Bardin & Marsee Publishing ~ A Waterproof Bible review

So ... when I was invited to do a review on the Waterproof Bible, by Bardin & Marsee Publishing, I was kinda like ~ huh?  Really? First of all, is there really a need for something like this? And secondly, how on earth is this even possible? 

The day my bible arrived, I was eager to open it. Immediately a smile crossed my lips as my hands ran across the pages. They are smooth, like silky smooth and I love the way they feel. Almost like plastic, but not really. I was intrigued. 

As eager as I was to try it out right away, I found myself hesitant to intentionally try to get my bible wet. The bible that I have used is one of my most valued possessions. One of those things that, if the house was on fire and you could only grab 3 things what would you grab, sorta things. My bible would be one of those 3 things. I placed it aside - I would have to figure out how I was going to test this product. 

So, if you didn't know before, we are a Scouting family. I have two boys, ages 16 & 12. My Our oldest is working towards his Eagle and my 12 year old just started working on his Boy Scout requirements. I myself am a Cub Scout leader for 7 little 8 & 9 year old boys.  We are very active in Scouts and that tends to include lots of fishing trips, water activities and camp outs. We also are a scripture reading family and we have a daily scripture time where we each spend some time in the word each day. So when my 12 year old had a camp out scheduled, he grabbed the waterproof bible and tossed it into his camping bucket and off he went. The following day, when I went to pick him up from his over night trip, as I walked over to their camp area, I was appalled when I saw this. 

It's supposed to be waterproof, but boy scout mud proof? I was a little upset to be honest. Mainly because something that I hold so much value in was discarded with little concern in the mud and secondly, how was I supposed to do my review when my child had ruined the product? 

On the way home I expressed my dissatisfaction with my son and asked him what I was supposed to do now and his reply was - "Just wash it. We have been getting it wet and dirty and it just washes right off"  Really? I just washes right off?  Like water off a ducks back, he said. ..... interesting. 

So I got home and did as he said and look ..... just look at this!!!

It did!!! It just washed right off. Amazing 

Once it was broken in, I sat with it that evening and used it for my daily scripture reading. I tried to use my regular highlighter in it, but I do have to say that it didn't stick and just came right off. I tried a pencil and it worked well and a ball point pen worked well also.  Now the company does sell highlighters so they may be made to work with highlighting these types of pages. 

I do have to say, that all in all, I am extremely pleased with this product. It performs as it says it does without any damage to the bible at all. The lettering doesn't even smudge no matter how hard you press on it and try to smear it. 

If you have an active family, like ours, I would highly recommend this product. I am planning on getting several to give as gifts this year to my sisters family who spends a lot of time on the lake canoeing as well as for each of my boys to use when they are on Scouting adventures. This way they can still do their daily scripture reading without fear of getting their scriptures wet, which honestly prevents them from taking them with them. This waterproof bible just totally fixed that and not there is no reason at all that they can't read daily, regardless of where they are. Score !!!

The price ranges are extremely reasonable. There are various versions to choose from, including the English Standard version, King James version, New International version, New King James version and the New Living Translation. Along with apparel & accessories as well as devotionals, you really can't go wrong for meeting the busy active families bible needs. I can't recommend them enough. 

HEY ... also, it you want to get some additional information on these wonderful waterproof bibles, plan to attend the Facebook party scheduled for May 17th. Go "Like" their page HERE so you don't miss it. 

See you there !!! 

We Believe ... A We Choose Virtue Homeschool Review

Being LDS (aka. Mormon), we purposely strive to live a life of virtue.  We have something called the Articles of Faith. The Articles of Faith are 13 basic points of belief to which Mormons subscribe. The 13th Article of Faith reads like this - 

      We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

With these being a standard that we are mindful of on a daily basis in our home, I was very happy to accept an invitation to do a review for We Choose Virtue. 

