Porch Weather

Porch weather is upon us again, and I am trying to make full use of it before the heat of our Texas summer arrives and I’m driven back indoors!

As I sit on my front porch, I can hear various different birds singing their spring songs, and the wind blowing through the trees, who are becoming more and more green every day. Someone down the lane is building something. . . I hear the tap…tap…tapping of a hammer. Possibly our next door neighbor preparing a new pen for their growing flock of chickens, ducks, and bunnies. We have a chicken project to begin soon, too! – cleaning out Jack’s old pen and setting it up for the chickens we plan to start raising this spring.

Our irises are blooming off of the left side of the porch, and many of the rose bushes in the rose garden are showing colorful flowers as well.

I purchased these new perennials last weekend to plant here by the right side of the porch, joining the daisy that already lives there. Hopefully, they will come back each year and bless us with their beauty.

Jeff planted some lovely Petunias and Impatiens in pots on the front porch. The pretty pink Impatiens are right next to me on the table between the rockers. I really love them!

There are bags of soil, compost, and peat moss piled up by the driveway, waiting to be mixed and poured into the new raised beds in the big garden in the side yard. I will post pictures of this year’s gardens in a forthcoming post.

The temperature here today is 82 degrees. We are expecting rain in a day or so and a drop in temperature to the 60′s. Porch weather at it’s finest!

I hope you can get outside and spend some time enjoying spring in your neck of the woods!

Blessings,
Nancy

A Lovely Day

Today was a lovely day. January – but the temperature was in the 70′s and did I ever get Spring Fever! I spent most of the afternoon outside planning my gardens for this year. I also washed off the porch rockers and spent some time there thinking and enjoying the weather. The kids kept busy playing four-square, basketball, and exploring by the pond. Michael got out my Dad’s old tackle box and tried to get his fishing pole lined up.

I had mixed up some Taco Soup in the crock-pot earlier in the day, so all I needed to do for dinner was pop some cornbread in the oven, which gave me even more time to enjoy the outdoors. Sarah baked some Brownie Pops, so dessert was covered, too.

As the sun started to set this evening, the sky was very beautiful, all striped in blue and pink. The moon came out and was lit up with a lovely bright white light. It was a serendipity day – a blessing that I didn’t expect. The kind that makes my heart sing and my soul praise the Lord.

“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.”
-Psalm 19:1-4

I’m so thankful for this lovely day – a nice break from winter to enjoy, and the promise of Spring ahead that it brings to mind.

Blessings,
Nancy

Hello my forgotten blog!

I’m dusting off the old laptop (after first taking it back from the teenaged son who has hijacked it all summer), and flexing my fingers, and trying to rid my brain of the cobwebs that have grown from lack of writing all summer.

Fall is slowly rolling in and with it, my thoughts turn to apple dumplings, pumpkins, crisp cool days, falling leaves, and writing on my blog.

Today was our first day back to school. The weather is mild and porch season has begun, and that’s where I am, with a candle lit to keep away the mosquitoes, pencil in hand, a cool drink, and children playing in the yard in front of me. I am writing down my thoughts, which I will later type into the computer and share with you all. It has been a nice break, but I miss my little spot here on the web.

An update is in order, so I’ll be back later to catch you up on what we’ve been doing. I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you all again!

Blessings,
Nancy

My Spring Journal

My daily planning journal is looking decidedly springlike these days. My newest journal is wearing a spring cover and is sporting many beautiful spring magazine pictures on its inner pages.

I make my planning journals the same way I make my thankful journal - using a sketch book from Walmart and scrapbook paper. I cover the cover with scrapbook paper (directions here), usually based on the current season, or just whatever looks pretty to me at the moment. Then comes the really fun part. I cut lovely pictures out of magazines, again usually seasonal in nature, but really just anything that I love, and glue them in my journal to decorate the pages.

Next I label the pages. I put the day and date at the top, and then my planning categories scattered around the page with room to fill in a list under them. My personal categories are: Call, Do, Errands, Dinner, and Blog. These are just the categories that I have used for years to organize my To Do list for each day. They work best for me – you might have different categories that work best for you.

My Sunday pages differ from this by only including the date and a To Do This Week list. I usually write a little bit about how I spent the day at the top of the page and make my weekly planning list at the bottom.

