Hi! Hello! Happy Friday! While things in my world are normal, I know there are millions of people in the path of Hurricane Florence and I’m thinking of them today. This week I shared our tips for keeping our kids safe while traveling in foreign countries. I’m serious about hearing from others who have tips to share on this topic. Especially as my kids get older I know our needs will change and it is a good discussion to have. I also shared a recent pet project of mine – a dresser makeover. I really love how it turned out and it didn’t give me nearly as much trouble as…

Hello, hello. Thank you for thinking of me my kiddos this week. They are such troopers and roll really well with change – or as well as can be expected. It’s been a learning curve, especially on the middle school front, but they had a fantastic week. My son would probably say I’m overselling it with the ‘fantastic’ word, but he’s 8 and school isn’t his favorite thing in the world. On the first day of school I predictably asked him, “How did it go? How was your day?” And he replied, “Great!” Then he followed it up by saying, “My teacher said you were going to ask that and to…

Last day of August? I thought it was never going to get here and then it came in a flash! Funny how that works. I’m not ready for summer to be over, but I am ready for fall to start. That sentence made zero sense. My brain is a confusing place. This week I shared one of the reasons why I want summer to stay: summer excursions to explore our new part of the country! This one was to West Point Military Academy. Honestly, it was a very cool place and the proverbial Kool-aid they serve there is delicious. Then on Wednesday I made an exciting announcement about my new…

I don’t want to jinx it, but I have to say it feels glorious to go an entire seven days with no website glitches! Living the dream over here, folks. Living the dream. I really hope I didn’t just jinx it. This week I wrote about my chair makeover with fabric tape and a few books my kids and I read this summer. Even if you aren’t into reading children’s books, I pulled out some inspirational quotes from a few of the books that are sure to give your soul a boost. You know what else might give your soul a boost? The Happy List. (Did I oversell it? Just…

I learned something very important about myself this week. We have been dealing with a series of escalating website issues for quite awhile now and it all came to a head earlier this week. The website was having memory issues, which we originally attributed to sharing our server with the kids’ Minecraft server. That didn’t help the problem, but it wasn’t the root of the problem. The root of the problem was that we were under a systematic DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack by a hacker(s). It’s a malicious attempt to overwhelm your server to either slow your website down so much that it might as well be offline…

Hey, hey! Funny how we all keep showing up back here. I know it’s a bright spot in my day! I hope it is in yours too. On Monday I shared pictures of our backyard and the $16 bright orange accessory that’s rocking my summer! Who knew I would love the color orange so much? Then (imagine me throwing confetti here) on Wednesday I told you how I finally completed a project! I managed to not lose two tiny keys during an international move and I found a place to hang them. One project down. 5 million more to go. Totally doable. Totally. Also, big thanks to Handy Husband for…

I’m baaack at it! Did you miss me last week while I was bumming around? Now is the appropriate time to nod encouragingly. Yes, just like that. I missed hanging out here too! I hope you liked my trip report of Great Falls and the Paterson Museum. How about my new dining table? Anyone else have a project that just doesn’t go according to plan? If you want to see an outtake (or is blooper a better word?) from the dining table photoshoot, head on over to my Facebook page. I think the photo demonstrates just how glamorous my life really is. The Happy List is where I toss all…

Folks. This is the first time I’ve ever said this and I’m sure I’ll be over it in a flash, but I am SICK of Amazon this week. The internet madness would not stop. In fairness, I might have been more into Prime Day if the things I’d actually wanted went on sale. Therefore, this week I wrote about going to the DMV and eating fake pasta. It seemed like the right thing to do to maintain balance. After all, this blog is my happy place and nothing makes me happier than…staying on the right side of the law and eating good food. Here are some other things making me…

Summer feels like it is flying by, doesn’t it? Admittedly, my perception of how fast or slow summer is progressing changes based on how my kids are behaving at any given moment. Just keeping the emotional whiplash it real for you! Speaking of real, did you catch my latest makeover? It’s so cutting edge, I’m sure the home decor magazines will be pounding down my door. I think I wrote my last post about Ireland on Wednesday. Maybe. Probably. Don’t hold me to that. It was about all the random, practical tips for expats that I’d picked up during our time there. And continuing the randomness that defines this blog,…

Hello, hello! How was your 4th of July? Did you BBQ and watch fireworks? We had a good day celebrating the 4th by going to a parade. If you’ve been reading this blog for very long then you know that my crowd-avoiding self actually LOVES a parade. Go figure. If you missed it and haven’t already moved onto pumpkin spice everything, then I did share a burlap flag craft on Monday. On Wednesday I shared a different sort of flag – a memorial flag that I discovered on a hike. Now, I don’t usually start the Happy List with a warning, but Handy Husband’s opinion makes an appearance somewhere on…