Make-up for missing music video Mondays

I know this doesn't replace the many Mondays I have missed, but the boys bought this CD for me for Mother's Day and they ADORE this song, so it's been playing in the car over and over. I just discovered there's a music video for it.. Enjoy!

Corner View: Cityscape & new updates!

Okay, okay.. so I didn't actually make it into the city to take a photo. I cheated and took this pic from a Columbus Visitors guide magazine I had laying around. :) We rarely go into the city, with the exception of occasionally going to the North Market, the downtown library, or to a museum. We tend to stay in our own little suburb most of the time, and I'm not sure there are any high places here to climb besides dancing hare hill. You won't get a cityscape shot from up there though, just maybe some pics of newly developed housing communities.. ha. :)

I do have a few good excuses though. Since I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus, I thought I would take this time to share with some things that have been keeping me busy on my break, so you all don't think I've just been lazily floating around the pool sipping on a cool drink. (Although, that's what I would way rather be doing!)

Today I spent the day sorting through closets, dividing piles of clothes, bagging up outgrown fall and winter clothes to either sell to "Once Upon a Child" or give away. Organizing and Hanging up Spring and Summer clothes..



My next task after I finish writing this blog.. going through all the kids' toys and re-sorting them again for the millionth time..



I have also been very busy purging and packing.. because..

We are moving in a month! No, we didn't end up getting the Church house, instead we found someplace even more perfect for us! :) More details on that soon..



Our new town has some really good thrift shops close by which I am ecstatic about. I recently picked up a few things there for our new house.. (everything in this pic was around $3-5 or less.)





Along with some vintage-y luggage for our upcoming beach trip!



Whenever I am thrifting, I try to have an idea in mind of what I am specifically searching for so that I don't become overwhelmed or get off track. My inspiration for our new house comes from a page out of "Bazaare Style". A patchwork themed living room! I could honestly stare at and drool over this page for days..



This was one item that I didn't get from a thrift store, but I just had to share it with you anyway because it is my beloved Amy Butler fabric! I snagged it up at Marshall's, along with a cute Ralph Lauren bikini. Love their prices!



And I found this sweet bird necklace at Target for $10. :)



Finding awesome deals makes me so happy! We are looking forward to our family beach trip in a few weeks (my mom's Christmas gift to us:) and will be moving into our new house a few days after we return! It's going to be a crazy time! The boys have been enjoying the warm weather outside and are hoping to go swimming this weekend now that our community pool has opened. My oldest only has a few more days of school left and then we will finally be able to start focusing on homeschooling! We are looking forward to good changes hopefully coming soon. :)

I hope you all are doing well.. although I haven't been commenting as much, I still try to read your blogs as often as I can!

Much love and many blessings to you all.

XOXO, Erin

Corner View "Coffee"

This week's corner view is coffee. I have to say that I love coffee but it doesn't always love me. I recently quit drinking it for about 6 months as a result of struggling with insomnia and anxiety. For the past couple of weeks I have had it again, but in moderation.. I hope to quit entirely one day though. I buy Organic fair trade coffee and like mine with just a splash of almond milk. There are a couple of chain restaurants close by, including Starbucks and Caribou, but we try to support local business as much as possible and usually go to Firehouse coffee where the boys like to get smoothies and sometimes a sweet treat. Enjoy!

Morning coffee..



Firehouse coffee..



Caribou kid's corner..



And since I was sick last Wednesday, don't forget to check out last week's corner view "The Great Outdoors" below!

Corner View- last week's theme "The Great Outdoors"

Hi everyone! Yes, I'm a week's theme behind as a result of being sick last Wednesday. Thankfully I found out after being tested that I do not have swine flu. I do indeed have an upper respiratory infection and gastritis though, which I am taking medicine for now and seems to be helping. :) Thank you again for all your sweet healing wishes and prayers last week!

