Christmas was wonderful, busy, and a perfect passage into the new year. Our kids were very giving and creative (as always), and they totally deserve the gifts that they received. We spent our Christmas Eve at home, together. Tiffany arrived in the evening and is staying for a few days, and we enjoyed David's (Kait's boyfriend) company from Christmas Eve through breakfast. On Christmas day, we visited Grandma's house, then Shelby's family, and, finally, my parent's home to wrap up the night. It was a happy and exhausting day! Now we rest and prepare for a new year. We have gone through so many changes this year and look forward to even more during 2012. One of the family gifts from us this year were two alpacas that we are scheduled to receive next month from Spruce Hill Farm. The kids are so excited, and we now have a defined start time to our livestock farm. We will put up temporary fencing until we can put up our barn in the spring, and then we will also add shee...

Life is an amazing thing. You think you know where you are going, or what you want, and so you guide the reins in that direction. Yet, somehow you arrive in a totally different place. When I was divorced from my first marriage, I assumed that I might find someone some day, but that kids were probably not going to be a part of that relationship. Then I met Shelby, and my world changed drastically for the better - we have three beautiful children together, plus the fortune of having our two girls from my previous marriage in our lives as well. When we moved to Florida, we were ready to settle forever and buy a house close enough to the beach to be able to go after work whenever we wanted. And now, here we are, planning the livestock and garden of our new home in rural Ohio. Our journey would make a great book - our adventure has always been to move forward, strive to reach our goals, but to never, ever lose the fun and love in life and our family! The difference of our life between Jan...

Life is still at a fast pace, as always with our family of seven, but the pace is now down this road we chose instead of in circles. We have our house and we're settling in nicely. I am fortunate enough to have several substitute teacher opportunities to tide me over, and one elementary school that is close by seems to be happy enough with me to schedule me pretty regularly :)  My hopes are, of course, that subbing leads to a full-time teaching position, so the more, the merrier! I am also applying to other positions that are education related (the line is sometimes fuzzy) in case the school arena doesn't pan out. Besides my teaching, the house projects keep rolling along. Shelby is very ready to tackle the big jobs, which has resulted in several downed pine trees (eight so far, more to come), including the large one in front of the porch. Our fruit trees and other trees are in place for planting, which may be happening tomorrow if plans work out - a friend of ours may be sto...

http://yourmemoriesbymandy.weebly.com/  Here we are, a relaxing Sunday morning before a relaxing Sunday day! The weekend before now has been a busy weekend of visiting with friends who dared to make the long drive out here, and back, to see us. It's weird how our apartment life seems so far behind us now - a closed door that I dare not forget but care not to open again. Since we moved in, nearly two months ago, we've been able to have family and friends over to visit and even stay overnight. Our open house brought thirty-nine people into our house, comfortably! We (I'm sure I can speak for all of us here) absolutely love having the space and the surroundings to enjoy having guests, which was not the case in our apartment. I also appreciate knowing that we have still have good ties with friends and family, even after the years that we did not see much of them because of our apartment. It is so nice to have people over, to cook outside and sit on the porch in good weather...

Oh, my goodness! So long without a post so I need to at least throw a few lines down! We did get our house, the Blue House, after a drawn-out closing that included the new septic (which we still need to get the down-low about from the Health Inspector). Or, I guess I should just say WE GOT OUR HOUSE!! We love every inch of it, from the curvy driveway to the poor back yard. We closed and moved in on June 29th and have been SO busy ever since with moving, Aullwood, life, etc. I had a great summer teaching at Aullwood's summer camp, but the drive ends up being around an hour each way, which will have to be a consideration next year. We are mostly moved in and the space is very comfortable. Our crap-ton of living went from the tightly packed apartment and flowed into the open spaces of our two-story home, garage, and yard with much relief. Like pouring a five gallon bucket of water into an empty tub. Like releasing the air from a balloon into the atmosphere. Like cutting the ropes of t...

