Wrapping Up a Full Week

Another week has come to an end. This was a full week for our family, but thankfully it was manageable. I just have to say this production of little Women that Leah Kate is in is a lot of work for all of us! They have a grueling rehearsal schedule and I'm just not used to being on the road so much. Darrell, Zach and I are taking turns getting her to and from rehearsals.

Her director is extremely professional and wants to make sure they have an excellent play, so it takes a lot of work! thank goodness this is just for a few more weeks. I will post her promotional photos soon. They are having period dresses tailored for each of the girls and from what I hear, they are going to be beautiful. Can't wait to see them!

We also had family in town staying with us for a couple of days this week. We enjoyed the visit. Like I said, full but manageable!

Just a few touches of fall outside. I like to take walks around our little place in the mornings and just take in the season. The cool air that has finally arrived, the leaves that are beginning to change, the squirrels scurrying around gathering for the winter. It's a time for me to pray and clear my mind of those pesky anxious thoughts that tend to creep in.

I'm looking forward to a lovely, productive weekend. We have some fall cleanup that needs to be taken care of on our property and I'd like to check in on a couple of our neighbors. One precious neighbor is 87 and lives alone. She is full of such Godly wisdom. I enjoy conversations with her. It has been far too long since I've stopped by. Another neighbor is recently widowed and has been dealing with so much lately. I'm hoping to take her a small gift of a handmade sign.

I hope you all have a nice fall weekend. Family, serving others and being thankful for the many simple blessings creates a peace that the craziness of this world can't take away.

Content at Home

I'm trying to find my new blogging rhythm. When I was blogging years ago, most of my posts were about my children. Now that I have one in college and one nearing the end of high school, I'm sort of in a different phase of life!

Zach attends a nearby community college and has a part time job and Leah pretty much independently homeschools. She's also involved in community theatre. She will play Beth in a production of Little Women next month.

Even though they are older and have their own activities, I'm content and feel very much needed at home. It has always been important to me that my husband and children have a loving, nurturing home.

I have struggled in the past with the pull to do more outside of our home. When I would see other women involved in so many seemingly good activities, I would feel like maybe I wasn't doing enough. I've also never been one to do "girls nights" out or shopping with friends. I simply don't enjoy those things. I'm not saying that I don't have friends. We actually have some very good friends and I love it when our families can get together and fellowship at one another's homes. I enjoy spending time with friends, I just don't feel the need to "get away" from my family to do so!

Making homemade food is one of my top priorities and if I'm gone a lot, that's just not going to happen! It takes time to prepare food so I have to make time for it throughout my day. We have been gradually making the switch to healthier eating. We've cut way down on sugar and processed foods. I love to bake, so we do enjoy occasional sweet goodies but that's not an every day occurrence.

It feels good to be content and at peace with my God given roles as wife and mother. I want with all my heart to serve the Lord and make him known to others. Being obedient in this area of my life is how I can do that. When I take my eyes off Him and start comparing my service to the things I see others doing, that insecurity creeps back in. 

We try to keep our schedule easy to manage. I don't want to have somewhere I have to be every day. Of course there are busy seasons as there are things that come up that absolutely must be done, but those seasons are temporary. We are in a busy season at the moment since Leah is practicing several days a week for the play. She is working hard and she enjoys it very much, so we are all pitching in and helping get her to and from practice. She has her learner's permit so we're still having to drive her right now.

When I think about the state the world is in now, I can't help but think about how different things would be if there were more loving, nurturing mothers in the lives of children. Focusing on God, family and serving others instead of trying to keep up with the ever changing fast paced things of the world.

Being content at home is a blessing and a joy. I look forward to what each day brings and I'm so thankful for a new season in life where we are now reaping the benefits of raising and homeschooling our children according to our convictions. It isn't always easy, but I wouldn't change a thing.

Our Simple Fall Home

After a pretty long stretch of 90 degree days, we're finally experiencing some cooler temperatures.

I was motivated to do a little fall decorating.  I don't do a lot, just a few touches here and there.

 

The shelf in our dining area gets a few fall touches; I change the decorations out on this shelf for different seasons. I tried to take a picture of the room with the lights on, but the bulbs glared really badly. I make most of our home decor. Not trying to "toot my own horn" or anything, I'm just a creative person and love making special things for our home. I rarely buy things to decorate with. The sign is an old chalkboard that I painted. I made the candle sticks from wood posts and I picked up the pine cones outside. I did buy the mini pumpkins of course!

 

I've really become fond of simple framed signs lately. Just one word can make a nice statement.

I saw a sign similar to this on Pinterest that I really liked, so I decided to make one for my kitchen.

You may have noticed my kitchen looks a little different from the last pictures I posted. We put in a new countertop and backsplash a couple of weeks ago. This is something we've planned to do for years, I'll do a post on the new look of the kitchen soon. A little makeover on a small kitchen is easy on the budget!

