A Tinfoil Star and Lots of Memories

 

Happy Tuesday, my friends! We had a great Thanksgiving and weekend that followed and now we're in full blown Christmas mode 🎄

David and I put up our tiny little pencil tree last night. I'm not sure that I like this small cottage living right now, but it is what it is, as they say. Yes, it's barely Christmas time and I'm complaining. Uggg. I'll get over it, but I've been feeling a little bit claustrophobic lately. 

Then I found this star in our box of decorations and it had me reminiscing about all the years, all the houses, all the good times and different times we've had in our 34 years together. 

This was the cardboard and tinfoil star we made the very first year we were married. 🌟

We were living in David's grandparent's old farmhouse - renting it for $100 a month. We had no furniture to call our own. Every single piece of furniture in the house was already there when we moved in. 

But we were young and in love and we felt blessed. We barely had money to buy gifts for one another. We were both working and paying for college, but those were good days. We ate the same meals, week after week. We would take lunch in paper sacks and meet at the park before heading back to work and school. 

At times David was working nights and going to school during the day and I worked days and left straight from work to attend night classes. We were two ships passing each other going opposite directions, but we made it work and we were so happy.

Eventually a baby came along and we moved out of that little farmhouse, bought some furniture of our own and became our own little family.

We earned a little bit more money, but now were living on one income and still didn't have much in savings. But we had our kids, a home, cars and still placed that star at the top of every tree, every year, as a reminder of where we came from.

We've had huge houses since then and now we have the smallest house we've ever had. If I've learned anything, it's that houses come and go, but it's what you take with you that matters.

The memories, the family, the love you still share after all these years. 

The tinfoil star you still place at the top of the tree, to remind you of all you have to be thankful for and all that is to come. 

No matter if we live big or small, I never want to forget all that God has blessed us with, even in the years that felt small. Those were some of the best years and what memories are made of.  I suspect these will be too, one day.

Have a blessed day, my friends 💚

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

What I've Been Reading, Watching, Listening to, Working on and Praying About

 What I'm Listening To...

This week I thought I'd share a post about what I've been reading, watching, listening to, working on and praying about. 

I've had Matthew West's new Christmas album playing for the past week and I love it! It's not traditional Christmas songs, so it's fresh and new, although I do like the classics too. But his songs are more like stories, which is what I love about his music. 

I've also been listening to a few new podcasts this week, which happen to include Matthew West (again), as well as Candace Cameron Bure. 

Candace's podcast is straight up Bible talk, with her cohost, which I'm really enjoying. They go pretty deep into the Bible and aspects of not only God, but being a Christian in your daily life.  She's only several episodes in, so it would be easy to start at the beginning and catch up if you prefer to listen that way. 

Matthew's podcast is him interviewing friends, such as Steven Curtis Chapman, Candace Cameron Bure and others. He's basically just catching up on their lives and latest projects, which I enjoy listening to. 

In fact, in his episode with Candace, they talked of her new movie coming out this Sunday and how the theme song is actually off Matthew's new Christmas album. There is a great God-story involved in how that song came to be a part of the movie. You should listen to it, if those kind of stories interest you. 

What I'm Watching...

These days I'm totally stuck on Heartland. I love this show and I watch 1-2 episodes a day, depending on how the day is going. 

I love the family dynamic, the horses, the environment, the scenery and just about everything concerning this show. Every now and then the story can become a little predictable, but it quickly moves into something I wasn't expecting and redeems itself. 

This is a great alternative to Yellowstone, which has horrible language and I won't watch it. But if you love the horses, ranches, cowboys and beautiful scenery, this one would be a great choice. 

What I'm Reading...

I'm almost finished with this thriller. I've set it aside a few times, thinking that I hate to read a thriller during the holidays! But I wanted to finish it, so I'm plugging along, determined to get through with it by this weekend, so I can start a Christmas book or at least something more uplifting.

What I'm Working on...

This is a little Christmas project I started a few weeks ago, to help me get in the holiday spirit.

It's just a small booklet that I'm decorating and will use to write inspirational stories or quotes for Christmas and keep it to look at next year too.

I love working with paper and stickers and tiny envelopes like this.

