from within my She: Me, My Heart, My World journal

Telling your story can change your life.

Writing pieces of my story has completely changed me. It’s made my life feel so much richer. It’s made me aware of the good, and it’s made me embrace and accept the bad. It’s made me reflect on the relationships I’ve had and gain a deeper sense of what other people in my life believe and hope for. It’s made me love intensely, passionately.

I pay closer attention to the fabulous details of life because of my journal keeping. I keep writing letters to my grandmas, regardless of how much they write back and regardless of how much time they could spend with me (or chose to spend with me) as I grew. Journaling has taught me goodness.

Journaling lets me live as passionately as I can when the things I do aren’t “normal”. Live in an airplane hangar? I’m celebrating that, not as a quirk or something less than normal, but an adventure. A really, really good adventure.

Every day, the last words my mom told my siblings and me as we headed to school were simple:

“You are going to have a good day.”

She didn’t say we’d have a perfect day. She couldn’t promise that everything would go how we wanted or that our relationships with other people would always be awesome. All she could promise was that our day could be whatever we made of it.

Life is what we all make of it. Embrace imperfection. Say hello to a life of not-being-perfect. Say hello to being YOU. After all, those imperfections and differences are what make us human. They’re what allows us to support one another. That’s what helps us get out of bed in the morning on the days we’d rather not. They’re what make us love and love.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on imperfection. Is there something in life where you feel like you’re not good enough? How do you celebrate being you, no matter how nontraditional or “normal” that may be?

Here’s another midnight update for you.

Martin and I started putting up the cans for all the recessed lights. We want to have limited light fixtures because our home in the airplane hangar is so small and narrow. A lot of fixtures just feels really cluttered to me. Recessed lights will be really great for adding light without visual clutter.

Here’s a good shot demonstrating how tall our ceilings are at their lowest point. Martin is 6 feet tall (183 cm).

Our project progressed about like this:

1. Martin and I took measurements of the entire house last week when we finalized the kitchen layout. Our original plans from months and months ago were off by an inch or so depending on little changes we made during construction (like drywall thickness and framing thickness between rooms).

2. We built an updated layout on SketchUp.

3. We found some lights that fit in our 2×6 framing against insulation. There aren’t many choices. It took two trips to get our necessary lights, and I cleaned the store out on both runs.

4. Martin geeked out on what kind of range the light from each box would cover. He even factored in the pitch of the ceiling and distance between the floor and ceiling in various parts of the house. You gotta love having a German engineer in the house!

4. We decided how many lights we wanted in each room, and I started drawing plans.

5. Martin made a few tweaks to my plan, and we were sold.

6. By then — as you already know from the photos — it was night.

7. We hauled hangar work lamps up the stairs so we could… uh… start installing our lights.

And so began a very long night of prepping, measuring, passing tools back and forth, and installing as many lights as we could.

I’d ask, “Same procedure as last light, Martin?”

“Same procedure as every light.”

Do the lights in your home provide enough light? The tire house is awful, so we’re covering our bases. And what’s your take on sconces? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? We’re thinking of adding a few…

Life has been so full over here. There are days like today where I literally roll out of bed and don’t stop working until it’s time to brush my teeth and go to bed.

I have decided to call things like “make dinner” and “do laundry” working because they’re projects in my day as our home manager. Or at least they’re supposed to be! Some days, I’m not even home to take care of those tasks.

Today was one of those days, which is why — yikes! — it’s after 10 pm, and I’m only now getting to sit down to say hello to all of you.

How have you been?

Me? I came home tonight with a whole car and trailer full of building materials (and spotted a huge bald eagle on the way home!), so we’ve got a busy weekend ahead of us at the hangar loft. It’s exciting, and I can’t wait to show you what we accomplish.

But so far, all we’ve done is unload the car and make a pot of tea.

Facebook has been awesome! Thank you to everyone who has been participating in conversation, sharing stories, and laughing with me on the Gadanke page. We’re creating a community. This is definitely something I want to keep up.

We had a little challenge to start writing our stories more. We started with something simple: just write!

Yeah to everyone who did just that. We all have to start somewhere, and it helps to do it all together. Three gals are even sharing peeks of what they did right here. Yippee! (And of course, that’s an entry from my Love Where We Live home minibook this week with a photo from earlier in the remodel.)

Here’s a peek at Juliette‘s She: Me, My Heart, My World journal:

Here’s a spread from Jane‘s journal, the other She journal:

Here’s a shot from Christina‘s Become journal, which is a diary that’s becoming so popular these days. I love the big dreaming!

We’ll have another type of storykeeping challenge in another week. Between waiting for that on Facebook and the crazy progress I think we’ll make at the hangar, I can’t wait to see what happens.

But for now? Sleep.

Did you do any storykeeping this week? Or will you this weekend? How did it go?