Last night we had a girls haircut night here on the Homestead.

For quite a few years, I’ve been cutting hair. Not professionally, at all. Ha! But it all started when I was about… oh… 12 years old and my mom didn’t want me to have bangs.

I had been wearing my hair all one length for quite a few years. I don’t even know why she didn’t want me to have bangs because I had bangs when I was little? But she must of had her reasons.

Anywho, one day I went into the bathroom at about 12 years of age, or maybe 13, it doesn’t really matter. I decided to cut just the teensiest amount of bangs and then just wet them and smear them to my head so my mom would never know. I decided I could do this, then just brush the bangs down when I went off to school, then wet them and smear them back up on my head before I went home!  My mom would be happy, and I would be happy. And all would be well.

My memory is a little fuzzy, but I recall something about sitting around the dinner table one evening and suddenly a bit of my bangs fell down onto my forehead. I don’t think I noticed, but one of my three sisters did. I’m quite sure she exclaimed something about me having cut my bangs, and the rest was history.

I guess my mom realized then that I really DID want bangs, badly enough to cut them myself and try to hide it from her. Ha!

From there we had several transitions with the bangs.

Aren’t I brave to share highschool photos with you all?

If you knew me well, you’d know just how brave I’m being. I HATE photos of myself!

And that brings me to the “loving yourself” part of this post.

Julia always gets upset with me because I don’t like her snapping photos in my direction. Hee hee. She says she’s not going to have any memories of her Mommy.

I’m also really big on telling my girls they need to love themselves for who they are, not what they see others looking like, etc., you know the drill.

I think I’m sending mixed messages to my daughters.

I have four of them, so it’s really important to me that I get this right.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite. How would THAT be for credibility?!

So that means I’ve been having to learn how to “love myself”, JUST AS I AM. *gulp*

I can’t tell my girls to love themselves, then hate the way I look.

I always blame it on being overweight. That I don’t FEEL like myself, that I don’t LOOK like myself, so I hate pictures of myself, this way.

However, I’ve been saying that for 10 years now and I’m not any closer to looking like “myself” now, then I was 10 years ago. So I guess either my children will go the rest of their lives without photos of their mama, or I need to just get over myself.

Some how, I think it’s best I just get over myself.

Last night I cut Julia, Shaylah, and my hair. Joshua (son) recently got an iphone and had snapped several photos of me. In every photo, to me, I looked like some balding old lady! I’ve been wearing a ‘side swept’ bang for quite some time now. I thought it looked ok! Until I saw myself in all these photos with my forehead bulging through the ‘side swept’ parting. *gasp!*

I decided I need “real” bangs again. No more side sweeping! So it was time for hair cuts! I had been promising the girls for days already.

Shaylah, always had VERY fine hair. It seems it’s suddenly decided to thicken up! It’s amazing really, it’s like she has 3times the hair now! Just since I last trimmed it. She wanted a slightly more ‘choppy’ hair do, but didn’t want me to cut any of the length. I convinced her that trimming it would be best to take off the scraggy ends but that I’d only take off an inch or so, then slightly layer/chop the bottom. She was happy with that.

Julia didn’t want much done except to trim the bottom up a bit. She seems to be developing some wave to her hair.

And finally, my own hair cut.

(that’s a Linnea top by the way, just incase you were wondering…)

I was REALLY brave this morning. I don’t know what ever possessed me. I’m not even wearing makeup, yet I dared to snap photos of my hair cut!

It’s very hard to snap a good photo of yourself with a heavy camera, in the mirror, and it’s very tempting to just shove that camera right in front of my face and leave it there. hee hee

But I guess since I’m going to be meeting some of you in person soon (Vancouver Island get together)  I will continue to just ‘get over myself’ and be brave.

Although, when we meet up, I’ll try to wear some make up.

Wouldn’t want to scare anyone away!

(JUST KIDDING! I’m working on it, I WILL learn to love myself!) 

Ever notice that when you say some things out loud, you are immediately “put to the test”?

That’s how I feel about yesterday’s blog post. Today, we’re being “put to the test”.

Last week we had a very promising house showing. The ‘buyer’ was VERY interested. Just LOVED the property. Thought about all the things she could do to not just live here, but use the property to it’s fullest potential to bring in income to help with the mortgage as well.

Our property is not just our home, we also have the studio which is actually a ‘suite’ above a separate workshop.

Then we also have a building lot, with septic, electricity, etc. right here as well.

Plus we’re zoned for two homes, two ‘accessory’ buildings.

It all adds up to lots of potential for income. Bed and Breakfast, rental suite, put a rental home onto the building site, etc. etc. etc..

The list goes on with the possibilities.

However, yesterday we received a text from the realtor letting us know this single, newly divorced, prospective ‘buyer’ LOVES the property still, however she finds the home too small.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had this feedback.

From single people.

It’s not difficult to do the math. We are a family of seven.

We live here. We’ve been living here for almost 6 years.