Living in the suburbs, most of our great outdoor time is spent either at parks or in the shared community green space off of our patio. We enjoy feeding our neighborhood birds, studying nature, and writing and drawing in nature notebooks..


View from our patio..



Mourning dove



Re-filling birdfeeders



Tiny baby bunny on our patio



Pine cone study



And drawing



Ant Hill



Nature Paintings

Grasshopper



And bird



Hide and seek



Relaxing in the grass..



Also, feel free to check out my older posts to see photos of some of the beautiful parks in our area. :)

Coffee post is up next!

Corner View..

Hey everyone. I've been sick the past few days with a flu bug and then started having severe neck problems again, so have been unable to move and barely get out of bed. J's been home with me, but had to go back to work today. I am going back to the chiropractor for more therapy this afternoon, so hopefully it will start helping. I was up most of the night in uncomfortable pain and am keeping A home from school today so I can try to rest a bit more. I was hoping to get out this past weekend to take pics for this week's Corner View, but was stuck inside with the flu. :( I thought about posting some older photos, but being on the computer right now longer than 5 minutes is making me queasy.. so instead I thought I'd wait until next Wednesday and do a double post, if that's okay? I look forward to sharing more with you then, and can hopefully catch up on all of your posts soon. :)

XOXO,

Erin

Happy mama bird Day!

Wishing you all a happy & blessed day filled with love!

Hugs and kisses,

Erin

Corner View- Shopping

Although I have decided to take a Holiday from blogging for awhile, I have decided to continue participating in Jane's Corner View each Wednesday.

Where I live now we are surrounded mostly by chain stores. Within 5 minutes from us you can find all the big name stores, Target, Old Navy, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. There is also a nice mall close by which I rarely visit now that our oldest is too big for the play area. Occasionally when the weather is pretty, we go to Easton Town Center to wander around my beloved Anthropologie store. :)

We love take weekend mini-road trips to quaint small towns nearby. I adore quirky antique filled towns where you can find one of a kind treasures. One of my favorite places to spend the afternoon is in Amish Country very close to where my husband and I both grew up. These particular photos were taken in Millersburg, OH. My favorite store there is 55 West & Co which sells a combination of antiques and funky home decor. There is also an awesome used bookstore, which sells lots of vintage childrens books. The next town over, Berlin, has an incredible flea market and many other darling little shops as well. There is also a sweet coffee shop, children's toy store that sells all natural wooden toys and playmobile, and a nice little health food store to pick up goodies for a picnic before heading back home..

Enjoy!

Changes Come

Hey everyone.. after re-reading the last blog I posted, I realized that what I was actually doing was mourning our house that is going through foreclosure. After a good cry I started to come back to my senses and started thinking about this new little house in the country and trying to understand where my fears are coming from. To give it a generic analogy, it's sorta like having your heart broken and then trying to start dating again after 6 months. The townhome we're in now was never meant to be long term. It was almost like a layover while we had more time to find someplace else. I started to lose hope though and gave into the idea of being stuck in an apartment in the burbs long term, even though my dream is to have a house in the country. For years I have been searching for an old converted church for us to live in.. I have had visions of wanting to start a community of faith within our home called "The Olive Tree Community". God has been pressing this on my heart more and more over the years and my dreams at night have become filled with images of War and destruction, of End times, of the coming of Christ as the old Earth passes away. I know something is going to happen soon.. there is a deep stirring inside my soul.

