Across The Miles.......

We had such fun on our families Women's Day this past July that we women decided to do a little something once a month, together. We are spread across the United States, but, with skype and cell phones, it has been possible to successfully join up and have fun together across the miles.

In August, we took our Women's Day photo from July and did a little something special with it.

We worked on our projects as we talked and chatted....across the miles.

Each of us had picked a favorite piece of fabric from The Ice House Quilt shop while we were up north on vacation.

Then the creating and cutting began.


Working and working, and talking and visiting...enjoying each others company near and far.



Got to love a glue gun.

And, what fun results......one--- ...two--

....three-----

Done and fun! Great memories for each of us to have and enjoy for the months and year ahead...until we can all meet up in person again.

Its possible to close down those road miles between us all, and come together.

Ta-duh!

And, hopefully, we can catch a picture of Jenna's framed picture. She used gorgeous fabric and pages from a book to frame her picture. J...tell your computer to hurry and get fixed. Been a super long repair job.

Oh---September our Women's Day group read a most inspiring article on womanhood, by Julie B. Beck entitled...."And Upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit"... that Jenna suggested. Great discussion and contribution of thoughts from everyone. Was another great evening.

This month for our Women's Day group... fall apples. We will be putting on our aprons and making something yummy with apples.....and i do believe we will be able to smell the deliciousness across the miles, as we gather in 4 different locations....to bake, to visit, to laugh, to enjoy each others company, as we carry on our this new and wonderful tradition. xo

Gone Fishing! And other tall tales....

It is that time of year! My husband and I took an early wedding anniversary trip up north to our favorite, favorite and I do really mean, favorite camping, hiking, fishing, biking, etc. place. We are not only celebrating our 27th anniversary this year, but, we are also celebrating 20 great years of camping in these woods. Love it! Let's head to the campground...ok?

Lots of trucks and trailers in this particular shot from the upper side of the campground. We prefer the lower side of the campground that is loaded with tree's and wildflowers....a little more private, and near a biking trail.
We unloaded, set up our camp, had a snack and headed for the woods. How I love these woods and all the memories over the past 20 years. So, park your car, or bike, and let's head across the bridge.

Now, think...have you forgotten anything?...water bottle, camera, bug spray....check, check and check. Carry on.

Keep on going. Up above the forest floor and heading to the Visitor's Center. We are almost their.

Hello, old friend. What a happy and welcoming sight. We enter and chat with a few park rangers, look at the new displays, check out the quilt that is sewn every late winter, early spring and raffled off at summers end, sit for a while at the bird windows (huge windows across the back side of the visitors center) and enjoy watching the birds come to many different bird feeders.

And, what do I spy? The BLACK SQUIRREL!!! I am a winner. Every year...for 20 years of camping, we have a contest in our family to see who can spot a black squirrel first. Well, in all fairness....hubby was asking a question at the info desk and I snuck out the back of the visitors center to see if I could possibly see a black squirrel and...well, there you go. Candy bar of choice for me. Lucky day!

Off we go into the woods. Here we are at the logging museum....life from the logging days can be seen in each of these buildings. For years (too many years to count) I have taken a small slip of paper with a "vinegar pie" recipe on it from the museum, logging camp, kitchen. I finally made the recipe this past year and have to say, it was pretty good.

Don't know how the loggers survived the hard winters and all the trees that they chopped and hauled and floated down the rivers to their destinations.

On with our walk, out of the logging camp and up and around the bend and down the hill ---and up again to the chapel in the woods. We have seen a bride and groom, here and their through the years, going or coming out of the chapel and woods.

Rough storms this year brought down a lot of large trees. We counted 5 downed trees, close to the chapel. So glad a tree did not land on the chapel.

Making our way through the woods....taking pictures, talking and swatting a mosquito or two or three...ok, or more.

Forest floor with new seedlings growing and spreading. Have to see if they can get enough light to grow. The forest is so dense that you can easily walk through the forest when it is raining and not get soaked. We use to do this with our children when they were little....rain was not a problem. We would just go into the woods and hike the trails and stay fairly dry.

My husband loves to look up into these particular old trees. It is one of his favorite spots in the forest.

More trail.

More beautiful woods.

Just love all the sounds and smells of the forest. My mind goes back to all my tree climbing days as a child....when I was sure I wanted to build a house in a tree.

Maybe I need one of those bumper stickers that says, "Have you hugged a tree today?"

Any favorite hiking or biking trails for you? Any campers out their? I do love Mother Nature and all her beauty. Can't wait to go up north again. We had a blast.

Enjoy the day. We have gone from a gentle spring into summer over night. Saturday was 92 with humidity....that is rare for this time of year...or for us to reach into the 90's does not happen very often all summer long. Whew! Happy times ahead!!! xo

Shout it out....SPRING!

For some of us, spring is just beginning... let's take a little walk. Shall we?

Sure Sign of Spring....Photo by Arlene Gee

Look what was happening in Greenwich, London a few days ago....lovely!

