The Summer Blues

I posted a picture on Instagram today, it wasn't some gorgeous picture of our perfect day, but rather a picture of an imperfect moment.  A picture of a lesson learned.

This time of year {a week into summer} my feeds on Facebook, Twitter, IG and blogs are filled with complaints from parents about their restless and bored children.  And every year it makes my blood boil.  I understand where these parents are coming from, don't get me wrong, I really do.  For me, the anger behind it comes from a very deep, personal place.  

I wish I had 3 kids to make me crazy in the summer.

I have one.

We tried, we prayed and we looked at all of our options.  God answered back with, "Caroline's enough".  And we said, "ok".

Seeing people talk about their 2-4 kids and the gripes of when does school start, it just really makes my heart sad.  Add to that, I have to share my daughter all year long with her dad, so my summers with her are cut in half.  Yes, there are so many of us who struggle with co-parenting issues and sharing are precious babes year round, but when you don't have to do that, you don't understand the pain that causes.  I always hear people say, "gosh, I wish I had a week without my kids", and I'm sure if I never had to alternate my time with her I would feel the same way.  Believe me when I say, I understand needing a break, or how a weekend away would be nice.  But...you won't hear me saying those things.

I feel the strain of summer just like all the other parents of the world.  What do we do with our kids for 2-3 months?  How do I entertain them?  The constant making snacks and meals, helping get things from the closet, playing games, going on outings.  I get it.

Some of us have outside jobs, some of us work from home, and some of us are full time mommies.  The titles may be different, but we all feel the summer blues.  For me, working at home is almost harder then when I worked in an office.  Balancing work and focusing on my limited time with Caroline is hard, and sometimes like this week, I lose focus of how lucky I am to get this time with her.  I let the need to edit a session override a special moment with her.

Tuesday was one of those days where I needed to spend the day editing, but Caroline had been dying to paint my nails.  So I worked for awhile and told her she could do my nails that evening.  When the time rolled around, I was still knee deep in a wedding and I finally caved to Caroline's demands.  The only problem was, I had the wrong mindset.  I just wanted to get back to what I was working on, didn't want to enjoy that my 11 year old daughter wanted to do something nice for me.  She takes after me and loves to have pretty nails, she'd been scouring the web for exactly what she wanted my nails to look like.  She gets everything out and tells me she wanted to do polka dots.  She did a practice run on a paper plate and got upset because it wasn't working the way the video she watched showed it would work.  Of course I was getting impatient.  She immediately sensed it, got upset and wanted to just give up.  How do I respond to that?  Yep, I get upset that she's throwing in the towel, try to show her how to do it, get more frustrated and end up being short with her.

I took a deep breath and encouraged her to finish, telling her that she can do it even if it doesn't look the same as the video or the same as my attempt.  When she was all done, she was still a little sad at how they turned out, and honestly, I was feeling the same.  I like perfect nails.  It wasn't until this morning when I sat and looked at them, that I thought about how special it was that she wanted to paint my nails and she wanted them to be perfect.

They were perfect.  It just took me longer than it should have to see it.

When your sitting there, having the summer blues, listening to your kids fight and scream, "I'm bored", stop for a minute and refocus.  Think about the blessings God has given you, think about all the imperfect moments, and how those moments are perfect in the most special ways.

Mayhem Menagerie

No, I don't really hold wild animals captive.  But if I thought I could, I probably would.  No, really, I might.  It's a long standing joke in our house that I'll bring home every animal I can get my hands on, and I seem to have passed that trait on to Caroline.  We're both constantly asking hubby, 'please can we bring him/her home', at least once a week.

We just can't help ourselves.

We've had tons of fur babies over the years {or scaly babies} and we always want more, it doesn't help that we have some land either, that just means we have more room for all of them.  Right now, we only have 5 fur balls.

Last year we had 3 Guineas, which if your not familiar, their like chickens.  We loved them, they were so much fun to watch!

Sadly, I should have chosen different names for them.  BBQ, Ranch & Honey Mustard were a cute thought, but turns out Heidi really likes BBQ and Ranch.  She eventually decided that Honey Mustard was pretty good too. 