Yes, it’s been tight, and we’ve had to be creative, but we’ve done it because we always wanted land and this was the only land we could afford. A small house on five acres.

Someone said to me a while back that they couldn’t understand why we hadn’t put an addition on the house instead of putting our money into fixing up the studio/workshop.

Well that’s simple. The previous buyer left the property with an open permit which needed to be completed. So that meant any and all excess funds HAD to go to fixing up the cabin and closing that permit.

It’s not like we “enjoy” living in 1200 square feet and putting our money into a studio rather then an addition.

An addition would have been grand.

But, we couldn’t, we still can’t. So we’ve worked with what we have and made the best of it.

It seems though, that we are fairly alone in being willing to make the best of it.

We’ve priced our property as the lowest in our market, because we know the house is small.

Yet a property with just a house, and land, sold for almost 200,000.00 more the other week.

I don’t understand why people can’t do the math? Add an addition for under 100,000.00 to THIS property and you have 5 acres with a larger home AND the building site AND the studio/workshop?

To me, the math is simple.

I must be simple minded.

I guess we need a simple minded buyer.

The best though, is when it’s a single person, or just a couple, who say they are looking for the ‘simple life’. They say they want to ‘downsize’ because they are tired of cleaning a big house. Then they come here, LOVE the property, LOVE all the land, LOVE the money making potential…

and then say the house is too small.

What was that about downsizing??

So once again, we are put to the test. Our most potential buyer thinks the house is too small.
It’s very frustrating, to say the least.

I said yesterday that we won’t give up.

I wasn’t kidding.

As peeved off as I’d like to be right now, as much as I’d love to just throw my hands up in the air and say “FINE!!” and give up…

I AM NOT GOING TO! 

And once again, my family prooves to me that they are not going to either!

We can be the type of people who retreat to themselves when we’re upset. Go our own way. However, this time, we didn’t.

Today, my husband took ELSA to work with him! I’m so proud. 🙂 She’s not the easiest child to take to spend the day with, to WORK with, especially if you’re already feeling frustrated, yet he brought her along today.

SO PROUD.

We’re going to make it. I know we are.

Shaylah and Julia are waiting for me in the sewing studio, cutting out more mitts and cotton balls. As much as THEY would love to just throw THEIR hands up in frustration and say “Enough of this!”, instead, they decided they would spend their time working with their mama today. Such good girls.

So as I said yesterday, we may be frustrated, we may be tired of waiting, and waiting, and waiting, but we’re NOT giving up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

*As a side note, some have asked if I could put the mls number up for our property, for extra advertising.
Sorry, but I can’t do that. I am very open here on the blog, probably too much so at times, but I can’t put our address out there for anyone and everyone to see. I have to draw the line on doing that. If we didn’t live here while trying to sell, that’d be different. 🙂

This Mother’s Day, more then ever before, I was faced with just how truly blessed I really am.

Flowers from Joshua for Mother’s Day

How blessed I am because our family is very close knit.

This hasn’t come easy though. Our family was not just ‘born this way’.

We’ve had to work at it.

We’ve had to work VERY HARD at it, through blood, sweat and tears.

A lot of people may wonder why we keep going after this dream of ours, after so many years of work, fixing up our hobby farm, and now trying to sell it, just to sit here and wait, and wait, and wait, over and over and OVER again.

So why?

Why do we continue to do it, to wait, and hope, and keep working towards this dream?

Flowers from Shaylah for Mother’s Day

Because we’ve had to work HARD at it, through blood, sweat and tears.

It’s BECAUSE of the hard work, the blood, sweat and tears, that our family is so close, so strong.

Some may think we’re foolish, naive, to carry on like this, waiting, over and over again.

However, they don’t see.

They don’t see the strength, the love, and the bonds that have been created through this journey. This journey that our family has chosen to take, TOGETHER.

And isn’t that really what life is really all about?

Even if we never see our dreams, our goals, come to fruition.

Even if we never step foot on our ‘dreamland’ as our own land, we have accomplished SO MUCH MORE then so many could ever hope for.

When, and why, did life become about being ‘easy’ anyways? 

My husband and I, we started out as two people, searching for a better life over twenty years ago.

I was 19, he was 24. We were young, but ready to take on the world.

We started out with nothing, but each other, and our hopes and dreams.

Our first 6 or 7 years of marriage were ROUGH.

VERY rough.

We were NOT close.

But, we were determined. We remain determined!

And for that reason, and that reason alone, even though on this very day I really feel like giving up and saying “screw it all, it’d be so much easier to just give up after all this TIME and waiting!”

I won’t do it.

I will continue.

Our family will continue.

We won’t give up!

We’ll continue down this path, together!

Because in the end, it will all be worth it.

Even if we don’t reach our goals, our dream of a ‘real’ farm, we have reached an even better goal.

The ultimate goal of a REAL family.

Today is Mother’s Day, and thanks to a couple of my dear children, I have lots of silliness to share!

First, I’d like to share the ