I'm gonna let you in on a little secret... I'm not cool... Oh, wait, you already knew that didn't you? Here's the thing... I kinda like being uncool!

It's the "cool" mom who shops in the same clothing stores as her teenager. Not me... I wear my mom "uniform" which most days consists of khakis and a v-neck tee shirt...(99% of the time I don't even wear make-up.)

"Cool" parents buy their kids beer... Even though I am not opposed to the consumption of alcohol in moderation by adults, the hardest thing I will ever buy the teens who hang out here is coke. (When it's on sale... Otherwise it's lemonade from a mix!) I'm so uncool...

I'm not one of the "cool" bloggers... I don't always have something funny to say... My blog doesn't even seem to have a theme... (Other then excessive use of the ellipsis...) I am not a DIY blogger... Oh, I do lots of projects, but rarely remember to take before pictures... I am not a food blogger... I love to cook, but no to write about it... I don't have a fancy house I'm decorating so I'm not a decorating blogger... I love reading craft blogs, but really where do they find the time to do all this stuff? I just write whatever pops into my head... Is there a category for that?... wait, I know... "Uncool Blogger"... I don't have a cool custom design... Don't get me wrong, I want one, it's just not in the budget. I'm not gonna win a "bloggy" award or be asked to be a guest poster on someone else's blog...

I'm not even a very "cool" christian... I don't have and or want tattoos (not that I'm opposed to them, just not for me)... I didn't get rid of my TV because it's a "waste of time"... (Instead I use it to watch way too many sci-fi shows and hours of crab fishing...)  I don't play an instrument or anything that would tip me in the "cool" direction... A lot of the time I never know who people are talking about when they mention an author or musian... I don't win souls for the Lord everywhere I go or travel to exotic locations spreading his word... I wish I did, but my calling is smaller...

This isn't a big complaint... You see I LOVE my uncool life! I love that even though I am not the "cool" mom my girlies and all their friends want to hang out here... with me. They are always asking me to join them around the fire pit or to go places with them. I love blogging and I love you guys who read this and even hung with me during my absence... You are the best... (Seriously, I am raising my glass of generic, powdered lemonade "drink" in your honor!) I love being a Christian... I love the Lord and don't care who knows it, and even though I am pretty sure I won't be at the "cool table" in the cafeteria in heaven, at least I know I will be there and that's ok with me...

I do want to be cool... (except the beer thing... are those parents nuts???) but alas I don't think I will be anytime soon... It's ok... I'm cool with that!

Thank for listening,

You Should Try This...

A couple years ago the girlies and I came up with an idea...

We were at the Christian Book Store and came across all these cheap packs of bookmarks on the clearance rack and bought them all on a whim...

Sparky had some library books in the car she needed to return and an idea was born... We tucked a bookmark in each one and prayed for the person who would find it.

We had such a good time doing this we started adding one to each library book we returned... After awhile we started writing "I prayed for you" on the back of each one. It turned out we were taking out more books then we could read just to return them, when we had a thought... We don't need to take the book out to add a bookmark... We could just take a pack (of 25) into the library and tuck them into random books... In fact we liked this better because it reached more then just our personal reading interest.

We loved doing this and kept doing it after we moved to Maine... We went through our supply pretty quickly so we just started ordering them from CBD... You can get them for about 2.99 a pack and pick which ever ones appeal to you...

Fast forward to today... I was chatting with an acquaintance from church when she saw the baggie of bookmarks in my purse so she told me about her neighbor... She had been witnessing to her for two years when she got a call this past weekend... Her neighbor decided to say, "God, if you are real, prove it to me." About ten minutes later she opened her library book and found this...

She called her neighbor up crying and they prayed together for her salvation that afternoon...

Even if I didn't live in a small town and had never heard this we'd still be doing this... It is so much fun!

Seriously, think about trying this!

(All the photos in this post are from the CBD website.)

Thanks for listening,

Nearly Wordless Wed... err... Thursday...

Note to self... Stop procrastinating...

Tomorrow...

Anyhow...

Last time we were on Islesboro we stopped by one of the two stores to pick up lunch...

This is what I discovered in the store's only bathroom...

I don't know what was more alarming...

That the sink is "borken"

Or that the guy fixing my lunch washed his hands with generic baby wipes...

Yep... It's the second one!



Thanks for listening,

A very pretty EPIC FAIL....

Let me start this story with a little background... We have an old vehicle... We had a mini-van while in Tennessee that was less then reliable and were in the market for a new and/or newer car when one was given to us. (Actually two were given to us... but that is a story for a different day.) At the time I was really hoping for a new or close to new car and had a hard time being grateful for this gift, but if we had a car payment debt there would have been no way Paul could have quit his job. Meaning there would have been no way we could have moved here to take care of my parents... I have come to see this a blessing and most of the time I don't even miss the new vehicle that almost was... That being said, we still have an old vehicle... Meaning we are limited in the distance we can travel. (And apparently where we can travel but I am getting ahead of myself...)

