A Peaceful Summer Day

A Peaceful Summer Day
Originally uploaded by Kellie{Michelle}

"Peaceful Summer Day" by Gary R. Ferris

Sitting on the front porch enjoying a peaceful summer day,

Writing down the words that He’s given me to say.

Sipping on my coffee and watching the wind blow the trees,

Quietly watching the birds sailing in the breeze.
*****
When I look at this beauty it takes my cares away,

The majestic mountains that top these skies today.

Off in a distance a bird begins to sing,

And the sounds of the country and the music it can bring.
*****
The dogs are lying in the sun and lost in the deep,

To watch them in this summer breeze make me want to fall asleep.

To realize that I have been so blessed,

All of my troubles become no more than a pest.
*****



Listening to the sound of children playing in the sun,

Reminds me of a boy and all the things I had done.

Laughing and playing and cherishing each day,

Sometimes I wish that those times were here to stay.
*****
In a world full of struggle, turmoil, and strife,

I feel so blessed to get to live this life.

There are no brilliant words that I could ever say,

That ever could describe a peaceful summer day.

Family day

A silly picture of Scottie and me waiting for Stef to finish with her doctor's appointment and trying to wait patiently since we were anticipating our day at Frontier Towne's water park. We got there and had a great time with family: speeding down the waterslides, relaxing in the lazy river, playing around in the kiddie pool, and eating our huge hotdogs and plentiful fries. Definitely a fun day : ).

New Haircut!

So thankful for my haircut! I feel much more like myself with this style and it was wonderful to be able to go down the street from where we live and get such upscale treatment. Thanks Salon at Somerset and Paige (the fabulous stylist)!

Productive Day

It's the calm before the storm. Saturday is the storm, not a bad storm, just a day so full that it's bursting at the seams. An early riser, I am not but that won't stop me from getting up with the birds and going to Stef's commnuity yardsale hoping to find a little treasure for the new apartment. From there Matt and I speed over to the Church to help out with the cleaning day. The cleaning group will make the outside of the church sparkle and then walk the road the church is on picking up all the litter while sending up prayers for the occupants of the houses along the way. Lunch at Matt's granparents' will be the reward. Then I have to meet my sister at the florists' so we can pick out a lovely bouquet of flowers for our Mamma Lorraine, hopefully she'll be home so we can surprise her with them : ). Cleaning out Mrs. Donna's attic for her mother's day present is next on the list, we hope to make a good dent in that job before we have to go back to the church for their youth spaghetti dinner at 6. After the dinner we'll be heading up to the theater to watch the new Star Trek movie with a few friends. Goodness, I'm out of breath just thinking of all the running around we'll be doing tomorrow. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be a nice day : ).

"Focus on being productive instead of busy."
-Timothy Ferriss-

And for all the Moms: Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day : )

Can't wait to move!

There's a 99.9% chance that we'll be living in Independence Hall on the top floor in a sweet little apartment. It's right in Princess Anne around multiple historic buildings. I'm pretty excited and I think it will be a nice experience to live there for a year or two. I'm probably more excited about getting home and reconnecting with all my friends and family again. Boy, have I missed them. : )

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you."
-Winnie The Pooh-

Happy Early Birthday!

46 on Saturday. So young and yet you'd probably not be too happy about getting closer to 50 and the inevitable growing up of your babies. Do people celebrate birthdays in heaven? I'd think God would love a celebration and maybe He throws a daily party to include everyone who was born on that day. Well it would be fun, maybe I'll suggest it when I get there : ). Your girls are celebrating by doing our tradition of a yummy dinner at Zia's including your favorite Black Russian Cake and watching a movie we know you would like. We're gonna see Monsters Vs. Aliens, we figured you'd get a kick out of it. Well anyway, Happy Birthday and I love you to the sky. : )


"Believing hear, what you deserve to hear:
Your birthday as my own to me is dear...
But yours gives most; for mine did only lend
Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend."
~Martial

"Sunshine"

"Sunshine"
Originally uploaded by Kellie{Michelle}

Sunshine
by Emily Fessler

Dry up my tears with your gentle winds,
For your words cease my tears.
Blow away my dark clouds,
For your strong winds blow them away.
Bring me happiness with your sun beams,
For your sunshine warms my soul.
Whisper me a deep secret with your breeze,
For your words bring me a warm feeling.
Put out my raging fire,
For your rain sizzles it down.
Everything you do is my everything,
And I'll never forget that you're my sunshine.

