The Beginning of Some Good Things

I haven't been so great about taking pictures since we got back from visiting some friends in Ohio, but a lot has happened recently.

We decided earlier this summer to sign the girls up for Calvert's virtual charter school. We now have the curriculum for both girls. Blessing #1 is already started with reading and math. Blessing #2 with math and phonics. So far they both seem to like what they are doing. Hopefully that rings true, when we actually start school, next month. (Which is just over a week away!) Blessing #3 has been playing his Rev Up for ... games. There is one for reading, writing, and numbers. He is enjoying them and hopes to be reading by the end of kindergarten. He is 5 right now, but turns 6 about halfway through the year.

Our animals are doing well. Mama Turkey, who hatched her own clutch, has been spending more and more time near the barn along with her babies. This is great for us. I haven't harvested our wild grapes and don't know if I will, though I should. Most of them are on higher parts of the pasture fence, and I'm just not going to use a ladder anytime soon. Maybe next year. I'm still not fully bounced back from the fall earlier this summer.

We had a small thunderstorm the other evening and one of the heavier branches of our peach tree split off. We decided to go ahead and salvage whatever peaches we could and hope for the best. Blessing #1 has requested peach jelly. My husband is hoping to get canned peaches. I think some frozen peaches, to be used for cobbler and smoothies, would be good. So we will see! I haven't walked the back part of our land lately, so I don't know what is going on there. However, I have been able to harvest some peas and beans from my garden. My pumpkins keep having their flowers eaten off, but our watermelons just might produce something. We do have a random squash plant, possibly a few, growing from one of the spots we had a compost pile. We're looking forward to discovering what grows from that.

I also decided to start my own Mary Kay business and am very excited about that. It is already proving to be a growing gift in my life and an opportunity to really connect with other women. There is a saying out there that "You become like the 5 people you spend the most time with." For me, that would be my children. This isn't a terrible thing at all, at least not to me, but the older I get the more I realize how important "girlfriends" truly are. Especially ones who will pray with and for you, seek God, and share Him with you. I hope to be that for my clients. Someone who really loves them and cares for them, as a sister. Someone they can call up when they have a prayer request or praise. I want to help women know and remember that all of us ladies are God's princess and to Him we are valuable.