Detroit

In taking the kids to explore Michigan we, of course, had to stop in Detroit and show them what it was all about.  D-town is kind of a sad place.  You try to be hopeful.. Some of the graffiti kind of amazed me.  

 But there is a lot there still...

 Lots of buildings

 And Beauty

 And Architectural details

 And history

 And intricacies...

 And neat ideas (this was an urban garden we parked by...isn't it beautiful?)

 We ate dinner at American Coney Island which was voted #1 for something by the Food Network.  So we went.  Still trying to figure out what was #1.  The hotdogs were made just for them and were pretty tasty :)

 After dinner we drove by the famous Fox Theater.

 And then had to stop by one of my favorite places of all time, the Astoria Pastry Shop.  When Nick worked in his government job he had a conference in Detroit.  Something about parks and your people or something, I'm sure.  Anyway, the kids were very small but my mother-in-law graciously watched the kids and I rode a train to Detroit to join Nick.  Anyway, we were able to kick around downtown for a few days and it was a lot of fun.  We stumbled upon this bakery during that trip and I've been hooked ever since.

 These are my absolutely favorite things in the world!  Chocolate dipped Biscotti.  They are GINORMOUS! And so delicious, I can't even tell you.

Anyway, Nick got this amazing Pecan Pie roll thing there and I got a chocolate dipped meringue.  Ours were wrapped in this cute box...isn't it adorable?  Old world charm.  The kiddos didn't have their's wrapped as they devoured them in the store.  :)

Detroit is such a neat place with such history.  I loved showing kids this city and hope you'll check it out too :)

Cotswold Tea at Greenfield Village

On September 1st we began our family vacation.  We are trying to get the kiddos to see all 50 states and this year our trip was to Michigan.  We started the trip out at Greenfield Village in Dearborn.  If you have never been I highly, HIGHLY recommend it.  My grandma took me there when I was in college and I loved it so much that I was giddy to bring the family!

To try to describe it, it is basically a village made of homes that Henry Ford collected.  He had homes brought from all over the place of famous people.  It's amazing!

One of my favorite memories of this trip was our lunch.  The boys sought out some barbeque while Emma and I made our way to the Cotswold Garden for tea. The tea is located next to a stone cottage from England.  Here are Emma and I in the gardens.  She's growing up way too fast!

Waiting...

And Waiting...

These were the gorgeous flowers right next to our table.  As beautiful as it was there were bees everywhere!  The availability of the restaurant being open was "weather and bee" permitting, so they must have some serious bee problems at times.

Tea is served!

How cute is this tea cozy?

Here were my tea sandwiches.  They were scrumptious!  Emma's were peanut butter and jelly...how adorable is that?

The angel drinking tea!  She kept putting gobs of honey in her tea, along with lumps of sugar.  She would then stir, taste and declare "I think that's just about sweet enough!"  Cutie :)  We had Earl grey Lavender tea which was the most scrumptious tea I've ever had!!!  Must find!

Here's Emma exploring the inside of the cottage.  And as romantic as cottages seem, I don't think I have any desire to actually live in one after going through this one.

Here's the outside of the cottage...isn't it lovely?  Clara Ford loved teas and gardens so this was created for her.  I loved this whole experience and afternoon with my little girl.  I hope she remembers it all.  I know I will.

Emma suggested we start having tea at home which I think I would love to do but haven't figured out how to do it yet.  I want to research and do it right, ya know?  So if you know anything about it, let me know :)

His Mercy is New in the Morning

Yesterday was horrid.

I'm talking, at my Wit's end I caught myself threatening to take my son to an orphanage, awful.  I told him they'd make him eat mashed potatoes and oatmeal...two of his most loathesome foods.  And yes I know, I am a horrid mother and yes I know it is inexcusable.  But when your autistic son shows so much promise one day and the next day is trying to hurt himself, the dog, and you the next, well, sometimes it just feels like too much.

Our computer screen is broken.

It flops over on a whim and at a table I have to hold it up with canning jars...it's a very fancy system.