When our materials arrived in the mail I decided to incorporate them into our Family Home Evening on Monday night. Although my children are a little older (16yrs & 12yrs), I think that we can ALL use a little reminder at times as to how we are supposed to treat others, not to mention ourselves. 

My kids really enjoyed the colorful virtue cue cards. These little Virtue Clues are full color and feature The Virtue Kids, their names, the Virtue catchphrase and antonyms, and on the back a "You can do it" challenge that everyone can do together! You can order these in KJV, NIV,or a secular version. They are a very nice sturdy, durable card with beautiful glossy artwork depicting the virtues. 

The Family Character Assessment was a fun starting point. We all had the opportunity to sit down together and fill out our own to see just how we were doing in different areas. This was a really great little tool and very helpful in identifying where we needed some work, which we ALL needed. I can definitely use some work in the "Attentive" area. I'm a work in progress 

One of the things that we enjoyed the most was the Kids of virtueVille Color-my-story Book. 

We love to color. Even my 16 year old enjoyed coloring some of the pages that I had printed out and put into a binder to create our coloring book. 

The abundance of materials that are available from We Choose Virtue is beautiful. I truly wish that I had known about this wonderful company when my children were a little younger. With that said, we still were able to enjoy this virtuous curriculum in our home. It was a blessing to us as we spent some time self checking where we were personally in our own walks with virtue and helped us to remember how important these principles are. 

I don't think that you will be disappointed with this charming tool that you can use in your homes to help define and encourage your children, and yourselves, to grow in a more virtuous character. 

So apparently my husband is a descendant of a Hobbit. Check out this fun big of genealogy I learned of last night.

Had a rough few days

Last week was sort of crappy. Living on a Hobby Farm and being a Hobby Farmer isn't all gathering eggs and watching the chickens scratch about all day. Sometimes it can be hard. Of course there is the physical labor involved like cleaning stalls, stacking hay bails and chasing down animals that have escaped from their supposed to be areas, but there is also heartache and sadness at times as well. Especially when your as much of an animal lover as I am. After all, that's pretty much why I do this in the first place, because of the joy I get from those sweet little fuzzy and feathered faces.

Two years ago, almost to the day, one of my does kidded for the first time. It was a hard labor and she was rather stressed from it all, not knowing what was happening to her. When the baby goat was born she looked at it, literally with the most disgusts and confusion I have ever seen a goat have on it's face. She wanted nothing to do with this nasty slimy thing that was the obvious source of the pain that she had just experienced.

I took the baby, cleaned it up, brought it inside and gave it a bottle of colostrum to ensure it's protected health. After taking the baby back outside to it's mother and literally seeing her tug on it's ear in an attempt to be cruel to it, I brought it back inside and bottle fed her until the other babies were born. At that time I put both babies together and the mother of the second baby took it as her own.

In time, probably about 2 months, the original mother did take to the baby and even let it nurse and she turned out to be a very good momma goat after all.

Being that she was a bottle fed baby those first few weeks she developed an attachment to me. Every time I went outside to visit, she was always in my lap or by my side. She would leave the other goats to be with me if I was out with them. She loved me and I loved her.

Last Sunday, as we were getting ready to head out to dinner, I noticed that she was laying in the yard. Since goats don't typically lay on their sides like she was laying for an extended period of time, I stopped for a minute to see if she was just rolling around and would pop up in a minute. She didn't  I want out and as soon as she heard the door she began to cry out. As I ran to her I could tell it wasn't good. She couldn't get up and was in a lot of pain. I assumed it was bloat, which can be very painful to goats since her side was extremely distended. I called my local large animal vet and he talked me through some things to do.

She couldn't move and any attempt I made to move her resulted in extreme pain.  With help we moved her to the pen where she would be more comfortable over night. The following morning she wasn't any better, if anything she was worse, so I had the Vet come out and take a look at her.

