You Don't See That Every Day

The beds were full. The dishwasher was very full The shower ran at odd hours The laundry basket is full. The dinner table was full. The house echoed with laughter. All my kids were home. My heart is full. A very happy day of Thanks.

It's done! Our shed in the setting sun We have moved! 20 years in our first house and now we are in a new chapter. And wow is it different! We went from 7 of us in the home to 5 of us (two went to college). We moved from a suburb neighborhood to out in the country (and we love it). We moved from 5 bedrooms to 3 (but we'll be adding some more on in the future). We increased our square footage - and the hardwood floors are so fun to slip and slide on! I find myself taking a lot of pictures of the sky, clouds, sunrise or sunset, and the neighboring farms. We've been in the new house for 3 weeks now. I am slowly figuring out our new schedule and slowly coming to call this place 'home' and having it feel like it.

Hello old friend,  I came across this post I forgot to publish way back in July. I decided to go ahead and publish it now and then come back and update ... How have you been? I've been gone awhile. Sorry about that. I think this spring and summer have been the busiest, most stressful time of my life. Ever. So many things have fallen off my To-Do lists and down into the cracks of the abyss, you being one of them. Not because of anything you have done. No, it's all me this time. My mind has been traveling too fast, for too long. over too many roads. Our daughter graduated from high school this past June. We've been through the process once before, so you would think I would be prepared for it. And I was! I had the announcements ordered in time, and her grad party planned out ahead of time. Of course, I put it on a weekend when a lot of people were not in town - Memorial Weekend. Not a smart move there, but we got it done. It still amazes me how much is involved in gradu...

A friend and I were talking about a spouse's birthday and the conversation slowly evolved into talking about date nights. There are a gazillion ideas on where to spend your date night. (Just google those two words and you'll get some amazing ideas.) But actually putting them into practice isn't so easy. Two Christmas's ago I was trying to come up with a creative gift idea for my husband. I didn't want to just buy him another shirt, or box of chocolate covered cherries. A lady in a study group suggested an idea, which I think she used one year herself.  So I took 12 pieces of paper and on each one I wrote a day from each month. For example, I looked at my January calendar, and knowing there would be swim meets and basketball games, I found a day that was open and so I wrote that on slip of paper: Jan 12. Then I did that for the rest of the months, checking my calendar, mentally reviewing what goes on in each month, or certain birthdays/holidays/school events, and th...

Spring is coming! I know its only January but I can see the daylight growing earlier and longer each day, offering hope of time outside not shivering. Our holiday break is over and we are back to the routine. Which is a good thing! The first day back to school was a lot easier for us than the second. We were up and going on time, with the only fussiness when it came time to do math. One child has a little problem with wanting to DO math. She's very good at it, and when she is in the right attitude, she can fly through it. The second day ... well, at 9am and I was just starting to eat breakfast, instead of starting school. And now that we are in week 2, well, I'm dreaming again about break time But about our break .. We packed it in this time. It felt like it to me even if the kids might not agree. The week before Christmas we took off from homeschool, although the older kids still had class at away-school. Choir concerts, singing at the Capitol, dentist and ortho appo...