Here in Maine nearly every naturally pretty spot has been made a National or State park... Which means that even though our tax dollars support it, we still have to pay to visit it. Last year we paid the $35 for the season pass and used it twice. It only costs $2-$5 per person to get into most of the parks and the ones we were going to cost $3 meaning this pass was a loss of $11 for us. Needless to say we opted not to buy one this year. So being the obvious cheapskates that we are when we heard all the State Parks were free to residents on Father's Day we planned an outing.

To here...

This is right up the road.... Just a few mile from us, but it makes for a nice day trip... Why'd we choose this park when there are 33 others to choose from and this one is only like 5 miles down the road? Because it has a mountain in it... It is right by the ocean, with a mountain that has a car road to the top. Can anyone say "scenic picnic spot?"... Sparky hadn't been up Mt. Battie since she was six and since Cate was working that afternoon it seemed like a good spot to spend an hour or so eating some sandwiches and taking the obligatory photos...

and it would have been...

See how pretty...

There is a cute little stone tower to climb...

and just around the bend you can pay .25 to use one of these things...

I don't know why we ALWAYS do, but they just seem like such retro fun...

and heck... What else does a quarter buy these days...

Unfortunately our older vehicle did not enjoy the drive up the mountain as much as we did...

That may have been the understatement of the year... It overheated on the way up... Paul wasn't worried as we were planning to have lunch up there... Plenty of time for it to cool down, right? That would be wrong... It did cool, a lot, but after an hour and half up there (just about the maximum time looking at the views is fun)  it wouldn't start. We waited about 45 minutes more (wishing we had any reading material at all) and tried again... Nope, nothing. Paul called a friend to come help, (thankfully it was "free" day.) and he came right away (if an hour is right away)... In his (seats two) pick-up... And took Paul with him to get the hose/gasket/engine/muffler/thing-a-ma-jig he needed... (I have no idea what he needed...) Unfortunately it is now after 4 PM, in Maine, on a Sunday... A holiday Sunday... If this part needed is not available at the itty-bitty Walmart we have around here we are pretty much done for...

 We were done for...

But we did not know this before Sparky and I waited up there another long hour... Thankfully my parents bought us AAA for Christmas, because we were going to need a tow truck... Paul and our friend thoughtfully drove all the way back up the mountain to inform us of this need and to get me to call... (Really... You couldn't have handled this Paul... Do you have any idea how long it is going to take to get a tow truck, on a Sunday, a holiday Sunday, in Maine to drive to the top of a mountain???) I now do... Yeppers... About an hour shorter then it takes the second tow truck to get there when the first tow truck on breaks down half way up the mountain... (By the way, the mountain road is now closed... because it is after dark... The park rangers who cannot go home to their families yet until we leave the pitch dark, unlighted mountain road are loving us...) The second tow truck did the trick... And Sparky and I were rescued, saved, freed, liberated from our mountain incarceration driven home at long last just minutes before 9 PM... I don't know what lesson is to be learned by this... (Other then always have reading material/snacks/water bottles in the car.)... I don't think this is a "moral of the story" kinda event... Just an EPIC FAIL!

PS. The part we needed cost $12 and after Paul got it, it took him 20 minutes to fix our car...

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Thanks for listening,

Sprucing Up The Camp...

In Maine if you have a little cabin you go to you don't call it that you call it a "camp"... My parents have one on a little island off the coast called Islesboro...

(I told you guys about it last year... Chick HERE if you don't remember.)

It is for sale and it has been since last year, but even tough it got lots of hits it never got past people viewing it inside because like their home it was neglected and full of clutter. The four of us have spend a lot of time decluttering and cleaning... We have made a lot of progress hauling 22 contractor size trash bags of garbage and three truck loads of stuff for the Goodwill... We are ready to start staging in earnest, but I thought I'd show you the progress... Since I wasn't blogging when we started this project I didn't think to take "before" pictures, so you will have to imagine it with 22 (yes 22!) additional pieces of furniture...

Here is the "porch" where you enter...

It was always a quiet place to grab a nap or read...

But that sofa-bed is a torture device strait out of the middle-ages!

Here is the kitchen...

The door to the left goes to the porch...

(I picked up this little bistro set on clearance at Lowe's for $79.00...

Isn't it cute?)

There are no cabinets in the kitchen so they have this hutch...

Doesn't it just scream out for a coat of white paint (or 10 coats??)

I am planning to do this soon and when the camp sells I have the perfect spot for it here at home!

Here is the view down the hall...

To the left is the living room, strait ahead is the bedroom and to the right is the bathroom...

Let's look at the living room next...

(I've moved the microwave back to the kitchen... We were still cleaning when I took this shot.)

I just found a cute new area rug for this room at HomeGoods... I can't wait to see it in this room!

The wood stove surround is next on Paul's to do list...

He has spent the last two trips rebuilding the exterior steps so I guess I can't complain too much.

Here is the daybed where the girlies sleep... I had to throw away the pillow that were on it and am currently making new ones...