After his exam, he felt that she had a bacteria that attacks the neurological system (over eating disease, although it has nothing to do with over eating). The treatment was a strong antibiotic, he gave her something for the pain and we just had to wait and see. Her prognosis was "fair". He said he had seen worse than her come back from the disease.

For the next three days I was her life support. I went out every one to two hours to move her and re-position her body because she couldn't move. She did have an appetite though so I had to hand feed her grain, which she would gobble up and I had to drench her with electrolytes and Boost energy drink, which she loved. She was aware, but she was basically paralyzed. I would sit with her for about an hour and every time I had to leave to go back inside I felt extremely guilty. Knowing she was laying out there helpless and alone was killing me.

After day three with no improvement and her actually seeming to be worse in my opinion I had the Vet back out to end her suffering. It broke my heart and still bring tears to my eyes as I type this now. But I could not stand to see her suffer another day.

Sometimes life on a farm is fun, exciting and wonderful, and sometimes - not so much. I will say that one thing that I have noticed about me over the years of doing this is that in the past I would tend to wait, probably more than I should have waited, to end an animals suffering because I could not bare the thought of ending the animals life. Now, in this past year, I have had to put down two beloved pets and in doing so, I was almost eager to get it done. Eager because I didn't want the suffering to continue. I loved them to much to see it or to allow them to experience it. I'm not really sure how I would handle an emergency situation where it's just me and I have no one here to end the suffering for me like my Vet did with his needle filled with the blue stuff. I want to think that I could end the suffering myself if I had no other choice. I can honestly say that I hope I never have to find out.

Our Sweet Bambie the day before she went to play with our Lab Maisy over the Rainbow bridge.

Rest in Peace sweet girl. I'll always remember you. 

A little Blog Planner review

Blog planners are not something that are a new concept for me, but definitely one that I never utilized. I mean really - I don't have time to shower some days, how am I going to find the time to add keeping a blog planner?

Let me tell you a little something about me .... I'm OCD when it comes to organization and planning. Yes, I admit it. Not always a good thing, but with one in public school, homeschooling one, living on a Hobby Farm, being a Cub Scout Leader, 4H Leader, very involved in church and other activities and adding in all the other day to day things that I need to keep up with, organization is vital for keeping my sanity. I've seen a number of ways that others stay organized with very elaborate systems. As OCD as I can be, I do require systems, but they need to be very uncomplicated systems in order for them to work for me.

As a new reviewer for the Mosaic Review Team, one of our first assignments was to review a blog planner. There were a multitude to choose from and we were allowed to choose the one that looked best for our personal needs. The one that I chose was from The Flourishing Abode .

For the link directly to the blog planner click HERE!!!  But, you really need to check out her entire blog. Wonderful <3

As I mentioned, simple is better for me and this planner is ideal for my needs. The entire week on one page with space to jot notes, future post ideas, photo's that need to be taken to go with posts, etc. I like it so much that I actually printed out multiple and will continue to utilize this helpful tool from now on as I continue to grow my blog and do additional reviews for Mosaic. If you have a book binder you can easily create your own blog planner, or do as I did and just print out the pages, three hole punch them and add them to my brain organizer that I use for my online work and book writing.

Thank you Flourishing Abode for creating and sharing this sweet FREE little goodie and thank you Mosaic Reviews for allowing me the opportunity to do so.

Spring is in the air ....

OK, who am I kidding, this is Florida, Spring has been in the air since December. Not much of a Winter this year. We have had a few chilly nights, but seriously all in all I think we have turned the heat one twice this year and that was just to take the chill out in the morning.

Although I do crave a bit of a season change, there are a few things about Florida that are pretty nice - Delicious Fresh LOCAL Strawberries in February

Made these lovely little bites yesterday

Living 30 minutes from the East Coast, although I prefer the West coast, but still that is only an hour and a half drive. And the fact that we can start our gardens in February. 

