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Showing posts with label Bits Of Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bits Of Life. Show all posts
This week I thought I would take a cue from Michelle and share some photos of the week with you. One bad thing - maybe the only bad thing - about being off of Instagram is that I can't easily share the little things we are up to - the things that don't seem worthy of a whole blog post end up getting lost. I like the way Michelle has been sharing snippets of daily life on Fridays, and so I'm stealing her idea! Maybe it'll become a weekly occurrence. (I'm at least shooting for once a month.)
-We had out-of-town family to visit recently, and we ate Mexican food and then went on a hike. Gramie happened to know a lot about the history of the buildings in this particular area, so you can bet I counted it as a field trip! It was so nice to see our East Coast family - we always have such great conversations with Derek's brother and sister-in-law, and it had me itching for a visit out there again.
-We went out for a visit to our friends ranch a couple weekends ago! We enjoy taking the kids on day-trips like this, and I love catching up with these particular friends from my childhood. They make it so interesting for the kids as well, and it's a cool experience for them to get to see how a real ranch works! There were adorable lambs born the night before we went, and the kids loved feeding them. My friends were also quite impressed with how far my five little kids rolled that huge hay bail!
-Just a couple outfit pictures from my main opportunity to "dress up" (as in, not in sweats) - that would be Awana nights! My kids are in a perfect sweet spot right now, where all five of them can be in Awana at the same time, and you can bet we are taking advantage of this chance for weekly date nights! When Wyatt gets old enough to age out of the program I'll probably volunteer, but we have to take our opportunities while we have them. I'm trying to be cognizant of what kinds of pictures I share of my kids on here, but I wish I could show you their outfits for "Decades Night" at Awana - the girls were 80's, the boys were 50's. They all looked ridiculously adorable.
-A certain little child of mine turned 7 years old! He asked for a mountain bike and a Woody doll from Toy Story, and was so excited when his wish came true.
-Four of my kids gathered around the laptop for an art tutorial on a Friday Fun-day (Clyde was gone on his birthday shopping day with grandma). Gwen in particular has an artistic bent and has been asking me non-stop for drawing lessons. For now, online lessons will have to do.
-It has snowed a few times in the last couple weeks, after almost summer-like weather. The only time I have trouble with snow is typically in the spring, when we are teased with lovely weather and then hit with another storm - however, this last bit of snow has not bothered me at all. I'm not sure why, maybe it's the knowledge that summer is coming fast and the moisture will be so good for our grass. I think I also am feeling the freshness of spring anew this year, even snowy springs, after we were all locked down last April. I resolved last year to never complain about a normal spring again, mud and all, and so far my resolution has held. It also helps that in April and May snow melts off so fast. We got some drippy icicles in our trees the other day that were so pretty, but I had a hard time capturing them.
-On days when I can't make it to the gym, sometimes I do a quick walk to the mailbox instead, and the last couple times this crazy dog has been following me. I tried to make sure he was locked inside before leaving last time, but when I finally reached the mailbox, closed it and turned around, who do you think I saw? He used to be quite the dog about town in our old neighborhood, and we had to keep him on a collar to make sure he didn't roam, but in his old age he doesn't want to leave our sides. When we are home, he never goes farther than our driveway. When I go to the mailbox, he has to tag along.
Not pictured:
-Derek got a new job this month! He is still in accounting, but a more interesting version of accounting for him. He's excited about attacking a new challenge, and I'm excited that (for now at least) he still gets to work mostly from home. Having him home this last year has been a huge blessing - it has allowed us more family time together since he no longer has to commute, and it has actually made homeschooling easier, because when certain children are getting too distracted I can send them in to work with dad (which works in focusing them like a charm). It is also not lost on me how lucky we are that Derek has been able to work through everything that happened in 2020. I know that working situations have been so hard for so many people.