So now, we're trying to convince the hubby that we need a goat, chickens, a pig and a mini cow.  Yes, it sounds crazy, but look how cute they all are!

I'm not holding my breath on getting any new pets anytime soon, but it never hurts to beg! 

Living in the country presents some difficulties with having animals sometimes.  Yes, I know, it's the country it should be so easy to have animals, its not like living in the city.  What I never thought about when I first moved to the country was all the obstacles there are out here.  Like snakes.  It's bad enough if you have them, but if they bite a small dog or a cat, it doesn't always turn out so well.  Other Dogs.  Yep.  Most homes in the country don't have a huge chain link fence around there 40 acres.  We have pipe fences, split rail fences, barb wire fences, but I can't tell you a single person who has a chain link fence.  When a neighbor dog comes onto your land, you have very little control.  And believe me when I say that plenty of country folk shoot animals when they come onto their land.  Luckily for us, its not often that we have visitors, so we've never had to talk to a neighbor about their intruding animals.  But we have had several of our dogs shot.  It's heartbreaking.  Coyotes.  For Real.  They don't come over for a friendly "hi" either, they come to search out food.  If it's been a dry year, they come closer to homes looking for food. 

And then you have big livestock, cows, horses, donkeys.  They kick.  Heidi, our Australian Shepherd is a herding dog, and herd she does!  She loves to herd our neighbors cattle, she's been known to put a few donkeys in place too.  She's sulked back to the house many times a little sore.

As much as we love animals, there's a lot to consider first.  The vet bills can get outrageous and its irresponsible to have too many pets if you can't financially handle them.  I still have tons of research to do about the new breeds we want, so that we can make sure that we'll be able to take care of them financially as well as loving them.  I don't want to be THAT family that turns them over to a rescue because I was unprepared.  It's one thing to have an animal with issues that needs to be re-homed than to do it because you didn't know what you were getting into.

What animals do you have?  Or if you could have any pet you wanted, what would it be?  I love seeing/hearing about everyone's fur babies {but not snakes, I can't handle the snakes}!

Fun{ky} Filled Friday's

Summer brings new routines, lazy days, long nights and lots of time to create.  It brings different make-up routines and different summer scents.  Different hair.

In yesterday's post, I talked about how we add fun colors to our hair as soon as schools out for the summer.  Yes, that makes me the coolest mom around.  Or at least my kid and her friends think I am.  Or maybe that's just what they tell me.

Source

We found this at Sally's Beauty if you have one near you.  Of course we've tried several other brands through the years, but hands down cost wise this one is the best.  Also, the colors are pretty vibrant, and so far wash and wear well.

I don't know about you, but in the summer heat, I hate the feel of make-up.  I like to use a good moisturizer, and light make-up.  It just feels better that way.  Right now, I'm using a new day/night cream that I really love.  It feels amazing, smells great and soaks in really quick, no heavy feeling at all.

I didn't include a source for this one, because really you can get it just about anywhere.

When I actually deem it necessary to put on make-up, I use this tinted moisturizer by Stila.  Best thing I've ever purchased beauty wise.

Source

Now onto the DIY fun!  I love, love to create.  Call it DYI'ing, crafting, painting, creating, doesn't matter, I'm in.  We've had my parents dining room furniture in storage for quite awhile.  The plan was to eventually chalk paint it and then move it in the house.  I finally got a chance to start on it!

It took me a long time because I have to research the best tips, products etc.  Now I know there are a million Annie Sloan Chalk Paint fans out there, and I was too, but I also really love supporting small businesses.  I started researching and had just about decided I was gonna invest the money in Annie Sloan products until I stumbled on several horrible articles.  Everything from safety sheets on her products to pending lawsuits. Wowzers.  I then decided to look into a few more small businesses that make chalk, mineral, clay {whatever you want to call it} paints.  In the end, I decided there was too much nonsense in that world for me and I was just making my own.  Turns out, I'm pretty good at it.  I love the texture, the way it goes on, the coverage, and the finish was that perfect finish everyone raves about.

