Things I Learned in September

Ah, Glorious September.

You make me so happy.

From your sunny days to your

cool and breezy evenings,

you are a true friend.

So, things I learned  this month.

1. Change is hard for me.
Change and I are not good friends.
This is not a new concept, but one that I am reminded
 of continually as my children grow up,
 the shape of our family shifts and grooves in new ways,
and life works its' wicked wiles on me.

2. I am not as strong as I thought I was. I need to be more gentle in

my judgement of others as they pass through hard things. I was always

 of the "Just suck it up and do what you have to" camp.

And sometimes you can't.

Life is dang hard and just not that simple.

3. I learned (again!) that I have been blessed with the most

extraordinary

family in the world.

I wouldn't trade any kind of security for the sheer

 awesomeness

 that is my family.

4. I learned (again) that we are never too old for our parents

company, wisdom, and advice.

I miss my dad.

 I miss him more now than I did a few months ago.

I think it's the flocks of ducks and geese flying overhead and

the beauty of all things fall. I heard shots the morning of 

duck opener, and instantly flashed back to 

sitting in the duck blind with Dad.

First day of tenth grade

5. The beginning of school is always exciting.

Even if it is (much) less so two days later when we get up for Seminary.

New clothes, new shoes, new notebooks and pencils.

There's just something about it.

6. You should always keep learning new skills.

I knew this, but had a little reminder. I feel like I'm 19 again,
figuring out what to do with my life. It's a scary and exciting place to be!

I wish I could take credit for this darling mug cozy.

Alas, my skillset is more of the irregular shaped dishcloth.

But I'm practicing.

Mandy made this adorable orange one while she was home.
She forgot it here and it is being loved by me.

7. I have been reminded of my worth. In fact, 

the worth of all souls being great.

Seems like something that should be obvious, but there you go.

We're all in different places with different strengths and weaknesses.

It's great that we can all compliment each other in our abilities. 

So, I am just trying to pay attention to what is going on, and learn something.

I just want to keep growing. 

I hope you have beautiful things in your world.

Love you,

Kim

Things I am thankful for

1. Family

2. Autumn colors

3. Yummy fresh apples

4. Sunny skies

5. Cute mug cozies! 

6. My snuggly bed when I'm tired

7. Dragonflies

8. Crazy Morning glories

9. Purple Cabbages. Who knew they were so awesome?!?

Honey Wheat Bread

Hey All! How are things in your world? 

Things here are feeling pretty calm

 after the madness that is eight adults and a busy two year old, plus

 a dog, a cat, and the stomach flu in our little house.

Madness, I tell you. Gah. With a capital G. 

Still and all, it was mostly great. We played awesomely at The Stockade,

which, after all, was one of the main purposes of getting everyone together.

I wish I had some pictures of The Stockade. Evan took a whole bunch,

but I haven't been able to preview any yet.

We did some wonderful music together. 

It is so cool how the music pulls us together.

My favorites are:

No One Stands Alone (Seriously epic. Man!)

Come Thou Fount

and

In The Old Church Yard

(2010- Old and a bit goofy, but it gives a little taste of The Stockade)

 I am so ridiculously grateful for the gift of music in our lives.

I don't know why we were so blessed, but I accept!

We had some growing pains this time, adjusting to being together

 after so much time being independent. It was a little tricky,

but I am still happy to have been able to have my family all (minus Kerry)

under one roof. Awesome!

Anyway, on one of the last days that the kids were here we went to 

go see Grandpa and Grandma's house. It is, sadly, on the market.

It might sell before they get to see it again. We moved so much 

when they were growing up that G and G's house was kind of their stable place. 

We walked through the house and then went out to do "The Tour" in the yard.

So freaking many memories were flying thorough my head. Pretty much all of my

childhood memories are from there. It's a hard thing. I sure miss my dad

and think about calling him at least once a day.

While we were there somehow the subject came up of grinding wheat.

I can't explain it. Weird, right?

Joan got out her grinder and some wheat and we went to town. It was 

so cool. We were absurdly excited.

I've been dying to try our beautiful fresh ground flour.

And today I did. 

And Yum.

Just yum.

Honey Wheat Bread

2 1/2 C Buttermilk

1/2 C Honey

1/3 C Butter

Heat together until very warm. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl mix

3 1/2 C flour

1/2 C Oats

2 T Yeast

3 tsp Salt

and beat three minutes. Mix in

2 Eggs

Then Stir in by hand

2 1/2- 3 C Whole Wheat Flour

Put in greased bowl and let rise until doubled.

