Keeping Myself Busy...

 Was able to snap a picture of my new hair cut..!!

I think I'm going to enjoy having it shorter.....

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This has been a somewhat Lonely week.  Our family all left on Monday.....Shanda and her family left last Saturday to vacation at the Beach in Florida and Trista has been at a counselors conference in New Orleans since last Friday....Her husband is in Wisconsin working...  Everybody is gone doing their own thing and this is great...

How have I kept myself busy....?  Get this!!  I have a house cleaner coming today.  (First time I've had someone come in and clean my house in over 30 years.)  Well...I have been CLEANING  house all week long.   Sam made this comment: "The house cleaner is going to owe you for doing her job!!"

Do any of you do this??  Clean your house before someone comes to clean it?  I can't have someone thinking that I'm not a good housekeeper.  lol..  

I prefer cleaning my own house, but the truth is...I need help with the deep cleaning. Can't believe I am admitting this.  

Check out these adorable earrings....

Shanda has a new hobby this summer.....She has been making all kinds of Jewelry and truthfully, everything she has made is so cute. These are made out of clay....she designs them and then bakes them... Wa La...out comes a cute piece of jewelry..

The lemon earrings were specifically made to go with one of her sun dress she took with her to Florida....  They match perfectly...

She made all the ladies in our family a pair of July 4th earrings.  We were all decked out in red, white and blue...Earrings to match!!

Here are the ones I chose!!  Loved them!!

Lets see....what else has been happening??  We have had RAIN and lots of it!!  I am thanking the Lord for our much needed rain!!  South Texas is once again getting hammered with so much rain.  Prayers for everyones safety... Lots of flooding down in that area.  

Wishing you all a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Kind of Day!!

Shug....💛

About my Break...

 Hello Dear Friends....boy...I have missed you all. I certainly have!  

I love how the Lord orders our steps each day and how HE knows exactly what we need.  Little did I know when I first decided to take a L-O-N-G break, that I would need every minute of it.

We were not able to celebrate the 4th of July this year like we normally do... Sam was way too sick and was in his chair (sleeping) most of the weekend.  This is okay though...we heard plenty of fireworks and we watched a few 4th of July celebrations on the screen..  

On the 9th of July, we celebrated two birthdays....Trista turned "51" and William turned "2" TWO!!  Three cakes I do believe was plenty!!  William had a "Toy Story" cake while Trista enjoyed her favorite Chocolate with Chocolate icing cake!!  And then....While I was at the bakery picking up the other cakes, I found this delicious looking white cake with Strawberry fluff icing...I had to bring it home!! I mean, this cake looked way too delicious to just be sitting in that cooler...It needed a home!!   

Would you believe I have no pictures of the cakes??

 One of our grandsons and his family from West Texas was here for several days, and our Military family from up North was here for a full week. And...our oldest granddaughter and her finance came for the big Birthday celebration. Gosh....I can't even begin to tell you how much we loved having our family HOME!!  Throughout the week, my backdoor was like a revolving door....and I loved every minute of it. I loved the sound of the side door, opening and closing over and over again. 

Let me tell you....The Pool was the center of attraction, especially with the Summer heat here in Texas.  This heat was very hard on our family from up North and they spent a lot of time chilling in the pool.  They throughly enjoyed their time here at Shug's house, but they were very happy to get home and to get out of this Texas heat and humidity...

Would you believe that I managed to sneak away  and go to the hair salon.   Y'all....I cut my hair!!!  I really did.  No more long ponytail.  I think it was like 7 inches that I had cut off and I'm still contemplating cutting it even shorter at my next visit.  

I really do not have any photos to post.  I did take photos with my new camera, but I haven't learned to download them to my computer as of yet.  Mylee is my technology teacher and she is in Florida right now...🏖️ enjoying the beach.  I'll have to wait until she gets home to learn how to download them.  

Can't wait to catch up on my reading and see what all of you have been doing....  Hope all is well for each of you...  BIG OL' HUGS...

Shug....

Blog Break

Wishing all of my friends here in the USA a wonderful Independence Day! I hope your holiday is filled with family, laughter, good food, fireworks, and moments that remind you just how blessed we are to call this beautiful country home. Stay safe, make sweet memories, and enjoy every minute.

I also wanted to let everyone know that I’ll be taking a necessary  blogging break until July 15th.

The next couple of weeks will be a busy for our family. Sam has several important medical appointments coming up, including an MRI, CT scan, blood work, and visits with  doctors. We’d certainly appreciate your continued prayers and positive thoughts as we work through all of these appointments together.

And...for some excitement....... during the second week of July we’ll be welcoming our military family home for a visit. These moments together are precious, and we’re looking forward to soaking up every second, making memories, sharing meals, and enjoying the simple blessing of having everyone under one roof.

Thank you all for your kindness, your friendship, and for being such a wonderful part of this little corner of the internet. I’ll miss visiting with you, but I’ll be back on July 15th with new stories, new photos, and hopefully lots of good news to share.

Until then…have a safe and happy Fourth of July, hug your loved ones a little tighter, and don’t forget to count your blessings.

See you soon! ❤️🤍💙

Shug.....

Enough Was the Dream All Along

Gosh...where is all this nostalgia coming from? Am I in a sentimental state of mind?  Perhaps it was a recent phone visit with my very favorite uncle....Funny how one conversation can open a hundred little doors in your heart....

A facebook friend posted this writing yesterday on her facebook page.... Thought it was worth sharing....

 Your great-grandmother was not trying to manifest a beach vacation. She was not curating an aesthetic. She was not optimizing...anything. She had a list, and the list was short, and the list was sacred.

A full pantry. Healthy children. A roof that did not leak. A husband who came home. A garden that produced. A few good dresses. A reliable stove. Sunday dinner with people she loved. Enough flour for the week and enough kindness for the neighbors.

That was the whole dream. That was the whole life. And by the standards of most of human history, achieving that list was a roaring success.

Then the twentieth century happened, and somebody figured out that a woman who is content is terrible for business. A woman with a full pantry is not running to the store. A woman who is satisfied with her kitchen is not redoing it every four years. A woman who knows what enough looks like cannot be sold the next thing.

So they got to work. They made the small house embarrassing. They made the old car embarrassing. They made the home-cooked meal embarrassing, and then when nobody knew how to cook anymore they sold it back as a meal kit with a celebrity chef on the box. They raised the cost of living until both parents had to work, and then they sold daycare and convenience food and weekend therapy to fix the exhaustion that working both jobs created in the first place.

They took your great-grandmother's list and called it poverty. They took her life and called it limited. They took her contentment and called it a lack of ambition.

And then they sold you ambition. They sold you a bigger house you cannot clean, a car you cannot pay off, a wardrobe you do not wear, a calendar you cannot survive, and a vague constant feeling that you are still falling behind.

You are not falling behind. You are running a race that was designed to have no finish line. The race itself is the product.

Go back and read her list.

author unknown:

 Before life became a race to have more, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers often measured wealth in much simpler ways. A stocked pantry, children who were healthy, a home filled with love, a garden that fed the family, and neighbors who could count on one another—that was a life well lived. 

Somewhere along the way, we were taught that “enough” wasn’t enough. Bigger became better, busier became admirable, and contentment somehow became mistaken for settling. But perhaps true abundance has never been found in owning more. Maybe it’s found in gathering around the dinner table, baking bread in a familiar kitchen, hearing laughter echo through the house, and ending the day with a grateful heart.

How beautifully freeing it is to realize that the richest life may not be the one with the most things—but the one with the most peace. 🌿💛