With Praise and Thanksgiving

It's been a while, so I'm going to link up with Kelly at This Ain't The Lyceum  for 7 Quick Takes today! I present to you seven random things I like, and for which I am grateful today. 1. Lent! Time to repent! I do like Lent, and with a weird rib-area cartilage injury and a bad cold to set the pace, it's shaping up to be a really Lenty Lent. I'm using the Blessed is She Lenten journal for my daily prayer time and am trying...t r y i n g this 5-Minute sacrifice. I did fairly well at it Wednesday, and pretty crappy Thursday. So there you go. Onward and upward. I will embarrassingly admit that it took me until my 35th year to realize that I don't have to read all the things on the interwebs, even if they are about a topic of interest to me. The webs are awash with posts about how to Lent, and but thank goodness I resisted the urge to click on all of them and just licked on this one  by Jenny at Mama Needs Coffee. Of course you know I want to share everyth...

My new Out-of-Control Center The blog is still in the midst of an identity crisis, but that won't keep me from using up some of my beloved nap time alone time to pound away all my thoughts onto the interwebs. Pretty random thoughts coming up here.  Above: I was (am?) ever so sick of the mountain of miscellaneous crap that kept getting piled in the middle of the kitchen island, mostly by me. I'm famous for my "I'll deal with that later" piles, and then dealing with them by just making neater piles. I finally got fed up and decided to create a little, for lack of better word, control center. I'm in control of nothing, so the irony does not escape me, but I needed to see a clean island, at least for a few minutes. We had this old box floating around full of more miscellaneous crap, so I cleaned it out and made space for a couple of magazines and fliers I wanted to keep and added the little sorter for mail that needs attention. My planner fits perfectly...

Trying to link up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes. I've never done it before, because I'm not a real  blogger, but it's a new year and I'm drinking peach whisky and orange juice, so I'm really living on the edge. You can read Kelly's fantastic blog, and link to other great blogs there as well. Once you're done here, I mean. 1. Earlier this week, I drafted up a post all about the feeling of refreshment, about how the new year brings me a sense of feeling refreshed. Or maybe that was just how I felt upon returning home from our 9-day, 2-state, 950-mile Christmas bender. Before I had time to publish the post, I was back my usual grumpiness and figured it wasn't "authentic" of me to post such a happy piece when I was actually a grouch. Although I don't really have New Years resolutions to post, I really do enjoy the excitement surrounding a new year and its potential. I'm still trying to take a moment each day to acknowledge gratitude, but I...

I like homemaking. There, I said it. Don't tell the new feminists! I kid. I'm no June Cleaver, presenting dinner hot on the table each evening clad in heels and pearls and never getting upset, but I'm happy to embrace my role as homemaker right now. This is not to say that I love all the cooking and cleaning and laundry and child-rearing duties that are mine. That's not exactly what I mean. What I do love is the making of the home.  I like organizing (or trying to) in order to make our home flow well for the way we use it. I feel satisfaction when my people have what they need when they need it - work shirts, winter boots, the purple marker, an occasional vegetable. I enjoy making my home comfortable and welcoming for guests. Procuring what we need and getting rid of what we don't brings me a sense of accomplishment. It's fun to do things like St. Nicholas Day chocolate coins for the kids and to help my family celebrate large and small events throughout...

I have been filling out my new 2016  Catholic Planner . Aside: I do realize it's October. Bear with me. That's not what this is about.  Part of it includes listing people who inspire you, and then reflecting on why they inspire you. I listed several different people from different areas of my life. I admire them for a number of reasons. I got to thinking about a couple of friends in particular today while I tidied my house for a quick visit from grandma and grandpa this afternoon. These couple of friends I thought of are confident in their vocations, their parenting, and their choices. Not a "my way is the best way and I have it all together" way, but more of a "this works for me and for my family and I'm content with that" way.  I've struggled with confidence in who I really am forever, and specifically since I became a stay-at-home mom. A book or blog or YouTube video exists for everything and you can find a zillion ways to validate your wa...

It is 9:08 on and I'm lying in bed about to crack open my latest novel. Sure, the house isn't as  tidy or clean as it could be, but it's good enough for me. I'm sure there's something productive I could be doing, yet I don't feel like I have to.  I'm sure it's a combination of many things, but I can't help feel that the circumstances most at play here are:  -smaller living space  -less stuff  -fewer activities. I do love getting involved in all.the.things but moving has been a welcome break from a few outside commitments that had run their course for me. It feels good to be "off."  The other two go hand in hand, I suppose. Downsizing from 2500 square feet to around 1350 has its merits and demerits, but one that I see as a positive is that you just can't have as much stuff. We got rid of an embarrassingly large amount of stuff this year, and we still have plenty of excess (look in our garage!). I do feel like we're making slow but s...

