This Old House

I've always been fond of older homes, and a lot of it has to do with my grandparents. You see, they have many times bought old Victorian period homes and they always fixed them up to where you felt like you were seeing the house as it was back in it's glory years. The home my family just moved into is 103 years old, and it has been in my Father's family for 40 years. Recently, my father came to visit and walked through every room and commented on what it looked like when his parents first bought the house, and when he came to my bedroom he said, "Wow, this looks exactly the same as it did after my dad remodeled this house." Thing is, my room is dark and when I say dark, I mean dark...all the woodwork in my room is painted dark brown and up on the walls is dark wood paneling, and the hardwood floors are stained a dark color as well. Why did people like the dark wood paneling on walls? I believe it makes a room too dark and it makes it feel smaller too. Oh well, I see a lot of painting in my near future, lol!

Today my husband and I went to a local Antique store to shop around for an old door knob set because our bedroom closet door was missing the door knobs. About halfway through the huge warehouse sized antique store, or should I say mall, we finally found one that would work and was in good shape, and it only cost us $10. Which was a good deal considering all the rusty ones we had come across that they were charging more than $20 for them. It's nothing great looking but it now serves it's purpose in our home.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by Amanda Blake Soule)

Seeing the World as My Nephew Does

For the past few weeks I had been caring for my nephew, Camden, and on Tuesday I took picture of things that he happened to notice, which seemed to be mostly insects, but that's ok with me because it just shows how observant he is, and it's a reminder of how we need to slow down our busy lives to appreciate/enjoy the little things around us...even the insects.

Cam talking to the cricket, but he was adamant that it was a spider.

Climbing Trees

We spent this delightfully warm October afternoon playing outside and climbing trees -it's a must do as these days will soon start to become cooler and rainy. Oh, how we love and cherish every minute in the warm Autumn sun...

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by Amanda Blake Soule)

Back Online

Oh, how wonderful it is to finally be back online, for those who don't know, we just moved out-of-state back to our home state, Missouri. And it has truly been an adventure...as it always is whenever a family moves, patients have been tried, but fortunately there has been a lot of love and laughs to help us deal with the circumstances we've been dealt.

First of all, the drive from Colorado to Missouri is only supposed to take 13-14 hours, and it took us 16 hours, but this was mainly due to this being our St. Bernard's first long road trip. within the first few hours, Leo had gotten car sick in the back of our Durango, then we constantly had to stop to let him stretch his legs. He also did not enjoy being in the back alone, so he would try to get into the middle row seating with the younger boys, lol! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this because I happened to leave my camera in Colorado with my husband.

When we arrived in Missouri at 10:30pm, it was very chilly and rainy -which makes for a great night sleep. We have family living in town who had decided to get the home, that we had been paying rent for over the summer, ready for us that night, but upon entering the home they could tell that it was or had been roach and rodent infested...GROSS! So, we decided to stay the night with my sister until I could get in touch with the owner in the morning, and did I mention the owner is one of my own family members?? Yeah, I wasn't a happy camper...and of course I was disappointed and so was the rest of my family. The shower didn't work in the only bathroom in the house and there wasn't a stopper for the bathtub, therefore you couldn't even take a bath. The kitchen faucet hardly even worked and what little water that did come out smelled funky. The floor in my bedroom closest was sinking, and the only heat source in the whole house wasn't working, well actually is still isn't working properly, but my mom and grandma gave me three awesome space heaters. Thankfully I am blessed with a great family, and my first weekend back in town we all worked our butts off cleaning up the house, and it is slowly but surely getting better everyday. A HUGE thank you to my Mom, Grandma, Sister, Mother-in-law, and Brother-in-law. If it weren't for them all this would have been that much more difficult to deal with.

I haven't had much luck finding a job, so your prayers would be much appreciated. It must be a blessing in disguise (me not finding a job yet) because my sister's son's daycare provider hasn't been able to work because her own son got e-coli while he was at Boyscout camp, so I've been watching Cam for the past two weeks. It's been a blast bonding with him. Instead of calling me Aunt Kristie he calls me Gramma Kissy, lol!

Here are pics of him playing outside

During our first week back we noticed all the walnuts on the ground from the walnut trees in our yard and my grandma's yard, so I asked my grandma how to harvest them since my husband and sons like them. She said, "You remove the green outter part then let them dry, but be careful your hands will get dirty." So, I removed the green from about 20 walnuts, then decided to go inside to get cleaned up....my hands were stained BLACK. Grandma said dirty not stained! It has taken about two weeks for the stain to wear off my hands, thank goodness I haven't had any job interviews, lol! Below is a pic of the average size of the walnuts we harvested.