Hello Monday!

  
                             

   Hello everyone!!!  First off, I'm so excited to be joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom for Happy Homemaker Monday and I LOVE this new graphic that she made for the HHM linky party!  Its so pretty and so peaceful!  It reminds me of slower days, and man- I'm in need of some of those slower days!  I'll also be linking up with Holly at Pink Lady for Hello Monday, and checking in on all the lovely bloggers over there!  I sat down today with my blog and it was honestly like a sigh of relief just fell over me.  This morning has been hectic, and planning for this week has my head spinning- but since I have been working to return to this blogspace, over and over again I realize that its so good for me to have this creative outlet where I can share my thoughts, my heart and just sit down and talk a bit with some friends.  I've been in and out of the blogger world a bit, and I've changed my blog and blog title (url too....) more times than I can remember, but all of you have stayed the same and I feel like its sitting here and catching up with some old, and some new friends.  Love it.  

   As I mentioned this week is full.  For some reason I was super ambitious and decided it would be okay for my little guy to play baseball and soccer this spring, since it was his last time to play baseball and he had already committed to soccer.  He's really loving it, but it takes up most of our evenings.   This week in particular my other evenings are spoken for as well- and I dislike weeks when I don't have a lot of downtime.  But, I'm working on something that's more practical than physical.  I'm trying hard to carve out downtime and be intentional about it.  Sometimes that means just walking into my bedroom in the middle of the day and doing some breathing exercises.  Sometimes it means just sitting down and visiting with my kiddos.  It's not something I'm used too- I always hit the ground running.  I love a tidy home and try and keep up with it like a drill sergeant sometimes, so I'm working on that.  I live for days I can stay home and clean and just have a slow day- but there are some days that won't happen and I'm accepting that.  Stephen and myself both are trying to learn and accept we can't do everything, and that's a hard lesson to learn.

   Yet last week we were super productive.  We actually got a LOT of work done on our chicken coop!  I can't wait to share some before and after photos because it will look like a totally different coop when we are done, but its looking amazing.  We also got our raised bed garden planted, so that was wonderful.  We got a lot of things cleaned and organized outside- so its still a work in progress but we are making big progress.  Hopefully we can get most of it ready before summer, its so hot in the summer its nice to knock out big projects before it gets too hot!

   Well I have rambled on forever, so lets on to the linkup, shall we!  

*** The Weather ***
   It's cooled down a LOT.  I was actually disappointed yesterday, after a week full of 80 and 90 degree temps my husband took a rare Sunday off from preaching and we headed to Nags Head.  While we were having pizza the temperature dropped almost 10 degrees!  We walked down to the beach and were freezing!  So we went to my favorite surf shop and got some hoodies and jackets lol (at least they were on sale!) then tried the beach again- and it was still freezing. So maybe later on this week we will try it again.  We are in the high 60s today and tomorrow and in the 80s for the rest of the week, so I think its going to be really nice!  I'm so ready for summer lol!  


*** Right now I am ***
Relaxing and enjoying blogging!  I have so much to do lol, so its nice to take some time and just breathe!  


*** Thinking and pondering ***
   I'm excited about our home projects and even about spring cleaning.  The chicken coop has taken up a lot of our time, but we also want to pressure wash the house this week ( we got a pressure washer on amazon!  I'll share the link after I use it and let you know what we think!) and get the door and the coop painted.  I'm excited about the plants that we put into the ground tomorrow.  We had a HUGE Garden back when we lived in Staley, but since we moved here (almost four years ago) we haven't gardened.  So although it won't be as massive, I'm really happy and excited to get some veggies this year.  I also am ready for some slower summer days.  I know my kiddos love their extracurriculars, but it will be nice when we don't have as much to do and can just enjoy relaxing and spending the summer together.  I would guess that next year my son will be working and my daughter will be doing an internship in college, so I wanna plan as little as possible and squeeze every ounce of this summer out that I possibly can!  

*** How I am feeling ***
Very tired, but really ambitious.  I have a lot of goals for myself and I'm excited to really commit to blogging and sharing those here, it gives me a lot of motivation!  

