My parents have painted every single house I have owned. YUP, all three! They even bring their own paint brushes. How do you ever thank someone for their love shown through sweat equity?
PS. Doesn’t my mom’s Kohlrabi freshly picked and sitting beside the sink look incredible?
To Reject: (OUCH)
2. to refuse to hear, receive, or admit
Ok boys, here is some motherly advice. I know in the 21st Century we have all sorts of quick and easy ways to communicate. Awesome!
But if you are going to reject someone make an effort to do it the old fashioned way:
Never send an email to reject someone, as you will see emails/text/twitter is always read with a more negative slant. This mode of communication will harm relationships, especially those emails that are “reply all” rejection emails. OUCH!
How you handle rejection and how you reject others (yes, it is okay to say no) will tell you alot about who you are and who other people are in your life.
Let me sit you down here in our virtual living room boys and tell you a little story.:
I dated a guy in high school. (Yes, I know shocking! ) We dated and broke up. (Yup, he isn’t your father.) Nine years later… yup almost a decade. I was teaching in a school in the boonies one hour from any type of major town. I met a woman that was this guy in high school’s aunt. (Yup, the world in small!) We had broken up by communicating and we both handled the “rejection” well. Thus, nine years later this guy’s aunt says: “I hear you are the sweetest girl!” Yes, rejection hurts, but it is really how you handle it that counts.
Reject away with love, kindness and clear communication.
YUCK!
I am coming to conclusion that being a mother to boys is going to stretch me in more ways than them trying to use me as a wrestling mat.
My boys have always loved insects. I can be outside in the garden and suddenly I will hear, “Butterfly”, “Bee”, “Look”, or I will see them hunched over something on the sidewalk.
I love being a stay-at-home mom because I can always stop and take a look at what they are inspecting. I can keep little insects alive and I get to slow down and just be.
Our latest insect loving from the weekend: Snails.
No snails were hurt during this photo shoot.
JC watching over the snails.
Here are a sequence of photos I took while watching one of the snails. He ended up touching the lens of the camera. Awesome!
These photos are not edited. I was laughing my head off as I took them so that’s why they are a little blurry.
Snails have personality! Sorry mom that they like to eat your plants.
I love our contractor. He has saved us hundreds of hours renovating our new house. I especially love his spray painter machine thingy. Yup, I am really getting into this renovation thing aren’t I! hee hee…
Here are the latest photos from the living room and kitchen – We have had the house for four weeks…
… and we have probably four weeks to go!
What do we really WANT and NEED?
This question keeps rolling through my mind as I wade through the copious amount of stuff in my parents basement and the torn apart house we hope to occupy in less than four weeks.
You will be happy to know that we are not going on the Hoarders TV show, but we are making steps to remove a closet so that all three of our boys can share a room.
Yes, in the world of resale, probably not the best move. But in the realm of us having the priority that our boys will be close, share their lives and their worlds with each other, getting rid of a closet is something we need to do.
One decision down… 1,368 to go!
The view of the closet from the hall. Look at all that space we will have for the boys literal bed room. We plan on keeping their clothes, books and some toys in the other bedroom down the hall. The boys are excited about their “sleeping” room and their “book” room as they are calling them.
Hands up (or hands down depending what time of girl you are!) the best cookies I have had in a long time!
My neighbour brought over some freshly made cookies and the recipe. I love this as you get to see and taste the finished product, plus see how it was made.
Chocolate Chip Seed Cookies
(From Betty/Lizzie, my tea drinking neighbour)
These are big and yummy and freeze well, if they last that long!
Back at 350 degrees for 15 minutes (mine were smaller and only took about 12 minutes)
1 1/2 cups of butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 egss
then add 2 cups of cold water
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour (I used 2 1/2 cups of spelt flour)
1/2 tsp soda
3 cups chocolate chips
1 cup raisins
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
5 cups quick oats
*You can also add sesame seeds/millet/poppy/flax seeds or whatever you wish.
This is a stiff dough that needs good mixing and makes lots of cookies. Some people make them large. I don’t… plop them on the cookie sheets… you can flatten them, but I don’t.
Thanks neighbour. I have made them twice in the last week to share with people. YUM!
"Be" ENOUGH 