Loving Life

Hello again! I spent much of last week in bed with a fever, so it feels good to get back into a routine again and to catch back up on the house. Aaron and kids did well fending for themselves during meals and life in general while I laid in bed watching movie after movie on Netflix. Challenge #6 celebrating my upcoming 40th birthday is to clear out 40 bags of junk/things I don't need or want before I turn 40. I tried this a few years ago of doing a bag a day for 40 days. I did really well for about 20 days, but then got derailed a couple of days and lost my motivation. So I figured if I don't put the pressure of doing it every single day, then I will more likely finish it. Some days I may do several bags, other days none. I'm at four having started it a couple of days ago. 1/10 of the way there! My thought process is that if I have less junk in my house, it will be easier to keep it tidy. Ha. I would probably struggle in that area even living a minimalist lifestyle. ...

 Challenge 5 of 40 is maintaining Family Creative Nights. I think this has quickly become one of my favorite nights in the week. It started with Ana reminiscing one day late last fall about how they loved listening to Adventures in Odyssey when they were younger. We would check out the various volumes that our library had (usually on tape) and the kids would listen to them for three weeks straight until they had them all practically memorized. Ana then said that you can go online and listen to all past episodes with a monthly membership to the Adventures in Odyssey club. That piqued everyone's interest since our local library did not have every episode and our knowledge was limited to what we could check out. So after a brief consultation with the rest of the kids, there was enthusiastic consent to instate Family Creative Nights. Our plan is that at least once a week, we gather around the table, log in to our account, and starting from the beginning, we work our way through...

Challenge #4 of 40 was to learn how to knit or crochet something. Thankfully, I have just the friend to teach me. My adventure buddy Jamie is also a knitter extraordinaire. We sat down together last week and she taught me the basics of knitting and sent me home with a pattern for a dishcloth. Here I am snuggled up with her dog and cat on my learning day.  I apologize for the poor lighting. Someday I may buy an actual camera with which to take pictures. I was quite pleased with how it turned out. Not too bad for my first try to knitting. You can see the reflection of the Christmas lights strung up in our living room. Aaron LOVES having white Christmas lights on and wants to leave them up all year. Not sure if I will go that far, but I agreed to leave them here at least for the rest of winter. It is pretty cozy to sit in the glow of the lights at night. David had his trumpet section over last weekend for practice and fun. We had quite the assortment of trumpets and flug...

Adventure #3 this year is to do a three day fruit and vegetable fast. I'm looking for a little boost to kicking my addiction to sugar and mindless snacking. For the most part, I eat mostly healthy much of the time. I do enjoy sugar though and would like to cut down on my consumption of it. So taking three days to eat only fruits and vegetables isn't super hard. My only complaint is not drinking my morning coffee. It's a delightful part of my morning routine and I'm sad to not have it. I drank tea this morning and it just wasn't the same. Happily, I'm not alone on my three day adventure. I knew I could count on my good friend and adventure buddy Jamie to join me these three days. But what surprised us is that our husbands are joining us! Yea! I forgot to take a picture of my beautiful lunch salad that I created (yes we are allowing a few nuts and seeds), so you have to settle for a picture of Aaron's salad that I made for him on his lunch. I told him I w...

Time is ticking. I told you that in honor of my upcoming 40th birthday in August, I plan to do 40 Small Adventures (or Things I've Always Wanted To Do) to help celebrate this milestone. There are 33 weeks until my birthday, so I need to get busy! Let me introduce you to Adventure #2. Her name is Glenda. I'm the world's worst potted plant tender ever. I love to work in my vegetable garden outside and do a fairly good job of growing our food. But put a plant in a pot and I will neglect it until it dies - even if it's right in front of my nose. So Adventure #2 is to keep Glenda alive until at least my birthday. She joined our family two days ago. Our cat Forest is trying to become well acquainted with her in a manner that does not bode well for her survival. I will try to remember to post occasional updates on Glenda as the year progresses. We had a great Christmas and New Year's. It was bitterly cold here over the holidays, but we still enjoyed our t...

Our family is not very big on traditions for some reason - probably has something to do with our inability to plan farther than two days ahead. There are only a few things we do every year at Christmas time and the annual graham cracker house construction night is one of them. I always feel a little weird shopping for it as I buy so much candy that I'm afraid to see anyone I know as I stand in the checkout line with my pile of candy, lest they judge me for my unhealthful ways. This year our neighbor girls got in on the action as did Grandma and Grandpa, who happened to show up right as we were in the midst of the fun. Here is everyone hard at work creating their masterpieces. I spent most of my time helping Scarlet with her house. She wanted to eat it right away, but I told her I had to take a picture of it first. She gave me this weird smile. A much more normal smile  Seconds after taking the official picture, demo-by-eating began. The house ceased to exis...

It's been almost two years since I last posted anything and it's high time I start back up again. I really enjoy writing and this is a simple way to keep in touch with family and friends near and far while giving me a creative outlet. My goal is to get back into the habit of posting once a week and if you'd like to follow along, feel free to subscribe by email up at the top of the page. For the past two years, I've been on a journey of leaning into my personal growth and not letting my fears get in the way of living life the way I truly want to live it. It's super easy to get comfortable and settle in with the flow, never stepping out because it takes too much work and it feels too scary to do the things I'd really like to do and live my life the way I'd really like to live it. That all began to change two years ago when I realized that I had gotten quite comfy in saying no to myself. You can read about that journey (I actually wrote about it!) here . T...