My Home Sweet Home: Decorated with Family, Faith, and Photoshop
Decorated with Family, Faith, and Photoshop
Every year our gardenia bush gets a little bigger. When it blooms—which is twice per summer—it is covered in fragrant white flowers. I walked outside Saturday evening and photographed some of the final blooms from round one. I think they’re kind of dreamy.
You can smell it if you try!
How is your summer going so far? All of my kids are home now from camp and I’m busy writing on my latest book, on essential oils. Are you working on big projects or just taking it easy?
The older my kids get — my youngest turns fourteen this month — the more I try to imagine what our empty nest years will look like. Because we spread the births of our eight children over nineteen years, we will have lived with children at home for at least thirty-seven years when that time comes. Our family has lived loud and large for a long time, so it’s a stretch of the imagination to picture a quiet, almost-empty house, but that’s surely what our not-too-terribly distant future holds.
Watching children move out and transition to their adult lives requires a period of adjustment for any mom. There can be additional challenges if you’ve homeschooled them, too. When you do life together 24/7, school breaks and summer vacations don’t look much different than school days (there’s just less pressure to be productive). Mothers of children in public or private school get a preview of a child-free home when their kids are gone during the day.
No matter how you school your kids, it’s easy to wrap our identities in roles that have a time limit: home room mother, soccer mom, homeschool teacher, softball coach, PTA president. How will we occupy our days when our years have been filled with cross country meets, baseball games, dance recitals, and gymnastics meets? And don’t forget the practices — so many practices.
A friend recently shared an article on Facebook about a single mom of four sons who planned a four month trip to Europe to figure out exactly who she is now that the last son has moved out. (Grab a Kleenex, and read the article here.) In the comments on my friend’s post, she mentioned that the publisher of a popular homeschool curriculum advises mothers of middle and high school students to develop an exit strategy for life after their children move out of the house.
Please join me today at (in)courage for the rest of the post and let’s discuss exit strategies for transitioning from kids at home to empty nest years!
I intended to create a calendar before leaving on June 1 for my annual (in)courage authors’ retreat but it didn’t happen. I photographed some lovely water lilies last month and I’d hoped one of those images would work.
Since I spent the last few days in Colorado—my first visit!—I thought I’d share a glimpse of those beautiful snow capped mountains. Going from record high temps in the 90s in Georgia to daytime highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s in Colorado was a welcome reprieve. I love the south but I don’t always love our summer temps. I was happy to pull on a winter hoodie for the trip.
The big surprise was the crazy affects of life at that altitude. And bagged snacks! I had a bag of nuts that looked like it was ready to burst. The ladies on our trip who live in Colordo didn’t know that wasn’t normal for the rest of us.
Isn’t God’s creation glorious?
Enjoy!
A few years ago, I told my husband I felt that someday we would be called to work with couples. I presented it as a heads-up, almost as a warning: prepare yourself. Since then, I’ve wondered what that call might look like. Is it the book I compiled, The Heart of Marriage? Is it the essential oils information I’ve shared with couples for intimacy? Will we contribute to a marriage workshop someday? Should I write more about the topic here at (in)courage?
Thanks to Pinterest, social media, and the fact that our private lives are more public than they’ve ever been, many couples focus more on preparing for their wedding than their future. But tending a marriage requires work and intention.
We fell in love almost by accident. I didn’t plan to meet my future husband during the last month of my senior year of high school when I thought my college plans and future were set. But we haven’t been together half of our lives by chance. Recently, we examined our nearly thirty-four years of marriage, what has worked and what hasn’t, and I’d like to share some things we’ve learned along the way.
Please join me today at (in)courage for my list. I’d love to hear your tips too.