A Beautiful December

We had a lovely December. I had a wonderful time with my little charge. We learned all about charity. We bought books to place at an angel tree and put food in the food bank train at the mall. I love introducing charity to sweet little ones and guiding their hearts. 

Rebekah and I pooled our Christmas money to buy annual passes to The Biltmore Estate. We are excited to go every month and watch the gardens change. Also, the house really doesn't get old for us. We see something different all the time. The above photos are our favorite trees this year. The middle one is literally dripping in pearls. 

Nutcracker season was spectacular this year. Rebekah's main character role was Arabian. She choreographed her dance and performed it flawlessly. She brought the house down night after night. The lines of little girls wanting their picture taken with her after the show was so adorable. She truly had the role of her dreams and enjoyed every minute of it. She also had the roles of party parent, snow and flowers.

Our pink Christmas tree was a hit again. Eve (cat) lived under the tree but didn't disturb the presents or ornaments at all. 

We had a lovely staycation Christmas week. We played tons of games, read books, slept in and went on a few field trips. 

We went on a field trip to Buc-ee's. It is the largest gas station and they just built the largest Buc-ee's a little over an hour from us. So we visited the largest gas station in the world. We bought tons of snacks. If you haven't been there before, think huge gas station meets a mall food court and mini Walmart. The place is huge and very loud. 

We shared most of the food. The sausage on a stick was huge. 

For another field trip, we visited the Chocolate Factory in our city. It is a very small factory that makes organic "slave" free and sustainable chocolate.  The chocolate was delicious. We already loved their cafe, but we will be buying our chocolate from them more often. I would really like to get away from commercialized chocolate and its dark industry. 

We are looking forward to a new year. January is going to find me traveling almost every weekend. I hope the weather holds. 

Blessings, Dawn

A Review of Goals for 2023 ~ How Did I Do?

The year went pretty well where my goals were concerned. I completed more than I thought I would. I did not complete many of my travel goals, but I did get to travel more than expected. I did get to spend two weeks in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia (one week each).  I am going to paste and copy the goals I made in early 2023 and comment on my 2023 progress in another print color.

Home Repair Goals ~ 

1) Replace the Roof ~ This is a very necessary repair. We hope to have it accomplished in the next month or two. We are getting quotes over the next week. Yes, we have a new roof!

2) Buy an Electric Fireplace and Finish Brickwork ~ My last project in the rec room is to complete the fireplace area and hopefully get that room warmer in the winter. It can get down into the 50's in there. Well, I did buy an electric fireplace at the thrift store and it works great. However, we had extensive plumbing work done this year and the pipes ended up coming down the outside of the wall. I am not sure what the future of that corner of our home is right now...so I did not paint the wall. Here is what it currently looks like. 

3) Replace Bathroom Floor ~ The boys' bathroom has peeled up tile floor in one area and damage to the subfloor. I am hoping to get that repaired and the floor replaced this year. We might add in a new sink cabinet at the same time. We are booked to have a complete bathroom renovation in January. There were more problems and it just seemed better to gut the whole thing and truly be done. We have been waiting our turn to have the work done by a small business for some months now. 

4) Paint One Wall of the Laundry Room ~ Okay, painting the laundry and basement walls has been on my list for two years now. So now I am making the task really small this year and saying I will only paint one wall. Hopefully, the momentum will kick in and I will get more walls done. This ended up being my son's "rent project" for December. He had a little help from my husband and me. 

Self-Care Goals ~ 

5) Walk 800 Miles ~ I came within 20 miles of this goal last year. Maybe, I will pass it this year. Yes, I am right at 800 miles right now with a few more days to the year. 

6) Read 23 Books ~ I read 18 books last year, and I have a little bit more time for reading currently, so I am hoping that I can read 23. I read 25 books this year!! A post on the books will follow soon. 

7) Stretch and Strength rotation ~ I did manage to touch my toes pretty consistently last year. However, I noticed it can easily be lost, so I hope to continue maintenance and start working on holding on to my strength. The body stops just doing it automatically after the 40's. I have stayed pretty consistent with this goal. 

