Garden 2014: Fencing 101

I know, I know, absentee bloggers aren't really the right way to work a blog but I was so stressed with having to accomplish a post all of the time that I had to cut somewhere and this was first! Honestly, I figured that if I was stressing about blog posts then it just wasn't worth it, I want this to be a stress-free zone, a place for me to unload (or upload) my life, a way to detox and let some out without overburdening Hubby and freaking out the neighbors! So, no promises that I have returned indefinitely, but I am hoping to restart (again) and stick to it. 

My biggest issue is that I feel like I need a schedule, so I make one post a week, which seems too little so then it becomes three posts a week, which also seems cheap but I can't keep up with five posts a week either. So let's settle on a number here, my obsessive nature demands it. I will post twice weekly, I can manage that through the summer, while the kids are home. In the fall, I might change that, but for now, I can commit to some Momma time spent here. On to what I actually came here to chat about!

I have epic plans for a brand new garden this year. Plans that may or may not actually come to fruition, considering that we had snow not so long ago and this Northeast weather has decided to skip between winter and summer, pretty much skipping spring! We have just now got around to putting in the posts, Hubby says that we have to have all the plants in by May 15 in our zone. We shall see if that happens. We needed a pretty fair sized fence since we live surrounded by woods and we have three dogs. We found a great deal on pressure-treated posts, which, looking now, may be a bit overkill but I suppose, that it is better to be safe than sorry. 

Hubbs had a day off and our two older kids were spending a weekend with their mom, so we had relatively unhindered time to get half of the posts in. Cap fell asleep and took a nap with his grandpa while we dug so that was helpful too. 

This adorable helper had me in teary smiles with how cute he was. Not very helpful but who can say no to sunshine and smiles

Digging went a bit slower since a few of the spots had rocks the size of my hand in them. 

My brother even came out at one point to help me dig one post hole while Cap tested his leg strength

Cap desperately needed to climb into the holes that I made and then use the trowel to pull the dirt back into the hole, just in case it was an accident that it was in a pile next to the hole. 

I am so happy and grateful that I have this beautiful child to help me enjoy the sunshine

Happy Spring Everyone!!!

Happy New Year: Resolution? Unplug

          

Happy New Year to everyone! From my family to yours, we wish the happiest and healthiest of years. As for us, we will be spending a quiet evening watching the Texas A&M football game against Duke, a spaghetti dinner and sparkling black currant juice at midnight, potentially some homemade apple pie vodka. 

Since it is New Year's, I do feel like I have to share the obligatory resolutions that I have decided to work on. On the top of my list (besides being the best Momma that I can be!) is to unplug. I know coming from a blog where I am obviously connected, this may sound hypocritical but I have set up guidelines to make my life less about being always available and always finding the answer and more about living in the moment. I will (try to) write all my posts on Sundays, my one day where I am free to have my own time with the internet. The rest of the week I want to be available to my kids and to myself. I read articles like this at Click Orlando, this at PsychCentral, and this on the Huffington Post website. 

I sometimes look around and see all four of us attached to electronics and wonder what each of us are thinking that makes it so that whatever is going on in the screen is better than the conversation that we could be having together. Not that it is always as drastic as that but I want to know how everyone's day was either at work or at school, I want the kids to tell me about a book they are reading or to tell me all about the origins of Thanksgiving, or how long division bores G because he knows how to do exponents and square roots, how E loves dolphins and if they are the smartest animals in the world or not. I want to have conversations with my family. I do not want my face glued to the phone screen, scrolling through Pinterest while I am at their concerts, checking Facebook at breakfast, or checking emails at bedtime. That's not what I want the kids to see and that's not who I want to be either. 

Without being connected all the time, I want to find time to finish sewing projects, to paint more, to read tons, to keep the house kept up, and find ways to show Hubby and the kids how much they mean to me. 

To unplug, this is my main goal, but not to just unplug but to reconnect and stay connected to my friends and family in a deeper, more realistic way. 

My 2014 Resolutions:

1. Unplug

2. Read more (reading list to follow)

3. Focus more energy on my Etsy store, KikiGrace

4. Halve my craft stash (destashing crafts are great posts)

5. Exercise 5x week (get back to pregnancy jean size, I am already at pre-baby weight)

6. Pare down my clothing

7. Finally sell/donate/rehome piles that I have been sitting on

8. write more letters

9. more family time

10. Buy a house!!!

The Thankful Project: Day 1

 While planning out the next month for  my blog, I stumbled across Chasing Happy and her wonderful Thankful Project and the prompts with link-up of everyone else sharing what they are thankful for this month (and hopefully the rest of the year as well). My new year starts on November 1st after Samhain, so a month devoted to things that I am thankful for sounded perfect and then it will work right into the holiday season and the time that I get to spend with family. So here we go:

Thankful Project: Day One: A person

Hands down, the person I am most thankful for is my fiance. My family helped shape me into the person that I am, but Hubby has made me into a person that I am happy with and can make others happy. Like more young girls than most would care to admit, no matter how smart or pretty or accomplished I ever was, I battled with self-image and self confidence. While I am not saying that Hubby has cured me and that I am now a ferocious, confident, devil-may-come kind of woman that I would like to be, I am so much more confident in being comfortable as a person than I was before I met him. As scandalous as it sounds, we met while he was my boss at a past job. I took the job seriously enough to move from part-time to full-time but he motivated me to become a manager, and not the benevolent despot manager that I had known previously but a fun, understanding but down to business kind of boss that encouraged workers and still impressed upper management. I took jobs with people that I didn't know, in towns that I had never been in before, managing an entire store of people that I had never met and aiming to be knowledgeable in every area of that store. It made me see that retail isn't all bad and that I had the ability to be a leader that I had never really felt before. I would love to say that everytime he tells me that I am beautiful that I agree, but I don't but I walk every day with the confidence that he thinks that I am beautiful and smart and worth all the grief that I cause him. He makes me thankful for our family, for my family, for friends and for my ability to love someone so much that I miss him every morning from not seeing him while I was asleep. 

He will kill me for this picture, but this man helps me make bread...he is wonderful!!!