I won't even tell you how many times I've attempted a garden here. I will admit that I am not a wonderful gardener. My husband grew up growing a HUGE garden. Out of necessity  so they had to work it so it would produce to feed their family. All the work and time that he had to put into it as a youngest had decreased the interest in doing it as an adult. Although he DOES love that I want to grow a garden and that we can have fresh homegrown food for our family. Bless his heart, he's so patient and he does give me tips. He just doesn't have the desire or the time to spend working IN the garden. The man does indulge me though, bless his heart. 

Last year I didn't even try to grow a garden, but this year I am going to try again. I have decided I am going to go with more container gardening than anything. Corn and beans will be planted in the ground, but the rest of it will go into containers. Yesterday morning my youngest son and I planted the seeds I had purchased. I bought all heirloom seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I don't like genetically modified food so I don't buy seeds that are GM. I always try to go with a heirloom seed. I do have to say that I love their catalog. It's a beautiful catalog that provides an abundance of wonderful photo's as well as a wealth of information on the produce. Just look at some of these pictures - 

Truly a wonderful resource that I will save to reference over and over again. 

So I have to show you this. As I mentioned, yesterday morning, my youngest and I started the seeds we ordered in the little starter containers. 

We planted carrots, onions, red radishes, white radishes, parsnips, scallions and a lettuce mix (corn and pole beans will go in the ground).  

This morning (actually LESS than 24 hours later) we already have sprouts from the radishes.  WOW

This is encouraging to me, considering my track record. This weekend hubby and I will go buy the large containers we are planting in. Because I want them to be not to unsightly, I am thinking that I am going to get several of the LARGE half wooden barrels from Home Depot. They are a bit rustic looking and large enough to hold a lot. 

I'm really going to try hard this year to get these seeds to produce. It seems so wasteful to have so much property and to not utilize it for as much as I can. I'll keep you posted on how it's progressing here, so check back. I will be honest, tending a garden and making it wonderful is physically hard for me. Having autoimmune issues, I tend to get tired rather quickly and my back will really start to bother me. I tend to just work through and suffer later. The initial setting up of the garden, tilling the soil, weeding, etc is always the hardest part for me. This year I will have my boys and hubby help me get it all set up and hopefully working at it a little each day will help to maintain it and make this a doable project for me. Being limited by my body is frustrating for me and a fact that I have not yet been able to come to terms with. Being 45 I still feel young, so I do get bothered by some limitations from my AI issues. 

Make sure you come back in a few days to check out my Blog Planner review that I did for Mosaic Homeschool Reviews. Love doing reviews for this awesome organization. 

Post Fair ...

We have been doing our local county fair for 10 years now. The excitement leading up to it is always the same. The overload while it's happening is always the same. And the desire for it to be over, after ten days, is always the same as well. This year was no exception.

Fair is always fun. It's nice to see many friends that we typically don't see otherwise. The boys love the "fair food" and figuring out their earnings based on the ribbon placings they received on their entries. This year the boys didn't do as much as they usually do. I am pretty sure that our oldest (almost 16) is over fair in general. He had no desire to enter anything. That tends to happen with many kids once they hit high school. They get involved in other things like sports and clubs and 4H and fair aren't as important and fun anymore. The youngest only showed one chicken since of all the ones we had that were old enough to show, she was the only one that looked very fine. We do have 14 four month old chicks right now that he will be able to enter next year so he is looking forward to that. Yesterday we also go these little guys ....

How cute are they?  We spotted them last night as we stopped at Tractor Supply for chicken feed. The youngest has already said he will show them next year in fair. Not sure of their breed. The lady at Tractor Supply said they are Pekins, but I really don't think that they are. They stand tall more like a runner. I guess time will tell.

So back to real life is always nice. Yesterday I was home all day, had a productive day schooling the youngest and got the house pretty cleaned up. I have some "Spring Cleaning" projects I want to start on, like cleaning out my office for one.

