First fire in the fire place of the year. It's getting cold...again. Taylor and I haven't used the living room much since before Archie went home. The pups always left pup hair all over the couch. We are not big on wearing dog hair so Archie had gotten discontinued vinyl from work to reupholster it. The roll has been sitting in the shed for two years. It's not going to happen. Taylor gave up and...

When I was a kid growing up my mom would talk about the "seasons of life." She was always talking about "grown-ups." There was the new high school graduate, then college or career. They were going through different daily challenges than the newly weds who were trying to grow immune to each other's oddities (that they once thought were "cute"). After were the young families(who we would babysit...

Dead mower. ERRRRRRRRR! I was so frustrated! I had mowed (figure 8, figure 8, figure 8), did the water thing to clean out the deck, and now when I jump back on it to put it away...nothing. Seriously? Maybe it's hot. I wait half an hour, again, nothing. I lift the hood to make sure the heat isn't being trapped in. Another hour goes by and nothing. I had to start mowing late as I had appointments...

Empty... Sometimes people ask me what I do at work. There are a lot of different aspects of my job but one of them is being allowed the opportunity to introduce our Heartfelt family to, well, other family members, aka, customers. The number of tours seems to be going up. When scheduling one, rescheduling another, and preparing for one to begin, I looked up and saw a picture of Archie from two and...

After my first day of sleeping until the alarm went off, I had high hopes of sleeping over eight hours in a row, WITHOUT a sleep aid! Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. (sound of a buzzer) Didn't happen. Instead the greenish blue monster came to visit. I fell into bed the night before at 12:30-1 am, awake, unfortunately, at 7:00 am. P00h. Did you ever notice the harder you try to go back to sleep the less...

For the last two days we (as if you have come to my house and are sitting across from me over a cup of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or milk) were talking about: "Live the life you've always imagined." I've spider-webbed to bring it back to: what is it going to look like for me to live a "life I've always imagined" when my imagination was a deserted island with tree house for Archie and me, an...

Last night was Grief Share, so I wasn't home much. The subject we are in the middle of: "Live the life you've always imagined." Taylor and I were talking about that couple of nights ago. Neither of us ever "imagined" life would be like it is now, so what do you do with that? The best/most you can. I need coffee.... Rabbit trail: Last night at Grief Share we were talking about if we could fast...

I work often work with wholesale customer and crafters who teach classes. One of the ladies sent me a link to her designs and a stamp she used caught my eye. I quickly e-mailed it to myself and signed out at the end of the day. When Taylor got home she said,"Mom I heard the neatest saying..." It was the exact phrase on the stamped image: "Live the life you've imagined." She completely caught me...

"Ok, Dad, as you wish... ." I started something last night/this morning that I was going to write about, but my heavenly Dad had other plans. How many times in your life have you had plans, they sound amazing in your head, but then something or someone comes along and changes EVERYTHING?!?!?!?! One step further: when the project was complete you realized it was far better than your original plan?...

My very long week, great, but very long, ended with a double blessing. A couple to be exact. Taylor and I were going to have dinner guests! We never have people over, ever. I went into guest mode, figuring out a menu, pulling out dishes that had not been used in a couple of years, getting up early(ier) to get the crock pot started. Oh, so much fun! After work I hurried home to start the baked...