-April has been such a busy month in that we have been able to spend so much time with people we care about. We had a great Easter with my family, we got to see Derek's family, and we've had several dinners with various good friends. I've also been able to schedule some visits with our homeschool social group, and park days with individual friends. It's been a really busy month! It doesn't appear to be slowing down - Wyatt informed me that he has a busy couple weeks ahead with several events at church he would like to attend. When I contrast last April with this April, I am just so pleased with the difference. People are starting to relax with the arrival of the vaccine, and so much feels normal again.
Normal is a gift. I'm very satisfied with normal.
I hope you all have had a beautifully normal month too, friends - comment and tell me what you've been up to!
Reading...Things Jolie Needs To Do Before She Bites It by Kerry Winfrey. I've been reading some heavy stuff lately, and sometimes you just need a little YA nonsense. So far it's pretty cute, we'll see where it goes.
Watching...Alone by the History Channel. We have been fans for a long time, but the newer seasons finally made it to Hulu, so we are catching up! We are watching the season where the people are stranded in Mongolia, and I am convinced there is no way I would last a week there. They have wolves in Mongolia. I think I learned a little too much in our co-op when we were covering the Middle Ages last year (lots of problems with wolves eating little children, for real). Wolves are worse than mountain lions or bears. At least with the latter, there is only one, and you have a chance of fighting them off. Wolves travel in packs. Basically, you'd be toast.
Feeling...frustrated. So today was the first time since February when I've been able to go work on the ol' blog at Starbucks. I was so excited! Then I got here and our internet filtering system blocked me from joining the wifi. So the first 40 minutes I've had in a coffee shop alone since February were spent on the phone with Covenant Eyes figuring out what went wrong. Thankfully their customer service is pretty great, and I am grateful for what they do generally. Just going to have to find a work-around for this Starbucks issue.
Choosing...to postpone all my homeschool posts that I had plan until we actually start school! I had a bunch of ideas I wanted to write about, but I decided I needed a few more lazy summer weeks where I just read and take my kids to the park or for summer hikes with friends.
We start school the week of August 16th (trying to get an earlier start this year, in the hopes that next spring we can finish early and things will be normal). So a couple more weeks and I'll get more of those posts and Instagram videos up! Hoping I don't burn you guys out on homeschool content, but I really enjoy sharing ideas and hearing what other people are doing!
Consuming...not a lot of a sugar. I realized my jeans were getting a little tight, so it was time to cut out sugar for a while again. I'm also trying to get in shape, just because, but also because I drew a deer tag this year. This will be the first time I've been hunting in...probably eight years, and I'm woefully out of shape. And unsure if I'd be able to hit the broad side of a barn. And our freezer is also in desperate need of filling, so yeah, the pressure is on. My plan for not wheezing my way up the trail includes going old-school and breaking out my Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD - and yes, I still feel like I'm going to die after every workout.
Ordering...fall candles. I am definitely in the mood for fall early, but I'm trying to restrain myself and enjoy what's left of the summer. I think I'm feeling particularly fall-ish this year because, in my mind, the craziness going on in the world will be magically fixed in the fall. This somehow despite it being an election year, and despite the logical part of my brain knowing something dramatic will go down in October, because they always try to pull those old election tricks. But maybe this year will be different! Who says adults can't believe in fairy tales? (Sorry, that was kind of sarcastic and cynical. I'm in a mood this week.)
Remembering...I've been pining after Florida this week, because around this time last year we were getting ready for a beach vacation. I am treating this nostalgia by looking through our vacation photos from May, to remind myself that we did actually do some fun things this year too. I'm aiming to get a vacation recap post up tomorrow or Monday!
Enjoying...the way the light shines in our windows in the morning. I've been trying to keep my habit of getting up before the kids through the summer, and if I make it downstairs before 7:00, the light glows orange and pink through the windows. It's really pretty, and I know a photograph wouldn't even capture it. Sometimes when the light is just right, and I know there is no way to convey the experience accurately to anyone else, I just tuck those moments up in my heart and thank the Lord that I get to be alive right then, seeing something that feels like it's only for me.