Emma yesterday decided to be the worst student ever.  Not reading instructions, forgetting how to add 1 plus 1, the works.  Refusing to do her homework, lying.  Ugh.  The night ended with her and Nick screaming at each other, doors slamming, and her in bed crying.

This has been the month that we decided, let's get back from vacation and really hit our budget hard.  Maybe not Dave Ramsey hard, but hard.  Not buy anything extra, get lots paid down, cracking the whip hard.

Ugh.  It all just feels like their own load of bricks and piled one on top of me, well, last night I snapped.  Crying in a ball in the living room, not wanting to live to endure another day, snapped.

I only see things from my perspective, obviously, but in these situations I am imagining Nick next to me, wide eyed and staring at me thinking why did I marry Crazy woman, again?  Anyone remind me???

But as I tried to console my daughter last night in bed I found myself speaking to her the words that I had been needing to hear...God's Mercys are new every morning.  We'll have a fresh day tomorrow, with no mistakes and we'll try again.  It's okay.  We grow from our weaknesses when we give them to God to work with.  

Crazy how God uses something coming out of my own mouth to my seven year old to speak to my own heart.  And it is so true.  God's fresh day was  waiting for me this morning and as I've spoken before sometimes all it takes is a fresh perspective.


Yesterday I took Cal to therapy and was told that it was his last speech therapy session ever.  Ever!!!  Of course we are starting ABA  therapy and all kinds of Autism nonsense which I am just sick over but  after being told at a year he would probably never talk, we have come so far!  I no longer have to use sign language as our primary way of communication and he says words on his own like "automatically" and "realization".  He's doing so great!

Emma had a bad day but is otherwise doing so well.  I am so thankful for such a good girl who is so stinkin' smart and loves learning.  And as much as she complains about her "dopey" brother, she is the best big sister there ever was.

Money, Psh, I feel so silly complaining about my first world problems.  We've never not had money to pay our bills.  We eat like kings, we have fun, we save, and have extra money  and I find myself eyeing Vuitton and Coach and wondering why I can't have more, more more.... but why would I?  I took our financial sacrifice on willingly so we could  have me home with the kiddos and sometimes it's so easy to lose sight of that.   Aside from that I am so thankful for what I have.  We love the Manor and all of it's uniqueness. I have a roomful of clothes and the children have bin upon bin of clothes that won't even fit in their closets...we are so richly blessed, friends.  And sometimes it just takes a new day to be able to see that.  To see how abundantly God has given to us.

So this morning, as I anxiously await the children waking up and am typing this, I hope you can turn the page to a new day if you are going through a hard situation, and find the joy God has blessed us with in your situation.  It's always there, it's always evident but is sometimes blurred by our view.

Happy New Day, friends!

First Day of School Photos

Our first day of school was Monday.  It was...interesting.  While Cal's been around the whole homeschool thing for sometime now, he was in a formal preschool setting so I never pushed him to participate too much as I didn't want to make him go through countless hours of schooling.  This summer he did school with Emma but I had him on a Kindergarten program.  The kid can read and knows numbers and can add and subtract.  Colors, sizes, community helpers, the definition of a noun, the Gettysburg Address, he's got it down.  So I decided he was ready for first grade.  Or some version of that.  We shall see...

Our Kazoo is in third grade!  Age wise she should be in second but she's always been so advanced.  Love her and her passion for learning.  

 How cute is this???

 Emma lost her top tooth last night and when I told her to smile, this is what I got...um, that's not smiling... She is too funny! And speaking of funny....I simply had to show you the progression of Cal's pictures I got...

 Last but not least, finally a smile was in there!  I think we are going to have a super fun school year and I can't wait to see what is ahead for us :)

Mommy's Back to School Shopping

I am so thankful for a husband who believes that the teaching Momma needs supplies too.  So in addition to the crayons, markers, notebooks, and gym shoes, I got some things too!