I make about a week’s worth of pages at a time, usually on Sunday afternoons, and when I fill up one journal, I pick out a new paper for my next one, cover it and keep on going. I love making and using these journals. I don’t just use them for planning, although that is their main purpose, but I also use them to record thoughts, quotes, recipes, poetry, special memories, and really anything that I want to remember. I keep the old ones on a bookshelf to refer back to every now and then.

I really love using my magazines this way, rather than throwing them out with all of their pretty pictures. And I love having a beautiful personalized journal that works so well for me.

Blessings,
Nancy

A Little of This and That. . .

. . .that’s what this post is going to be about. I have sat staring at my computer for too long now, without a single thought of any one particular thing to write about. So, I’m just going to share a few snippets of my life around here the last few days. Up above you’ll notice “the ladies” – these are our neighbor’s newest hens, recently arrived to replace the old ones who met their untimely demise at the hands mouth of a wandering bobcat (shhh…I don’t think we’ll tell them about that!) These ladies, like their predecessors, seem to enjoy the bugs in our yard better than the ones in their own yard, so I am frequently seeing them scratching around outside.

Today was my last day to hand wash all of our dishes – (wipes brow)! The new dishwasher arrived this afternoon and is running as I write, although I can barely hear it – these new ones are really quiet! I actually didn’t mind the hand washing too much as long as I kept up with it, but it was the hand drying part that I wasn’t crazy about. I did enlist a little help with that when necessary, but I am glad to have a working dishwasher again. And what was the very first thing I loaded into it? – a Mason jar drinking glass. I’m sure you don’t really care, but here it is – documented for all posterity -

I really am not so crazy as to take a picture like that (ahem!) – I believe it was taken by one of the girls – my girls, not the neighbor’s chickens. And while I’m being random, I will admit to taking the following picture – see if you recognize this from your own refrigerator -

Do you ever find this in your refrigerator? I was cleaning our’s out the other day, and came across this grouping at the back of the bottom shelf. I instantly knew who was responsible for this little meeting, as she has been found guilty of calling these meetings before. I took this picture to have evidence to hold over her head. Now I won’t name any names, but I will say that she is certainly old enough to know better. Enough said.

On a prettier note, I spent some time yesterday afternoon with my sewing machine – finally! I put together the above blocks which still need to be sewn together to make a big block for a new quilt Block of the Month that I am making. The finished quilt will look like this -

Yes, I love blue and white! And I also love the beautiful weather we have had the last few days. It has been in the 70′s the last two days and we all went for a walk both days around our neighborhood – well, some of us scooted on scooters, some of us walked, and one of us even “juggled” the whole way around – that was David, who was really jogging, but was so proud about his “juggling”, I just didn’t have the heart to correct him. Sorry I didn’t take any pictures, I was too busy enjoying the warm fresh air!

Oh, and look what arrived in the mail last week! -

I have spent a lot of time looking through this cookbook since it arrived, and am really loving what I see! It is very user friendly and the artwork in it is just lovely. The recipes are good, basic scratch recipes which I can’t wait to try. In fact, I didn’t wait – in honor of George Washington’s birthday today, I decided to try out the pie crust recipe and make a cherry pie for dinner tonight -

How did it turn out? Very delicious!

Enough randomness for one day. I hope you have a pleasant evening, and a great day tomorrow – we’ll be outside again – it is supposed to be 80 degrees! I do enjoy living in Texas!

Blessings,
Nancy

Finding time to blog . . .

I want to be here. I want to write, but life seems to be taking all of my minutes these days. I have thought about quitting blogging until life settles down, but that might be years, and I really do want to capture our memories here for the future. Not to mention that I miss the creative outlet of writing. Therefore, I am thinking about my days, trying to reorganize my activities and time to plan a regular time for writing and posting here. I am looking forward to sharing with you all again soon!

Blessings,
Nancy

Welcome Back . . .

. . . to me!! I know it’s been a long while since I’ve written a new post ~ a combination of busy days and a weary writing mind. It’s been a nice and needed break, and with the arrival of the lazy days of summer, I hope to be able to get back to posting again. I can’t possibly catch you up on all of what we’ve been up to in the last few months, but I may be posting a few of the highlights – and maybe one “lowlight” in the case of the snakes.

