Thursday, April 21, 2016

Ivanhoe

I thought it was beautiful, Oliva! The photo doesn't do it justice though.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

New Blog Announcement!

I have decided to make more of an effort to start journaling on a daily basis, and thought this was a good time to break from blogger and give Wordpress a try. If you are interested in checking out my new blog, please head over to www.paperdollmom.wordpress.com  ...and let me know you stopped by!
I will be leaving this blog up for now, so that people can still utilize my crochet patterns and read any of my creative writings. Hope to see you over at Wordpress!

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

A Little Peter Pan... and Christmas

This week started off incredibly busy, and has been holding steady! Bright and early on Monday morning my girls had auditions to be a part of the traveling Missoula Children's Theater. This year they are putting on the play Wendy and Peter, which is an adaptation of Peter Pan, and both of my daughters got a part! My oldest will be playing Mr. Darling, Wendy's dad, and my youngest will be playing Buddy, who is one of the Lost Boys. They are both super excited and having a blast with all of the play practices. If you are unfamiliar with this theater group, they travel to different cities in the US, hold auditions on a Monday, have intense practices all week long, and perform the play on Friday. Needless to say, my week is filled with Wendy and Peter and all that theater goodness!
Aside from that, not too much has been going on in my world. I am enjoying our new house, and simply loving the change. I've also been trying to get more organized with our homeschooling, specifically with records and grades. I have everything collected, but it is all super disorganized. My goal is to have everything recorded in a much more organized manner before I start this school year. It is taking a lot more time than I had initially thought it would, so we will see how quickly it comes along! I have ordered curriculum I need for my girls, so as soon as it arrives in the mail, our school year will start. I took my daughters to Target yesterday to pick out some new fun school supplies, which I think has gotten them both a little excited to begin the new year.

For any avid readers, I thought I might pass along that Target had several sizes of book covers in all kinds of patterns and solid colors for only $.65 each. Of course we had to pick some out! They work perfectly for some of those old library books I now own, the ones with damaged or messed up covers. I was surprised at all the choices in patterns they had available!
To get back into the swing of blogging, I suppose I'll share some of the books I've been reading. In all honesty, I've been in a bit of a reading slump.
 

The Cat Who Came for Christmas (Compleat Cat #1)I have been reading The Cat Who Came for Christmas, very sloooowly. I owned a beautiful softcover copy of this when I was a kid, and absolutely loved how beautiful this book was. I believe I read it, however, I don't have much recollection of the story now. I was able to grab up a hardcover copy of this book when I was at our base library closing and book giveaway. I found it super ironic, as I had been thinking for months prior that I would like to read this book again. I am enjoying it a lot! It is kind of a beautiful book. Not sure why exactly, because the writing isn't super "beautiful", nor has the tale really revealed anything that is super "beautiful", but there is just something nostalgic about it, and it simply makes me smile the entire time I am reading it. I can definitely see this book creeping its way up my list of favorites.
 

The Search for King ArthurThis is the other book I started reading this week, The Search for King Arthur. This is also another one of my free library books, one that I was super happy to stumble upon, as I was specifically hoping I would find it. I am always extremely interested in people of legends and all of the mysteriousness that surrounds the tale and if they existed. I love watching documentaries on people like this, such as King Arthur, or any person of mythology, or my favorite, Beowulf. So far I am finding this book very interesting. The beginnings of Arthur was not at all what I expected, and am curious to read on!
What good books are you reading lately?

Saturday, July 25, 2015

I am still here!

I know I have been quite absent on here, but I am hoping to jump back into the swing of things.
About a week or so ago we decided spontaneously (kind of) to move. We have been talking about moving for some time, I think all of us just dreading the process when it wasn't actually required. But a couple of weeks ago I just woke up and found myself saying out loud, "We need to move." And that was the start of it! The next day we went in to speak with base housing to see about finding a new unit to move into, receiving the keys the following day and starting a week long journey of packing, moving, exhaustion, and all that good stuff. Even though it was probably a simple move in the realm of moving, considering we were just moving into a different unit on the same base, it somehow became one of the most exhausting moves ever. But it is done! We are in our new unit, boxes still amidst, but we are comfortably in our new home.
Why did we move? There was few reasons, but it really simply comes down to...we needed it. Since we moved into that house (almost 8 years ago), so much has gone on with our family, health wise, and we needed a change. Working with energy a lot to help my oldest daughter, I came to understand that our house just had a lot of bad (unhealthy) energy that was part of the land where it was situated, and it was really affecting us all negatively. The feeling I get in our new house compared to being in our old house is night and day. I always felt so sluggish in our old house, like I was literally surrounded by stagnant energy that I just could never seem to clear or escape from. I am loving our new home...energy and all! I am most excited to see how this big change will impact all of us, my oldest daughter's health especially. I am already noticing some sleeping differences. In our old house I use to need 9-10 hours of sleep (which was unusual for me to begin with), and I could take up to another hour trying to get myself out of bed, and still need a nap later in the day! Already in the new house I have found myself waking up after about 8 hours of sleep, on my own, and feeling rested.
Aside from the big change in moving, we have also been dealing with a lot of medical issues with my oldest daughter. Unfortunately she has been sick a lot this summer, preventing proper summer enjoyment. Mainly she has just been sick with viral stuff, but I just took her in again yesterday because it just doesn't seem like she is healing properly. Crohn's Disease is also running amuck in her body, which has now decreased the time frame between Remicade infusions. This makes me sad. She will now, after 4 years of taking Remicade every 8 weeks (aside from the initial couple of months of building it up in her system), she will be going in every 6 weeks. I am feeling quite overwhelmed with doctor appointments and homeschool stuff I need to get situated, so it may be a tiny bit before I am back to writing posts like I use to be. But I am looking forward to life calming down for us- hopefully very soon!

Monday, July 13, 2015

day at the beach






Quotes Magotes #4


Then I was scared of monsters and stuff, and the only way I could think of to be loud enough was to sing.

- My youngest daughter,
in the middle of the night after a nightmare, calling for me through song

trapped

The young girl carefully rose, first pulling her head up from her knees to peer around her. The darkness of the mausoleum was pierced by a stream of bright sunlight that found its way through a crack in the wall. She reached her hands out before her, trying to touch the dancing dust that meandered across her face in the bright light. Unsatisfied, her eyes began to investigate the details of her surroundings more intensely. She saw nothing but hard, dark stone that was cold against her feet.
A moan escaped her cracked lips as she tried to stand, straightening her stiff legs. She touched the soft pink gown that was draped over her naked body, rolling the translucent fabric between her fingers. Her blonde hair, slightly matted, sprawled out around her face and shoulders.
She wandered around the small mausoleum, her steps slow and calculated. Her feet were dusted with dirt that was caked between her toes, sluffing off with each step. Her heart began to pound so loud that it hurt her ears from within, realizing that she was trapped inside the stone box. Her eyes grew wild with fear, watering with every moment that passed. She began pounding her weak fists against the stones, barely making a sound to be heard. She opened her dry mouth, pushing out wails of desperation that scraped against her throat. Tears streamed down her cheeks, making shining trails against her dirty skin. She pounded against the walls with her fists so hard the skin along her palms split open to reveal the long forgotten life residing within.
After hours of screaming, traces of red blood smeared across the walls, she gave up and return to her corner, collapsing to the cold stone floor. She once again pulled her knees up close to her chest and lowered her head to wait…

Written by K, Copyright 2015