I am feeling called towards a mission and I am trying to pay attention to where God wants me. I know the direction in which I am going to homeschool now and everything seems to be falling into place finally. So, when I found this house it was such a surreal experience for me. As I finally calmed down, I began to think about the reality of it all. Two years from now we will more than likely have outgrown a 2 bdrm house anyhow. The boys will start wanting space of their own and.. well, we've been talking about the idea of having another one eventually, so living in that house long-term wouldn't make sense for us. I'm not sure now why I got so upset by the fact that we wouldn't be able to live there for the rest of our lives. I realize that nothing on Earth is permanent anyhow. That our dwellings here are only ever temporary, so we should just enjoy the place we are in during our time spent there. I know that I need to learn how to live in the moment and stop worrying about where I will be in a year or two from now. I find it difficult to let go of the control freak in me and allow God to guide me. I am a highly sensitive individual and often overly emotional. I also tend to be an open book and once you are invited into my life, I don't hold back. I worry though after my last few posts that others may see me as a bit unstable and maybe I am sharing a little too much of myself. I have tried to distribute my life in short spurts and stories, but the life I have lived is hard to portion out. Once I delve back into it, it's difficult to stop sharing..

What I'm trying to say though, is that I've starting to feel a bit vulnerable and insecure about my writing and I think maybe it would be a good idea for me to take a break for awhile and re-evaluate some things. To me.. my blog is an online rendition of how I envisioned our home church to be. A place where everyone is welcome to come as they are.. to sit around a table, break bread together.. laugh, pray, share stories, hopes, and dreams together. At times though I feel as though I should find an area to focus on.. parenting, religion, homeschooling, food.. but I realize that I can not talk about one of those things without including all the others, therefore I often feel out of place as though I'm not sure where exactly I belong. I feel as though I am entering a new Season in my life right now and I just need some time to transition. I hope you all understand and I promise that I will be back soon. :)

Much love and many blessings to you all,

Erin

I'm going to leave you for now with an OTR video..

Music video Monday

Well, I knew there was a reason for holding back in my blog last night about the sweet church house for rent in the perfect area. Some things really are just too good to be true. We found out today that the owners are only wanting to rent it out for a year or two at the most, and then move back into it themselves. No way are we EVER putting ourselves in that position again! I am upset with myself for having already emotionally moved us into it in my mind and heart. And I regret now taking the children there, for they have not stopped talking about the place all morning and were so excited. I wish I had not gotten their hopes up before finding out the details. It just seemed like the perfect place to homeschool our children and I so clearly envisioned us living there. I guess it is not what God wants for us though. Part of me wishes now that I had not even seen it to begin with, because I finally discovered what is is that I want, only just as quickly to have it taken away. My sad hear is aching and I know we could still move into it, but I think the heartache would only be that much more when we would eventually be forced out of our home again. My heart is still healing from the loss of our other house.. I don't think we have it in us to go through a similar experience again. I guess at least this time we know ahead of time, so we can protect ourselves from what's to come. I have to trust that God sees my heart and knows my desires.. and that one day they will be fulfilled. It's just not the right time yet and maybe there is someplace else even more perfect out there for us.. although, at the moment I can't imagine it to be possible. Sigh..



For this Monday's video I am sharing with you a song that speaks to me on a very personal level that I am usually extremely hesitant to share. When I was 20 (11 yrs ago already) my body became so broken down from all the negative destruction I had allowed into it that I was suffering from severe mental and physical illness and anxiety. I couldn't get out of bed and thought surely I would die. It is then that I broke down and asked God for help. I moved home to stay with my mom for awhile and went through a spiritual deliverance. And yes, by that I mean.. an exorcism. Before you start envisioning spinning heads or whatever you have seen in the movies, this was very much real. I only remember bits and pieces of it, as I was in and out of consciousness.. but afterward I slept for what seemed like days and awoke to a completely miraculous healing and cleansing. My life has not been the same ever since.

"When I was a young girl" -Feist

The city mouse and the country house

Oh my, this weekend has been a crazy busy one. The sun tried to sneak out for a bit, but the rain from this past week left behind cooler temperatures and lots of puddles for jumping in!