I stick these envelopes throughout my books and tuck little messages inside them, just for fun.

I am a paper girl and I will forever create things with pretty paper and stickers. I've even enjoyed adding stamps and watercolors to some of my projects this year.

Next is What I've Been Praying About...

Well, of course there are many things to pray about on a daily basis, but something big I've been praying about lately is the new year and what the Lord would have me focus on during 2023. 

I'm a project person, meaning that I like to have a project and a purpose to my days. I have way too many ideas and things I would love to do, but recently I felt the Lord tell me to put away my exhaustive To-Do list and just seek him daily for direction. If you're an idea or a project person, you know that this is hard to do!

I like having a plan, a check-off list, feeling accomplished at the end of the day, so it's tough to wing it and not know what direction I'm going in. And I don't know if this is exactly what the Lord is telling me, but it's certainly something I'm continuing to pray about. 

As with anything, I have to be patient and wait on Him to guide me and I have faith that he will.

I can feel the stirrings of something new coming and it's exciting to know that I'm stepping aside and letting God guide the timing. 

What about you?

What are you reading, watching, listening to, working on and praying about (if you care to share)?

I would love to hear all about it!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

Thanksgiving Memories

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 🦃

Instead of waiting till the end of the day and documenting what we've done, I decided to do a pre-Thanksgiving Day post and talk about some memories that Thanksgiving brings to mind.

As a young girl, I don't have many memories of Thanksgiving, but as I got older, around the teenage years, I specifically remember spending the day with aunts, uncles and cousins on my stepdad's side of the family.

It was so much fun and it shaped what I thought Thanksgiving should look like every year.

Football games on the tv, lots of food, and all the cousins out in the front yard playing a game of ball themselves. 

Those were great days!

After David and I got married, we alternated Thanksgiving between his family and mine. 

When David still worked in television we spent several Thanksgivings eating out, because he was assigned to do a story somewhere. Those were exciting days, but we were a little bummed that we had to miss hanging out with family. 

Once we had kids (and David no longer worked in tv), we would head down South to my dad's for Thanksgiving.

There we would find my stepmom up late into the night, making sure the turkey was in the oven at the right time, the side dishes made and all the desserts she insisted on making, like the one pictured above.

Neiman Marcus Cake was one of her specialties. I never knew anyone else who made it and to this day, have never had it anywhere else...until today.

This year I wanted to add it to my line up of food and bring a little tradition into our present day celebration.

But, back to Thanksgiving at my dad's...you never knew who would show up, which was the fun of it all. There would be cousins I hadn't seen in years, maybe some meat my dad got while hunting, cowboy hats everywhere 🤠 and always extra tables set up. 

My stepmom, Ruby, knew how to cook and I never realized how hard she worked until I became a wife and mom and began to feel the burden of all that myself. 

After lunch, my dad would sneak off into the living room, sit in his recliner (never reclined) and yell at the guys on the tv football game. 

What I wouldn't give to listen to him, once more!

There were years we would drive all the way to Junction, Tx. where David's Aunt Margie lives and join his side of the family there. 

Talk about an abundance...food and family!

People everywhere, tables set on the wrap-around porch, people in the dining room, sitting on porch swings, rockers and anywhere they could sit.

Then someone would take off on a 4-wheeler, while others sat around the tv and watched their favorite team. 

Several years hold memories of guitars being played, while Uncle Hollis showed us that he "still had it" on the dance floor 😀

Then, late at night, while all was getting quiet and settling down, Aunt Margie would have her 10:00 p.m. cup of coffee, sit in her chair and fall asleep. 

We would laugh at that phenomenon until we realized that David and his dad have the same

reaction to coffee in late afternoon or evening. 

🦃

Family and Food

Football and Fun

those are the memories of

Thanksgiving.

🦃

For all of this and so much more,

I am so grateful.

Whether you're living out established traditions,

or making new ones,

enjoy who and what

you have today.

💛

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

A Very Cold Weekend

 It was a cold and rainy Saturday here, which normally would be staying home weather. However my car needed an oil change and an inspection sticker, so we ventured out to take care of all of that. We have a great drive-thru service station that does the oil change and inspection while you wait in your car. Can't beat that on a cold, rainy day!

