My Last Hoorah

We all have done it. The last hoorah. You know what I’m talking about. The night before your new diet, and all bets are off. The night before the new diet. Pizza at 10 at night, followed by a couple cookies, the bottom of a strawberry milkshake (okay smoothie but still) a bowl of ice cream. And on and on. I mean tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life and all that jazz right?

Until tomorrow comes :)

Then you screw up and eat whatever. Yesterday’s long awaited tomorrow just became the new last hoorah because you’re starting OFFICIALLY this time, tomorrow. And you just had two, count em two, binge nights. Then two turns into three and instead of skinnier from this new diet, your new diet made you GAIN 10 lbs.

Help. I need to stop. Tomorrow’s the beginning of the best of the best food life. I hope. Well either way, tomorrow’s the beginning of no more last hoorahs. It may not be a perfect eating day but it won’t be a last hoorah day.

I hope.

Hey wait does that make today’s last hoorah the last hoorah of last hoorahs?

Help. I need help.

Blogging is an interesting thing

I used to have a blog, long ago, that had a much larger and loyal (now note I didn't say MORE loyal!) audience. I loved that blog in so many ways. One is because my audience was different than what I perceived my audience to be when I switched to this blog. There were things I posted there daily that somehow didn't become part of my postings here. I didn't ever really stop and think about it purposefully. But over time I found myself posting less and less on this blog where on my other blog I blogged regularly. With a focus here on mostly homesteading, I had stopped posting unless there was a picture, I stopped posting about the simple things of our days, I stopped posting about weight, and what we ate, homeschooling, God, and on and on. I had stopped posting about most of what made me me and what made our life one that is my joy. What have I been thinking? I should just give it up if I'm not going to be all of me. What fun is that anyways? You're missing out on how utterly cool I am. Well and crazy and you'll get that too as I get back to posting about the realities of our life. But ce la vie. What's cool without a little crazy anyways?

I hear women talking about blogging all the time. They don't feel they have anything worthwhile to say. They make comments about how no one's reading their blog anyway... Many of us have felt blog jealousy at either how perfect someone's life 'looks', how gorgeous their blog is, how successful their blog is, honestly it's never ending. As women our insecurities come blazing out guns loaded for lots of us when it comes to our blogs. When honestly the blogs we really love the most are women (or men) just being THEMSELVES. So how did I get where I wasn't just BEING? Not just being myself but just being? Bah. Stupid self-conscious self.

After having started this and not having the chance to return to finish it, honestly it made me chuckle to see how flawed and neurotic I can be. Blogging? Ah yes, something definitely worth fretting and overthinking right? :) :) :) You'd think I didn't have children and animals and weight and homeschoooling to overthink and fret about. Well at least I got a momentary self-conscious, overthinking, not-really-that-deep ramble off my chest so that I can move on to blogging the way I want. Blogging about the things that matter to me whether they matter to anyone else. Blogging because I want family to know about our lives. Blogging because I have friends that do as well. Blogging because I want to write memories down before they're gone. Blogging because there's a community of online bloggers that I enjoy being a part of. Blogging because I love my life and hope that a glimmer of the joy of my life helps someone be able to see the joy in theirs. Blogging because it gives me a chance to get some of my neurotic ramblings somewhere then just unloaded on my hardworking not-too-verbal husband who lovingly listens to me go on and on. Enjoy lol! AND you know you love a good neurotic Christian homesteading homeschooling lack of sleep having needing to lose weight Mom ramble. You know you do. Admit it.

Something I never would have imagined I'd say

"It does NOT make you look cool to not like Butternut Squash" - said to Frankie this week.

Who turned off the heat?

in the South? It's cold. We went from 77 last week to not getting over 40 yesterday. I actually love Winter and the cold. Much better than the horrible sweltering heat. But this year there wasn't really a transition from warm to cold. I think Fall came while I was having a baby. I went into the hospital and it was hot hot and came out and the leaves were changing. The leaves are all falling from the trees, the cold is here and it's supposed to be 20 degrees tonight! The last of the squash will die off tonight.

But there's an upside to all this cold. This gorgeousness.... one of my all time favorite things...

There's just nothing like the smell of a woodstove. When I got up this morning Clay had already started the fire. Walking down the stairs to that faint smell was heavenly. Now I admit I wanted to still be sleeping (I have a 3 week old that thinks he should be wide awake until 2am) but that smell made me smile. And the heat. Oh the heat. It's just different. Central heat and air is great but it doesn't feel like heat. It keeps the house warm but there's not warmTH. Wood is warmTH. Love it. Seeing children sitting all around the stove sharing a book because it's the warmest spot in the house is just nice. Coming in from the cold to put your hands above the stove to warm them up is just nice. The sounds of crackling wood, snaps, pops of wood in the stove, is just nice. I can't wait to get the wood cookstove hooked up. You'll never hear the end of my love affair with wood then :)

And of course, I can't not post another sweet Hartley picture. He is changing so fast that in each picture I take he looks different than the last! Okay this picture makes me chuckle. He looks like a sweet happy piglet to me in this picture. Oink. Love when they're all cute and piglety and have those upturned breastfeeding noses and make little piglet grunting noises. I could eat him up. Not like pork of course. But in a "I could just eat those toes right up" kind of way :)

Love you Hartley dude.

Welcome Hartley Clay

Yes long time no blog. But there's a great reason for the couple months off. Promise!

I'm so honored to be able to introduce our sweet angel, Hartley Clay. He was born September 29th :) He was a big guy - 10 lbs. 8 oz.! He 's huge honestly. He's two and a half weeks old and is just a giant baby doll! I've been taking loads of pictures, but for today here's the first couple pictures of his life. The B&W is him at two days old, and the color at closer to a week. Funny, to me he doesn't even look like those pictures anymore! They grow SO fast.



He's such a sweet and wonderful person. His one and only flaw is his desire to be awake from 9:30pm to 2am, leaving his Mommy tired tired. But he'll grow out of it. And if I could resist the overwhelming need to lay down in the middle of the day due to his late night activities, I could probably convince him to have a mid day long wake time that would help his schedule smooth out faster. But man... that mid day laying down time... it's precious.

On an up note, I am going to be resuming real blogging here soon. I've had a blogging epiphany and just a desire to start blogging again.