 

 

 A little Fall message on my kitchen chalkboard; I change out the messages on this for the seasons also.

A new scented candle. I decided to buy a soy candle because we try to be careful about what kinds of fragrances or chemicals we bring into our home, but honestly I was disappointed in the strength of it. I could barely smell it when it was in the kitchen, so I gave it to Leah for her room; it smelled much stronger in the smaller space. I may have to buy a Yankee candle, you really can't beat those!

That's our fall home. We keep it simple, but we enjoy it that way.

Fall is Here

I love fresh starts and the first day of each new season. Here we are - the first day of Fall. 87 degrees here in Tennessee may not feel like Fall, but the weather will come soon enough!

Fall was not always my favorite season. I used to be a Summer girl but that gradually changed as I got a little older. For me Fall is the season that is both a time of reflection and anticipation. Much of the year is behind us, but there is still more to come. That first crisp Fall morning wakes me from my summer slump and reminds me that there's still time. There's always hope. (The fact that Fall is beautiful and we get to wear sweaters and boots is just a bonus - my love of Fall runs deep!)

The carefree days of Summer may have come to an end, but the importance of living an intentional life with less distraction and "overwhelm" can't be overstated.

Leading a simple life does not mean sticking your head in the sand and pretending life is not hard. Raising children is hard, marriage is hard, finances are hard, sickness is hard, death is hard, taking care of a house is hard, juggling activities is hard, loving people who are unlovable is hard, turning 40 and getting gray hair and crows feet is hard, keeping your mouth shut is hard, standing by your convictions is hard. I think I could go on . . .

We lead a simple life by remembering that only one thing is needed (Luke 10:42) loving the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind & loving our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-38) and keeping our mind fixed on Him so He will keep us in perfect peace. (Isaiah 26:3)
We will live in confusion if we are not is His word and in prayer daily. The world will knock us down and the deceiver will prey on our weaknesses. He does NOT have the right to do this, so don't allow it, my friends!

I hope you all have a wonderful first weekend of Fall!!

A Little Tour of Our Place

I always enjoy seeing the homes of my blog friends. Home is my favorite place to be and I know many of you feel the same way. Home is where we build a solid foundation for our children. Where we grow closer and learn to work together as well as play together. I thought I'd give you a little glimpse of where we do life!

Here's the front of the ranch house that we call home. Our house is a little over 2,000 square ft. which I feel is just perfect for our family. I would not want anything larger to take care of! The day I took these pictures was rather cloudy as you can tell. We have been in our home for nine years now and we have made many changes over the years to make this place our own! The room to the far left used to be our garage but we converted it into an office/guest room. Darrell works from home a day or two each week and it was necessary for him to have a quiet place for teleconferences.

A view of or house and shed from the bottom of the hill. We have 5 acres and most of it is actually in the wooded area surrounding our yard.

A different view of the front yard from the driveway.

One of the new trees we planted last fall and one of our raised garden beds in the distance.

View form my front porch. We need to pressure wash the sidewalk from the looks of this picture! There's always something that needs to be done, but we just try to do a little at a time!

Our little front porch and a LOT of landscaping. We used to mulch this entire area every spring. That was SO much work and money spent every year. Not to mention that our dogs would run through it and track it everywhere. Since our porch is pretty much even with the ground, rain would always wash the mulch onto the porch. It was just a messy situation all the way around! I was constantly sweeping mulch off of the porch and sidewalk. Last year, we "bit the bullet" so to speak and put down landscaping rock. It was hard work rather expensive up front but it will pay for itself soon since we will no longer have to buy and spread truckloads of mulch each year. No more messy mulch to sweep up constantly. I'm so happy we did this!

We are working towards simplifying things around here and making it easier to maintain things. This project was a huge step in that direction.

Screened porch off of the back. We spend a lot of time on our porch. We honestly consider it to be one of the rooms of our house! All of those rocks lining our landscaping came from the ground when they were building the house. We have tons of that rock in our ground. We have built fire pits with it and given some to friends for fire pits. It's great to have so much available for projects, but not so great for gardening! We have to use raised beds because we can't plant in he rocky ground. That's the Tennessee hills for ya!

This is just a portion of our driveway. We are 1/4 mile from the road so there's a lot more of our driveway that I didn't get pictures of.

Well there's the little tour of our place. We have enjoyed raising our children here where they've had room to explore and enjoy being outside. No matter where you live, it is important to make it home and be grateful. Our place is nothing extravagant, but we love it just the way it is. It feels right for us and we enjoy practicing hospitality when we can!

Thoughts on Fall

We have certainly been blessed with BEAUTIFUL fall weather this week. (My thoughts and prayers however, are absolutely with those who are in the path of hurricane Irma and with those who are recovering from the flooding in Houston.) The temperature got down to 48 here in the Nashville area last night and our high was 69 today.  As close to perfect as can be!

