and at the end of the day, there is joy...

This weekend we were blessed to be able to travel to see my niece get married! And it was a beautiful wedding! It was outside, and the weather was perfect. The vows were beautiful, and everything looked lovely. It is crazy to think how young these kids were when I married Hubby, and now they are living their lives and getting married! The youngest is in college and should graduate in a couple years I believe. 
Travel to and from the wedding went well. We thankfully didn't run into any storms. The only problem was that the trip didn't last long enough! I wish we could have all spent more time together, but that is harder to do these days. We still had a great time though! We were traveling home on Monday, which is why there was no blog post on that day. 
Various changes are happening in our home, which is keeping us on our toes. The kids should start school here in about three weeks. School is going to be crazy this first semester, but hopefully things will look more normal next …

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend planned! And I hope it at least includes a day of rest, of course!
Do you remember back in school when you had a substitute teacher, and those days were usually more fun, or at least not as hard? Unless you had one of "those" substitute teachers. Then it was horrible! I remember one I had in second grade - wow, she was a beast! We were very thankful to have our teacher back the next day! 
Anyways, all that to say, I felt like you all needed a break from me and my words, but I still wanted to share words with you. I don't have any guest posts lurking (wish I did!), so I searched some quotes on rest, and found a few I liked. Here they are below - enjoy! May it be food for thought! 
“Just because you take breaks doesn’t mean you’re broken.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones
“Think of a wave: it washes onto the shore, and then it rolls back. Likewise, each of your activities has a backside of stillness. To be with people, you must be alone. To listen, …

August is going to be a very busy month for us. Two entire weekends will be consumed with activities.  This is also the month we start school (maybe??), celebrate an anniversary, and celebrate a birthday.  The is baking in the oven at least once a day, so we can use up the zucchini before it goes bad. And we have a lot of zucchini.  Which means we have a lot of zucchini bread. It freezes well.  And this week, there was cleaning. 
I honestly didn't expect to get much done this month, especially this week! I set one goal for each day, and I promised myself I would be happy with that one goal completed. 
Amazingly, I've been able to knock out most of my to do list. The kids are doing most of the baking for me, so that helps. They even helped me clean a bit. I'm even finishing up a project for church ahead of schedule. 
All while working a full time job. 
I really hardly expected to get anything done. 
This, my friends, is a great feeling. Rare! But I'll take it! 
Let's see what…

The next two weeks will be busy for me, so please enjoy a post I wrote a while back, but haven't published yet. Enjoy!
I like the occasional minimalism article. I’m an anti-clutter girl myself, I love throwing things away and open surfaces in my house. Those type of things make me happy. Which is a bit odd, considering I come from a family of hoarders. No, seriously, they were hoarders. I cleaned out their residences – trust me, they were hoarders! However. Usually every once in a while I come across a minimalism article espousing the notion of never printing your photos, but storing them digitally, or just setting them up as a screensaver, so you can always look at them. The idea is nice, I guess. You don’t have the cost of printing the pics, and you don’t have the "wasted" space of storing them. This is just one part of minimalism that I just can’t embrace, though. Nope, can’t do it. I’ve thought about it, trust me. There are sites a plenty where you can create online p…

The night before last, I slept terrible. 
There was no real good reason for it. I just couldn't get my mind to rest, and my bladder was also contributing to the problem. I ran out of the supplements that I usually take, so I guess it was a combination of ill factors. Also, it was not fun. The entire next day, my mind felt like cotton. I didn't want to move. The fun part? I still had to work my regular job AND help my kids with some little ones they are currently babysitting. Things that typically require a lot of energy. And I had none. 
Last night, I finally slept. It was sweet bliss. I woke up this morning rested, in a good mood, and ready for the day, which will again be a busier one than normal. But its all good! I got this! 
All because of some rest. :-) 
I bet you can see where I'm going with this. 
We run ourselves ragged, thinking all the while we will get more done if we just work harder, but we don't. I've known people who will literally not go to the bathroom…

So...how's your summer going?Ours has been full of surprises. And cancellations.  Just the other day, Hubby read another event that had been cancelled. I think at this point, they should just cancel everything until December. Seems safe.  Even the opening of school has potentially been pushed back. I find it funny they have back to school stuff in stores, yet no one knows what school will look like.  However, I'm not here to talk about school - I'm here to talk about flowers.  I love flowers and gardening, but I'm not real great at it. I've had a lot of practice, and I'm getting better, but I have experienced several setbacks. Like last year - some caterpillars came through and ate all my plants on the side of the house. I didn't necessarily mind as it was late in the summer, but then this year, all my asters were stone dead and didn't come back like they have for the last 8 years. I'm assuming its because of the bugs.  The caterpillars don't look so…