8) Widen My Friend Group ~ My friend group is smaller and narrower than I wish it to be. I think the issue is that, as we transition away from homeschooling, some of our connections have been lost. Also, we have experienced many years of isolation due to raising such a special needs family that took us out of having time for or fitting in with lots of different social groups. Also, our special needs support group isn't the greatest fit. I am going to hang on to some of the people from it, but I am tired of the drama and not completely fitting in because I've been told a few times that "your family functions too well under the strain of raising special needs kids/adults" (comments such as this reveal some jealousy). I maintained current friendships and grew one much stronger with a monthly mom tea outing. I also made a new friend toward the end of the year with another nanny. We have gone out to lunch a few times now and communicate through text. I hope to grow that friendship more in the coming year. 

9) Have a Game Night Party ~ This is a carryover from last year. I really want to have a fun game night and play the Victorian cobweb game and Saran Wrap Ball game. Also, a gingerbread house contest would be fun. Perhaps a 12th day of Christmas party? I am thinking about how to fit this in and with whom to share this fun experience. This one did not work out. I am keeping in my thoughts for the future. However, I did incorporate the plastic wrap ball game into family events, such as family birthday parties.

10) Catch Up on All My Blog Books ~ I think I am 4 or 5 years behind in my blog books. I plan to take some of my earnings from my nanny job and catch up these books. I use these as our family photo albums. Nope, maybe next year. The extensive plumbing we had done this year was very demanding with our money. 

11) Organize Loose Photos ~ We still have boxes of photos from my childhood through the present day that really need to be organized and hopefully stored/displayed in a way that they can be enjoyed. Nope, didn't happen.

12) Cook My Way Through Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader ~ I tried to do this when the kids were young, but there were too many food allergies. Most of those issues have resolved now, so I am going to give it a go. This is a cookbook that complements the Mitford series. I highly recommend the book series if you like gentle Christian fiction. I started this project and decided to quit. All of the recipes felt like gateway foods to diabetes or a heart attack! I passed the book onto the used book store. 

Global Citizen Goals ~ 

13) Reduce 365 Things From Our Home ~ I accomplished this goal and then some last year. I am going to continue to reduce more, but attempt to do it in a more ecological way. Unfortunately, giving to Goodwill often means the stuff ends up in a landfill, even if they are just overstocked on a perfectly usable item. I plan to donate more carefully. Also, this does not include the constant rule of one thing in and one thing out rule, which has been in place for years in our home. Yes, I just slid in with 366 things. 

14) Drastically reduce plastic bags in our home ~ I hope to get down to having almost no plastic bags coming into the house. This is going to take some serious practice. We are also using compostable trash bags as well as reusable food storage bags, such as Ziploc Endurables. We made a vast improvement in reducing plastic. The worst area right now is grocery pick up from Target. I only do it a few times a month...but that still translates into five or six bags a month. 

15) 52 Acts of Kindness ~ I heard someone say recently, "If everyone was just 10% kinder, imagine how pleasant our world would be." Now there is a motto to live by. I will be keeping a count of my bigger acts of kindness...beyond holding a door for someone or other moments of politeness. I am just bad at recording this. I dropped recording the goal in June, but had made it to twenty-seven. 

16) Chemical-Free Household ~ I am not likely to get to 100 percent, but I am trying to transition us to use as many environmentally and family-safe products as possible. We mostly use Tru Earth and Method as well as homemade vinegar products. We only still have bleach (for occasional use), Clorox wipes (hope to start using the organic ones), Bartenders Friend cleanser (the stuff is miraculous) and carpet cleaner.

Travel Goals ~ 

17) See a New State ~ Arkansas, Michigan and Iowa are actually the closest. Also, we missed Vermont and Rhode Island on the last New England tour. (I have been to RI but others in my family have not.) Nope, not this year.

18) Go Somewhere by Train ~ Yep, this was on the list last year. Maybe this year. Yes, we did two trips by train. We went on a round trip to Universal Studios in Florida, and Rebekah and I took the train from Philadelphia back to Washington, D.C. this summer.