Fall is without a doubt my favorite season. I love everything about it. I so enjoy baking and making different soups in the fall. We eat what I bake in moderation and a portion of it is given to friends and neighbors. A good friend had surgery today and I plan on taking her some soup and a loaf of sourdough bread.

I enjoy practicing hospitality in the cool weather of fall. We had a nice fall party and bonfire here on our property last year and I'm hoping we will be able to do the same this year. I made chili and hot cocoa and friends brought yummy side dishes and desserts. We had games for the children and the adults were able to gather around the fire and fellowship. We used hay bales as seats and brought out warm blankets as it was a super chilly night! It was a blessing all around.

I enjoy decorating our home for fall although I do keep it simple and try to use things that I can make myself. We have a very earth toned home and the fall colors just seem to "go" with our home! I love all the unique shapes and colors of different pumpkins and gourds.

This is a simple tray I made from some scrap wood and a couple of vintage cabinet handles that I found at a thrift shop. Just added a few mini pumpkins and it looked lovely on our screened porch. This is pretty typical of my decorating style. I am rather simplistic!

Every season is a blessing and is unique in the gifts that it brings, but I'm definitely in my "element" so to speak when fall arrives! The soft flannels, cozy sweaters, warm boots, vibrant colors of the leaves, scents of apple and pumpkin everything - it's a wonderful time!

After a busy summer of gardening, mowing and home maintenance, I certainly welcome the slower pace of fall. I used to think summer was the slow paced season, but now it seems as if summer is our busiest time of year!

I hope you are able to enjoy some nice fall transitioning in your neck of the woods!

Why I Started Blogging Again

This is a picture of my children when I started blogging about nine years ago. They are now 16 and 19. Unbelievable!

I decided to start a blog as a way to share our lives with our family after we moved away from our hometown.  This was before Facebook was the norm.  I had no idea that I would meet so many kindred spirits. I was even able to meet two blog friends in person when they traveled through the Nashville area.

We had just bought our house and I enjoyed the decorating ideas I could get from blogs. I also enjoyed keeping up with fellow homeschool families and finding new recipes from time to time. It was a wonderful community!

As Zach and Leah got older, I began to feel like I was invading their space by constantly snapping pictures of them so I started posting less about them which cut out a lot of material for my blog!

As Facebook became more and more popular, I decided to give it a try (again, so I could keep in touch with family and friends) and I loved how simple it was to communicate. I really enjoyed it for a while. My blog sort of fell by the wayside as I really didn't feel like I had much to say. I made it private and still enjoy having it as a scrapbook of all those years!

Over the last year or so, I have not been enjoying Facebook. I was absolutely wasting too much time on there. I honestly didn't realize just how much time. It had just become a habit. I felt like I had too much information flooding my brain from all the posts. Do I really need to know every detail of everyone's life?? The fake news, quizzes, articles and people arguing over things was becoming too much for me. It wasn't a positive way to spend time.

I even found myself judging others due to their posts. I'm not normally a judgemental person, but when people put certain things out there, it is just too easy to make judgements. Definitely not a good  thing to open myself up to.

In August, I decided to give up Facebook for a month. I wanted to renew my mind and get rid of all the mental clutter. I wanted to be more productive and stop wasting time mindlessly scrolling.

I started reading a few of my favorite simple living and homemaking blogs instead and found it to be MUCH more pleasant. I decided to start blogging again just about my every day life and this season I'm in now that I'm in my 40's.

I'll have to do another post about my social media break and what a positive experience that was, but for now, I'm just looking forward to my simple, unhurried blogging!

Rising Early

My favorite time of day is early morning. I'm always the first one up. I NEED that quiet, alone time to prepare for my day. My morning routine is pretty much the same each day.

I open the curtains, turn on a lamp and then go to the kitchen to brew the coffee. If the morning is cool, I open my kitchen window to let in a little fresh air.  

I grab a cup of coffee and head out to the back porch with my Bible. I take my planner with me so I can make my to do list for the day. The porch is my favorite "room" in our house! We spend a lot of time out here. My kiddos do most of their school work here. 

After my Bible reading and prayer, I go to the kitchen to get Darrell's lunch packed and breakfast made. By, now the rest of family is starting to get up.

I've always been a morning person, so it isn't hard for me to get up and get started. If I slept late, I would absolutely start off on the wrong foot and miss out on what I consider to be the best time of the day.

I get to work immediately by putting a load of laundry in and then doing the biggest task on my list first. I try to order my to do list from biggest job to smallest job since I have the most energy in the morning hours. I start to lose a little steam in the afternoon!

