Furnishing on a budget: $30 DIY Bike Rack

Since moving to North Carolina from Oregon, we have been on a very (and I mean extremely) tight budget. At the beginning of the month our friends helped us with our bills because all the moving expenses completely drained our resources. So needless to say, this young married couple hasn't been having very many date nights...

But now that pay checks are starting to stagger in and replenish what we spent to move out here, we are slowly being able to think about furnishing our apartment. I have all these cute ideas in mind (thanks Pinterest) but don't have the money to pull them all off yet. You've gotta start somewhere right? So we decided that maybe starting with the things that demand a certain amount of space should be worked out first. Namely, our bikes. 

I wasn't even really into biking until we went down to one car last year and Alex had to start commuting to work. He got super into the whole fixie craze and has since purchased me one (the bottom bike in the above photo) and spends a lot of time researching ways to make his bike cooler. Anyways...our apartment is much bigger than our place in Portland - 755 sq feet - but still not huge. So, we wanted to find the best way to store our bikes inside (we live on the first floor so it would be way to easy to take them off our back porch) without creating a giant contraption of hideousness. Cue Pinterest searching. We found lots of great photos but nothing that made us perfectly satisfied. Finally, Alex came across a photo of a DIY bike rack that used a 2x4x8 that propped against the wall with hooks in it for the bikes. 

We set out to Home Depot with our $50 bike rack budget for date night. Once we showed an employee what we were working on, he suggested we just bolt the wood board to the wall with lag screws and skip the part where we would have to build an anchor for the leaning version. Genius. We had the man cut 6 inches off the board (because our ceiling is only 8 feet high we were worried the board would be a tad tall) and went home with our supplies: 

1 - 2x4x8 (minus 6 inches) ($2.95) 

2 - 5/16 lag screws ($0.60 each)

2 - fold down bike hooks ($6 each) 

1 - Behr "maple leaf" paint sample ($3.95) 

1 - 8oz can of Minwax Wood Finish in "dark walnut" ($4.98) 

1 - paintbrush ($1.15) 

Total = $26.23 + tax

We called our buddy Justin to borrow a stud finder and a power screw driver. We started by pre-drilling the board and held it up to pre-drill into the wall for accurate placement where a stud was. Then we painted one coat of the Behr paint, followed by one coat of stain an hour later. We had to let the stain sit for 8 hours to dry thoroughly. The next day, I held the board up while my husband screwed in the lags. Then we attached the bike hooks and voila! 

Not too shabby! 

Emmaus - A Jesus Church

We officially launched our church this week. Sunday at 10am in Cary, NC was our first service in the location we have booked for a year. The Cary Arts Center is a beautiful building. It stands at the end of the street through the quaint downtown area of Cary, so the road literally leads to Emmaus. 

There was so much preparation that went into this service. The music team held three different practice sessions during the week leading up. I was worried I might lose my voice before Sunday! Don't worry, I didn't. Everything went wonderfully. It almost felt like, as a church plant, we cheated. We totally skipped the step where you meet in a school cafeteria and have really bad equipment for worship and the "kids ministry" meets out in the hall. We were able to go right into full swing with stocked up kids rooms, great sounding instruments, projector screens, and video for pod casting. An awesome beginning. 

The whole day was like we have been doing this for years. The team knows each other so well. The band has fun up on stage together. And we held a cook out in the park across the street afterward like a huge family. This really is a huge family. They take care of each other. When we were worried about how to pay our bills our family gathered around us and helped us pay for our rent. I was floored to watch four different families give us money to pay our bills. I was very humbled. It's always a hard thing to admit you can't pay for something, but then to accept other people's money is even harder. I don't know how to express what it has done to change my understanding of "generosity." On top of that, exactly what we needed came in - on the first of the month - all the money we needed was given to us. Amazing. Or as some of us have been joking: Emmaus-zing. 

God took care of us yet again. Why is it so stressful to trust Him after He had been faithful every time? Gosh I'm stubborn. He knows that. He knows I'm stubborn. He loves me anyway. 

This week, Alex and I have been enjoying a slight lull in the chaos before youth group starts up. We were able to go explore a bit at the North Carolina Museum of Art. 

There is a lovely greenway with art and a nice bike path throughout the grounds. 

Yes, in the above photo, that is my husband credit carding a naked statue. He has a great respect for art. We are hoping to get my bike up and running so this can become our new bike route. It needs some tuning up and we are just waiting until our bank account is a bit more stable. 

The museum has live music and movies on the weekend, so I think we'll try to enjoy one of those options this week or next. Even in poverty we have found ways to enjoy free dates. Being creative with our time together has been so good during the stress of last week's financial crisis. Oh and we're also going to go explore a big garage sale in Durham to see if we can find some furnishings for our empty apartment! 