19) Visit a National Park or Site ~ Our country has so much to offer. We have seen some amazing things in the last few years. I (alone) got to visit the U.S. Naval Academy, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

20) See a New to Us City ~ This shouldn't be too hard a goal to obtain. Rebekah, David and I spent one lovely day in Louisville, Kentucky.

21) Take a Weekend Trip to Roanoke, Virginia ~ Rebekah is interested in their ballet company, and Roanoke is supposed to be similar to our own city (mountains, small city, liberal, artsy and four seasons of weather). We would like to check it out for her...and maybe even ourselves someday. Nope, this ballet company is no longer on her current list, so it fell by the wayside this year. Still hope to get there someday. 

22) Visit Another Country ~ Hey, a girl can dream and we really didn't think we would get to NYC for Christmas at the beginning of 2022, but we made it at the end of that year! Canada would be the most likely place to go or a cruise to the Bahamas. Dreams... Not in 2023...but stay tuned. We have big plans in April of 2024.

Family Goal ~ 

23) Weekly Family Game or Movie Night ~ This has been a goal that we have successfully accomplished for a few years now, but it gets harder and harder as the kids' lives expand. I find it extremely beneficial to all of us, so I will continue to try to keep it a mandatory activity. We have done better at movie nights. Game nights are much more infrequent. 

Blessings, Dawn

Thankful November

 There is so much to be thankful for this month. We are blessed with a strong family, our health, three adorable cats, plenty of food, good income and a warm home. That is such a wonderful list and there are so many more blessings. I could go on for pages. 

We were treated to three special events this month. The first was a tour of one of the oldest graveyards in our area. It is an African-American graveyard and harks back to slavery times. The last burial was in 1943. There are only 93 graves that are still marked, but it is the final resting place of two thousand souls. It was a very peaceful wooded lot. My Mother and I spent a wonderful hour wandering around it. 

 

Rebekah and I went to the National Gingerbread Competition at the Grove Park Inn.  We discovered last year that the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving is the least crowded time to go. We had a lovely time. It is always so cozy and nice to sit by one of the huge fireplaces after our walk through all the gingerbread. In perusing these photos, remember that every single item in the display has to be edible!

Our last big event was the Winter Lights at the Arboretum. We took Grandma with us, and she rode in her new wheelchair, which helped her back a lot. The lights were spectacular.  I am so glad we were able to go this year. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince Elijah to go with us this time. 

My nanny job is going well. My little guy is growing all the time and developing new interests. This month his parents let me take him to Build-a-Bear for the first time. They said we could get whatever we wanted. My little guy picked Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. He has never seen the movie but has the book.  He was so pleased and I was honored to be able to share it with him. I also introduced him to Candyland this month. He loves the game and wants everyone to play with him. 

Elijah got a job at a small clothing retail store. However, he decided that he should quit after just one week and we agreed with him. I won't go into too much detail here because this is a family blog, but the derogatory things the employees were saying about women and the websites they were looking at on the job were outrageous. Unfortunately, the bosses were looking at the sites and cracking jokes, too. Elijah has always had very strong morals, and he was extremely distressed with the unethical and unprofessional nature of the store. We decided that he needed to let that job go. Now we are back on the hunt and he is even more anxious than before. I don't have lots of hope that he is going to find a job in December, but I am proud of him for having concrete morals. He paid his November rent by removing the fence that separated our front yard from our side yard. Now it is one big yard and easier to mow and maintain. 

Finals and the first week of Nutcracker is upon Rebekah next week. It is going to be a crazy week. We are looking forward to her college semester being over and having a bit of downtime. I look forward to embracing Christmas with lots of joy and good tidings. 