Nick bought me this cup at the Henry Ford Museum.  I  really do love history so this is the absolute best mug for me.  It was the last one and I was over the moon to be able to snatch it up!  I still can't tell if Nick got it for me to tease me or not, but I love it either way.

He also treated me to these beauties!  They are  Crocs!  So comfy!  I love that I can wear them with jeans and only the toes show and they just look like shoes.  But they are cozy and light enough to just wear around the house.  Perfect for me staying home and running out around town.  Plus they are the navy and pink I love!  

Last but not least I wore my new necklace Nick bought for me on our Anniversary trip.  It's a bubble necklace and I love it!  The colors are all the jewel tones of fall!  

So those were the things I looked forward to yesterday on our first day of school...it was hard to get up at 4 in the morning!  But it was worth it to get myself around, get dinner in the crockpot, laundry in the machine, and feel ready to go by the time I had to wake the littles.  

2013-2014 Classroom Tour

So the dream we shared in this post of me doing a video tour of our classroom looks like it will not be coming true.  In the past days I've spent countless hours trying to figure out editing, attempting to not look like a cow on the camera, and then when that seemed feasible my camera was not focusing in video mode.  And quite frankly, with school starting today I have lots more ways I should be spending my time.

I'm sure you understand.

Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to do some fab video chat with you all and I will be wickedly saavy in the technology department but until then you'll have to settle for dumb ole' pictures.

This is located directly behind the kiddos desks.  It fits right underneath windows.  If our classroom wasn't on the third floor I would probably make a cushion and make it a little reading area.  But since it is on the third floor...um, no.

Seeing this just makes me squirm.  I am not very good at Chemistry.  So the fact that Emma will be studying it this year definitely puts me out of my comfort zone.  

This is my main area for books.  I've labeled where everything is so you can see how I attempt to organize.  We follow the Classical Curriculum.  If you don't know what that means, basically there are 3 stages of learning and each stage is broken into 4 years.  Each of the 4 years you study different times areas of subjects and then in each stage you repeat your studies.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, because we studied Ancient Egypt in 1st grade and will again in 5th grade, I have everything separated within their own subject by the year we will use it.  That way I'm not rifling through material we aren't even covering right now.  

To me this seems like a ton of books but I guess in the grand scheme of things, this isn't too much for teaching two kiddos.  I should also note that if you are noticing all of my shelves are made for short people, you are right.  Our classroom is in our attic and it has a severe pitch from the roof.  Very angled and very hard to set up, so our shelves are under the roof line.  It's kind of hard to get to if I stand but if I move my desk chair over and sit at the books it's not bad at all.  Sometimes it's a pain but I just feel so blessed to even have a room to call our classroom! 

This is our Calendar area.  Each day the kids will put the day up.  We also have information to learn our address, and phone number, the months of the year, and will add to this as the year goes on, I'm sure.  The tree will be used once we start Awana and I can make notes of what the children have memorized as an encouragement to keep going :)

I'm embarrassed to show you this.  Do you remember on Friends when Monica didn't want anyone to open the closet because it was such a mess and she was such a neatfreak?  That is totally the same as this closet! But in total honesty, here it is.  You can see the chaos.  It's just supplies that really don't fit anywhere else.  If you have any suggestions for organization I am all ears.  These are also things I don't really want the kiddos playing with all of the time (the clock on the second shelf up is SOOO annoying!)  

This is another corner where I have books for the kids to read for fun.  It's on it's own and is super easy for the kiddos to get to.  Emma a lot of times during her afternoon reading time will come up and swap out a read book for a new one.  In the drawers are extra activities for the kiddos...puzzles, fine motor pincers,  blocks, the like.  I'm not a fan of this setup but this was part of Cal's crib and it works for now.  It will soon be replaced by a bookshelf :)

Again, total honesty...this is my desk and how it looks.  It normally looks like this just because I am working on so much to get things ready for them.  See?  You can now feel better about the condition of your desk.  

