Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

{Pretty}

I have a daughter who loves to arrange flowers.  She is working on learning more about how to do this.  She maintains flowers on our Marian altar as well.  This is a mix of shasta daisys that grow wild here and tickseed which we planted from a purchased plant last year and seems to really love it here.

This is the tickseed in the raised garden bed we put in this year.  We are working on coming up with a different name for it as no one in the family really likes the word tick and what it congers up for us...nasty parasitic insect....but the flowers are pretty.

{Happy}

Homemade Strawerry jam!  We have not been able to do this in years!  It turned out great and I wish we could make more but it is not in the budget this year.  We will have to be stingy and make sure we are eating other jams too.  MK and I worked on this together last Saturday.  We make a pretty good team. We canned 9 pints and had one left over to eat right away.  It is almost gone!

{Funny}

No funnies that I could find this week to capture on "film".  We do enjoy much laughter in the evenings though.  With no television to entrance, we usually have time after praying the rosary to joke around, play cards or board games. It is really great to listen to your children develop a sense of humor.  Some of the jokes are real groaners...but some surprise and are spot on.  

{Real}

So I walked around the farm this week and snapped pictures on works in progress.  We are clearing out brush and things that did not produce what we had hoped.  This has been a LONG time coming.  DH has finally enough energy and good sized help to tackle this job and he is going at it with a vengence. So while you are not going to see before pictures, I wanted to post some after so as things progress I can see the changes.  Plus some pictures of our garden.

cleared fence and usable gate!

a view opened back up

from across the yard clear sailing!

Stubborn green ash tree ~ gone!

Teaching boys how to repair a hydrant...more easily watering the garden now

it is very dry here this year

garlic looking good!

peppers!

new hydrant in action watering garden

Thanks for tagging along I am hooking up with Like Mother Like Daughter

My Capture of Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{Pretty}

So at the moment the pretty is still on the camera.  I will download it tomorrow.  My daughter MK is trying hard to grow cut flowers so that we can have flowers in the house even those most of us have allergies.  She cut some shasta daisies and another flower I don't recall it's name and set them on our dining table.  It was a very cheerful thing to see when I got home.

{Happy}

This tub is clean a few times a year.  We don't really use it anymore so it collects dust and many other things it shouldn't.  I made the effort this week to clean it up some and looking at the whiteness of it when I come into the bathroom just makes me happy.  

{Funny}

Due to looking through a bunch of pictures for my daughter's graduation party, I realized that this young man has a plethora of silly pictures.  He is the one in most pictures who is doing something silly just as you snap the picture.  He makes me laugh and I thought I would share that with you today.  I admit this picture may be a little scary but he also does a very good twitchy eye Dryfus from the Pink Panther movies.

{Real}

My family is very happy to be able to share another Father's day with this great Dad!  My husband has been through much and still smiles big!

I am hooking up today with the link-up at Like Mother, Like Daughter head on over and check out what others have captured this week.

God Bless!

Kate

Graduation party day

Our first homeschool graduate, MK.  She is a very dedicated learner and while she had times where motivation was problem, more often than not she was the one pushing to make sure we got through her lessons.

I am very proud of the young lady she has become.  I am very graced by God to have such a daughter.  She is up to any task and really loves things that surprise me ~ Chemistry, Algebra...the logic of it all.  Most of all her faith.  I am impressed with all my younger children's knowledge of the Faith.  I find it funny when I get home and am eager to share something only to find out they already knew about that.  Guess I have to catch up.  It is my plan this summer to try to get in more reading on the Faith.

We have a college graduate as well.  Another VERY motivated daughter.  She has a degree in Music and Psychology. 

She would probably not be happy with me about this picture but it is the best one I could find.  She is a very entertaining young lady. When times were tough she would leave us random silly pictures on my husband's camera.  We are very proud of all she has accomplished as well.

Thank you Lord for gifting us with two such wonderful young ladies.

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Kate

Just a Quick Check in

Hi,

I just wanted to make sure I put something up this week.  It has to be short ~ I have prayers to go say.  It has been an interesting week.  I have much time to read and learn more about my faith this week.  I keep asking God to help us either get closer to tradition or to bring tradition closer to us.
So far no move...but I am thankful for the time that he is taking to prepare me for such a move.  I have learned over the years that when I come across something three times, I need to pay attention.

What have I recently come across three times?  You need to pack up your stuff and move to a traditional community where you can receive the support of like minded people and be close to daily reception of the Sacraments.

Okay ~ so we are pondering how to do that.  We are just in the pondering stages at the moment.  We will ponder and pray and see what happens.

In other news...MK turned 18 this week!  She was pretty excited for her birthday but not because of the number.  She was excited because it was a day to celebrate.  We have another celebration for her next week...Graduation party!  Looking at how little time there is between now and then I am a little intimidated with the amount of work that needs to get done.

The garden ~ the garden is coming along nicely.  The dh is doing a fine job this year of maintaining a truly beautiful garden.  He went out and bought some really nasty smelling spray to get rid of the raiding rabbits.  It seems to be working.  He also is employing the help of our two teenage boys in mowing the yard...or acreage. :)  The boys are adjusting to doing such fine manly work.

House work ~ My dh agreed that painting another room right now is not a good idea.  So the craft room will remain white till fall.  Then he went out to LOwe's and bought a 5 gallon pale of a pretty blue semi-gloss because it was only $50.  This is how we have painted before ...so now we need to decide where this might best fit.  A nice problem to have really.

That should be good for now to have brought mostly up to speed in my rather ordinary life.

Enjoy your weekend and make sure to keep Sunday holy ~ rest, read, pray.

Kate