The first decorations
My Gaudete tree. Really, I just fell in love with this little tree when I saw it at Target, but what better time to put it up?! What a reminder it will be to rejoice!
View ArticleMy Anthropologie knock-off hat rack
Last year I saw this hook rack on Anthropologie's website. I liked the idea, but I knew that my hubby could make me a rack for way less than $88. We spent about $22 on wood and hooks, and used stain...
View ArticleThis is definitely what you call a first world problem
I know that some of you are going to think that I'm crazy, but this has been bugging me. I want to go someplace that requires me to dress up. Really, really dress up. We used to have some fancy holiday...
View ArticlePlannin' some meals
You would think that with two sons in college and working and with one son who is, for all practical purposes, finished homeschooling and is also working , I would be feeling like life is getting less...
View ArticleTimes to remember
So, for the last 11 days I've been in Tucson. This is a new adventure for me. I'm in Tucson because my beautiful daughter lives here now--thank goodness not permanently--and she is having a bit of a...
View ArticleStill adjusting
I love to entertain. I love to have a couple of friends over for a glass of wine, several couples for a nice dinner, whole families for a weekend, or big shindigs for whatever occasion I can drum up....
View ArticleNew day
This morning has a strangely first-day-of-school, New-Year's-Day feel for me. All of my kids have graduated from high school. Yes, this is normal and expected, but when you've homeschooled for 18...
View ArticleBig happenings
I haven't posted for a while, but not because nothing has been happening. Quite the contrary, the last five months have been quite eventful. My middle son became engaged to a fine young woman, whose...
View ArticleDon't mind me
I'm working on a project and need to get these photos onto Pinterest. The quickest way is to put them here.
View ArticleFamily and thankfulness
I have a pretty big, pretty crazy family. For the first 22 years of my life, I only had one brother. Little brother Todd, with mom. Then my mother remarried and I suddenly gained two step-sisters and...
View ArticleCaught by surprise
So, last month this happened. And this happened. Those are my first and second sons, with their brides. In the space of less than a month we went from a household of five on the weekends and four...
View ArticleThe measure of a life
Teaching me to tie a tie. 1983 So. I lost my step-dad last Friday. People who don't know me or our family well assume that means that my mom's husband, who was not my father, died and that while I'm...
View ArticleTrying to regain lost ground
I have always been in decent shape. I've never been a great athlete, but I've always been relatively strong, have had good stamina, and worked hard to stay flexible. And I've always enjoyed moving,...
View ArticleForty albums
So, one of my Facebook friends posted this earlier today, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. So I decided to take the time to jot these down now, partially because I want to look at other people's...
View ArticleTaking control
The realization came to me slowly over the last couple of months; I've been just letting life happen. I had totally lost control of everything: my house, the way that I was eating, my activity level,...
View ArticleThings you never saw being a part of your life
Sometimes life takes us in directions we didn't expect to go. Definitely the most profound and life-changing of those for me was getting married at 20 and having my first child at 21. I wasn't planning...
View ArticleFunerals: The good stuff
We have had a lot of funerals at church in the past eighteen months. We've had three since Easter, with one more coming soon. So many of our dear saints who lived full, active lives into their 80s and...
View ArticleHanging on
The photo above is of a couple of paragraphs from Unstuffed by Ruth Soukup. If you have trouble with clutter or organization, you may find her books helpful. I have. And her website is packed with...
View ArticleIt has begun
My long-awaited kitchen remodel is not going to be quick. It is going to happen in small increments interspersed with bursts of activity. This happened Sunday: There are actually two more like it now....
View ArticleOne step forward, four steps back
As I promised, this kitchen thing isn't going to be quick. After getting cabinet prices from a local family-owned place, I decided to compare what the big-box stores had to offer. Sticker shock,...
View ArticleThere is some good news
I have my floor. It's in a pile of boxes on my front porch, but I have it. That's especially exciting because when we were ready to purchase, I discovered that it had been discontinued. A few cartons...
View ArticleA little change of plans
Last night I had an almost completely sleepless night of worry about the when, how, and how much of the kitchen project. I was worried about how busy our fall is and how we weren't going to have time...
View ArticleJoining the bullet (journal) train
Several months ago my daughter started talking abut her bullet journal. I did some cursory investigating and decided it was not for me. Since then, I've seen more people talking about it. I've read...
View ArticleDinner's in the mail
The bad timing of our first Hello Fresh delivery was not their fault. Who would have known almost a month ago when I scheduled it that there would be seven people in the house, instead of the two that...
View ArticleFunerals, again
A few years ago I wrote a post about funerals that is one of my personal favorites. I also got a lot of positive feedback about it at the time.I was thinking about it on Monday when we had our first...
View Article
