The Joys Of Family and Hearth

These are my husbands and sons lunch bags.  Each day I pack them with meals that are made to nourish them not only physically, but emotionally as well.  Both my husband and son work swing or night shifts.  Each night they miss dinner with our family.  This includes my daughter in law and two precious grandsons.  I look at those bags and I see dirt, and grease from their jobs. Each morning I open them to pull out the dirty containers and the no longer frozen  ice packs. As I exam the containers I think about what they've eaten or haven't eaten.  Both my husband and son are extremely hard workers.  They will run 6 days a week 12 hours shifts.  My daughter in law stays at home with my two grandsons, but this past year has brought me to working full time.  I miss taking care of my family as my full time job and I often cave to the pressure of still having to do all that plus work full time.  But those lunch bags remind me everyday of how hard th

So it takes 30 days to start a new habit or get back into one. I'm on 21 days of Menu Planning for three weeks so far! I'm totally starting to feel a sense of normalcy and peace about getting back into the program again, especially with meal planning. I also like to have fun with my menu planning.. so here's what's happening this week on our side of the mountain. Meatless Monday- Summer corn and squash soup! Tuesday-Homemade Chinese, Beef and Broccoli ( took a break from our taco tuesday) Wednesday- Baked Mac N Cheese with Ham (family favorite) Thursday-Breakfast for Dinner Finger Food Friday- All finger type foods, chicken wings, tater tots, slices of cucumbers, carrots with dipping sauce. Saturday-Chicken Pot Pie   Nothing Brings People together,  like Good Food! 

July is when my Christmas Obsession begins to peek its head! I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas! And July is when I find it acceptable to start thinking about it! I confess that yes, I will even begin to play Christmas Music! It is also number 5 birthday month! Her birthday is the 30th and she starts her celebration and countdown to her special day on July 1st! She is my sweet girl. and she loves to party like her mother. So any excuse to have a great day and she is there! I think her and I have created our own holidays! So if you start your first pay period in July by putting $30 in an envelope and adding 1 dollar every week to that by the second week in December you will have an extra $800 to use for Christmas! How awesome is  that!

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if we only seek them with our eyes open. This is a natural spring located close to our new home. It provides delicious, cold, fresh water1  This is the Condonquet Creek, it run through our entire neighborhood.  A beautiful little spot we found while exploring one day.  The kids love exploring the creek and all the wildlife that lives in it. Especially crayfish! happy girls are the prettiest.  Fishing Derby! Raising girls right! Teach them how to fish and take care of the home! :)

    home is the nicest word there is. Laura Ingalls Wilder     I think Laura said it best when describing home. Home is generally used in noun form. To me though Home is a feeling. And it's created by the woman of the house usually. Over the years I have taken that task to heart. I worked hard to create a home where my children and husband felt safe and loved. A place where anyone who entered our home felt comfortable, regardless of their financial status, marital status, education level, race, religion etc.   We've entertained the very rich and homeless in our home. We've broken bread with people with Masters Degrees and those who never made it past an 8th grade education.   We've had every form of religion in our home and some who believed in nothing.   We always held true to who we were though. People knew when they came to our home, they were entering a place where Christ comes first, where a bunch of children would be running around the

I wish I could say that I managed to stay on top of things for the past 9 months while separated from my husband, working full time, some kids in school, homeschooling other kids.. I wish I could say it was so awesome. But it wasn't. It was hard work. I'm in the new house for just over a week now and I'm starting to feel settled. It feels amazing to be back with my husband under one roof. To be able to care for him like I want to. He has grown so much since being separated from me. His demeanor has calmed quite and bit and he is so happy. It brings me much joy to see him so happy. What I am missing is my oldest children and my grandbabies! So what I have been working on is making this house our home. The other night my husband came home from work. ( He works crazy hours) I usually am waiting outside on the from porch for him to pull in. We sit out on porch and chat about his evening. Well when we came in, he took a huge deep breath and said... "it smells l

I'm currently looking out my bedroom window at the pink hue in the sky. The sun is setting over the mountain. It's a much different scene then the sun setting over the bay. Beautiful none the less. I remember 9 months ago, thinking what a breeze this would be for us. My husband took a job out of state for the betterment of our family. I sent him off to live alone, while I held the fortress down home. It seems easy in my mind back then, I compared it to military men doing their tours , pa Ingalls leaving on a hunting expedition. It seemed so romantic back then. But the past 9 months have been extremely trying, scary, joyful, exhausting, peaceful, and just downright a big mix of emotions. I felt so lonely at times even though I was surrounded by my children.  This was my children's first year in public school, the first year in over 20 years that I went back to work full time and the first time I've ever had to experience life as a single mom. While I was blessed

For the past two weeks we have been fighting all kinds of illness. From the stomach bug to ear infections, coughing, upper respiratory infections. One of the hardest things about being separated from my husband is when we are all ill. I don't think I've slept a full night in the past two weeks. Let alone gotten much of anything else done, other than cleaning up after sick children and then becoming sick myself. I hate feeling like I'm behind on things, which I am. And I'm not really even homeschooling anymore. Other then answering a few questions from my teenager every now and then. I'm still surprised my homeschooling journey has come to an end. But I am joyful in that my girls are excelling so well in school. We've had about 7 inches of snow here the other day. And we were still fighting illness. I made a turkey and all the fixings. That's our family tradition here. And just when I thought we were on the mend. I had one child come down with a