What are the next things jotted in my Daily Planner? (Not much by the looks of it, LOL!!! I just bought this new planner two days ago. I haven't had the chance to fill it in yet. I use my iPhone ALL the time for my calendar, but I also love having a hard copy in hand so I continue to use a written planner and just love when I find the perfect one for me).

On My List ---

Work on Recipe Binder (need to do this for the cookbook I am working on)
Research on book
Start seeds for garden
finish curtain making for kitchen window
Easter Planning
Planning for Scouts Blue &Gold ceremony for the 27th
Oldest sons birthday
Several homeschool reviews I need to do and blog about

Those are the out of the normal scope of life things that I need to work on in the coming weeks. Nothing extreme, which will be a nice change of pace.

Off to get busy around here

Looks Like I'm staying after all ...

Which isn't a bad thing. I've been looking at other sites to blog at and I just am not comfortable with how confusing they are to me. Honestly, I just don't have the time right now to figure out how to set up a blog somewhere else. At some point I may just pay someone to do it for me, but for now .... I'm staying right here.

Lots going on and coming up. Tomorrow I am attending a mid year homeschool conference. Whoever set this up was inspired for sure. It's funny because I had been talking to a few newer homeschool moms who had been feeling overwhelmed at this point in the year. I was thinking - having a little mini HS convention mid year would be great for these moms. Then low and behold, 2 weeks later I received an invite to Books & Beyond on Facebook. I'm looking forward to the time I will be spending with fellow HS moms and even having lunch with one of my favorite moms that I have not seen in many years. We used to attend the same HS group. I'm really looking forward to seeing her for lunch.

I was asked to write a guest post about the event for Homeschooling Etc., which is a new local HS support organization. I'm looking forward to doing that, I have my camera batteries charging.

You know what else? Its Fair Time!!!!! Yep, in Florida we have our county fairs in the Winter. After all, a tent full of chickens and rabbits in the Florida Summer, or Spring for that matter, would be a pretty thing. Or smell very nice for that matter. So yea, we do fair in February here in our county. It's a wonderful fair. We get a Blue Ribbon Award each year. Basically that is an award issued to fairs that are wholesome, clean, safe and sorta Old Fashioned.  I'm on the county organization that puts on our fair. There is a lot involved in pulling a fair together. I mean .... who knew? !?! So along with working on that we are also working on our own kiddos fair exhibit projects. This Sunday is exhibit check in (Super Bowl Sunday - who planned this). I'll be helping hundreds of 4H kids get their exhibits checked in along with a bunch of other awesome adult volunteers. Fair runs 10 days and I basically live there the whole time. It's a crazy time, but we enjoy it and being able to spend time with friends we don't really see at other times of the year.

Anxiously anticipating my new laptop delivery today. Motherboard on my PC died 2 weeks ago. Not fun. Ordered a new laptop and today is the day. Cant wait. I love a nice new clean computer to muddy up.

Off to do that Homemaker thing. Check in with y'all later.

Pinterest is like Google on Crack

Now, I know that there are TONS of you ladies out there that love Pinterest as much as I do, but I will be honest and tell you that I live, sleep and breath it these days.

Being the OCD mom that I am, I literally can find a solution to pretty much any need I have on Pinterest. Homeschooling?  Got it !!!  Organization?  Check !!! and don't even get me started on recipes and holiday ideas.

I remember way back when, when I first heard about/saw Pinterest. I was like ... Ummmmm, I don't get it. OK so it was sorta like when I was a girl and I would take the pages out of a magazine of things that I found for my future home, clothing ideas, recipes, etc and save them in a notebook, but I still just didn't see the draw to it. Literally I think it was my 2nd or 3rd time to Pinterest and I was hooked.

I love it .... Choirs of Angels sing. I even have the app on my iPhone. Wow ... I can't even believe I was able to get that picture to show up there .... or even take that picture for that matter. Yep, I'm pretty social media/techie dumb, but I'ma learnin. 