Blessings, Dawn

Beautiful October

Life is filled with so many challenges and many of them completely out of our control. Those that we can have an effect on are worked on and hopefully mastered. Those that are out of our control (such as World/National events) we can only pray about and thank our blessings if they are not directly affecting us. The message I want to leave with this post is EMBRACE LIFE. There is so much joy to be had in the world. Grab it whenever you can. That said, we had plenty of challenges this month and moments of sorrow. There were tears, angry voices and moments of sheer frustration and confusion as to what the next step should be. However, at the end of each day we are extremely fortunate to be a family filled with love that strives each day to find joy, peace and common ground. I wanted to write about challenges as a friendly reminder that sometimes social media is a half truth or a total lie. Many people only post the good stuff and honestly, how many of us document the bad stuff in pictures. By the end of the month, the pictures help guide my posts and they are filled with so much happiness. That is the big picture of our family. 

Rebekah's early birthday present was two tickets to the Hozier concert. It was in Georgia, so we had to spend the night. We had a lovely girl's night out. The concert was wonderful. I really didn't know very much about Hozier before attending and ended up googling him some during the show. I was impressed to find out that he had been raised a Quaker just as I was  (there aren't that many of us kicking around) and that he did so much humanitarian work in his country of Ireland. I love it when my children's favorite musicians are really decent people. 

Waiting for Hozier after being drenched in the rain. We bought dry band shirt. How does Rebekah look so put together after being caught in the rain!

I was very excited to discover that the only currently known spotless giraffe in the world had been born in a Tennessee zoo just a little over an hour from our home. We bided our time to let the crowds die down at this small family owned zoo.  Finally the day arrived and we were off. I love giraffes so much and seeing this rare baby was a real treat. We were able to get so close to the giraffes. The zoo was wonderful overall with lots of lovely and happy animals. We spent a long time with the giraffes and I even had the pleasure of feeding one of them. We will definitely go back again. They are closed for the winter. We were enjoying the animals so much that we forgot to take any family pictures. We all attended, but I only got a picture of myself, Elijah and Rebekah and we aren't looking at the camera. 

This sweet giraffe is super rare because she was born without a pattern.

Rebekah turned 20 this month! How the years fly by so fast. She is a lovely person. She is determined, works hard and is well liked by young and old. She is chasing her dreams, but never steps on anyone in the pursuit. She is well liked by other dancers even when she gets the roles they wish to have. That is a special feat in the dance world. Her party theme was "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and we had a fun dice and dart game with prizes. 

Dear husband also celebrated a birthday this month. We went on a beautiful hike together on his birthday. The view at the top of Bearwallow Mountain was stunning. We sat and watched the sky for a long time. David decided to have funnel cake for his birthday.

 

We also made it up on the parkway one early morning with Rebekah. The leaves have been stunning this year. We are way behind in rain, but the lack of rain means the vibrant colors of the leaves are staying on the trees for longer. This is the most beautiful autumn in years. 

The last wonderful event of the month was a absolutely wonderful Halloween. We have struggled to make Halloween fun since the kids grew out of Trick or Treating. It seems like if you don't drink and party, there isn't much to do. We don't even get Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood. This year I landed on the idea of going to an escape room. I booked it a month in advance, told everyone to dress up and to expect to have fun. We did the escape room based on the game Clue. The twist was that we were trying to find the potential killer before he killed Mr. Body. It was an absolute blast. We had a wonderful time and the gamemaster who watched us on camera and advised now and again was great. Everyone thought it was the best Halloween in a long time. This may become a tradition while the kids live at home or nearby. 

Steampunk Husband

Elijah and Tim were Hazmat workers

Rebekah and I were witches. She was a Slytherin.

Elijah really got into the activities.

Elijah still doesn't have a job. He is struggling to find the right fit and he hasn't run out of money yet so his anxiety is winning right now. He has applied at a half a dozen places. Most of them had filled the positions by the time I convinced him to call and check the status of his application. Two of them are still out there and we are doing one to two things everyday that I don't work. It is a slow process that I hope picks up soon. However, he is driving better and better and is almost ready for the driving test (which will be an even bigger anxiety experience than finding a job). He also just is happier and sweeter (as long as you aren't talking about a job). I pray we find a good fit for him soon.

Blessings, Dawn