Happily Emma After

I love plants! I love looking at them. I love picking them out! I love admiring the variety of colors and textures. And MOST of all, I love taking care of them! Plants, however, are tricky. You need to know how to take care of them. If not the death of your plant is likely. I, unfortunately, have learned this multiple times over. I have killed a plant from over-watering. I have killed a plant from leaving it in the shade. I have killed a plant from leaving it in the Arizona summer sun. I have killed a plant from not understanding the directions on its tag. I have killed plants from potting the wrong ones with each other. I have killed a plant from it dropping off my tailgate right after buying it. I have killed a plant when it flew out the window of my car. (I was going on a trip and was worried it would die while I was gone . Ironically, it died while I was there.) I have killed a plant from leaving it in the car to go into IKEA “real quick.” (There is no such thing as a...

Growing up in the military, you learn to make friends quickly with very little, if any, regard to commonalities. My sister growing up would often ask my mom if she could play at her friend’s house. When asked which one, she would respond with, “the one with the [insert color here] shirt!” If you were our age and liked toys too, BOOM, friends. Thankfully, in a military community, everyone was on the same boat you were; looking for a friend. The fact alone made making friends easier. With getting older, you can’t necessarily go up to someone and say, “Hey! I like your shirt. Let’s be friends!” I mean—you could, but I don’t know how successful you’d be. Most people would probably think you were a weirdo. It was easier, by far, to make friends as a kid. But friendships that last a lifetime? For me, that’s a steep standard to meet. Top: Amy and I on a road trip to Seattle! Left: Me and Danica WAY back in the day! Right: Being a sister and  best friends MEANS photo bomb...

Many people grew up hearing fairy tales. They came with a wide variety of settings and characters. More often than not, these children’s stories always shared a moral or lesson to be learned. In teaching these lessons they were often very black and white; you could always tell who the “bad guy” was. An often used “bad guy” in children’s stories was a wolf. We see this in “Little Red Riding Hood,” where she and her grandmother are devoured by the wolf. We also see this in “The Three Little Pigs,” were they each built different shelters to protect themselves from a hungry wolf. And lastly, we see it in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” where a boy foolishly gives false alarm so, when real danger comes, again a wolf, no one heeds his true alarm. We see this same setting in the Bible’s New Testament as well. In John chapter ten, we learn the story of the hireling and a shepherd. A hireling, back in the day, was someone employed to undertake menial work. So, as assumed, they would not b...

We're the Hansens! We were married early April of 2019. My husband and I have been married just over eight  months. Last summer, before we were married (heck, before we even met) my husband bought a house. When I found out this not-so-little news, I was THRILLED. I would browse the pictures on the real estate site and day-dream of our cute lil’ 1950-something fixer-upper. It was going to be beautiful; just like off of HGTV. What a dream…. …What a nightmare. Our drive way is a forty-five-degree angle. There are SEVEN layers of contact paper in our kitchen cupboards. There was no outlet it our retro lavender and dusty blue bathroom. Fifty-four gaping holes from past screws and nails filled the walls of our tiny hallway. And, call me crazy, but is the door at the end of the hallway crooked?? I was concerned to say the least. But then, I stopped to really think about it. My marriage is like this little house. “Emma, that’s dumb. You just listed all these horrible, ...