lugged home for my then boyfriend, Oliver, after 3 months of being separated while I was in Africa.  I've never brought home a more ridiculously huge item from another country since. Good memories!]

I love lamp.  :)  I found her at a thrift store for $5, and it is so much more wonderful to read in bed now!  Overhead lights are just too harsh for relaxing nighttime reading.

[If you're looking for some hanging lanterns, get them at World Market after Christmas.  I think these lanterns are only put out at Christmas time, but they eventually go on a 75% off sale after Christmas every year.  These were $2.50!]  Btw, the giant candle holder on the dresser was our unity candle stand at our wedding!  I love that we decided to buy our own stand so we could keep it, and I love that it is in our home, a constant reminder of our unity and oneness.

[Note:  All plates were found either out thrifting or in my cupboard.  This really is one of the cheapest, easiest solutions for a bare wall in your house!  Instead of getting plate hangers ($2.50 A PIECE, believe it or not...), get some shoelace, Gorilla glue, and some old fabric remnants.  Glue the shoelace in a loop on the upper back of the plate, and glue a 2" circle/square of fabric on top of the bottom of the shoelace loop.  Hopefully that nonsense made some sense to you.  If you're interested, message me, and I'll post a picture of the back.  Gorilla glue takes a couple hours to dry (and 24 hours to fully cure), and I put plastic wrap on top of the glued items and a heavy book on top of that for the entire drying time.  This is SO EASY, super cheap, and really does hold well.  Then, just hang the plates on your wall using normal nails!]

Found this^ beat up, old...I don't even know what it is...thrifting at His House, along with this lovely little green glass bowl to throw earrings or whatever in:

My dear Oliver saw that my teeny little jewelry box from Bulgaria was always overflowing, so he picked up that^ pretty little number at World Market for me for Christmas!  What a thoughtful husband I have!