This is our reading corner.  It is built in behind the built-around around the stairs and is in a dormer.  There really is nothing to do with this area but make it a reading corner.  And it totally helped my linen closet.  The cushion is actually made up of old comforters and bedspreads that I am not ready to throw out but had no room for in our closet.  So I folded them carefully and made them into this.  The top quilt is the bedspread we had when we first got married.  I love the colorfulness and it always makes me happy.  Pillows and blankets make this a cozy area to snuggle and read.  

This is the area that is used the most.  I've labeled what everything is.  I love having the books I need on top of the workboxes so I can throw them in the box I need them to be in or take them out and put them away.  The kiddos sit really close to this so they practically have everything they need at their fingertips.  Nick made this workbox system by following a tutorial from one of my fave bloggers, Laine.  You can check the workboxes out here.    You could buy one from Ikea but they didn't have the exact size I needed and this worked perfectly!  The bins are from Ikea though.  They also have colored bins which would also be helpful for sorting by siblings or subjects. The possibilities are endless.

For a better idea of our room, this is what it looks like where the desks are.  Their workboxes are behind the chalkboard and the long bookshelf is behind my chair.  See?  This is why I need a video, folks.  So confusing.  As I mentioned we live in an old house made in the 1890's.  Our homeschool room is on the third floor.  We have an intercom system because it just feels too massive.  Sometimes I hate the angles and it not being done as much as I want and on and on.  But God gently reminds me (as he's so good at doing) that I am blessed to even have an entire room to teach in and discover things and explore with these blessings of ours.  And when we are done, we are done.  I can shut the door and not have to trip over all of this stuff.  And please know that I think there are tons of ways to homeschool and I am in no means looking down on you if you don't have your own room.  I know moms who only homeschool at the library!

I hope my photos have helped explain things...I get tons of questions about how I do things, where things are, what we have, etc.  If you have any unanswered questions let me know and I'll try to answer.

We are starting school today so hopefully everything goes well...praying for a great year for you all too!

A Saturday Morning Retreat

Happy Labor Day to you all!  

We are camping the great wide unknown of Michigan this week.  Hope you all are enjoying time with your family!  

This past weekend I had to get ready for camping.  Camping for my first time to be more precise.  It was Cray-Z-ness!  

Saturday morning I was knee deep in about 8 loads of laundry, trying to make lists of items we would need, and suddenly I realized that the Pioneer Woman was about to come on.  

Screech to a halt the madness.  

I needed this.  

 So I ran upstairs to my haven...our bedroom...doesn't it look serene?

 I got some iced coffee...

 And scrounged around for the muffin I had gotten in Nashville, Indiana the week before and had managed to hide from the masses...

And sat in front of our teeny-tiny television to watch the show...

Ahh, heaven.  I was alone for an entire half hour while the children were downstairs doing their thing.  I don't think they even knew I was gone :)

May you find a soft place to hide and rest and destress amidst the craziness of life, sweet friends!

West Baden

 So as I mentioned in my last post , we visited lots of places in Southern Indiana on our Anniversary trip.  One of those places was West Baden.  West Baden Springs was a hotel back in the day.  After it changed hands a number of times it fell empty and into disrepair.  You can read the entire picture here.

 Thankfully it was restored to it's former glory and it is such a gorgeous place to visit.  So neat.  I can only imagine what it would have been like back in the day.  And so many celebrities came here, it's just incredible.  A huge group of investors came together to make the renovation possible (Donald Trump's group among them).  It is breath taking. Of course none of this will be as neat as being there and experiencing it but here are some photos for you.

 Going down the entrance lane

 The Piazza of the hotel

 All of the rooms are around this huge dome.  The sound and the feeling of the place is so still.  When it was built it was dubbed the 8th wonder of the world.  The planters in this picture: you can't tell from this picture but they were as tall as Nick.  He's 6'3" in case you were wondering :)

 Details...

 The middle of the dome

 View from upstairs...so neat! You just have to go :)

 lights

 We ate lunch under the dome at the restuarant...my lunch compainion.  Good thing I like him because the service was so slow, lunch took FOREVER!!!