On the way home, we stopped by one of our favorite bbq places and got enough food for Saturday and Sunday. They serve one of my favorite dishes there called Redneck Nachos. They cut their own swirled potato chips, top them with brisket, bbq sauce, jalapeños, and sour cream. It's one of those specialty dishes that you can't wait to get, but once you eat it, you don't want it again for months. But it's great while you're eating it 😋

That afternoon, while David was working on the bathroom renovation, I decided to bake some shortbread cookies that I had been craving all week. 

I love these cookies because they're not too sweet, but just sweet enough. They go perfect with coffee and there are only 3 ingredients, which is my kind of recipe!

It was cold and gray outside, so I had my Christmas candle going while I baked.

I also play music on Youtube while I'm cooking or cleaning, just to have noise in the house. I love the music channels that add the pretty scenes. This was classic Christmas songs, which was perfect for the mood of the day. 

This was Banjo's mood of the day 😀🐶 Which really isn't any different than any other day. 

Sunday I spent much of the day trying to figure out how to get the Great American Family channel aded to what I already have, so we could watch all the new (family friendly) Christmas movies. But, it was no use. They've made it kind of difficult to purchase, so it was all a waste of time. I finally gave up and we ended up watching our usual shows.

But before we sat down for the night, I cut some vegetables and made a batch of homemade Ranch dressing for this week.

It's not a great picture, but I snapped a quick shot to send to my sister, who's a nutritionist. I knew this would make her happy to see I was trying to eat my veggies 😀🥕

The homemade ranch is amazing! I got the recipe off Instagram last year and it is great for dipping veggies and chips (or salad, if you want). 

I love that my sister says to eat your veggies with your favorite dip, if that's what it takes to get you to eat the healthy options. That's my kind of thing, right there. Everything goes better with ranch, right?

Well, the evening was nice and quiet. I worked on a jigsaw puzzle and we watched tv. It was the perfect ending to a busy weekend. David's making progress on the renovation and we're starting to see what the room might look like, sooner than later.

Today I'm off to the grocery store early. I'm hoping to beat the crowds.

Have a wonderful Monday and stay warm out there!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

A Quick Testimony - How God Used a Broken Fence to Speak to Us

 

It's Saturday morning and though Saturdays seem like they should be lighthearted, I want to share a testimony that I've been thinking about lately.

This past week I was listening to a podcast and the host asked her guest to share a testimony about a time when God showed up in a strange way and it got me thinking (and my husband and I talking) about how we don't really hear too many testimonies these days. Or maybe it's just that our social media feeds are filled with negative opinions and the good things get drowned out. Churches have gotten away from people sharing testimonies anymore, which is sad, because they can increase faith in ways that a good sermon can't. 

Nevertheless, testimonies should be an every day part of a believer's life! We should be looking for God's hand in everything (and much more so than blaming everything on the devil, but that's a whole other topic). 

﹏

So, back in 2020, when the world was going crazy, David and I began talking about needing a fence in the backyard. The neighbors had a fence that kept falling down, exposing their swimming pool, and several times David and Collin would stand it back up, to keep our yard safe for the girls and the dog. 

We called a good friend, who is in the fence building business, and he came over one day to give us a bid.

After he walked the backyard and was finished with his measurements, he casually mentioned that he had a house for rent next door to him and was thinking about letting a friend stay there, since the previous family had moved out. We talked about some other things and then he left and we never thought another thing about the conversation.

Until the next morning.

As David was taking his morning walk around the neighborhood, I thought about how COVID had made us rethink our big house and small savings account and an idea came out of nowhere. What if we were to rent our friend's house and sell ours and get out from under a big house note and into a more secure financial situation? 

As I told David about this idea, it's like the lightbulb came on for both of us! YES! This was a possibility!

We scheduled a time to see the house and decided we wanted to go for it. It would relieve David of the constant stress he was feeling with his job (everyone's job was questionable at that time) and it would be the answer to some other factors concerning our current house we were living in. 

We made the move and went from stressed out homeowners, to relieved renters. 

Two years later, the Lord showed us that we no longer needed to be on the lookout for another home, because this was where he wanted us - the very place he had provided, two years back. 

