born imaginative.

Week Ends

Pleased to report my week ended better than it started! The barn project phase 1 is done for now, phase 2 next week. I'm currently working on massive peony planting (yay!) parallel to our walkway. Someday I hope for it to be a stately entrance.

Anna-Kate LOVED VBS.

They all did!

I'm ending the week recharged and ready for a great weekend!

Another, another day

This week has been ALLLLL unexpected. Aiming to cram the calm in between the chaos. The chaos is mostly the noise in my mind. So, I picked flowers and made bread.

In my head, I'm dealing with the heartache of all of which we have to lose in order to gain a solid foundation. Goodbye to my plants, my dozens of elderberries, my fence....

And goodbye to the room that I was pulling the floors out of just last night. There will be no more ball room dancing in that addition. No more old fashioned homes staged in there. No more, no more. I'm someone who has always, always hated change. Even when the change is necessary and good.

Next step will be lifting this barn and I am praying it all goes as planned.

In order to drown out the noise in my head, I garden. I pick.

And I cook. I do all the things there are to do, and reassure myself that it all is going to be okay.

Another day

Today definitely had MORE expecteds than yesterday.

The day started off with ushering the three off for camp, Anna-Kate telling me she's going to try to remember to miss me (spoiler alert, she didn't think of me all day, she was having so much fun, lol).

Then, a week earlier than expected, our neighbors that we hired to excavate told me that they had time TOMORROW to start our MAJOR barn foundation project. The barn is being lifted, excavated with a new concrete foundation. As a part of this project, the back addition of the barn and cattle lean needs to be removed (the people we have working for us are going to do the best they can at keeping what is not too far gone, but it's mostly in really rough shape). I'm also losing all my elderberries (sob). Trying to transplant what I can, but they do not like to be transplanted. I had wanted to remove the newish floor in the addition before they knocked it down, so basically today was the day to do that.

It was MUCH more work than I anticipated. The hugest deck screws were randomly placed and very hard to find. Once I found them, I needed to clean out the dirt to even unscrew them. Plus they either required a starbit or a phillips, little rhyme or reason as to what went where. I had to take a break to work this afternoon, and that break was MUCH needed. I was back out after dark and finished before bed. I'm sore, sore, sore. Somehow I single handedly removed 95% of the new floor. (I left a couple boards because I was and am just done.)

I did have my supervisor keep me company for some of it. He's also a supervisor who delivers water. He thinks I'm out of my mind crazy for saving all this wood, but I don't care. I could have a heck of a lot of raised beds with it! Or use it to repair barn flooring in other areas. Or bookshelves! Okay, probably not bookshelves with it, but something!

I'm just so glad it's done. It was NOT on my to do list today, but it is on my DONE list, finally!

And my kids had a fine day and all talk at once once they get home.

I think I'm not the only one who enjoys the reprieve. (Chickens too).

I'm REALLY hoping tomorrow has less unexpecteds. And I'm also hoping I can move tomorrow.

24 hours

The last 24 hours was a blur. For the first time in my whole parenthood journey, all three kids have camp 9-3 all week. Last night as the sun was setting, I made my mental list of all that I was going to accomplish in the next 24 hours. Except for my work hours, I have all the time that I am usually homeschooling to myself for housework and projects, so the plan goes.

I only got a small fraction of that list accomplished. So many unexpecteds happened today. I'm habitually someone who reminds myself of all that I don't do, but I'm trying to shift that narrative and be glad for what I did do.

Four loads of laundry, some gardening, some wood stripping and homemade sour dough pizza is not nothing. Not what I expected, but still not nothing.

The best part of the day was definitely them coming home, ironically. They were so excited to tell the fun they had. This was Anna-Kate's first time away alone. She was super excited. I asked her if she missed me and she said, "No. I didn't even think of you all day." Well, I'm glad she had fun!

Hoping tomorrow brings less unexpected, but either way, I aim to be kinder to myself and focus on the good instead of the undone.

Outdoor cooking

The started a fire today and made hot cocoa. Then the girls were inspired to make it an extended outdoor cookery experience in their matching mama made dresses with aprons. I love when they get into pretend mode, I could listen to them all day! Today they were poor, too poor for shoes. I was Mrs. Potter, the kind gardener who paid them a shilling to cook for them. Audra's Journey cakes (from an old fashioned cookbook) were quite good!

Happy Father's Day!

A new shirt for Father's Day a bit early.

With the ones who made him a dad.

He works very hard to financially support our family, he's a loving father, our comic relief, our chief relaxer and #1 encourager. He thinks most of my ideas are crazy, but he just goes with the flow. His favorite place to be is anywhere with me, but allows the kids to come along with us, lol. He had a chance to wear his new shirt to the wildlife park and got many compliments.