Saturday morning we drove 2 hours to our tiny hometown to attend A's friend's birthday party. I had not been back there for awhile.. maybe only once since we've moved. It's always strange entering the town.. the familiar rush of memories seem to hit me all at once in a great flood. We made our way to my mom's to pick her up, ate the quick lunch I had packed, and then headed out to the party. The kids had fun playing and I spent some time talking to a few old classmates from school that I had not seen in years. It was good seeing some familiar faces again. Everyone seemed the same, only older. Nothing much seems to change. Time passes, people get married and have babies.. everyone lives within a mile of family. We all feel tired and old.



The kids on the other hand, were hyped up on green frosting and ice cream.



(And yes, that's my little mouse with the short hair and green teeth on the right. He decided he wanted it all cut off and I nearly cried. He has also told me that he is dying it blond when he turns 10.. thankfully, he still has a few years to hopefully change his mind.)



I couldn't get myself to go to our old house before heading back home. I knew the grass would be overgrown and I worried the house would look at me with it's sad window eyes, wondering what it had done that caused us to abandon it. Instead, J gave my mom the garage key and asked her to get the rest of our stuff out for us. The drive home seemed to take forever. We listened to "A Wrinkle in Time" on CD. At one point A said, "I am getting really grumpy and have to get out of this car now or I am going to throw up." I have no idea how we're going to make it to South Carolina and back next month.

I was happy when we finally made it to our exit, but a sadness was still lingering in me. I know that it's partly the loss of our house, but it's also the feeling I have of being torn between two places. I know that I don't belong back there anymore.. not quite sure I ever did. I spent most of my High School career trying to find a way out as quickly as possible. I also know that the commute was killing J, and our relationship. Yet, while living there again for a brief time, I found myself embracing my roots again.. finding a peace and a love for a slower moving lifestyle, open spaces, and tightly knit community. Occasionally here we drive into the city to go to the North Market or the downtown library. The traffic and people make my head spin. I remember a time when I loved the buzz and excitement of it all, but now I can only handle it in small doses or else I become dizzy and claustrophobic. And yet, I do love having museums and activities and food shopping options close by. The suburb in which we have chose to live is all fine and dandy. The lawns are neatly manicured, there are pretty parks and chain stores galore. But, oh what a bore! One afternoon I had some extra time before I had to be at school to pick A up, so E and I drove around the cul-de-sac in which his school resides and let me tell you, I had a serious "Weeds" moment.



Now, I don't mean any harm or disrespect towards suburbanites (especially since I am one), but I'm just not that into Beige! I prefer a little variety. So, after a night filled with intense dreams, I awoke with a start this morning.. and a mission. But first, to church we went.. and I should probably let you know that since my "Standing up" moment in the mega-church, we have started going someplace else the past few weeks. Let me just say for now that when Worship is so loud that you can't hear God anymore.. it's time to go someplace a bit quieter, so you can pay better attention to what He's trying to tell you.

This morning I felt He was telling me that balance does exist. You really can have the best of both worlds. So, after lunch, I packed everyone (grudgingly) into the car for an old fashioned Sunday country drive around the outskirts of the city and even further past the burbs.. and finally, finally.. there it was patiently sitting and waiting for me.

So, of course I had to pull over, jump out of the car and take photos. And this sweet little garden path beckoned me to follow it into the backyard..



..which just happened to have a lovely deck and a large picture window that yearned for me to take a peek into it. Oh those sad eyes, I thought to myself thinking of my abandoned house.. (while I now continued to look deep into the eyes of another overgrown empty soul just waiting to be filled by a loving family.) By this point I was nearly in tears and rushed back to the car to gather up the rest of my family, who, after seeing the look in my own eyes, didn't hesitate to join me.

We had a brief encounter in the car with a tick, and while my boys freaked out in the backseat (sheesh.. city kids!) my mind wandered away with thoughts of how I would make it into a sweet little nest of our own.