*** On the menu ***
   Tonight we have WMU and my group is in charge of refreshments, so they are heavy refreshments and I'm excited about it!  I'm making my spinach dip that they love, my friend is making her delicious buffalo chicken dip as well as a cheddar and burger dip.  We also have someone bringing cake, cookies, chocolate candy and salty snacks.  So yes, my daughter and I will be having that for dinner!  I'm not sure what the boys will do, their Dad is in charge of that tonight lol.  

*** What I am wearing ***
It's cool so I have sweatpants on today!  I did get a new outfit yesterday from the surf shop, its a Simply Southern short and top.  I've thought about jumping on the monochrome outfit trend for awhile and haven't, if it looks nice, I"ll share a pic this week.  

*** On my reading pile ***
   One of my goals is to actually start reading again.  Stephen and I have decided to move the television out of our bedroom and work on that lol.  We like watching movies together but it works just as well on my laptop, he got me one for Christmas so I could blog and so we could watch movies on it, and if we do that its more intentional, not just turning something on for noise.  So hopefully that'll trick my brain into remembering laying down is reading time lol.  I'm reading Every Thought Captive by Kyle Idleman, and a few others, I'll link them next week when I can find them on amazon!

*** On my TV this week *** 

   My daughter and I have been watching Nashville 911 but I don't think its back until next week.  Some of it is silly, but we really have liked watching a show together lol.  We are so far behind on When Calls the Heart we keep saying we will watch it but we never do.  Anytime Stephen and I sit down we tend to watch the Office, and I"m watching Hart of Dixie again while on the treadmill lol. 

*** Looking around the house ***
   Its fairly clean!  We did some spring cleaning last week and cleaned up before leaving yesterday so it looks nice!  I have a long list of things I want to accomplish lol, but I'll get to that as I can.  

*** To do list for today***
   Regular Monday cleaning, work on school and school planning (I can't believe we only have a little over a month left of school!) Pick up groceries and decorations for WMU tonight, organize my binder for my class I am taking (I can't wait to share some of that with you!)


*** What I am creating *** 
   Just the blog for now.  I have all the materials to work on wax melts and haven't done that yet.  I've been making my own laundry soap for about two months now and its perfection- I intend to make a post this week to share how you can make it too! If you love Buff City Soap, you'll love making it yourself and save a TON of money!  I'll get that post up this week :)  Add that to my 'to do' list!


*** From the camera ***

   This isn't from my camera, but it made me laugh out loud....

We had our soccer games this week on Thursday instead of Saturday.  I'm so glad our church does Upward Soccer!  My boy loves it, and its nice that its literally in our back yard lol 

We got our raised bed garden from Target and got it dug out and planted!  I need to update it with a planted photo!  I'll go take one in a few and share and when I get a minute I'll find the link to share as well!  we ordered it from Target and it turned out so cute!!  Visit me later today and I'll share the link and an 'after planting' photo lol

Okay, so I'm on the fence about AI and know basically nothing about it, but last week we were playing with it on the Whats App app (still know nothing about this either but my sons baseball team updates on it so for now, I have it lol) and you can do AI images lol..  I did some of my son that were hilarious so I thought I'd share.

First off, he's and AVID Miami Dolphins fan, so this his hilarious..  he hates Buffalo...

And he loves Mario, so here he is in Mario world

Too funny!!!

We also had a big event at the church to raise money for the Baptist Children's Home.  We had a GREAT turnout!

And some awesome singers!  And Yes, those are motorcycles in our Family Life Center lol, it was for the Ride to Clyde fundraiser and we have some Bikers in our church that ride.  It was VERY cool.

And it was so nice to take some time off this weekend....  Stephen works hard so he needed some time off!  Here he is enjoying a very large Ice cream cone from our favorite Ice cream place, Booty Treats

We also visited the Aquarium since the beach was too cold lol..  gotta love their new sweaters that we had to buy due to the weather lol!  

It was SO nice to link up with all of you today!!!  I can't wait to visit your blogs!!