 After lunch we went outside to the grounds...

 I took these mainly for the kids but I love the small details...Frogs spitting, kids!

 Turtles spitting back...

 Here I am.  I was inside a springs building.  It was popular due to the mineral springs that people could soak in for medicinal purposes.  One of the owners had all of the spring tubs filled with concrete.  It's really sad.  It said on a plaque that each tile that had been there had been about $100 and they were just poof, destroyed.  I can't even imagine how awesome it would have looked back then.  I think there were 4 spring houses, all fiilled.

 Towering flowers...

 Another Springs bath location, now just a slab of concrete in there.

 This was the original entrance to the hotel.  I'd follow that boy in the pink shirt anywhere :)

 Here he is waiting for me to join him on our green couch of love :)  By the way, do you like his new kicks?  Finally convinced him to buy Sperry's and he L.O.V.E.S. them!  See?  I use my powers for good!

 Our view from the green couch of love...

 Here I am...hi world!  Hi blogging friends! Seriously, so comfortable.  We both kind of fell asleep.  Yep, tenth anniversary vacations you go away to sleep...it's all very scandalous here.

 Bye hotel :(    Well after the West Baden and before we moved on we decided to visit the other hotel in the area that is owned by the same people, the French Lick Hotel...

 Here's the foyer of the hotel...very nice.  Very different from West Baden but amazing.  The Indiana Democratic Convention was going on at this hotel...we didn't stay at this one and that kind of shortened our stay.  People standing around arguing...they should have had wigs on or something in this setting :)

 Ceiling..

 Chandelier...

 The upstairs hall...  I kept telling Nick in this hotel that I felt like I was on the Titanic or something

 More ceiling :)

 The hotels are owned by the same umbrella...pool time in the indoor pool...

 And the outdoor pool...

 To get to the bowling alley we had to go through this hallway which was pretty neat.  They had to carve everything out of limestone and this hall they just left as limestone.  Wit's looking at the pictures on the wall that explain how they had to do the excavating with hand shovels.

Last picture's a little dark but I had to take it for Emma...on our way to the car there were these HUGE windows.  Like in Cinderella!  So I had to take a picture for Emma...otherwise she might not have believed me, yo'!

So that was our trip to West Baden. You should really go!  It is out in the middle of no where and rooms are pricey but worth it for a new adventure :)

Our 10th anniversary Vacation

Last week we loaded up the family truckster...I must say this is our favorite car ever!

This past weekend we left for our Anniversary Trip.  Here we are being cheesy taking selfies in the car.  :)  This is from my phone which is so big that the two of us had to hold it.  My friends who tease me about it are laughing now, I know :)  It was so good to get away and not worry about things for a while.  We left Thursday morning and returned Sunday evening.

It was so much fun!  We took a roaming tour of Southern Indiana...staying different places, trying restaurants we had heard  about, hunting down old shops...a blast.

This is our kind of sign :)

Nick smoking a cigar on vacation...my mother is tssskkking right now

While on vacation we drove which was so wonderful.  One of my favorite things is to drive down long, windy country roads.  Nick being the ole' architect and me being a history buff, we meet in the middle with historic architecture :)  

Of course I'm a sucker for an old church in the middle of nowhere with a blue sky above and behind...priceless.  

And a really, really old church.  Anything more perfect than that?  

When I was a little girl I remember my Grandpa dragging me to railroad museums and maybe it's because of that but there is just something I love about an old train.  

But we are home now and amidst the clutter and the to-do's it's so easy to feel the stress come rushing in.  Nick took me aside last night from the packing and unpacking (did I mention our family vacation is next weekend???) and encouraged me to let this be a new beginning for me.  To not let the stress and harriedness of life get to me but to keep the fun, free spirit of vacation.  Challenge accepted!

Our Weekend

As I mentioned in the last post, this weekend we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary!  So exciting!!!  But I think what may have been even more exciting was...