Y'all. Am I allowed to say that as a North Dakotan? Whatever. I forgot to mention in my apartment post yesterday how nice it is to only have half of the square footage and one less bathroom to keep clean. It's really starting to convince me that we don't need the big houses I'd been looking at and dreaming about. All we end up doing is filling it up with crap and spending every free minute trying to keep it clean and organized. The layout of this apartment works well for us, but I do recognize the benefits of a family room in addition to the main living room. I do dream of enjoying a gin and tonic in the peace and quiet while the kids make giant messes, tackle each other and scratch up the walls in a different room. As I mentioned, we have a garage packed full of stuff. We could probably afford to get rid of about a third of it, and if we had well designed space, both living and storage, we wouldn't need nearly as much square footage as we had at our old box...

If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen the prettiest spots of our new home. It's a three-bedroom apartment on the third floor, and was recently remodeled with all new flooring, cabinet fronts and appliances. It's actually a great apartment and living here is going better than I'd expected. I love the layout of the place. Our furniture fits well, and if we had the gumption to get through all of our yet unsorted American excess, it would be quite comfortable. Our garage is packed like a game of Tetris of all the stuff we don't "need" but we've got plenty of stuff yet to find a home inside. But the master suite is better than what we had at our last house, the bathrooms are both large, and we have a laundry room. I dare say many apartment dwellers can't boast of those things. I do hope it's temporary, but we're making the best of it while we're here. So without further ado: My attempt at an art wall, courtesy of 3M strips and c...

Can you see my praise hands? This was a most fulfilling and worthy way to spend naptime today. I should have taken a before picture so you could see the true horror that was the spice cabinet of yesterday. Suddenly I want to cook all the things. But we're having tacos for supper. At least I get to open it for the Wildtree Taco Seasoning. Isn't it beautiful? The "As Seen on TV" (but not by me since we get one channel and rarely watch it) Spicy Shelf was an impulse Amazon buy for around $8. Worth it.  Assembly,alphabetizing and gazing lovingly took me the exact length of Alan Jackson's The Bluegrass Album.  Every time I listen to it, I wonder why I don't listen to it more.  Happy feels, and 75 minutes till school pickup! 

I have no idea how many days behind I am on ye olde blog. Yesterday the truck was loaded up and today it was unloaded, and I am exhausted, both physically and emotionally.  I am really sad to leave Fargo. I have such great friends there, not to mention our great parish/school and all of the other things that make living there so comfortable for me. I do feel like God called us out of our comfort zone this year, although I don't yet understand why. That feeling that this was the right choice doesn't mean it was/is an easy choice. I tear up when I start thinking of all we are leaving behind, so I'll quit with the feels right there.  The apartment is shaping up nicely. Here's a picture to prove it:  Here's one that more accurately depicts how I feel:  We're calling it a day. We should be relaxing with some prime time Olympics, but our antenna only gets Fox. Sad face. I'm going to catch up on my blog reading and enjoy a drink and a bootleg Chris Robinson + Marc ...

I don't think I need to write anything about iced coffee. I love it and it makes me happy. But I will write something, because if I get up I have to clean up lunch dishes. I was first introduced to McDonald's iced coffee by a former coworker, Heather, way way back around 2007. We often picked it up for each other on our way to work, and we bonded over it. Yum. You can get a big one for under $2!  My domestic hero friend, Crystal, introduced me to The Pioneer Woman's iced coffee recipe a few years ago. Mostly I would just invite myself over to her house to drink it, but since her cute, harmless pets frighten my kids, I had to bite the bullet and make it myself. There's some steeping (right?) on my counter right now and I can hardly stand it.  I love waking up to the prospect of refreshing iced coffee in the summer. As you can see from the photo, I also make coffee ice cubes, because in the rare event that I don't chug it before the ice has a chance to...

We are outside for hours most days. But for much of the time I am reading a book or magazine, looking at my phone, pitching or making sure the baby toddler doesn't wander into the street. I rarely sit and notice my surroundings, at least when we are at home. Those surroundings are so familiar that I easily take them for granted. Yesterday my neck was pretty sore, so when we were outside I was mostly stick staring straight ahead and slightly up. I happened to notice that the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. I tried to capture it but, screens. Anyway, it was beautiful and I enjoyed it!

We survived a day of house hunting with three small kids, including a three-hour round trip. I'm grateful we made it, and that's about all I can say. We looked at 4 houses, cut three from the list of potentials, and drove around town to spot a few more potentials. When we pulled into the garage, #2 summed up the trip by saying this, "Well. That was not fun." I have to say, I concur. But we're alive and we have a home. For now. 