I know some folks are not "morning people" naturally, but I think it's an important discipline to work on. Mornings in scripture are always viewed in a positive light. I'm thankful each morning for God's new mercies and I try to make the most of the time I have to prepare and get things done!



The Simple Joy of Baking Bread

I started baking our bread several years ago because any kind of store bought bread would cause stomach issues for me. My own homemade bread doesn't cause those problems. It is healthier of course because I know exactly what is going in there - whole wheat flour, yeast, honey, water, oil and salt. No strange preservatives or ingredients!

For a long time, I made bread completely by hand because I don't have a stand mixer. Oh how I learned to respect the hard work of the generations before us. Kneading bread for 10 minutes by hand is a workout!

Recently, a friend of mine decided to get rid of her bread machine that she had never used. I really didn't know much about bread machines, but when I found out it would knead the bread for me I gladly took it off her hands!

I have an Oster brand machine. It's not a high end machine but it does a great job and has really good reviews on Amazon.

I don't like the shape of the bread when it is baked in the machine, so I let the machine just do the mixing and kneading. After the kneading is done, I sprinkle a little wheat flour on a clean tea towel and shape the dough on it.

I shake the towel out and cover the dough with it while it rises. (about an hour)

The finished product before it is sliced and put in a bread bag. I used a serrated knife and a bread slicing guide to slice it evenly.

 

 

 

I really enjoy the whole bread making process - the wonderful smell that fills the house as it's baking, the pretty golden loaves falling perfectly out of the pan and then slicing it up for my family.

The book that came with the bread machine really has some great bread recipes. I made the french bread from the book and it was wonderful.

I'm so thankful to have my new bread machine. I really had no clue what I was missing!

Organizing a Small(ish) Kitchen

When we were house hunting 9 years ago, at the top of our list was space for our kids to run and play, a spot for a garden and whatever else we could dream up to do outside. When we found this house, we knew it was perfect for us. It's a modest ranch style house sitting on 5 acres. We have a nice little trail through the woods and a creek at the bottom of a ridge. Great location, pretty central to Darrell's work and our church. This was the place!

The one thing I really did not want in a house was a galley kitchen. When we checked out the inside, of course that is exactly what I found. I wasn't thrilled, (how petty was I) but there was absolutely nothing else we disliked about the place, so it became our new home.

Today, I actually love my small(ish) galley kitchen. I have learned how to keep things simple and clutter free. That's very important since I do a LOT of cooking and baking without a ton of counter space.

I call my kitchen small(ish) because I don't consider it to be tiny. It's actually not a bad size for a galley style, but it certainly isn't large either! You can see our eating area there at the other end of the kitchen.

Keeping the counters clear of clutter and cleaning as I go while preparing food is the key to working efficiently in my kitchen. I don't have an island or any other workspace, so I have to clear things away as soon as I'm done with them!

I only have kitchen items that I absolutely need. Just the basics. I don't store away things that I'll never use, I simply don't have space for that! I don't have extra sets of dishes for holidays or special occasions. I have white Mikasa dishes in the English Countryside pattern. Those dishes were wedding gifts, so they're now 22 years old. I have had to replace a few of them over the years, but they were easy to find and inexpensive on Ebay. You can see on the far end of my kitchen that I took the doors off of the cabinets where I store our dishes. It makes them a little more accessible.

The oven, refrigerator and microwave are on the other side of the kitchen. Just a little counter space over here! I don't mind a bit that my appliances don't match but we are going to have to replace the 15 year old oven soon. Two of the eyes aren't working properly and it will not be cost effective to fix it.

The pantry had a door on it, but we decided to take it off because as you can see the laundry room door is to the right and those doors were constantly hitting each other. This is SO much nicer.

I turned this into a baking pantry for the most part. I store canned goods and cereal boxes in another cabinet behind closed doors. I bake all of our bread, so this makes getting to my baking supplies nicer and easier. It's the little things!

That's the grand tour of the little galley kitchen that I didn't think I wanted!  It serves my family well and I'm so thankful for it!

Let's Get Started!

I'm so happy to be blogging again after quite a long break! I blogged for a few years when our children were younger and we had just moved away from our hometown. Those were the days before Facebook was big and I started a blog primarily as a way to document and share with our out of town family. Little did I know I would "meet" so many wonderful people through blogging!

I'm in a new season of life now and by the grace of God I have grown and changed much! I'm 41 and now have a sophomore in college and a homeschooled junior in high school. I could not be more in awe of how God has worked in the lives of our kids and in our marriage. I hope you find my words to be real and true. I want very much to be an encouragement!

The simplest of things are important to us. I'm a deep thinker, a student of God's word and not afraid to be a little weird!

Darrell and I last month on our 22nd anniversary

Zach and Leah

That's the cast of characters! We are SO imperfect but we love and are loved by a perfect God. Thanks for reading and I hope you won't be a stranger!