Okay....Maybe I Am Crystal Gayle....

......and, I am okay with that!


A while back, I compared myself to Crystal Gayle and Caroline Ingalls.


I told you about the love/hate relationship I have with my hair.

I showed you pictures of my hair with rag curls (still love that).

But, A-girl, recently started straightening my hair for me.  It takes a while, so we put in a movie and she sits behind me and works on my hair until it is done.

I love it.

I feel young.

I feel sexy.

To the world, I am sure I look like the typical homeschooling mother who doesn't believe in cutting her hair....but that isn't it.....I really, really like it....for now.

So, I am going to keep my long hair for a while.  Maybe until all my hair straighteners/rag rollers, also known as, my daughters, are grown and gone.  There is no way I can keep this up on my own!

House Changes

I cannot tell you how happy I am in our new house.

Really, really happy.

It just feels right for us.

I rejoice in the sunrises through the trees.

I rejoice in watching the deer graze in my yard early in the morning.

I rejoice in the fact that it is feeling and looking more and more like it is "our house".

I have made some changes.  Remember my color problem in the dining room? 

I loved the aqua color in small places, but it ended up being totally overwhelming on the wall.

So, I did this, instead!

So much better.  Now I will just use my aqua as an accent color.  It is a happy room now.  I am very happy.


I love it!  I even added the extra leaf in our table and it still feels like we have a lot of room in here!

I still want to figure out some new curtains....but, overall....I am super happy with it!

Oops, just realized that in this shot the bottom hasn't been repainted yet.....but, you get the idea of how open it looks, right?


I have the old door thingie that I had at the old house and want to hang this up on the wall horizontally....I just have to figure out how to do it because the studs aren't where I need them to be....so, for now, it is just leaning against the wall behind the chairs!

There is my aqua as an accent color! 

I hung this above the fireplace.

I moved a little furniture.

This holds all our school supplies and just the miscellaneous stuff we need during our day...it used to be in the dining room....but this is still close enough to be convenient and now I have room for the big table in there!

I started painting in the kitchen.  I have decided I am NOT ready to touch my cabinets yet, but I still want to.

I will show you pictures of that later.

While I was painting, I put A-girl and L-girl to work and just set them free with our family pictures.  I told them my basic ideas and that I wanted it in our main hallway....and they did it!  They did an awesome job.  It makes me feel really happy seeing their little faces when I walk down the hall every day.

This house is really feeling like home.  Like a family lives here.  Like we belong here.

I am blessed.

D-Man is 16.....sigh......

Yup.....my oldest is 16.

I am having a little bit of a hard time wrapping my head around it.  He even has that "man-shaped" jaw and everything now!

Even though he has been taller than me for a while now.

(On a completely self centered side note:  I felt that I had put a lot of time into my make up on this day....and you can't see ANY on my face!  What is with make-up just disappearing in middle age?!?  Tips?  Pointers?  Anyone?)

He is still (mostly) my sweetheart....mixed in with a bit of confusing man....who doesn't understand how my mind works.....and I don't understand his anymore either! 

Hormones are annoying.

He ended up having a very rushed birthday that ended up getting combined with our family Christmas this year, because Rainman had to rush up to Chicago to be with his mom who has having some weird health issues.

So, we had cake.....

we opened his gifts.....

we went and got our family picture taken for Rainman's church directory, we went grocery shopping and then came home and opened Christmas presents.......

 .....before Rainman caught his flight early on the 24th.

Not a spectacular birthday for him, I am sure.

But, he had lots of stuff to open........

When it was all said and done.....he was 16.  We got to spend it as a family.  I am realizing more and more how time is just rushing and rushing and that he will be moving on, etc.

I mean, this is the first year that he was not in our Santa picture because he had obligations for a leadership program. 

Through no fault of the photographer, to this mommy's eyes, there was  a D-man shaped hole in it......

(Photo courtesy of Randy Wilson Photography)

See????

It makes me weepy.  It makes me sad that this is the first of all the "stuff" he is going to start missing....

This is where I understand those pioneer people that just had their kids buy the farm next door. You really do want them close all the time.  You want them to grow up and be happy and all of that jazz.....but you don't necessarily want them to leave.

Sigh.....