Little did we know that a broken down fence would be the bridge between our prayers and God's answer. And that's where God really shines💛 In the unexpected.

﹏

Just as the woman on the podcast testified to God using a fire alarm to answer her prayers, the Lord used a broken fence to answer ours.

These are things that happen in life every single day and no, not every broken fence or fire alarm going off is an act of God, but many random things are!

That five minute delay on the road, that saved you from danger. 

That random illness that caught something more serious at the doctor's office.

And the list goes on and on.

We serve a creative God and his ways are so much higher than ours. 

I'm not going to lie...I wish God was a little more straightforward at times, because it sure would make things easier to figure out. But, it's all about faith, isn't it?

When things are scary and require so much faith, is when the Lord gets to show off in ways would could never dream of. 

We can't change it, so we might as well get used to looking for him in unexpected places. 

And when you are the recipient of one of God's creative moments, tell someone! Keep passing on the good news of how God brought about something new in your life. 

You just might open someone else's eyes to how the Lord is working in their life and that's worth talking about!

If you have a testimony ready to share, feel free to leave it in the comments 😀 I would love to hear it!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

It's Already Thursday! Here's What I've Been Up To...

 

Goodness! Where has the week gone? I can't believe it's Thursday already and just a week from Thanksgiving!

My mom left Monday morning for her 6 hour drive home, and I headed to town to do some Christmas shopping. After hosting, cooking, and staying busy with family for 5 days, I was in desperate need of some "alone" time. That's how we introverts recharge, in case you didn't know😅

I usually prefer to shop alone, because I'm not great at shopping and talking at the same time😅 So, I had a few things I needed and it felt good to walk the aisles of Hobby Lobby and HomeGoods at my own pace and think through the decisions that needed to be made for gifts this year. 

Then I got one of my favorite lunchtime meals - soup and salad from Panera Bread - and came home to relax and catch up on a show or two before washing the blankets and bedding from the guest room.

Tuesday I worked around the house and had to pick up my granddaughters that afternoon, so their parents could attend a fancy event (see picture above).

My son, Ted, was leading worship at an annual fundraiser, where Dr. Ben Carson was speaking.  Last year Dallas Jenkins (creator of The Chosen) was the speaker and Ted led worship. To say we are proud of him, would be an understatement. He is an anointed worship leader and we love to see him doing what he was made to do.

So, while Ted and Alex (and their newborn son), attended the Gala, David and I wrangled the three girls all evening. We did crafts (which is their favorite thing to do), watched Frosty, Rudolf, and The Little Drummer Boy, made pumpkin bread, took baths, played checkers and stayed warm and cozy until their parents got home. On the drive back to their house, they all fell flat asleep and we had to carry them into their house. That's how you know you've had a good night! 😀

Yesterday I did my grocery pick up, caught up on all the laundry and answering emails. I also ordered some gifts online and did some household cleaning. 

When my husband was leaving for work yesterday, he asked what I was doing that day, so I thought it would be fun to write down every single thing I did and show it to him when he got home. I had a two page list of things I did all day and of course he said, "you know I don't care about this!" Of course I know! That's what makes it fun 😀 If he actually kept track, that would be a whole different scenario 😉

Today I have an eye exam (haven't been in over a year) and will probably come home and wrap some gifts, although it will be another week or so before we get the tree up. Living in this small home is quite the challenge when it comes to putting a Christmas tree in the mix. I think I've bought the slimmest tree I can find, just so we will have room. 

I also need to finalize my Thanksgiving menu, so I can get groceries before the crowds get crazy.

Lots to do as the holiday season gets started! You can feel the buzz in the air, which is always so much fun!

I hope you're having a great week!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

Nanny's Visit

Well, the highly anticipated visit from my mom finally came and went.

We were so happy to have her here and I think she enjoyed her time with her two grandsons and their little families.

My mom lives in South Texas, near Corpus Christi, which is about a 6 hour drive from here. We normally see each other every 6 months, but circumstances were crazy this year and it took about 11 months for us to finally get together again.  

My mom and I have a good time together and usually end up laughing a lot. We both love Mexican food and ice cream and used to love to go shopping together.  We can't shop till we drop anymore, because that goes by really fast these days! 😂 We drop a lot sooner than we used to.