Our house has been for sale for a couple of weeks, and it's certainly not an ideal living situation, especially with three little kids. We have been enjoying our house more since The Great Purge of 2016. A year of slow decluttering and a couple of weekends of heavy cleaning and yard work and the place has shaped up quite nicely. My husband even commented on how nice it feels in here! While I am not silly enough to assume I'll keep this up after our house sells or in a new house, we have developed a few habits we hope to continue. Make the bed. The Internet has really strong feelings about the merits or demerits of daily bed making. For me, it makes me not hate my room, so that's nice.  Open the curtains. We had our windows professionally cleaned by Squeegee Squad  last fall and it made a world of difference. I also finally bought grown up curtains for our bedroom. The combination of those two adult items have brightened up our bedroom and inspired me to open curtains ...

How is it May first already? This morning Facebook said it was my dear friend Callie's birthday and I was all, "Ha! Facebook, you crazy. It's probably only April 29th or something." Unfortunately, as it turns out, Facebook was right and I was wrong. Darn you, Mark Zuckerberg. Apparently the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Sixteen is the year in which Ashley's prepared thoughtfulness comes to a screeching halt, so if you have a birthday coming up this year and are expecting a card from me, set yourself up for disappointment. I can't get organized this year, at least when it comes to acknowledgements where sending a card is the social norm. So like I said, it's my dear friend Callie's birthday. I've written about her before when we got a quick, unexpected visit a couple of months ago. She lives a million miles away (or two states, but still) so we don't see each other often, but when we are together it's like we were never apart. She is one...

Sometimes adulthood can be so lame. Someone I follow on Facebook once said "One of my favorite childhood memories is not paying bills." I second that!  Adults have to spend a fair amount of time doing things that are not fun and even sometimes just awful. We spend money on lame things instead of concert tickets and road trips with friends.  I spent some money this weekend (not much) on some lame adult things: bedroom curtains that finally make our room look like adults live there, and a new stainless steel saucepan. Super lame! However, I find that I'm deriving great pleasure from both. I smile every time I walk into our room and lay eyes upon curtains that match and can be opened! I enjoyed washing my new pan after making lunch, because it's just so pretty! It also sits flat on my burner, which is a nice feature if you want to eat during the same day or week in which you begin cooking.  Little joys. Small, lame adult things that bring me adequate amounts of joy for t...

One of the positive side effects of getting a house ready to sell and going through everything is finding unexpected treats! I found a rolled up decal from Upper Case Living that had been long forgotten in a closet, and for some strange reason I had an unopened canvas in the same closet. So a couple days back I decided to take all  of naptime to get it done. The decals were less sticky than they were when I got it around 50 years ago, so it took some finesse, but I got it done!  I don't know where it will hang yet, but every time I walk by it propped up on our dresser, it makes me smile! 

I don't want to jinx myself, but I may  have reached the stage where the small dictators with whom I live might actually be able to pull some weight around here! We have some company this weekend and the state of the house had reached panic levels of disaster. We made a plan at breakfast and I sketched out a to do list the the pre-reading set could decipher.  By nap time, we had the majority of items done. The biggest boy cleaned the big boy room, the entryway, vacuumed some, and did dishes. Legit help! The middle brother helped me sort laundry and distracted the baby enough that I was able to clean the bathrooms.  At 3:00, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I was able to get most of the house cleaned, and I did it with three small kids in tow. Then I realized that although one kid did his best to sabotage our work, the big kids really did help! I'm sure it's too soon to expect lots of help, but it's nice to know they can do things that actually cont...

Today was a long day. I am very tired. But I did experience a moment of gratitude today as I worked on the certified disaster area that is our "home office." I recently put up a 6-foot folding table to sort papers; it is that bad.  In the last couple of days I've gone through boxes and binders and bags of paper, mostly related to two organizations I am in. I filled more than 2 boxes with recyclable paper and it feels so good.  Most of what I came across was chuckable, but some did need to be saved. Enter Scansnap S1100i. I love you, Scansnap.  Our printer has a scanner which works fine if you remember the many steps and have all day to scan one document. I bought this cute little bugger last year after doing a fair amount of research (for me.) I bought it mainly because of its compatibility with Evernote. I can scan and save documents straight to Evernote or save them wherever I please. It's super fast and does a great job. It's not sophisticated and just does sin...

In a matter of hours, our house went from the best shape it had been in for a long time to a monumental mess. We decided to move some furniture around so the boys were better situated and the house would also be more presentable for an eventual sale.  Thankfully, we have a generous friend who came over to help. We'll call him Dwight. That's not his name, but it's a long story that I'll spare you. At any rate, Dwight came for supper and stayed for the furniture moving party. He was a great help, as I am not known for my physical strength, or my ability to follow my husband's instructions during such projects.  In addition to being super helpful, Dwight is a major source of entertainment for the boys. They love him. And as a young, single guy, he humors them! The baby even walked around saying "Dwight" all evening, which was pretty darn cute.  We have a ton of work to do, sifting through all the junk that we've stored in these rooms lo these last 9 years...