Martha Stewart Dinner

I saw Martha Stewart make Creamy Racchette Pasta With Asparagus and Peas and I just had to try it for myself. It's so worth it. VERY good. It tastes like spring. That's the best description I have. I made it Saturday night and to go along with it I made Pecan Fudge Brownies. I don't usually like homemade brownies but these were better than any other brownie recipe I've tried. Fudgey enough to make any chocolate lover happy : ).
I've had so much fun these last 6 months being married to a guy who doesn't have the word "picky" in his vocabulary. I've been able to make dozens of recipes I wouldn't have been able to make for my family. It's hard to please 5 people when every single one of them have varying palettes. So here's to all the future interesting recipes I'll be able to make and enjoy, cheers! : )

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."
-Harriet Van Horne-

Movie Night

First of all, if you're a movie lover and you don't have Netflix you should probably go sign up now. It's great. OK, end of advertisement. Thursday night evolved into movie night since before we were married and I think it was because Thursday night found us in between weekday activities and weekend dates. When I lived at home Matt would come over and usually the Barrett girls and we'd pick a movie with much debating and going back and forth. Then we'd all squish onto my couches that could only hold 6 people but we always seemed to be able to squeeze in quite a few more, and we'd put the movie on the big screen. Of course the more people there were, the more voices that constantly had to be shushed. Sometimes we had big crowds and other times it was just my family and Matt. No matter what, movie night was fun and it's continued even though it's just Matt and me.

Well this movie night I got "Rachel Getting Married" from Netflix since it got such great reviews ... I must say, it's not the most fascinating movie but I really liked it. Anne Hathaway is in a role completely different than any other she's been in and she does it so easily: Troubled addict coming home from rehab to be in her older sister's wedding. I told Matt at the beginning that if it was boring we would turn it off. Needless to say we didn't turn it off. The acting seemed so natural to everyone in the movie, and the camera angles made it seem as if we were following a real family dealing with real issues. I'm not sure if everyone would like a movie like this one but it was different enough from a lot of the new movies coming out and Anne Hathaway was so convincing in her role that I definitely enjoyed it.

Tonight we're off to the Double T Diner for dinner, Matt wants to go once before we move back home and then tomorrow morning I'm planning on going to the farmer's market down the street, then hopefully we'll go see a movie tomorrow night. So even though I'm disappointed that we didn't get to go home this weekend (I miss you, Bean and Mrs Donna!), I'm glad we'll be staying busy with activities that I enjoy. : )


"No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight of the soul."

-Ingrid Bergman-

Beautiful

Someone on Flickr posted this poem with a lovely picture... I liked the poem so much I figured I would share : )


I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

~ Pablo Neruda

Busy Weekend

Goodness, this weekend is already bursting at the seams with activities and it hasn't started yet. We're going home a day early since Matt has his necessary furlough day tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and having fun but it's going to be exhausting! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are already planned out with lots of busyness and errands. I can't wait to live back at home so we don't have to have such crazy weekends of errands we could do during the week, but that will be happening soon so I'll stop complaining. Friday dinner out, Saturday tea in Berlin with my family, Saturday night Hanging out with my sister, and hopefully a walk with Harley on Sunday is what I'm looking forward to most : ).

To fill the hour -- that is happiness.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Busy night...

Yay for Fridays! I think I'm easily excited but bear with me... Matt and I are goin' on a date to Outback, then we're going to Rita's to get their annual free Italian ice on the first day of spring, and after all that good food we have to go to the Tux place in the mall so Matt can get his measurements as part of his groomsmen duties. It's been an eventful week with my new job as a nanny and i'm going to enjoy the night out on the town : ).

Keep your face to the sunshine… and you cannot see the shadows. – Helen Keller

St. Patrick's Day : )

I'm only a little bit Irish so I've never actually celebrated St. Patrick's Day... though I do usually wear something green so I don't get pinched. But because I watched Martha Stewart last week and she was making Irish Soda Bread, it inspired me to make something Irish the on the "Green" day... so I made Irish Bacon and Cabbage Soup that I found on allrecipes.com to go along with Martha Stewart's Soda Bread. And of course we had to have dessert but I didn't know what the Irish have for dessert so I made the Very Best Blueberry Cobbler recipe there is (or at least that's what it claimed by it's name). I made a few changes to the soup by adding garlic and onion and it came out very tasty indeed : ), plus the soda bread was thick and had such a nice crispy crust. And as for the blueberry cobbler, it was the best blueberry cobbler I've ever made, but then again I've only made it once before ; ) so I guess I'm not a good judge of that. It was a lot of fun to put such effort into a meal and have such good results. I'll definitely have to keep celebrating St. Patrick's Day especially if it involves good food.