Here's my mom's first grandson, my son Ted, and his beautiful family. He has all those girls and their brand new baby boy, Calem.  Of course, Alex is my beautiful daughter-in-love, and looks amazing, even having a new born. 

 Here's Nanny and Calem, her great-grandson. Isn't he precious?

Here's Nanny playing checkers with Emmy and Ella. She was freezing the entire time she was here. 

David had just put together that new couch for the new back porch and the girls were loving it.

Here's my mom with my baby, Collin, and his beautiful wife Morgan. Of course, there's Asa, who has captured everyone's heart with his smile and laughter.  We seriously can't get enough of him!

The 5 days went by fast! She got here on Thursday and left on Monday. We ate some good food, cooked some good food, went to church so she could see her grandsons leading worship, watched some good tv (I introduced her to Heartland), talked a lot and laughed a lot. It was a great time and visit.

We probably won't see her again until the new year. At that time, David and I will travel down her way and visit her and the rest of my family in the area. 

It's tough living away from family, but thankfully we are all still healthy and able to drive the distance.

Until then, we will talk a few times a week on the phone, like we always do. I'll send her pictures of the kids and she'll tell me all about her dog 😀🐶 who is her "baby." 

Now it's a week of playing catch up on emails, blogging, bills, cleaning, etc. It's great to take a break from the routine of normal, but then we have to hustle to get back to work. 

It's time to start thinking about Thanksgiving, so that will be on the agenda this week too. The older I get, the more I have to get through one event, before I can think about the next one. Are you like that too?

Well, have a great week, my friends!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

Weekend Fun

 

Happy Monday-after-time-change, friends! I've been up since 4:00 a.m. this morning, because my body didn't get the memo 😂 I'm a morning person, so it doesn't hurt too bad, but I'll be asleep on the couch about 8:30 tonight. 

David and I had a great weekend, though very busy. We were working to clean up all of our renovation mess before my mom gets here this week. We also had a few things we needed to shop for, so our Saturday and Sunday were taken up with going back and forth from home to store and back again.

It's such a funny thing when you are looking for something specific. It seems like I'm always a season behind. For instance, we just built our back porch, so we wanted some patio furniture to go on one side of it. But of course, I'm a season late! All the patio furniture has disappeared into the back rooms of warehouses somewhere and been replaced with a forest of Christmas trees, never to appear again, until next spring! Which, in S.E. Texas, is a curious thing because it was literally in the 80's yesterday!

We were also looking for a new coffee cart for the kitchen, but no luck there either. In the end, we came home and ordered everything online. I should have just done that in the first place and saved us a lot of sweating.

However...we did find lots of things at the local antique shop that we didn't need, yet bought anyway.

Such as this kitchen gadget that holds foil, wax paper and paper towels, all in one handy container.😀

Does anyone remember this from days gone by? My family never had one of these, but it did make me think about the little metal boxes that held matches. My dad had one hanging in the kitchen for years. 

David also made us bring home an old, metal pencil sharpener (like the ones in school), a model of a ship for his office, an apron for my collection and 2 signs to hang. I have to laugh at taking him shopping with me because he wanted everything! 

When we got home with all of this, I firmly declared that I was becoming a minimalist after this, because our house is too small to go on random shopping sprees! But truthfully, we had fun, which made it all worth it.

By Sunday night we were tired and ready to sit and not sweat.

I made some homemade burgers and we chose a Christmas movie on HULU called Christmas on the Farm (not a Hallmark movie, though we didn't realize it until we were halfway in). It was pretty good and it was a nice break from our usual British murder mysteries. Although we watched one afterwards, which is just what we do 😀 It takes us a good 3 days to finish one episode because I fall asleep once I get still. 

Anyway...enough about that!

I am looking forward to a great week! I hope you are too and that your home and family are blessed in many ways 💚

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

Family Dinner, A Millie Date and We Voted!

Thursday night was "Family Dinner" night, which is something we've been doing for years now. Once a week all my kids and grandkids come for dinner and a visit. There are a total of 11 of us now and our table is just about to be too small, once the two boys get old enough to need a chair. 