Stir down and shape into two loaves. Place in  greased pans.

Let rise until doubled again. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 Minutes.

(Before I baked mine I brushed them with honey and sprinkled them with oats)

Delicious.

It's funny, because it is so crazy when everyone is here, and I

long for peace and quiet and my clean house,

but they leave and I miss them so much.

Love you to the moon and back y'all!

Kim

Things I'm Grateful for Today

Just a few things I am thankful for on this lovely Sunday:

The Sweet Gabe on his second birthday,
Who took blowing out his candles very seriously

A bonfire on a beautiful summer night,
with perfectly toasted marshmallows

Aaaaah! the beauty that is Minnesota,
and the abundance of water

My Sweetie and time together,
heck yeah!

The handsome Sammy and opportunities for growth.
Looks sharp, right!?!

and the best kids in the world and the good choices they have made, including
 wonderful son's in law (that I can't lay my hand on a picture of at this moment. Grr).

And there is no picture for this, but I am so grateful for free agency, for the ability to choose. I guard this right fiercely in my life and would do the same for you. What a gift.

Anyway,
life is mostly really good right now.
What are you thankful for?

Love, Kim

Hi Again Family! And 10 Minute Dill Pickles

Hello My Awesome Family!

I am excited to be here at our family blog that has been so neglected.

(And yes, Awesome Family should be capitalized)

I am pretty pumped that we will all be together soon

I found this fabulous recipe for practically instant pickles.

And I am trying them out as we speak.

They smell so good!

And the smell of dill is just plain amazing!

They are in the fridge just waiting for me to bite into them. 

I thought you might want to try them too. 

Go for it! 

It's super easy!

10 Minute (sort of ) Dill Pickles

½ cup vinegar (apple cider or white)

1 tablespoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon minced garlic

¼ teaspoon yellow mustard seeds

¼ teaspoon black peppercorns

Fresh dill to taste 

2 large cucumbers or 1. pounds small pickling cucumbers, sliced

In a quart Mason jar, place the vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic, mustard, pepper and dill. Add the cucumber slices and fill with warm water to within ½. inch of the mouth of the jar. Put on lid and shake. Place in the fridge for 24 hours, then enjoy. Refrigerated, these pickles keep for three weeks, but we guarantee they won't last that long.

Be happy

And eat pickles

And see you soon!

Love you,

Mom

Five Minute Friday

REST

I am learning to rest.

My body.  My mind.  My spirit.

I've always had this idea that I should just keep plugging along and push through it.

Whatever "it" is.

"I'm strong."

"I'm tough."

"I can handle it."

Until I couldn't.

Until I was so tired and beaten down from the hard things in life,

that I couldn't even enjoy my life.

Everything, even the good things, just felt like too much.

And then I had to rest.

That meant sleep, of course, but also time just being quiet.

Saying no to even good things.

Music!

Finding (remembering?) my talents again and actually using them.

Even Christ rested.

And remember the story of Mary and Martha?

Rest.  Find rest.  Heal.  Rest.  

Painting My Tush Off is Hard Work

Family! It's Kayla! Brace yourselves for a VERY long post. I apologize ahead. As you know, I moved! To Tetonia, Idaho. Population 300-something. It's tiny. But it's got a bar, a church, a post office, a gas station, a park, and a shop full of rustic mountain-y wood things. And people are a little CRAZY for rustic mountain-y things here because Tetonia is a cute stop on the way to one of the biggest tourist attractions in the region if not the country. If you walked through the grocery store (the next town over), you'd think you were surrounded by mostly hobos. Don't be decieved, there are several huge ski resorts nearby. They're just a bunch of ski bums. Funny enough, they sound and look like beach bums but they traded out their surf boards and salty hair for snowboards and ski caps. I'm not exaggerating.

The other part of the population out here are very nice ranchers and farmers mostly. The parking lot of the grocery store is filled with really. big. pick up trucks. In an overwhelming majority, the people are ridiculously nice. Even at stores, people will have random conversations with you and wish you luck on whatever ventures you're having. I've really had to pretend I'm not shocked when people talk to me and actually expect an answer. I suppose part of that is also the family I married into. I'm now related to a LOT of people. Who I don't know. Who know who I am because of Sue, or they were at our wedding, etc. Also, the Tetonia 2nd ward is probably the best ward I have ever been in. Ever. It is so great. AND I have some people waiting to take lessons from me! I just need to finish my house.

