Christmas Shopping

I am one of those people who says every December 26th, "I swear next year I will not wait till the last minute to get presents."  Yet every year what do I do? You guessed it! I wait till the last minute and some times it really is the very last minute. Last year my husband and I were out shopping on Christmas Eve after he got out of work. It was stressful, to say the least.

Now, before I go to far I want to clarify that I do know why our family celebrates. It is more then the presents, that is for sure. However, I enjoy giving presents and to be honest I also enjoy getting them! ;o]  

With that out of the way, I will get to the point of this post. 

This year I not only have determined in my mind not to wait to the last minute, I have actually put some action to it! I have been picking up presents as I see them or as I have the money. It is very freeing to know that if something financial happens, the people I love will get something.  

It is not in my nature to buy things for people and then hold onto them. Since I love giving presents, I actually want to give them to the people when I get them. It has been a challenge learning to actually put the things aside and wait. Patience is not my forte. 

I still have plenty to get, but I feel rather accomplished having a few presents stashed away. ;o) 

College Preparation, the Homeschool Way

My daughter, who will be our third homeschool graduate, has been diligently preparing for college.  My mailbox has been inundated with mail from various colleges and universities. I can honestly say that she has taken the time to look into the ones that she was interested in, and then whittled them down to three choices:

Houghton

The Art Institute of Boston

Liberty University

Since she excels in and loves art, her major will be something in that area. She is tossing around ideas of graphic art or art therapy, and she has looked into each of those areas herself.  I remember when my son was getting ready for college, it was pretty much me doing the leg work. It is funny to see the differences in the kids, even though they are siblings.  

Along with all of her leg work, I still have to make a transcript for her. One of the colleges listed, expects a rather detailed transcript for homeschool students. That would include not only the list of subjects and grades, but also a list of all the books used for each subject. That will be a huge undertaking, because the majority of her school work has been done through books and not just text books.  Fortunately I have a list of the majority of books read, already saved on my computer so I won't have to totally trust my memory. 

Since she is so diligent, all of this needs to be done within the next few weeks. Fortunately I am heading into the last week of my college courses, and then I have a one week break. During that time I plan on gathering all the information she needs and making a detailed transcript. Once I do that I will post the steps here, for those who may be interested. 

Gotta Love Fall!! :o)

Living in northern New Hampshire has many perks, one of them being the wonderful scenery that is available 24/7 and is always FREE!! :o}

Neat Organizational Idea

I read this idea somewhere online, and I thought I would share it here. I would love to give credit, where credit is due so if it sounds familiar to someone please let me know. 

My husband hates going in my van, he says it is always messy and he is pretty much right. Not only do we have people in the van, but it is also my 'farm vehicle' for getting hay, grain, and other feed items. Though my son does an excellent job cleaning it out, it can get pretty overwhelming so without further ado, here is the idea:

Every time I go to get gas, I clean out the van!! Yes!! It is that easy!! Every gas station has large receptacles for garbage, so why not use them?! I used to feel guilty, like the garbage had to be from the actual place but that is not true. I believed a lie!! (said in jest)  Now I can go and clean my van out and then once a month my son can do a big cleaning and get a little extra money. Isn't that an amazing idea??!! Okay, so maybe I need to get out more but it really thrilled me. :o) 


***Update***


I read this over at MaryBeths site. She has some other great tips there too!!  :o)

Photos

Willow

Silver Pumpkin 

Moose 

Moose and Vader

Bucky 

Toby 

Rural Ramblings

I seem to have dropped off the internet face of the earth for a spell, so I figured I'd better check in again. The last time I posted, I said I would be busy and I did not lie. My life pretty much consists of:

Homeschooling

College 

Pathways

Family

God

Friends--and honestly the friend part is really lacking lately. Things are just busy.

I did get to see my daughter last week, so that was an awesome thing. I will post pictures another time. 

I got huge project done for school, just in time to do more.

I picked up some more clients for my work at Pathways, and that always takes time.

I'm getting ready for the Walk for Life benefit on Saturday.

Tomorrow I go to my church to help set up for my Pastors re-do wedding. Him and his wife got married in July in Georgia and are going to have a redo on Saturday.

I'm going to the wedding on Saturday.

Sunday is church and then finishing up any school work I have.

So, all that to say ....my life is busy.  I need to make more time for the things that matter, so if I'm on a little less then usual that is why. Not that this blog doesn't matter, it does. However, priorities need to be reset and relationships reevaluated. Keep checking back, I promise not to be too long between posting. If you follow me on Twitter, you will always know when I post because I always Tweet it. 

How about you? Are there things in your life that you need to readjust? Priorities that need to be changed? Relationships that need to be reevaluated? 

Scenery

It is going to be a busy week for me, so I thought I would share some pictures that my daughter took last week. I will try to get on later this week to add more and perhaps post a little.