Life in Raleigh

We've survived the first week. Survived the spiders, mosquitoes, and humidity. They are still here, but we've survived the first week, so I figure we can probably keep going a bit longer. The first week has also been a learning experience. I've learned that pretty much everybody who said good things about the area was telling the truth, and everyone who said negative things lied to my face. This place is as green as I heard it was. It is, however, not flat! There are hills and hills and hills. No mountains around with snow capped peaks or anything, but hills galore! Poor Alex was looking forward to an easier bike ride to work every morning, not the case. The people here are also so warm and welcoming. They speed like mad people on the freeway, but they are so nice about it. A woman cut me off the other day while I was waiting to pick up the two boys I'm nannying from school. She pulled over and got out of her car, walked up to my window and apologized for doing that. I've never in my life had a driver apologize to me. It's almost scary how cordial these North Carolinians are. My Portland sarcasm is going to be a shocker.

Our jobs are going well. Alex fits right in with his new work team at Starbucks in Cary. And the family I'm working with is very fun. The boys are...well...boys. I'm accustomed to boys though, four brothers will do that to you! They told me they want me to pick them up from school for the rest of their time at the academy - that they don't want to have to start taking the bus next year because they like me better. Score one for the nanny.

We are still painfully poor. We were able to pay for all of our moving expenses and our August prorated rent, but the next month is almost upon us, so we are scraping together all of our pennies to make end's meet. Alex wanted to rent a Redbox movie last night but I told him we couldn't afford the $1.29 until our next paycheck. *Sigh* so pathetic. I'll admit, I have been stressing about it a bit. I want to tell myself that I trust the Lord to have brought us this far and not leave us now. I want to tell myself that He'll give me that peace that passes understanding...but I simply don't right now. I won't fake it 'til I make it. I don't believe in that. I'd rather be honest.

So, honestly, I was crying last night thinking about how we can't even buy laundry detergent right now. Fortunately, our team has been so great to let us come over and use laundry machines, or make us dinner. Anyways, this morning I woke up a little depressed. I had watched Becoming Jane a few days ago (oh I do love girly movies) and there's a line where Jane's father is encouraging her to marry a guy she doesn't want to but he is wealthy: "Nothing breaks spirit like poverty." I thought about that when I woke up with a small grey cloud over my head. I don't want that to be true of me. I want to have the same fervor for Jesus that I do when things are going smooth with my life circumstances. Then Alex texted me from work with a verse he had read today. It is Romans 8:32 - "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" I don't know an onomatopoeia for conviction. But if conviction makes a sound, it rung loudly in my ears as I read that out loud. Ok, Jesus, you've got this.

I am sincerely looking forward to watching how this all works out for my good...and His glory.

Day 9 - Kentucky/Tennessee/North Carolina

Oh me, oh my, I can't believe my eyes...yes, yes it is! There's the promised land! We made it! We crossed the North Carolina border in the early afternoon after driving through our last time zone change in TN. As we drove, I looked all around and saw trees, trees, and more trees. I also saw hills (I mean, even after we crossed the Great Smoky Mountains). All our fellow church planters that moved out before us told us it was a flat land...they may have exaggerated a bit. Sure, there aren't looming mountains in your view, but there sure are hills big enough to wind you on a commuter bike (which is how Alex will be getting to work every day). 

We filled up our gas tank one more time (and prayed for God to help it last until work starts replenishing our account) and pulled into the apartment complex just as the sun was setting. Driving through the neighborhood that will be our home for at least the next year was so surreal. I felt a sense of belonging and pride filling my chest. God has definitely given me a heart for this city. He has also given me a heart that appreciates a hot shower - which I was very much looking forward too once we unloaded a few things. 

We got out of the car and I was so giddy to see our new home. I did a little jig in the parking lot, clapping my hands, singing "we're going to have a dishwasher, and a disposal, and a full sized fridge!" Alex walked us down the stairs to our front door, he said the landlord had left a spare key for us above the door (it's not there anymore so don't come try to break in to my house). Alex slid his hand along the top but didn't find the key. So he tried again...*SWISH*...the key slipped off the door frame and fell (perfectly) through the slats in the deck we stood on! Dead silence. Staring at the floorboards. We looked up at each other - then just busted up laughing! "That's going in the blog!" I said. 

Alex went to the car and grabbed one of our flashlights. We walked down around to where there is a crawl space under the deck towards where the key was dropped into the mulch below. Alex took a stick with him to clear out the spider webs and bear-crawled his way to where our key was. He had to look a bit but was successful in the end. Phew! 

We definitely needed showers after that! But, what's this? No shower curtain? No problem! 

My husband is a very good problem solver. Either that or he's really good at pretending he lives in the ghetto...he is from So Cal after all. 

It's always good to be able to find humor in every situation. Even without a shower curtain, we were able to make light of it and enjoy a luxuriously warm rinse. 