 The finding of the old legos!    Nick has been asking his mom for the past three years to look for the legos he had when he was a kid.  They are in Portland on vacation right now so he seized the opportunity and stormed their basement for his toys.  He said he found them in about half an hour.  Three years of waiting for these makes for some very, very exciting children!

 How cute are these vintage legos?

 The kids have been having so much fun with them!  His mom kept the boxes and instructions and everything...they are so cute and fun!

 Our little boy is in heaven!  Sunday Nick sent me out for milk after supper and when I got back this was here...

 A wedding cake!  A real, live wedding cake!  In eloping we didn't have one and Nick surprised me with having this made!  A cake for 30 people for the four of us makes for a lot of leftover cake!  He remembered  the cake I had planned for our wedding, the color and everything...isn't he just the sweetest thing ever?

I was so shocked and I am so in love with him!

Awful picture but after cake Emma thought dancing was appropriate. Aren't they just adorable?

So those were the parts of our weekend you hadn't heard about yet.  I'm loving our life! Up next is our anniversary get away!  Packing and cleaning and preparing for that.   :)

10-year Anniversary!

 10 years ago we stood on a grassy shoreline shadowed by Diamond Head and said simple words with eternal meaning...

 10 years ago I had the privilege and honor of marrying this man (swoon!)

 10 years ago I was a young 21 year old woman with no clue on how to be a wife, but Nick loved me anyway :)

 Fastforward 10 years to this...our family.  Our mission in life that God has given us.  We feel so blessed by God for this life He has given us.  A life that 10 years ago would have taken my breath away and still does...it all is just better than I could have possibly imagined.

And 10 years later we have this kind of love.  We fight and make up every day.  We joke, we stay tease.  We tickle, we poke.  And last night after 10 years of marriage we still stayed up all night talking.  About everything.  About nothing.

Still so in love.  In love more than I ever could have dreamed.  Thank you so much Nicholas for making me your wife.  For leading our family in your calm and gently manner that is so characteristic of you.  You are the man God made for me and I love reminiscing on my favorite quote ever that you said: "You can''t thank me for being with you.  I didn't choose to be with you.  I'm stuck with you.  And you with me.  God made us for one another and that's that."

I'll be stuck with you anyday, Wit!  Till death and then beyond!  :)  Love you!

The Ugly Side of the Classroom

I've been reading this book called

"No More Perfect Moms"

by Jill Savage which encourages Moms to be real with one another and to dispel the myth that we need to have it all together to be a good mom.

In going along with that I thought I would be totally legit and show you how my homeschool room looked sans cleaning.  Yikes, it's embarrassing and part of my feels crazy showing you this.

My friend Heather came over the other day and our house was trashed.  I mean, horrid, horrid trashed!!  But I bit the bullet and had her over without cleaning anything.  Part of me was mortified.  The other part just tried to laugh it off and explain this is what our life is really like.  She laughed with me and said it made her feel better about her house and made her think that maybe I'm not as perfect as I seem.  I was shocked...

me?  perfect!  Ha! 

But apparently I somehow exude that in areas of my life and I don't want to seem that way at all.  I don't want to make other Mama's feel bad about themselves by how I run our home.

So anyway, there's a little background in deciding to show you what is really going on around here...

 junk!  Wow!  A random shoe, clothes for Goodwill, Storage containers, school supplies purchased for this room.  Wow, wow, wow.  This is at the top of the stairs so this has become a veritable dumping grounds over the summer.

 Eek!  A broken plate, a no longer used computer monitor, stacked books, junk, junk, junk!

 A nice cleaned off desk with iced coffee is the calm in the storm I guess.  Yeesh.  The kiddos have been having friends over this summer and they love to play school which has caused most of this.

 Just utter chaos to me.