"Food is essential to life. Therefore, make it good."

-S. Truett Cathy-

Not so fabulous Monday...

The weekend was so full of busyness and enjoying friends and family, that it makes today seem very blah. I've lived for weekends since I was a little girl and Mondays always meant the end of all my fun and adventure and the beginning of schoolwork and chores. Even as an adult I can't get out of that mindset. I'll probably always love weekends best and have a little disdain for Mondays. But at least now that I'm a little more mature than my little girl days, I can appreciate the comfort from the routine and normalcy of returning back to "normal" life on Mondays. Mondays may be a bit af a drag for me but at least they hold the promise of a week full of spending time with my husband, finding a new recipe that sounds scrumptious, reading a good book in bed every night, and of course, looking forward to the following weekend : ).

"The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
-Allan K. Chalmers-

Bringin' Home the Bacon

Well, good news... I'll finally be working again. : ) I met the lady today at McDonalds at noon and she and her boys were wonderful. The two boys that I'll be watching are cute as buttons and will be a joy to be around. We had our little interview while the boys were mixing their french fries into their chocolate milk making a "scrumptious" mess. The 3 yr old wants to grow up and be a Chef so I'll have fun making cookies with him. And the 2 year old seemed happy enough to do what his big brother told him to do. So I'm sure I'll have some funny little boy antics to share about in the future. They'll be a handful but at least It'll always be interesting : ). Kids are fun to be around, their innocence and perspective of the world is refreshing. I think we can learn a lot from kids, how they interact with each other and with their parents, how small things always seem to please them, and how they're so ready to trust and love a stranger.


"While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about."
~Angela Schwindt

Job!

I'm pretty excited! I'm supposed to be meeting a woman and her four kids tomorrow for a possible nanny job for the rest of the 3 months I'll be living in Bel Air. I've been worried about not having a job for some time even though Matt's job is enough, and we're not in need of more money, it's the fact that I enjoy working and being apart of someone else's life. And making a little money of my own ; ). And not feeling like a huge sack of lazy bones.
I know the chances of getting a job for 3 short months is pretty slim but by some nice chance, the lady who wants to hire me is also leaving the area in early June so if they hire me it will all work out. : ) So cross your fingers with me all day and night until I find out if her family and I are a good match.


"There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes." ~William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues

Lovely weekend...

The weather was soooo glorious this weekend! I wish it was like this aaaaalll year long. I wouldn't get tired of it : ). Well, maybe I'd miss the warm fires at Matt's house that we have when it's bitterly cold and we want to be snug inside. But as I was saying, the weather was lovely and I feel like we got some things accomplished, like paying bills, cleaning out the car, and running some errands. We took the Miata out on the errands and put the top down (my favorite) to take advantage of the warm weather... who wouldn't? It was basically a rambling weekend and we got to be as active or as lazy as we wanted.
It's weekends like this that I start to miss home. I would have loved to take Harley (Matt's dog) or Ciara and Duke (my dogs) on a walk or go to the Creamery for the best ice cream one can get. But when I start to miss home I remind myself that we'll be back there soon, for good. : )


"Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, a dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. "
Robert Montgomery

My beautiful orchid

My beautiful orchid
Originally uploaded by Kellie{Michelle}

An overcast Friday made brighter by my lovely flowers : )

Spring cleaning!

Since It's not spring yet, I guess it was a little early for spring cleaning. But with the snow melting and the sun giving off such a warmth, it inspired me to give the little apartment a much more thorough cleaning then I usually give it. I paid much more attention to the little nook and crannies that always give a hearty welcome to dust accumulation. The glass sliding door that opens onto the patio was given quite the shine. Now it lets the sunlight light in without it looking so dull and sad. The couches weren't forgotten; they were spruced up and shined with a few handy leather wipes. And of course the bed sheets were cleaned making them smell as fresh as spring itself.
I know the weather inspired me to clean but it was also in preparation for Matt's return. He comes home tomorrow! Being busy with cleaning and planning the menu for this weekend helped make the day disappear.
So here I am. At the end of the day, about to enjoy a cup of hot cocoa in my favorite hot cocoa mug, and finish the book I've been reading so I can finally start "A Boy in the Striped Pajamas." Pray that Matt gets home safely. : )