Now, I'm sure you would love to see more photos but I'm feeling a bit protective and vulnerable at the moment and not quite sure I want to get my hopes up just yet, so I'm keeping this one to myself for awhile. ;)

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well! I am hoping to find time during the evenings this week to catch up all your posts. I apologize for getting a bit behind on my reading. Thank you for all of your warm and honest feedback in response to my last blog. I am so blessed to have found such amazing support here and your words are so encouraging to me. Also, thank you sweet Anna Kiss for nominating me for an award. :) Much love to you all!

Featured film friday

It has rained here the entire week.. although, it looks as though the sun is trying to peek out this morning. I have not been feeling well and the boys have been behaving like Wild Things trapped inside the house with a grumpy mama. I understand how they feel.. after a gorgeous sunny weekend we finally got a taste of warm weather and freedom, and then this week were stuck back inside again. Yesterday I had a bad headache and horrible cramps and the kids were just laying around whining and not cleaning up after themselves or doing anything that I asked of them. That combined with other stress I've been dealing with recently, I finally reached my frustration limit and had a meltdown. I sat in bed and cried and cried unable to get dressed and then decided to keep A home from school so I could try to rest. I canceled plans with a friend I had that evening and took a nap as soon as the panda got home from work then took a really long bath and went back to bed again.

I was telling my friend that I feel as though I live in a frat house with guys who do nothing but eat, complain, fight with each other, and make messes. It seems like all I do is nag all the time.. so, I'm wondering if any of you have any suggestions on how to get kids to help out around the house more? I have thought about doing a chore chart that they can mark off. Is 6 and 3 (they will be 7 and 4 this summer) too young to start chore allowances? I could really use some help and advice in this area! Thanks. :)

Although, I'm still not feeling well and was up with cramps most of the night.. I'm going to try to take the kids to my friend Alana's house this afternoon so they can play with her kids. They have been begging to go and I don't think I can take another day of being stuck in this house together, so I'm going to try to tough it out. Tomorrow morning we're going back to our hometown for the afternoon to go to a birthday party of A's best friend from his old school and also try to get the rest of our stuff out of the garage at our house before the bank takes it.. if they haven't already. I haven't been back there for awhile and am a bit worried about the emotions it might stir up. It's a difficult thing losing your first home. Although we didn't live there for a long time, and I had a love/hate relationship towards it, it was still our first house and is filled with many memories. I've been trying to move on and make our apartment feel like home. I am thankful for the few good friends I have here, but I have been missing my family lately. I know we made the best decision moving back to the city again (not that we had much of a choice) and that I just need to put my faith in God to help get us through this difficult time.

Most days I am brave and am able to focus on the present, but yesterday just became more than I could handle and I broke down. I guess I'm wondering.. am I alone in this? I read other women's blogs and they seem to have it so together all the time. I am envious of the organized crafts, meal plans, fun outings, and seemingly well-behaved, helpful and polite children. Sometimes I wonder.. what am I doing wrong?? Yes, sometimes my own children can be sweet.. but most of the time they are such Wild Things!

I had a dream last night that I was pregnant and we had an ultrasound done. The doctor gave us these large x-ray photos of the baby. We saw that we were having a boy and decided to name him Elijah. In one of the photos he was wearing one of E's favorite hats. :) It doesn't surprise me that I had this dream because I have had babies on the mind lately! I woke up thinking about how much I want another one, but then stopped and remembered the day I had yesterday. Could I handle having another boy in the house?? My oldest badly wants more younger brother and sisters (3 more boys and 5 girls to be exact) He wants our homeschooling class to be filled with siblings. I think he's been watching too much TLC lately.. ha!

Anyway, I don't even know where I'm going with this post.. just felt the need to vent, I guess. Also, I want to share with you a movie preview that I am very excited about! The book that it's based on is one of my favorites, and I appreciate it even more now that I have boys. If the song in the background sounds familiar, it's one of my favorite bands that you just heard on music video Monday and it's also on my playlist. I was really happy to hear this song featured in the film, and feel that it fits in well.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and please.. I am open to any suggestions you may have! Thanks. :)