 This are is our reading corner.  It is tucked behind the stairs in a dormer and the reading corner is just about the only thing this area could be.  I had tried a matress in this area but couldn't find one that fit just right so we had extra blankets folded up there to make a cushion.  It actually worked really well, was comfy and basically was a way to store all of the extra comforters and bedspreads I wasn't using.  Well this summer when the power was our for four days I forgot I had washed Emma's Hello Kitty bedspread and it stayed in the washing machine for 4 days.  Uh, it was so disgusting I had to send it to my Mother in law for remidiation and in the meantime I had to pull this thing apart to find an old purple comforter I had for her to use.  While I was in there I found a long lost duvet cover I had been looking for for Cal's bed.  Anywho, long story short, this is the finishing product of me running up to grab things...now it needs put back together after washing everything.

This may be the saddest part of all...my desk.  Skewed lampshades and empty glasses around pretty much sums it up.  

So this is the long and short of the horrid looking room.  I figured that if I showed you this room 1) you would see if you ever did think I was perfect that you are wrong :)  and 2) this can serve as a sort of incentive for getting it in tip top shape.  :) After I took the pictures we got to cleaning and it is already looking better even.  

I'll be sure to post the after pictures so you can see what it looks like for real.  And if I can ever figure it out I will try to make a video tour of our classroom to show you around a bit...I'd love to show you how I store things and what I have.  I get so many questions about stuff like that so I'll try to figure it out :)  

23 days...

It's been 23 days since I last posted on this blog.  For me not posting it sure seemed like a longer than that so I guess I am doing better with this whole blogging thing if 3 weeks is seeming like a lot of time.

Before when I have blogged I've let 4 or 5 months lapse before feeling like it's been a long time.

Anyway, in these three weeks we have finally stopped homeschooling.  It was a mixture of giving up and being exhausted.  We had our amount of time for school done and while we are not quite finished with all of our books I figure we can do this all when we start back up in September.

We are now in our second week of summer break and it has been really nice.  I've been trying to not get on the kids about lazing around the house and just doing whatever they've wanted.  It's been a nice change of pace.

And while the kids are lazing and playing and having fun I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut  off trying to figure out what to do for our homeschooling in the fall.  Monday we are going up to visit Nick's cousin and to get some school materials in the Chicago area.

Well that is what has been going on in these last 23 days :)  We have a garage sale coming up this weekend and hopefully it will be soon calm down here and things will get back to normal.

Cleaning the Ins and Outs of Me and the House

As Summer has crept in I have noticed my laziness growing.  After all it is hot and humid and these are supposed to be the days when you are out of school and able to throw some of your grown up inhibition to the wind, right?

Unfortunately I also find that my wanting to be a free spirit somehow contradicts itself.  I don't want to go to the gym because I don't want to be kept indoors when it is so beautiful outside. I don't want to go running because it is too hot and sticky...see what I mean about contradictory?  I don't want to clean because there are so many more fun things to do with the kiddos but then I don't go outside with the kiddos as much as I should because there is just so much to do around the house.  Grrrr.

However I find that during quiet time I sit down at the computer to pinterest away at pinning: cleaning tips for cleaning I am not doing, workouts I am not doing, and recipes I am not making.  And before I know it my free time is gone and I have accomplished very little to feel satisfaction about.

Yes I know  I sound lazy because in these past few weeks I have been incredibly lazy!!!!

So today it hit me as I was playing with the kiddos outside and working out in the yard...

What would our yard look like if I took just 10 minutes every day to work out here?  Weeding, picking up sticks, and in general tidying up may not be so daunting if I did a little bit every day.

And in that I thought what if that and my cleaning (which I also felt convicted to do after applying my few minutes a day rule to cleaning roo) were my workout too?

To test it out I cleaned the  bathroom today.  And in doing that I am not talking my normal cleaning of I got out a clorox wipe and dabbed around a bit but that I did a hard core cleaning.  Scrubbing the walls, toothbrushing grout, I was all over the grossness of getting the grody out of the loo.  And in doing that I found myself panting, sweating and using muscles that haven't been used in July yet.

So that is my plan for the summer.  Cleaning up the inside and outside of this house to get myself cleaned up.  We'll see how this goes :)  I think it's going to be a messy job!