The Good Life

I haven’t been posting in a while. My Norwex business has taken up a lot of my previously “free” time that I had to spare. This doesn’t mean we haven’t been living the good life. I’ve been reading, doing DIY projects, and otherwise enjoying family life. I just haven’t had much time to document and share it with all of you!

Backyard shady Mary garden, gets a dry creek bed and some shade perennials. Michael’s grotto made out of an old wheelbarrow and painted with the stars & symbols of the Miraculous Medal.

Used pallets to create “stalls” for compost and yard waste (instead of our previous unorganized piles of junk…)

TMA had a “Play Time” exhibit that featured a crocheted jungle-gym. We had a few awesome visits while they ran the exhibit this summer.

Lots of fresh eggs this summer. Although Angel (our White Cochin Chicken) went to a better chicken run in the sky (died of unknown causes).

Toledo Zoo fun: the ‘Keet Retreat featured Popsicle sticks coated in PB and bird seed. JB enjoyed feeding birds right on the stick!

Father’s Day we visited Sauder Village for the first time. It was a very hot day, but we enjoyed our trip into the past. 🙂

Took a southern trip to SC, GA, and AL. Had some nice times visiting friends and family.

My cone flowers returned and are thriving (yea!). I do not have a green thumb, so this is a victory.

This summer, we re-roofed the garage, painted a piano (yeah, we found a free piano finally!!!), created a gallery wall in the living room (this was harder than I thought it would be!), painted a couch, reworked a lot of the back-yard, did some flea market/antique mall shopping, and (it seems) so much more! We were in a car accident and were without our van for the entirety of the month of March (had a rental vehicle, which was huge!), which was also a crazy month of growth for my business, so I also didn’t really sleep during March. We’re expecting baby #5, who we recently discovered is a BOY! So April/May/June were a little rough with morning sickness.

I’ve been on and off with book club depending on how busy I’ve been, and I have not stayed on track with my reading schedule I made back in January…at all. But I did manage to read the Elegance of the Hedgehog off that list, and my goodness it was phenomenal. We own a copy now, because it’s definitely worth coming back to over and over again.
We made the decision NOT to homeschool this year! That was a tough one. I am not a very structured person, and more and more (and more) I was feeling that my girls would benefit more from being in school and having some level of consistency with regard to school. I needed it too. So, they are almost a full month in, and they LOVE it. And I love that even though I’m spending just about as much time with them on homework as I was on school work, it gives me accountability and structure to my day. And it gives me more time/attention to offer to the boys. And, of course, we will reevaluate as the year goes on if this is how we want to continue.