P.S. Trying...to figure out what these berries are. Any ideas? We spotted them on a hike with friends a couple weeks ago, and I'm terrible with plants. We are studying Botany for science this year, and I am expecting to learn alot.
This past fall my eight year blogging anniversary quietly passed by.
I’ve been blogging for eight years. Do you know how ancient that makes me in blog years?
I didn't start at the very beginning of blogging (there are some out there who have been blogging five years longer than me), but I remember why I started at the time. I had just gotten married, the first of my friends, and I wanted to connect with other young married women. Since there were none in my immediate circle, I turned to the world wide web.
Back then, that’s why people blogged - just to connect. And we wrote about silly things. Much of it was neither profound nor pinnable. It was glorious.
I remember, after a year of blogging, telling my mom how I had 20 followers now, and I hoped I wouldn’t get much more than that, because if my blog grew too big, how would I reciprocate by reading and commenting on more than 20 blogs every day? Everything about that sentence tells you how blogging has changed.
I remember when it started to change - it was the year I had Gwen, and all of a sudden there was a crop of brand-new bloggers, and with them came change. Their blogs grew rapidly, companies started sponsoring posts, and before we all knew it, blogging purely to share your life became no longer relevant. It’s nice that your child started walking, but how many pageviews did you get last week? It’s nice that you went on vacation, but when was the last time you got a sponsored post? It’s nice that you want to share what you’ve learned while mothering, but why don’t you turn it into a link-up?
(Do you see the time that I am publishing this? That’s because I wrote it in the parking lot while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, and I published it as soon as I could connect to wi-fi after I finished writing it. I didn’t schedule it for tomorrow morning. I’m posting on Tuesday, the slowest day of the blogging week. I didn’t even take time to create a highly clickable post title, or create a pinnable image! Do you know how many modern blogging rules I am breaking with this post?)
Adapt or die, that’s the survival of the fittest rule, and it seemed to apply to blogging. Those who had no desire to adapt to this new blogging scheme slowly petered out. And those who did adapt lost something.
I want to bring it back. Just a little.
I want to tell you I bought a Christmas graphic tee. I’m tempted to turn it into a mini series about how to style a Christmas graphic tee, and I might. But why can’t I first just tell you I bought a fun t-shirt that I like?
I want to tell you that this fall I helped to host a women’s Bible study at church. Four months have gone by and I’m just now telling you that. I want to tell you how fun and encouraging it was, I want to tell you about the quirky ladies. I want to tell you about how I had to quit, and how one of the ladies gave me a Starbucks gift card as a farewell present (bless her, just bless her, she knows I need my caffeine!). I want to tell you all this without having to turn it into a “Ten Reasons You Should Join A Bible Study”, or some such impersonal silliness.
I want to tell you about how I had the kids packed up, and I walked out the door this morning to a chorus of muffled howls coming from the car because I took too long to get the kids their Pop-tarts (our breakfast-on-the-go of choice). How I felt slightly bad before I broke out laughing because it was so cute and ridiculous. And there is really no way to turn that into a post either pinnable or clickable, but I want to share it, these little bits of life.
So let’s do this again, shall we? Let’s take some time to share bits of life and a cup of tea on a Tuesday. See you at the same time next week.
(Or not, because I am going to be wild and crazy and not schedule a post ahead of time! Just check back sometime on Tuesday and I’ll have something up.)
What I’m Drinking: Dirty Chai tea from Celestial Seasonings, mixed with a hot chocolate packet. It is delicious.
Also note: This spur-of-the-moment post prompted by Cassidy's post on blogging like the old days. I'm not the only one who misses it.
Update: Please read this blog post on more about how we lost old-fashioned blogging, and how to get it back!
Update: Please read this blog post on more about how we lost old-fashioned blogging, and how to get it back!
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