 

 

OK, so I'm a slow learner, but this coming year one of my new things to do is to learn to be more bloggy savvy. I have some friends in the homeschooling community who are pretty darn amazing at being social media geniuses like my friend Jenn over at Daze of Adventure. She's pretty darn good at what she does. If I could just follow that girl around for a week I know I'd learn a ton, but alas that can't happen. So I just google a lot and try to learn on my own. Honestly I'll never be as social media savvy as some and I'm OK with that, because I honestly don't want to put that kind of time into blogging. I really have to much else to do on a daily basis and I'm to OCD not to allow all that other stuff to happen in somewhat of a peaceful and orderly fashion for me to be able to make blogging a business like some of the amazing ladies I know and I'm OK with that. I wouldn't mind a few visitors now and again though so I didn't think I was writing to myself here ... HA!!!

 

Anyway, back to Pinterest.  So one of the things that I had added to my "Things To Do" list was that I wanted to learn to knit this year. Guess what?  I DID!!!! Seriously .... all my life I've wanted to learn to knit and it took me until I was 44 years old to learn. But that's OK .... I DID it and I'm happy .... well .... cuz, I'm a knitter now, that's who I am : )  Wonna see something that I'm working on?   

 

 

Well this was the FIRST thing I was working on after I made a few dish clothes. That got old fast and I needed something fun to do. Knitter friends recommended I NOT go with a stocking so early on, because .... well ... it's a little more advanced then beginner, but that's just me and I wanted the stocking so I did that. I ended up ripping this whole thing out and making a Christmas scarf instead. I messed up at the toe of the stocking and well ... I can knit now, but I don't really know how to "fix" things, so being the OCD that I am ... it needed to be perfect "just so" and since I didn't want to wait for help I ripped it out. The scarf if pretty.

 

And this is a new scarf that I am working on now. I love this. It's a bit detailed and is taking longer because I have to follow a pattern. The yarn is wonderful that i got a local knitting shop that I found. Well, not THAT local, it's about 40 minutes away, but close enough.  I love the color and the softness of the yarn. I can't wait til it's done and I'm having withdrawal being that it's the holiday's and I haven't had much time to work on it. I'm hoping to today, but we will see. I am finding a lot of wonderful knitting patterns and ideas on Pinterest. I have added a knitting board just for them.

 

Today we have school to do and I need to bake some cookies that I want to take to one of the ladies from church that I am Visit Teaching later today (I actually need to get on that). I also need to make sure I have a costume for my 11 year old to wear tomorrow night at the church Christmas party. He's playing Joseph in the Nativity play they do each year.

 

With that said, I better run and get some things done. I'll try to be back soon with more pictures and a few projects that I have been working on around here. I have a lot going on, I just need to share it all with you. Have an awesome day and see y'all later.



Mid week update ...

The week before vacation ... always such a busy week, but I'm getting it all done. Yesterday I spent most of the day, between dropping off kiddos and picking them back up, running errands. I got a lot of things checked off my "To Do" list.

Today's agenda:

7:30 - Drop Austin at Summer School (Done)
8:00 - Clean out back frig.
           Daily House Chores
10:00 - Appt. for Back to School Supplies
11:00 - Pick up Austin
12:00 - Lunch for kiddos
12:30 - Leave for knitting lesson (Yep, I got a wild hair that I want to learn to knit so I will)

4:00 - Start dinner
6:30 - Leave for Church (Young Women's, Young Men's & Scouts)

So yea, I have kind of been wanting to learn to knit for awhile. With a 10 hour drive ahead of me next week as we travel to our vacation destination, I figured this is a perfect thing to do to pass the time (along with some books and magazines I have set aside for the trip). Yesterday I went to JoAnn Crafts and bought a beginner knitting book and some needles and yarn. I was planning on just teaching myself with the help of the book and YouTube (I'm sorta like that ... when I want something I want it NOW so I tend to just do it. Patience is not one of my virtues sadly).