Our journey is almost complete. We still have to unpack and return the uHaul (which I'm sure Franco is stoked about), we need to get all the details sorted out with switching all the apartment services to our name, and we need to get a lay of the land! Tomorrow is our first day in our new home and our new homeland - I wonder what stories await us! 

Day 8 - Kentucky

There is so much preserved history at Mammoth Cave National Park - it's any nerd's dream land. 

The visitors center offers free information sessions and all the rangers are really friendly. We asked one ranger which cave tour he would recommend if he could only do one on his visit. He recommended the historic cave tour, so we signed up for the noon tour to kill a few hours during the heat of the day. 

Ranger Steve was our guide.

He had all kinds of puns up his sleeve. 

The cave was much much cooler than above ground, about 30 degrees cooler in fact. 

We descended the stairs leading into what is called the "historic entrance" of the caves. We weren't sure if we'd make it out, so we took a photo to preserve our memory just in case. 

It turns out, spelunking is pretty spectacular. I hadn't been in a cave since high school and I felt my inner kid rising up to the surface. 

It helped that Ranger Steve told us all kinds of ghost stories and kept turning out the cave lights to show us what it must have been like for the first explorers of the caverns. 

We squeezed through tight passages, ducked through low tunnels, and wove our way down to 310 feet below the Earth's surface.

We even found life down there.

That tiny thing is a bat. The type that lives here is quite small. Ranger Steve called them chicken nuggets with wings. 

Eventually, we made it out alive. 

All the southern history we were exposed to gave us a hankering for corn bread. So we put together a little experiment...corn bread in a skillet on the camp stove! 

I'm not going to tell you it was the best cornbread I've ever made, cause that would be a lie. It was, however, edible and with some honey on top it wasn't half bad. Except for the bottom. The bottom was burnt. It was worth a shot though! And it certainly put Alex in the country spirit. 

Soon we'll leave Kentucky behind for the long haul to North Carolina. 

I can't believe we're almost to our new home! I'll tell all about it in Day 9! 

Day 7 - Missouri/Illinois/Indiana/Kentucky

After waking up at a rest stop, we continued on to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. It was so nice to make it to a destination before dark! We actually had time to cook up some grub and set up the tent in daylight. 

Getting to Kentucky took us through a few states. We saw the world's largest McDonald's...

Well, ok, the St. Louis Arch. 

We crossed borders...

The drive was so green. I know it's crazy humid but it sure does keep everything looking nice. We are also experiencing more southern accents. It's very hard for me not to mimic them.

There were threats of thunder storms at Mammoth Cave but luckily they passed over us on our way there.

I've always loved when it dumps super hard but then abruptly let's up just 5 minutes later. It reminds me of monsoon season in Nepal from back when I visited there. 

Other than a few showers, it was smooth sailing. After our initial arrival and camp set-up we made a delicious treat. 

These were Alex's idea: peanut butter and Nutella s'mores! They were so good! I can't believe I've never thought of them before. I think they are going to become our new tradition. 

We picked up some better bug repellent and I wore plenty of layers this time...no more itchy bites for me!

The campfire helped keep the bugs away too. I purposefully made it extra smokey...ok maybe not on purpose...I'm just not that good at building fires...

It was a nice relaxing evening. We watched the blinking fireflies and enjoyed the (slightly) cooler air. 

We are so excited to do some spelunking tomorrow and check out these caverns...hopefully it won't turn into a Tom Sawyer story and we'll be lost in the caves with nothing but a lantern...we'll see! 

Day 6 - South Dakota/Iowa/Missouri

They say there is a first time for everything. I didn't think I would ever experience a first time of cooking a scramble for lunch on the side of the road in Iowa. I have to admit, however, it was one of the best cowboy scrambles I've ever had. 

I had to wash the dishes in the bathroom but it was a cheap meal with supplies we already had. I'm pretty good at being poor now. 

We started driving pretty early so it was nice to have a little picnic time. 

We drove and drove and drove until we couldn't drive any longer. So Day 6 held another first for me. It was my first time sleeping overnight at a rest stop. Alex strung together some towels and made curtains for the back of the car. We rolled out our sleeping pad and slept the appropriate 8 hours before getting up with the sun to start driving again. 

We're both starting to go a little stir crazy from all the driving...we've run out of driving games and have listened to all of our CDs multiple times. Thankfully, there have been no major fights, although, I get a little snappy if Alex tries to ask me anything before I've had my coffee. 

It's getting more and more like the scenery I expect to be surrounded by in Raleigh - lots of dense wooded areas broken up by field or muddy rivers. No mountains. 

During the endless driving, one of the conversations we had was about how the Proverb we read that day mentioned: "Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice. (Proverbs 16:8 NIV)" - and though we only have a little, we wouldn't trade it for the ability to afford more materialistic things. We are tight financially, but we are so content with our life. This adventure is worth what little we have. 

We continue on towards Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky - let's see what treasures await in Day 7!