I seriously question our decision to buy a smaller house, just as our family is expanding. 

But anyway - back to family dinner...we had a home cooked meal Thursday night. I cooked sausage in BBQ sauce in the slow cooker, mashed potatoes, green beans and garlic bread. We had pound cake with cool whip and mini chocolate chips for dessert. It was all delicious and we had plenty of leftovers for the next day.

We attempted to have some time on the new back porch, but truth be told, it was 80 something degrees and about 100% humidity and not that pleasant. I'm really looking forward to cooler weather!

Friday I took my granddaughter Ella Joy on a date. I try to spend one-on-one time with the big girls every now and then, in addition to my normal once-a-week Millie Day, where I get all three girls for the day.

Last week I took Emmy on a date and we visited a museum, had lunch with PawPaw and she came home with me to hang out. I made her a checklist of what all we could do that day, which she loved, because she's a list kind of girl.

Well, back to Ella Joy...she informed me that she would make the list for our day, and though she didn't write it out, she definitely knew exactly what she wanted to do that day and we did it all. 😅

Our first stop was at Rao's Bakery, where she wanted a chocolate muffin and a coffee drink with whipped cream.  We both tried a different muffin than we normally get, because for some reason, Rao's has decided to start adding banana to their regular chocolate chip muffins, and neither Ella nor I are on board with that. The double chocolate muffin was just "ok", but nothing special. However, the coffee was delicious, as always. 

Next stop was Target to look for a dress and shoes for this little shopper. She normally requests a visit to the local kid's resale shop, but I opted for Target, so we could see what was on sale. We walked out of there with 2 dresses, shoes and some lip gloss (for kids) and a few household items I needed.

I also bought this sweet baby outfit for Asa and a different newborn outfit for Calem. It's so fun to have babies to buy for again!

Next stop, after Target, was the local library. I had introduced Emmy and Ella to the downtown library a few weeks ago, where they had a big children's section, but this week she wanted to check out the library by her house, to see what they had to offer. 

The kid's area was nice and they had a turkey scavenger hunt going on, so we walked around for about 20 minutes looking for all the turkeys on her list. Once she found them all, she was able to choose a prize from the librarian. That was the perfect ending to our date and she was satisfied that we had done everything on her list for the day. 😃

After taking her home, I went home for lunch and then David came home so we could go vote in our county. 

I'm happy to report there were quite a few people in line to cast their vote! That's always a good thing to see. I snapped a quick selfie of us afterwards. I think my camera was fogged up from the humidity and the overcast weather. But, we got it done and it felt good to exercise our voting privileges. So much to say on that matter, but I won't 😏

David and I had a quiet night at home, watching Bob Newhart reruns and finally cutting David's hair. I've been cutting his hair for most of our marriage and thankfully it always turns out ok. 😂

Today we were supposed to work in the yard, but after a very strong storm last night and more rain promised today, who knows? 

For now, I'm off to finish my coffee, read my Bible and get ready for the day. 

Here's to a great weekend friends!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

A November Walk-Around

 

For the past few months, we've had workers here working on the house, cutting trees or doing various other jobs. The last crew left a few days ago and I finally feel like I'm free to walk around my yard again and start enjoying this place without trucks parked everywhere.

So yesterday afternoon I took my phone and leisurely walked around the yard, just snapping some pictures of colorful things. 

There is so much work to be done now, such as cleaning up all the pine straw. It is everywhere! And that's after having 9 trees cut this summer!

Everything has a layer of dust on it from months of construction and it all just looks neglected. But, nevertheless, I'm sharing pictures today, because it feels good to get outside and get excited about all the possibilities.

That "Welcome" sign sits at the entrance of the driveway. It's the perfect spot to decorate for every holiday. As you can see, the sunflowers served as a pitiful summer and fall decoration because that's as far as I got this year. I'll hopefully step it up for Christmas 😀

The leaves are so pretty. I know they're nothing compared to other states, but we'll take what we can get around here. The red are my favorites. 

My junk garden in in desperate need of some TLC, so this weekend David and I will spend time outside, cleaning and decluttering everything we've neglected, due to all the construction.

