Living Life Beautifully

I am taking a break from chores.  I have a lot of chores.  It's my own fault.   I think I am a border line hoarder.  I love to surround myself with pretty things. I love to do crafts, so I have a lot of supplies. I love my birds, so I have a lot of them. I love to garden, so I have a lot of plants and a huge garden that is full of stuff (not much that is edible). I keep things that remind me of someone, or a story that makes me happy. I keep things that are beautiful and make me feel good to look at them. I love nature, trees, plants, deer, rabbits, wild flowers (God's Art). I live in the center of a park like atmosphere.  It is peaceful even with the noise of the chickens and quail and dogs that seem to bark at everything that moves. So last night we bought groceries online.  This morning Bruce went to pick them up. I have spent the entire day trying to find room in the refrigerators to put the things that need to be kept cold or frozen.  I did d...

Can I pet your sloth? This was said to me by a little boy that visited the farm and thought I had a sloth. He asked me several time even though I told him I didn't have one.  So he would say, "or maybe your chihuahua then." 2021 hasn't been easier like we all thought.  But I think we've all learned a few things. We've learned that we can stay home with our spouse and children and still manage to keep ourselves from exploding into a thousand pieces from stressing.   We've learned we are not as prepared as we thought we were and might need to make a few changes. We've learned to improvise, cook, find other solutions if we run out of TP. I've learned that my faith in God is the most important thing in my life beyond all else. When you miss someone you lost you hope for them, that they are in heaven. It becomes the only thing that matters when they are gone.  I understand that life is not short like we  always say.  Life is long and we are only going t...

 I'm listening to music from a Texas country artist we plan on interviewing Friday, and I have a glass of wine sitting next to me.  The music is great. My brain is numb from too much to think about and do. It is soothing to hear.  My sister in law is in the hospital and it doesn't look like she will make it without a miracle.  I pray and I cry thinking about her.  I imagine her lying in the hospital bed with everything connected and my heart breaks.   We have lost so many people in the last year. I miss my dad.  I miss my Brinkley.  I will miss my Sister in law if she goes to be with God. I know she loves God.  That gives me such peace. I know Heaven exists.  I can feel it as if it is a part of me.  It is a light that lives inside my soul. I pray all the ones that I love will be there when it is their time.  It does not make losing others painless but it does make losing those who you love and know love God so freeing beca...

I read this blog post and decided I didn't want to say what I said. I wanted to say more.  I wanted to tell you how I'm really feeling. But it does no good.   It may resonate with someone else, but it doesn't make any difference. It's doesn't help anyone to get through anything any easier.   We have to walk through our crap. People tell you what they think of you by their actions. I told my cousin that my soul is tired.  That is so accurate. I'm still mourning my dad.   I'm sad that he knew he was dying and didn't tell us. He was alone with that and I wish he would have told me. I'm sad that my family can't handle being around me because I frustrate them. Right after I was told my mom was dying of cancer, I had someone tell me something that my mom said about me that was so very ugly.  And this person doesn't realize that Those words will stick with me for the rest of my life.  Every day I will remember. Words and actions can imprint on ...

This week has been so crazy. I was up all night thinking about my dad and trying to brain storm on the good things he did during my childhood.  As children we were scared of him, so it's easy to go into all the negative stuff and stay there.  But I was lying in bed thinking about how he worked every day and almost never called in sick.  I was thinking about how he would become a totally different person when we went to the coast every year and would make breakfast for all of us outside on his green Coleman gas stove.  I was thinking about how he taught us to fish and was incredibly patient with that job.  I thought about how he kept my bike tires and Gina's bike tires inflated and how he built my bike from an old bike that was my oldest brothers.  He painted it green attached a banana seat, a flag a basket and a radio.  I was thinking about how he let us sit in the old cars he reworked and showed us how to do things in the shop like making glasses ou...

It feels like a very long time since I've posted on my blog site. I journal quite a bit in books or on scrap paper when things are simple or incredibly difficult. That sounds so strange. In the last few weeks everything feels strange. Life has been so different. I feel like it's been a challenge to marriage, an eye opener to where we spend our time, and a test of patience. Along with many other things during this time, We had three, or so, days of crazy heat, and in those days we had no AC. I ended up sick, things became overwhelming, and tensions were incredibly high. So many things on your mind.... We were worried about my dad, my sister in law, and informed we couldn't see our son who is in the Air Force. The months have been so much harder on others who were sick or unable to be with loved ones who were sick and worse. How do we wrap our minds around what others have endured. I pray a lot.  And then I pray some more. I always have a rough time from...

It's that season again.   The season of excitement and yet fear of upsetting family. Fear of grumpy dad.  Fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of being considered lacking. It is the one part of my life that I fail most. It is my most sensitive time where I let things get to me. This is my mind speaking to me as I try to sleep......... . . . Do you ever feel like no matter how you live your life, you can't do anything right? (It's almost 3 in the morning and I haven't been able to stay asleep, if I've slept at all.) (My mind continues to speak) I've been laying here re assessing my life from the opinion of others. I don't ask for anything...... I take care of my family, raised my children, pay my bills, love my husband. We have chosen a life that is simple.  We don't go on big vacations, we have older cars, we have an old home that we restored and built ourselves along with two other homes our children live in. We've been dealt a flood, we've had ...