Tea Cup

Tea Cup
Originally uploaded by Kellie{Michelle}

Afternoon Tea

One of my new most cherished daily rituals is my afternoon "Tea". It somehow started one day when Matt came home and since it was especially cold, I had tea ready for him and me. English Breakfast tea for me: one sweet n' low, one spoon of honey, and just enough milk to cool the tea, while adding some creaminess; Sleepy Time tea for Matt: piping hot with two spoonfuls of honey plus a little extra just because. It started from there and has continued for the last couple of months. It was sort of forced on Matt but he doesn't seem to mind.
Of course since Matt has been in Chicago there has not been any conversation during Tea Time but I enjoy it all the same. Brenda livened it up a bit while she was here by insisting that we buy pecan praline biscotti dipped in chocolate to go along with our tea. It was a wonderful addition.
I know it's silly but somehow it feels refined to take time out of the day and simply enjoy a cup of tea and either someones company or one's own thoughts. Hopefully I'll keep up the ritual and it'll turn into a tradition. If not I'll have created some pleasant Tea Time memories : ).

"If you are cold, tea will warm you.
If you are heated, it will cool you.
If you are depressed, it will cheer you.
If you are excited, it will calm you."
William E Gladstone

Forever

Forever
By Amanda and Brenda

God gives me words, because none could say
The feeling that I have today.
Perfect serenity, my heart is sublime.
I've found what I've searched for all my life...

In your eyes, I see who will never hurt me.
You take my hand, and I know you won't desert me.
So here we stand; together at last, forever never sounded so beautiful.

I could never tell you what you mean,
'Cause no words would encompass 'everything'.
You were the part of me I felt incomplete without,
Once I found you, I had no doubt...

That in your eyes, I see one who will never hurt me.
You take my hand, and I know you won't desert me.
So here we stand; together at last, forever never sounded so beautiful.

So take me away,
Through fire and rain,
You're the only hand I want pulling me through.
Though trials may bend it,
Still time will not end it,
The first time I saw you, I knew...
...I knew it was you


My sister and "adopted" sister wrote this song for me shortly before my wedding. They performed it for Matt and me when we got back from our "honeymoon" weekend. As i was sitting next to my husband, hand in hand, Brenda played her guitar as Amanda sang. It was at that moment that I knew my sisters could see into my heart: the fears that crouch in the corner, the love that conquers those fears, and the certainty that God has given me a precious gift.
I don't know if Amanda and Brenda realize that they not only wrote this song for me, but also as a song of hope for themselves. I believe with all my heart that one day they'll be able to say for themselves as well as for me that "forever never sounded so beautiful".

Sister!

My sister: extremely likable; headstrong to a fault; very loyal; tough on the outside, but sensitive on the inside (she would never admit it); contains the biggest heart of anyone I know; doesn't have a shy bone in her body; has a smile that's as quick to appear as my mom's was; one who has a heart for worship; a young woman trying to find her place in this world; and my best friend.

My sister is arriving a day early (tomorrow) for her visit and thinking about all the fun we're going to have together got me thinking about how much she means to me. Everyone should have a sister like her and I pity the one's who don't.

"Bless you, my darling, and remember you are always in the heart - oh tucked so close there is no chance of escape - of your sister. "
~Katherine Mansfield

Twilight walk...

I took a nice, brisk walk tonight and got my share of the fresh, cold air. It felt so good to leave the apartment and walk the neighborhood streets. Seeing all the warm lights on in the houses made my imagination race and think of all the stories unfolding in each setting... maybe one had a big family and they were all gathering round the table about to enjoy a feast and laugh and talk about their experiences of the day. Maybe another had a lonely widower reading his daily paper nestled into his favorite chair, close to the chair that now sits empty but still carries the presence of his beloved wife. Maybe none of the houses had these little stories going on but I still loved imagining them and realizing that the world is soooo much bigger than me. I think it's easy for me to forget that I'm not the only one who's experiencing joys and sorrows and if anything, the twilight walk helped remind me to focus less on myself on more on the people surrounding me.

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

- Buddha

Cozy night alone...

There's nothing like a hot cup of Chai, a good movie, and a warm blanket when you need some cheering up. My husband left today for training in the Windy City, so I'm planning on keeping myself busy for the next ten days and I thought a good start to that would be getting cozy with a cup of Chai and one of my favorite movies.
I'm definitely going to miss my husband but I'm also curious to see what it will be like on my own since I've never lived by myself.
To make the time without him go by faster, my sister will be coming to visit me for the weekend and we're going to make the most out of our time together : ).
Even though this is the longest I've been without seeing my husband, family and friends, I know I'm never completely alone since they are only a call away. Plus, The One who knows me best is always listening : ).

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."

Audrey Hepburn