Photo by Andy Linden..taken near one of the venues for the 2012 Olympics.

I loved going to Daffodil Hill when I lived in California. It was such a spring time treat! http://www.amadorcountychamber.com/Historic/daffodil_hill.html



The fields of Daffodils go on forever and ever...it seems.

West Cornwall, UK...Photo by Michael

Looks like a great spot for a picnic to me......

Southwest England....Photo by http://www.garykingphotography.com/

...or for a bike ride.

From shebicycles, in Cleveland, Tn.

Rolling Hills of Daffodil's.

Photo by Cornish Cowboy

I love yellow and I love the daffodils of spring. Really makes me smile with fun thoughts of creating my own daffodil hill, right here at home. Hope you enjoyed this little walk through the hills and fields of daffodils. To see more beautiful pictures and more about the folks who took these gorgeous pictures, please go to...http://daffodilfestivals.com/firstdaffodils/

Happy Spring to you all. xo

Fire and Ice

It's morning time, here in Michigan! Here comes the sun!

Have a great day!

January...a lovely month!

Ooh-la-la! I'll take a cup of this to go! This is the first picture/page on my new 2011 wall calendar. I do love a good calendar.

The New Year brings refreshment and a breath of fresh air into my life. I feel invigorated and rejuvenated...not by anything that I am doing specifically, but, simply by the fact that a New Year has once again rolled around. The old year is out and the New Year is in! A fresh slate with nothing on it! A new day to carry on and live life to it's fullest. I am curious as to what the New Year will bring...the adventures, the joys, the sorrows, the trials, the triumphs...such a mixed bag.



My husband bought and hauled home a new bed. He assembled the bed as I gathered fresh linens, a blanket and quilts. As I hauled myself up into the bed (ha---really, don't laugh, but, I really had to make effort to get up and onto our bed), I sat with pillows at my back, I felt very regal and somewhat like "The Princess and the Pea"...finagling for comfort in this new nice bed---failing to fight off peels of laughter caused by our new "much to tall" bed, we finally did settle down and began to talk about our life together...past, present and future. We don't set goals each New Year. I wondered about this little fact. And, then it came to me....every birthday celebrated, every wedding anniversary that comes and goes, every change of season, every World Wide General Conference for our church each October and April---these are check points in my life. I give myself a lot of chances to do, redo, try again, accomplish, reset, move forward, move backward, etc. It works for me.



So, here's to January where I will continue to enjoy lots of cups of cocoa. This cocoa was sent to us by our daughter who is serving a Spanish speaking mission for our church. The chocolate looks somewhat like a hockey puck. You drop it into milk. It slowly dissolves as the milk heats up on the stove.

And, to winter snow and new friends in our yard. This little deer has found refuge in our yard for the past week or so. Love seeing her wandering around or seeing her from my kitchen window in the early morning light, still asleep under our huge pine trees.



I love January...come what may!

Family Motto and Rules Board

I was at my friend's house today and she mentioned that when she prayed with her young kids she always included "please help him to always be a good boy" "please let her always be a good girl". Both her kids are under 5 so they are as cute as can be and such good kids. But what about the future? And I started thinking, how much control do we really have over how our kids turn out? How much control do I have over the way I turned out, am I a by-product of my parent's governing or did I just come out this way?

Aaron and I often debate about whether or not wayward children come out as rebels or whether it is because of upbringing and things that happen in the home. Everyone knows stories of those "parents of the year" who have one child who is just wild. Or the kids who come from "that home" where it's so obvious that love and attention are hard to come by. My best guess is that both individual personality and parental guidance play strong roles but which one wins out?

I'm no psychology major but I tend to side with the environment in the home. But I'm also the kind of person who believes there is a reason for everything. Maybe I'm looking for something to "blame" or to "reason" why someone's behavior or attitude is how it is. So many times you can look at a person and their parents and its striking how similar they are. But my husband is so extremly different from his family that I wonder, where is the logic there?

Well, I could rattle on and on about this but since I've left my own childhood home and have learned to govern myself and now my daughter I find myself already feeling the need to have rules and guidelines prepared for my future family. The world is only going to get trickier and more confusing so I strongly believe that the home is the home base for education and life-training. And for those of you who don't have kids, it's never too late to work on yourself more.

Some thing I've come across that help build up and unify the family unit are:

Family Mottos

(Broaden and Contribute)

71toes@blogspot.com

Or Family Rules boards:



What I like about these ideas are that you can make them personalized to each family. Plus it's cute and gets the whole family involved.

So, I put it out to you...what are some of the rules that helped your family growing up? What were some family traditions that kept you together? What guidelines were in place that helped you stay out of the mud? Be them little or big.. maybe this topic is too broad, but, I'll be posting more about this in the future because it's right up my alley at this stage in life and I always enjoy hearing words of wisdom from you who have already been in the trenches or have found something that works for you.

Ok, stop reading and comment already!

Self-Education Possible?