After the fact I thought that maybe sitting with someone who can SHOW me (I'm a visual learner) might be beneficial, so I called one of the Sister Missionaries from church to ask her if she knew how to knit. Of course she did, so I will be seeing her this afternoon for that. Hoping I can learn enough in one day to actually be able to do something with it. I can learn more when I return from vacation if need be.

Last week I went to the Library to check out a couple books to take on our trip as well. I love to read and don't nearly have the time I would like to at home, so I am looking forward to the time in the car to do just that (along with the knitting). I checked out several books.

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen, A visit to Highbury ~ Another View of Emma - Joan Austen - Leigh & 2 books on CD by Debbie Macomber

I don't read much fiction to tell the truth, as much as I would love to have the "escape" of fiction, I just don't have the luxury of it as a homeschool mom. As of late I have had the urge to read it though so I have chosen some wonderful 1800's classics that are just my style. I'm NOT a 50 Shades of Grey sorta gal - Yuck

I had been wanting to read the Debbie Macomber books for a long time. The covers always intrigued me, looking so quaint and welcoming with their brightly colored art on the covers, but not being much for fiction, I always passed. I decided to give the books on CD a try and this past week I have been listening to them in my car or here at my computer. What a wonderful thing this is. I have finished one and am just beginning the second. The second one has intrigued me a bit and actually has given me an idea that I am implementing. The title is Twenty Wishes. Basically its a group of widows that make a list of 20 things that they want to do in their lives so they are not spending all their time doing not much of anything. The concept isn't a new one, but one that got me thinking.  I liked the idea and I have decided to do just the same thing.

I am compiling a list. I am writing it down in my journal. My journal is not the typical journal really, it's more of a daily running account of my life. Some entries are more in depth and personal, but I have found that if I wait for those "profound" moments or thoughts to come, my journal sits untouched for much of the time. I decided for this year to use my journal more as a daily agenda in a way. So I do write those occasion "deep" thoughts, but mostly it consists of ... Wow, was it hot today. Up to 93 degrees and we had our usual afternoon storms, which were welcome. For dinner I think homemade Pizza sounds good. Haven't made that in awhile. Boys are enjoying their summer break and I got a lot of errands run today in preparation for our trip next week.... Sorta like that. Just more of a random daily update. Sometimes I note my schedule, sometimes I make a list, etc. I enjoy looking back on it and seeing our day to day lives noted, instead of just an occasional thought provoking monthly entry. To me this is more interactive and personal and will be more of an insight into who I am as a mother, wife, women for those that will read these pages once I am gone. Having two boys, I doubt that my journals will mean all that much to them when they are grown, but possibly to their wives or my grandchildren? I want them to know who I am. What I like to do and how I lived day to day. I want them to really know me.

So anyway, back to the list. I have decided to make my own list of things that I want to do in my life. As my children get older, although they still require much of my time, I find that I do have more time on my hands and I know that in a few short years there will be even more. I want to make the most of life and not just let it pass by me and I look back one day in the future and think .... I wish I had done this, or I wish I had done that. So in my journal/agenda (which I carry with me pretty much at all times) I have started my list of things I want to do. So far there isn't much on there, but I will add to it as I think of things. Some are small little things that I want to change about my day to day and some are things that I may want to learn how to do or places that I want to go. This is how it looks so far ...

I'll add things as I think of them, write about how I went about accomplishing them and cross them off as I achieve them.  When it's all said and done I can look back and say ..... I DID somethings that I wanted to do in life. I'm sure some of the things I add will be extremely extreme (like Storm Chasing), but after all it's my To Do Wish List and there is nothing wrong with that right?

And with that, I must consider #2 on my list and spend more time being diligent going about my day to day tasks. I have a refrigerator (actually two) that need to be cleaned out today.

Be Blessed ~ Roberta