Here is the bedroom...

This room needs a lot of work still... There has been little other then decluttering/cleaning go on in here.

I would love to paint the entire interior of the whole camp white to give it a beach feel, but there is only so much time we can spend over there...

I'll take pictures as we finish projects... It isn't such a bad deal, sure we have a lot of work to do, but it is on my favorite island in the world... It is too nice over there for words to describe.

Thanks for listening,

Domicile Changes...

As you can imagine the past seven months have brought about big changes in the house too... I decided to take a break from people updates to share a couple with you. I don't know if I told you this or not but when we first arrived in Maine my parents house was neglected and full of clutter. The girlies and I worked around the clock when we first got here cleaning and decluttering... It is a process that is going on til this day. One of the major issues was seating in the living room. They had two recliners that were surrounded by stuff in which they lived their lives... My husband called it command centeral. Here, I'll show you...

I didn't really take any good pictures of the whole area but you get the idea.

The only other seating in the living room was one additional recliner (Like the one above) and a tiny love-seat... No, seriously a tiny love-seat...

Here, I took some pictures at Christmas time, have a look...

To give you an idea of scale that green pillow is only 7". Two of us could sit on here, but it was snug. One of the issues I discussed with my parents before I moved here was the lack of seating in the living room... Even with two of us on the love seat, there was still only room for three people to sit in this room besides the two of them... Oh, and at last head count there are four of us... Not good. Another problem is that they rarely leave the living room. They sit/doze in their chairs from 8:30 in the morning until about 3:00 AM... And the TV is on the whole time... The four of us were stuck spending most of our time on the bed in Paul's and my room. This got old fast and we were never able to have company over because first of all, where would they sit. Secondly with my parents front and center in the living room, when people did come over it was awkward to visit. We were all miserable... One of my gifts is hospitality... I love, love, love to have people over. We came up with a solution. Paul and I set up a make-shift bedroom for us in the basement and we moved their recliners (command central and all) into a "den" for them... Now they can sit there watching TV nineteen hours a day with clutter piled as high as they want it and we can all use the living room!

That brings us up to today... We got a new sofa about six weeks ago and I finally decided to change around some of the pictures... This is the before...

(excuse the computer and various other clutter...)

See that little shelf there? It had a bunch of nick-knacks on it that I had just taken down to dust for the 6000th time this summer when I decided enough is enough. We had decided two weeks ago that painting this room was going to have to wait until next spring. (Darn priority list...) So I decided to go ahead and change it up some. Paul thought this was a waste of time but I told him it would give me a chance to see if I like it this way or not... He walked off totally uninterested, but lucky for me there are always plenty of extra teens around here (being summer and all) and since I am the keeper of the food, I was able to do this tiny project without breaking a sweat. First we took down that little shelf that had been up there since my mother was into "home interiors" back in the 80s... Wanna see what happens to a wall when you leave a shelf in one spot for 30+ years?? Here, take a look...

Keeping it real folks...

Let me just pause here and thank whoever invented magic erasers...

(A moment of silence in their honor)

Anyhow... My parents have lots of art work laying around so I decided to keep one of the paintings and add one of a ship that they had in a closet...

Tell me what you think...

I think I like it...

Here is a close up of the paintings.

While we are in the living room I'll show you a couple other things I've done...

I am seriously in love with this John Waller song...

So I got out the ole cricut and added this...

I have also been changing out the stuff on top of the entertainment center seasonally...

Here was Christmas...

(here it is closer and no "minion")

(The clock, swan and striped candles are my mom's and she wants them to stay...

I'm working with them.)

I changed it up for Valentine's, St Patrick's, & Easter, but didn't take any pictures.

For summer I decided to go with a "sea-side" theme...

The sea glass and urchins are from a little shop in town. Other then the little star fish in the front one it is stuff the girlies have beach combed this year.

These lanterns are from Home Goods... The big white one was on clearance for $5.00 and the little blue one was only $1.00! The stuff in it cost me more then both lanterns!

Well, I guess that's enough for today... Two posts in one day...

I'm gonna wear you guys out!

(Hello... anyone still there?? I know this was a long post, but really, I have a lot of catching up to do!)

Thanks for listening,

The Cate Update...

Family update #2...
Our Cate has a ton going on too...

As I mentioned a couple days ago, she is going to college in the fall.

It is a super small Christian University here in Maine called Stauron University.

She is super excited and I am very proud.

She has spent the last year working hard and saving money and is ready for this next chapter...

She spends her spare time hiking, watching movies and of course hanging out with friends...

(Yes, that boy is wearing a kilt... At an amusement park... If you knew Dakota you'd understand!)

She is an amazing girl with a heart for the Lord and an eager willingness to serve others.

I can't wait to see what his plans are for her!

Mostly this year she has been spending as much time as possible with her best friend/sister...

She knows things will change when she leaves home...

Not that they won't still be close...

It will just be different, so she is enjoying this season with her sister...

I am glad I was here to witness it!

Thanks for listening,