Which brings me to the reason for posting. Mom has been waiting for these pictures for a long time. I have to put a disclaimer on these pictures which are mostly befores (I'll make sure to get an awesome camera for after pictures): these were taken with the camera I had available- my phone. The quality is horrible and often they're blurred. That just means greater afters right?! Yep... So without further ado, a tour of my before-house in no particular order:

The whole house kind of felt like this stove.

A good close up.


In the house's defense, a nice old man lived here for a long time and got too old to take care of it. And then he died... and that's why we got to live here. Best rent of life. Which is why I'm not complaining too much about this stove. Chelsea, Mandy's roommate is actually the one that scrubbed it. It's beautiful now. It just didn't feel great when we got here.

A spice rack with vintage turquoise spice containers. OH MY GOSH!!
I'll definitely need ideas on how to make it cuter.

The living room. If you're wondering about the gray box, it's our heater.
Unfortunately, we can't move it. Fortunately, it works great and isn't very expensive.

Door leading to front porch/mudroom leading to front door.

Decor that came with the house. The curtains weren't horrible, but the hardware was dead.
When we took it down to paint, there was no putting them back up for temporary privacy until
I got my own curtains. The windows are huge and awesome though.
And we have a view of the Tetons people would kill for.

Kitchen from Living Room and all our paint stuff in a pile on the counter.

Front Bedroom.

Other side of front bedroom. It's really small. You're not missing anything except a window.

Kitchen Sink with dishwasher hose photo-bombing.
~By the way, the yellow sink actually looks awesome with the turquoise in the kitchen now!

Unmarred section of the kitchen floor. I love it.

Laundry area! I'm so excited to have my own washer and dryer!!
That dark doorway is the back porch! It'll probably be Kerry's
work area when he's home for boxes and stuff.
It's small, but there's a ton of storage which he needs.

Laundry area floor. At some point Dick (the old man who's house this was) decided he didn't like the linoleum on top of this stuff in the laundry room so he ripped it up. And not the adhesive. It's not sticky, just cement-like. Sue and Leon have some extra stuff they offered to give us to cover it. Yay!

Bathroom. This room is a whole other post. I'm not even going there today.
Holy moly, it's a disaster.

Except there's a window. I LOVE having a window in the bathroom even if it's in the shower. haha!
At a super-awkward-for-ladies height... hence the mini shower curtain.

We have a new-ish but oddly short fridge.

The crown jewel of all 70's living room lights. We had already raised it so Kerry didn't hit his head.
It was actually the first thing we did. And then we took it down completely and took it apart...
Also notice the recessed light in the background and the yellow stripes on the ceiling.

Have you noticed the whole house was covered in dark wood paneling.
You just can't escape it.  It's in every. single. drawer and cupboard too.

Our attempt at taking off the really old vinyl wallpaper. We took off the rest of this chunk of wall,
but I just painted over the other side of the room. It was like taking off normal wallpaper difficulties times a hundred. Horrible!

This bug (the brown spot is a bug) is convicted of trespassing and attempted vandalism.
(He got in my paint.)

Of my beautiful lights. They look awesome on the wall. They were $5 each at DI!!! I LOVE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!

This is the fabric I want to make my living room and kitchen curtains out of. With such big windows and at $9.99 a yard... it'll take some saving. Did I mention my front windows are HUGE? They're huge.

Underneath the kitchen sink. I painted it, but we decided to just rip it out.
My wonderful husband is going to be putting in new bottom shelves in the whole kitchen and bathroom.
They're really that gross.

My bedroom painted. I thought I'd leave the drawers and cupboard, but the more I look at that fake wood, the more uncomfortable and unhappy I am. I'm thinking I'll paint it white with a gray or green pattern on them. And put a lot of accent colors on the wall because the pink is not exactly what I had in my head.

I left out both porches and the back bedroom because at the moment there's nothing to see. They're jam-packed with our stuff so we have enough space to paint and clean and fix everything else. Eventually, the back bedroom will be our huge walk-in closet. Yes. Closet.

Any ideas are welcome! I'll post the bathroom and in-progress bedroom pictures tomorrow. And hopefully soon I'll be done enough that I can post after pictures! YAY! Having a house to actually live in will be awesome.