Home

What do you think of when you hear the word Home? Do you imagine the house where you now live, or the place where you grew up? Is it a comforting word? It should be. A house is just a building. A home is somewhere you go to feel loved, cherished, secure. Home includes more than just yourself. A home may include feelings, sounds, smells, memories.

Home to me is where my heart resides. Home is wherever Kurt and the girls and I are together. Home might be in our house, or on a beach, along a trail through the woods, on a road trip, or at a football game. Home to me brings a feeling of peace and love. 

Life isn't always peaceful, people aren't always loving, yet home is a place where those things exist, even in the midst of struggles. 

Home, my favorite place to be!

Happy Independence Day!

Weeks 19 & 20 ~ The Other Bedrooms

If we were on schedule, which we’re not, I would be blogging about week 26 and cleaning out and decluttering our attic. Except we are not on schedule, and the attic is HOT. So, let’s go back to some things that have been getting cleaned and decluttered, but we just haven’t had time to write about. 

Back in weeks 19 & 20 our challenge from Michele was to work on the other bedrooms. (Every other bedroom except the master one we had supposedly already cleaned.) I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret thing: life happens. In our house life happens right now with Kurt working nights. That means to clean the master bedroom, I would have to start it at 9 p.m. and work overnight. Not going to happen. I purged and cleaned the closet, and I try to keep the rest of it picked up. I even like to make the bed, although some days that seems pointless since it’s only a couple of hours until someone will sleep in in again- KWIM?

Back to my point. I told the girls about cleaning THEIR bedrooms back in week 19, and they’ve each cleaned their room several times since then. The problem being that when they were clean, I was too busy or too tired to take pictures. Then when I had time to squeak in a blog post, their rooms were messy again. Anyone else have teenagers? If you do, then you know exactly what I mean.

Earlier this week I left for work one morning with this message to Emily and Arlene: “Clean your rooms and take pictures. Otherwise I’m going to blog about how awful your rooms look.”

Yes, it worked. Their rooms weren’t spotless, but they were much, much better when I got home. It really helped the girls that they had already purged their dressers and donated several small bags of clothing they had outgrown. 

Emily still needs to work on her bookcases, and Arlene needs to work on her desk, but considering that both girls are in the throes of 4-H sewing, they did a good job. Personally, I’ll be happy when next Thursday arrives and the first of the 4-H projects goes off for judging. I’ve been working on the yard, but with all the rain we had in June, its hard to tell a difference. Once 4-H is over, I’ll get back to trying to catch up on this cleaning journey. It’s definitely a journey - not a one day thing!

What have you been working on?

My view

The view from my window changes often. Right now we are watching the butterfly garden flourish. 

Yet even more than looking out at the world through the window, we love to go outside and experience all God's creation has to offer. 

Go out and have a wonderful Independence Day weekend with your family!

Thankful Thursdays - 7/2/15 - Summer

What foods make you think of summer? For me it is watermelon and fresh, homegrown tomatoes!
I'm thankful for fresh food from our garden. Doesn't this tomato look yummy?! Time to make some tacos.

Education

Come Meet Carol

Welcome to all you new readers, and welcome back to all our great regulars! Today I wanted to tell you know a little more about myself, and a little background about how I got into blogging.

The picture above is from a dinner our family attended in Pittsburgh, PA back in 2010. I know, I should have a more recent picture for you, but truthfully, I really like this one! Most of the time I am the one behind the camera, so there aren't many pictures to choose from. :)

I've been married to my crazy, yet wonderful, husband Kurt for 21 years. I am truly blessed. We have two lovely daughters, Emily and Arlene - teenagers who are both educated at home. Besides blogging, and homeschooling, I am a 4-H leader, and have spent several years as a 4-H Shooting Sports instructor. I also volunteer at Conner Prairie, a living history museum near our home. Oh yeah, I also work outside of the home part-time. Never a dull moment in this life of ours!

My other interests include gardening, sewing, baking, reading, and art of various forms. Photography has been one of my main artistic pursuits in recent years because it is easy to fit in around the rest of our lives.

We live in Indiana, but love to travel around the United States. One of our favorite destinations is Pittsburgh. Its like our home away from home. Kurt loves football, and we're big fans of the Steelers.

As far as our girls' education, we follow a mostly Charlotte Mason philosophy, even in High School, with a LOT of field trips thrown in. I've decided to call it Eclectic Experiential Education.

My friend Sharra convinced me to start blogging in late 2011. She has such a great heart! Sharra kept telling me I should blog and be an encouragement to others like I had encouraged her. I hope you'll find encouragement here on our blog. We try our best to stay family focused, which includes everyday life, curriculum and other reviews, field trip or vacation ideas, and just general thought on being a parent. Emily and Arlene sometimes write posts too.

Please join us on Pinterest, Facebook, or Google +

Come back tomorrow and see what is next in this July blogging challenge! I'm sure we'll all be surprised at what ends up happening! Have a wonderful day!