I have a few recipes to share and some updates on the “quilts in progress” to share too. Oh, and I will certainly be posting soon about our special Summer Theme Days, which are scheduled once a week, each week, all summer long. The first one – a MarioKart Tournament – is on the docket for this week.

Sarah has made me painfully aware that I’ve been sorely amiss on updating our Family page, so maybe I can get around to doing that too.

Well, that’s all for now. Lucy and Desi in “The Long, Long Trailer” is loaded up in the DVD player and I’m ready to sit back and relax with them.

Be back soon ~

Blessings,
Nancy

Some random pictures . . .

I finally uploaded the pictures from my phone that I had taken here and there – whenever my “real” camera wasn’t around (although I sometimes think that my phone actually takes better pictures!) Here is some of what I found -

Anna cheerleading in the Upwards program – she is the first one on the back row to the left ~

Michael and Jeff during a basketball game – Jeff coached Michael’s team this year ~

Some pretty ice crystals on the car window – you can tell this was a while back, probably from January or February ~

We saw the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile one day when we were out and about – how fun! ~

Some of the kids playing with toys in a bucket of water on a recent warm day – it was their solution to my “no” about swimming in the too cold big pool ~

My “Grandmama bench” on the front porch – called that because it is identical to one that my Grandmother had on her screened porch – sporting a new pillow for the new outdoor season ~

Pretty jars of homemade Strawberry preserves cooling on the counter ~

Anna and Sarah at American Girl posing in an exhibit for this year’s Doll of the Year ~

A Luna moth on the wall of a building I spotted while out one day ~

I also found some sweet ballet pictures and I have some of Tommy’s skate competition this past weekend, but I’m saving those for posts of their own. Be back soon!

Blessings,
Nancy

“Soul Surfer”

Photo courtesy of Corbis

Jeff and I went to see the movie “Soul Surfer” last night and it was wonderful! It is based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton and her family as they deal with the aftermath of a shark attack that leaves Bethany with the loss of one arm. It was so encouraging to me to see how their faith sustained them in a very real way during this tragedy in their lives.

There were many, many wonderful messages throughout the movie – a few of the encouraging truths that I came away with were -

~ Sometimes we’re too close to a situation to see or think clearly. We need to step back and get a new perspective.

~ When you get knocked down or are going under, you have to get back up and keep going.

~ God can take a small act of ours and grow it to be something big for his glory.

~ And of course, the always needed reminder that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

If you have the chance to go see this movie, I would strongly encourage you to do so. I am going to take my older kids (12 and up) to see it. Although handled very carefully, there is some blood involved in the accident scenes and I think that would be too much for my younger children. We may let Michael (9) see it when it comes out on DVD on the small screen.

Oh, and by the way, we saw the trailer for the new Kendrick (Fireproof, Facing the Giants, etc.) movie coming out in the Fall. It is called “Courageous” and deals with fathers and their relationship with their children. It looked amazing – can’t wait for that one!

Have a nice evening!

Blessings,
Nancy

Sunday Happenings Around the Yard

I spent a bit of time outdoors this afternoon, and decided to take my camera out and about and record a few of the happenings around the yard. Here is what I found ~

Newly planted onions in the patio garden ~

Oregano coming back for a new year in the herb garden ~

We moved the picnic table to the yard by the play area – it will be a wonderful place for a picnic under the trees this summer, as well as for drawing in our nature journals ~

The kids have been having fun swinging in this hammock that we hung out between two of the trees – it seems more like a cocoon than a hammock! Here is Anna having a turn ~

David is a happy camper this year since he has learned how to pump on the swing and doesn’t need anyone to push him! ~

The pond has filled up nicely over the winter and is a pretty scene ~

Kids playing on the trampoline – always a favorite spot ~

Jack enjoying the nice weather ~

Mattie working on his car . . .

. . . using his computer to help – ah, modern technology! ~

And finally, a few signs of Spring on the way (besides the nice temperatures!) – a budding bush outside the kitchen window ~

My irises coming up at the front of the house ~

And I found redbuds beginning to “purple” along the back of our property! ~

I’m so glad that it’s nice enough to be outside – I’ll be making good use of my porch from now on!

Have a wonderful evening!

Blessings,
Nancy