I was reading through a site called the Power of Moms. They have a weekly question and this week's one hit close to home for me. A woman wrote in saying that she was a stay at home mom while her husband was pursuing a graduate degree. She felt that he was passing her by intellectually and that she often felt uneducated while socializing at his work parties. They couldn't afford to have her go back to school and she didn't want to leave raising her child to another so she posed the question of how she could advance her learning while still raising her son? image source

I have often thought of this myself. After Aaron graduated from one of the top business schools in the country he passed his CPA exam and joined with one of the "Big 4" accounting firms. Now he is moving up the corporate ladder one day at a time and find myself looking further and further up the road to see his little form moving ahead. I don't want to be left behind. But I also acknowledge that I am where I am supposed to be right now (at home).

At the wedding this weekend I found myself talking with friends and family of the bride and groom and after talking about my daughter, where we lived, the basics, I felt like that was all I had to offer. So we kept the conversation geared towards their work, their pursuit of another job, the pros and cons of what they do etc.. and I realized how sheltered I'd been lately with my local girlfriends where we talk all day long about our kids and running the household. Now, there is nothing wrong with that. But when it came time to talk with people who were walking differently through life I felt strangely behind and lacking in accomplishments.

The answers women posted provided many great ideas, some of which I've decided to implement myself:

1) Subscribe to monthly journals from the field you graduated in. Or, I could add, take up reading the local paper, the NYTimes or Wall Street Journal.

2) Take an evening class at a local community college once or twice a week.

3) Keep in mind that life won't be this way for long. Kids grow up!

4) Read more nonfiction as opposed to novels or 'beach reads'

5) Learn a new craft, skill or sport. It keeps your mind sharp and in the pattern of learning.

6) Take an online class (BYU offers free personal enrichment courses)

7) Take this time to learn from your children. You can learn a lot of things at this time in life that you couldn't otherwise in an institution like a university.

8) The book A Thomas Jefferson Education (http://www.tjed.org/) learn education a traditional way.

9) Create a place to record the things you learn everyday. Such as journaling, scrapbooking or a notebook to write down things you learn. If you're in a book group, jot down notes to make your reading approach more analytic.

10) Motherhood is a career. Look up and find out ways you can be the best person for the job.

11). Find something you're interested in, gardening, another language, swimming, sewing etc. Take up a challenge. Research the heck out of it during your spare time through the internet, library, others in that field, a specific group that meets each month. When you've mastered it, move onto the next interest you have.

12) Make a list of the "classics" and read one novel at a time. (Aaron is actually doing this and I'm amazed the list of books he has read and will be reading)

13). Susan Wise Bauer's book The Well Educated Mind.

14). "Books with a goal". A woman had the GOAL of parent teaching gymnastics to children. Then she RESEARCHED 100's of books. EXPERIENCED taking her kids to local gymnastics classes to see what she liked and didn't like. READ online articles about child development, left brain, right brain development etc. All towards her aforementioned goal.


This Q & A session gave me so much insight into what I can also do while raising Toothless. Do you have any other ideas? Something you're working on now?



*disclaimer: this is in no way implying that motherhood is not "enough", that you have to be worldly to be accomplished or that Aaron is leaving me in the dust. It is simply a list of ideas suggested for one who feels the urge to broaden their intellect and capabilities while maintaining their primary duties be it in the home or at work.

When Life is Beautiful

The baby is asleep, the husband is in bed early for an early day of work. The apartment is littered with toys, blankets, a nursing pillow, sheet music, a paper towel, odds and ends of a busy day. The dishwasher churns soothingly from the kitchen washing away dirt and grim and making our dishes clean again. Finally, I have a moment to myself. Finally I can do whatever I want to do, whatever I've been trying to get to all day long but just couldn't. There's the piano song I'm supposed to perform on Sunday for church but haven't picked out (or practiced!) yet, the apartment needs picking up, those dishes will have to be unloaded. Then there's the skirt I've been trying to make, the purse I've been heckling with to just 'lay smooth!' and the characters from my story running around in my mind waiting to spring forth onto paper.

With so much to get done, so many 'have-tos' and 'should-dos' and 'want-tos' it's so easy to get discouraged. So easy to look at others who are doing it all and more and wonder if you just don't have "it". And that rain cloud of inability, self-doubt, and nay-saying follows you for a while until soon, all you can see is everything you don't do. And soon you will believe that you are just someone who is unable or unequipped to accomplish anything.

But every once in a while you get those moments when none of that matters; the night comes with the churning sound of home, the comfortable clutter of a place lived in and the silence of a family sleeping quietly in their beds. And you don't see the undone but the actual lives that are being lived and growing while you're so busy trying to make sure you're doing everything right. With stunning clarity you see what is most important of all. And for that small moment, life is perfect. It doesn't matter what is accomplished or left undone, what calls for our attention or looms dreadfully in the distance. For that short window of time, everything is good and All is well.

Simple Beauty

Really loving the yard this year. Blessings of an early and warm spring with plenty of on again, off again rain showers.

Have a very happy weekend. xo