Summer Life~ Family Visits

Summer is my favorite time of year. The weather, the flowers, the garden, and family visits.

 My favorite flowers so far this year are my neon-coral geraniums. Delicious!

My girls. 

Eve.

Ann.

 Our entire family still lives in PA (we are in WA), so summer brings a lot of family visits.

First visit was my Dad and brother Jack.

 Visits bring many road trips to local sites, which means a ton of car knitting time!

Our animals are growing fast, and we have fallen into a nice summer routine of feedings and scratches.

My mom and step-dad are here now for a long visit, we have been doing a lot of this...

I always have a mega ton of ideas in my head, this one will not leave me alone. So here is Chad, a sewing pattern I have in the workings. He is still in the prototype/note/sketch stages. I love this part, making variations, figuring out the best way to communicate it onto paper....

My wheel has also been bewitching me lately. Again. I used to spend time with her the better part of every day, so spinning again feels like a warm hug, like going home after a long, long trip.

Off to clean a bit... today is a swimming day, we have invited our friends to come and enjoy our pond...

Wishing you a relaxing Sunday.

xo

reenie

Our Dreams are Here, NOW~

There are several blogs that I follow...

They inspire me and give me plenty of food for thought.

One of my favorites blogs is by Melody Ross, of The Brave Girls Club.

Her post this morning talked about the bad habit of waiting for the shoe to drop.

Living in fear of bad things happening...

I am SO guilty of this... I know I am happy and that we are in the midst of such a fantastic, blessed time in our lives, but there is always that voice in my head saying "enjoy it, it may not last". 

That voice comes from years of lean and hard, stressful times. It was a coping mechanism that I needed at the time, admitting there are things I have no control over and just hanging on by a thread.

But those times are years in the past. Life is amazing now, and I am learning how to expect them to stay amazing.  I now know how strong we are, and what we learned from our struggles. 

So really, no matter what the future brings, we will be OK.

I have learned to appreciate the NOW, because NOW is all we really have. 

The past is gone, and the future? It's not guaranteed and definitely not here yet.

I REALLY loved to this part of her post...

"I love this home, and the trees and the water and the peace and the way it seems like it has been waiting for us for all of it’s life. I started thinking about how something could happen and we might not be able to stay….and how I better not get my heart set on it…….better not fall too deeply in love….

But see, it’s too late for that. I am smitten. I am so deeply in love, committed……it’s too late to not fall in love. When the sun came up…..and the pink sky with the big golden light ball started to reflect off of all of it…..my heart broke again thinking about how this water was going to not be here forever.

Suddenly…….my whole soul shook and I felt the words loud and clear…

“MELODY, the water IS here NOW..enjoy it.”

Smack.

WOW. I know better than this…..and I was falling into an ugly old outdated expired trick. I realized I was thinking more about how to protect myself from the heartbreak of not being here, not having this water……..this whole place……than just ENJOYING IT TODAY."

We feel the same way about our farm! 

Like it has been waiting for us it's whole life. 

Now we are here and have magical things planned for it. 

Even after a year and a half, we are still in the "pinch me" phase.

Sitting in a very grateful and thankful place right now.

Life is good.

Cross posted with Reenie's personal blog, ReenieHanlin.com~