My back is achin' after a very busy day yesterday! We packed, packed, and then packed some more! Mostly in the bedrooms - Shelby and I played keep or toss and cleared off the over-stuffed shelves in our bedroom and closet...then we took down the shelves. The kids, all of them, started packing their stuff and put a pretty healthy dent in that process. We worked pretty much all day, made a trip to KFC (drive through) for an 8pm dinner, and managed to finish up for chillin' at around 10pm. Then Shelby kicked my booty at Skip-Bo (again) before we collapsed in bed for the night. Hopefully Grandma won't check her garage/our storage for a little bit...at least until we can tell her that it will be out by ______ :)  Gotta do it all over again today, this time in the dining room (shelves), pantry, and hopefully, closets. Then I'll start on my Aullwood teaching prep tomorrow. It's gonna be a busy week, and a busy summer (hopefully). I think we can, I think we can, I think we ...

It's that time of year again - time to reflect on what I did and did not accomplish last year, and time to prioritize what I would like to accomplish in the coming year. I should preface this blog by saying that my resolutions are goals. I use them as guidance, but they are not law or reason to punish myself should they not work out. This works out better for me and my ego! So here they are.  My New Year's Resolutions for 2011: Get a job! Looks like we are good staying in the SW Ohio region for Shelby's work, so we're running with that. Which means I can seek employment, preferably teaching, or something somewhat in the education field. Get a house!! Oh, how we've waited for this! We should be ready and able to get our family farm sometime before the kids end this school year! We're forecasting our buy using Shelby's paycheck only, but we're definitely going to need to get my career going, as well, to keep up the pace.  Fruits, veggies, chicken...

We're getting a home. Soon. Like, first half of 2011 soon! It all seems a little surreal and, as usual, I am cautiously optimistic, but very excited nonetheless. Extremely excited! We have been working towards this goal for so long and it feels so good to be so close to the dream. We have an idea of what we want, what we don't want, what we are willing to, and not, tackle to make our home...well, our home. The hardest part is telling people about this venture. Somehow the news turns on the lecture in people, like we haven't been discussing this for the past fifteen years. We are 46 and 36 years old, people - we value your opinions and advice, but what we really want is your excitement. We're happy to talk about our dream - we welcome the opportunity to share! But please don't try to give us a reality check by telling us how hard it is to own a home or what we should buy or how we should buy it. We don't care about resale. I know, it's crazy! We want this hom...

It's the eve after a wonderful Christmas! We enjoyed our traditional at-home Christmas Eve with a nice variety of snack food (healthy and not) and Christmas movies - this year we watched our pick of favorites: Christmas Vacation, Elf, and our traditional end-of-the-night movie, It's a Wonderful Life. (We started this at-home tradition while living in Florida and realized that it greatly reduced the stress level of Christmas, compared to the running around to both families and then laying kids down and THEN finishing Christmas preparations that needed to happen before Christmas Day! So we decided that this tradition is a necessity, even upon our return to Ohio.) Christmas morning came fast, and it was a great beginning to Christmas day with all seven of us home, and each of us fully aware of the gift that our togetherness actually is. Our kids enjoyed this Christmas with giving as much as they enjoyed receiving, which is a wonderful thing to see in your children. The day foll...

Christmas week is upon us, school break is here, and the kids are enjoying their mega extended weekend. I love this time of year for our family, but I'm finding myself more excited to begin the New Year and begin what I hope will be our transitional year to our new life. As the end of this year approaches, Shelby and I have developed our plan to make things happen...as we realize things may also change as we begin our strategy! #1 We have determined that it is most likely that we will remain in the SW Ohio/Indiana area unless some awesome twist of destiny is bestowed upon us. But the likeliness that Shelby's job will evolve and continue for at least a few years here is good, so we have decided that our best location for our home will be Preble, Darke, or Mercer counties. We are going to start our quest with open houses, and find a realtor that we're comfortable with and who can help us to do the things we need to do to make this happen. #2 Get a job. I have an appointment...