Here's my recipe:

1 quart paint {any brand color you like}
6-7 tablespoons of Plaster of Paris {most recipes I found called for less}
1-2 cups Water

Now on the water, this is really up to you.  Almost every recipe I found barely called for any, mostly about 2-3 tablespoons.  I found that this made the paint too thick, so I kept adding until I was happy with the consistency.  Basically, I added about 5 tablespoons, then poured the whole thing into a large mason jar, and then kept adding water.  If you use too much water, it's ok leave the top off and let it sit for a while, it'll thicken up.  And if you get it too thick, just add water.  Easy peasy.

I still have the buffet and the china cabinet to do, so it'll be several weeks before I get to post the finished results!

Ok, that's all I've got for today!  I'll leave you with the cutest pics of my girl.  We snuck away for a burger and shake.  It was good for my soul.

First Week of Summer

School's out and the first week of summer is in the books!  We had a pretty low key start to summer, no big trips, no big plans.  Just a little down time, which was nice with the end of school rush.  We just needed a few lazy mornings, a few days filled with being outside.  Although, I'm pretty much done with being outside for awhile, the mosquitoes and chiggers have feasted on me all week long.  Have I ever mentioned that I don't like summertime?  I'll take the winter.

Back to our week.

I do enjoy one perk of summer though, I use summer as my pass to indulge in my love for colored hair.  For the last 3 summers, as soon as school is out, the hot pink dye comes out.  Caroline chooses turquoise and green, but I'm a pink girl.  We literally count down the days until we can pull out our dyes and have some fun.

My Niece graduated from High School on Saturday and we hosted a Graduation Party for her that evening.  We planned for everything to be outside, crazy I know since this is Texas and all, but we Texans have enjoyed a rather cool summer.  For Texas.  It ended up that it was pretty humid that day and we really needed to be inside, but of course our A/C decided to quit and it was cooler outside anyway.  Gotta love Texas.  See why I'm not a fan of summer?

We stayed home most of the week, Caroline and my youngest niece played outside all day and night.  Mostly because I said they had to, I wasn't putting up with sitting in front of the tv all day, they needed to get outside and play.  And they did.  With the water hose, on the trampoline, laid in the hammock reading.  At night they built cup towers and then knocked them down, giggling the whole time.  I did laundry, and more laundry, and yep, more laundry.

Wednesday we spent some time with my daddy.  We had lunch, shopped then finished up with some good old dipped cones from DQ, that's Dairy Queen if you're not from Texas.  The best ice cream cones on the planet.  It was lots of fun watching my 73 year old daddy try to eat his triple cone before it melted all over the place!  It makes my heart happy to see Caroline and her grandpa together, add in some giggles and my cup runneth over.

Thursday, well, it was like Christmas.  The heavens parted and the A/C guy came and fixed a few wires and made my whole world happy again.  I literally stood in front of the vents and smiled as the cold air poured out.  Hey, when you have to endure Texas summers, there's not much better than cold A/C and a glass of sweet tea or a cold Dr Pepper.

Stop back by Friday for some Fun{ky} finds and DIY inspiration!

Summer Blogging

We all know that blogging takes time.  And sometimes we just don't have that time.  I'm determined to be better about that.  I had this plan in my head for a summer series, and I think I'll still do one, but I'm taking June to join a sweet blog friend in a challenge to get back into blogging and I'm going to attempt to blog 3 times a week.  Stop laughing.  I know, I know.  I haven't blogged 3 times a week in 3 years {or more}.

Kendra over at Domestic Princess in Training has put out a challenge to her friends to get back to blogging.  Her challenge reminded me of everything I love about blogging.  I met her several years ago at a blogger get together and just loved her!  I love keeping up with her family's journey!  You should stop by and say hi :)

Stop by my little old blog during June to see what's going on in my crazy world.  I have several things to blog about.  Favorite products, DIY projects, family, photography, and well the mayhem that is our life.

Since we all love pictures {that's half the fun of reading blogs right?} I'll leave you with this adorable couple I had the privilege of capturing on their special day.  This was literally a last minute booking since their original photographer cancelled a month before the wedding!  They were so perfect for each other and I enjoyed every minute of shooting the big day!  Thank you Justin & Lindsey for having me capture all these special moments!