These are the real pictures of the real scene 😀 Nothing here is "Instagram ready" 😂

Look at all the pine straw! The only way to deal with it, is to use the leaf blower and blow it into piles or use the mower to chop it up. Either way, it's a lot!

More...

This table is in the front yard. I have sweet memories of this table when we first got it. The girls love to play outside, but this Millie needed a place to sit and watch (can't keep up with those little balls of energy), so I got a table where we could have snacks and I could drink a cup of coffee while they played.

Since the construction phase, it's been pushed over to the side of the yard and kind of forgotten.  That's about to change this weekend!

This is our "front" door.  You can see our "PawPaw and Millie's" sign my daughter-in-law made for us many years ago. 💛

So... fun fact about this house...the original builders built the house facing the lake, which in theory sounds wonderful, except it's not. That means the front door is on the "back" and the front of the house that faces the driveway, has no door, except this side door.  

What the front of the house does have is all the electrical boxes attached to it, which is another project for the future. We'll have to figure out how to cover those up, for curb appeal. 

So, the back of the house (facing the lake) now looks amazing with this screened-in porch we had built. David just installed the lighting last night and snapped a few shots for the family.

Here's the nighttime view of the junk garden, new patio (where the fire pit will be) and the lake.

I had my first cup of coffee on the porch last night. Just before David came home and started installing the lights. 

Tonight we'll have all the kids over for Family Dinner and they want to have coffee on the porch 😀

I hope it will be the start of many family nights, cozy chats and cool evenings out here among the water and stars.

This place is starting to feel like home 💛

Until Next Time...

Blessings!

Currently...

 Hey friends! Today I'm linking up with Jennifer over at Overflowing With Thankfulness for her monthly topic called Currently. 

This month the question is, "What are you currently borrowing, buying, planning, prepping, or reading?" I'm totally going to be winging this post, so here goes!

BORROWING... Right now I'm borrowing these two pictures from my daughters-in-law, from this past week. These are our two grandsons, Asa (the pumpkin) and Calem (the 3 week old). 

They are so precious! After having 3 granddaughters ruling the world with their barbies and princess stuff everywhere, we finally have some boys to mix it up a bit. 

BUYING...it seems most of what I've been buying lately has been renovation supplies. My goodness! Simultaneously we've had a bathroom reno going and this back porch being built, so let's just say that LOWE'S is in possession of much of our hard-earned money right now. 

The porch is finally completed, so this week we had to purchase all of the light fixtures for the inside and outside of the porch. Likewise, every time you turn around, we need something new for the bathroom reno. I keep saying that we're going to have a million dollar bathroom by the time it's all said and done. 

This picture was before we put the table back on the porch. And we still need to purchase some patio furniture for one side, but that might have to be next month's post 😅

Here's the view looking out to the lake. This porch has been my dream since we moved here a few years ago. I'm so glad we finally did it!

PLANNING...and PREPPING...I'm combining these two categories because this month they go hand-in-hand. I've been planning and prepping a visit from my mom. In fact, she comes in next week and I'm so excited! I haven't seen her in almost a year! We don't normally go that long in between visits, but various circumstances kept her from coming over the summer and then Calem was due and she didn't want to come without getting to meet both babies, so here we are in November! But, nevertheless, she's coming and we have been planning and prepping and still have much to do over the next week, before she drives in.

Our guest room has been the acting storage/building supply area while the bathroom was being done, so now we will be using this next week to move all the stuff out and make sure the room looks nice and cozy for my mom's visit. 

READING...Lastly, I just shared my book stack in the last post, but specifically I'm reading Shari Lapena's latest book called Not a Happy Family.  It's good, as all of her books are, but my only complaint is the language has been ramped up a bit from her other books and that's a big pet peeve of mine. My personal opinion is that you can tell a great story without using foul language and if you can't, then you don't have the vocabulary you need, to be a writer. That may sound harsh, but there are plenty of storytellers out there, who don't have to talk trashy, to tell a good story. So, I will finish the book, but it might be the last I read, of this author, if this is her new direction. 

And that's it for this link up to Currently. I'll be linking up on Jennifer's blog and it looked like there were some other posts to read, so here's to another cup of coffee and a few more minutes of good reading time! 

See you soon!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!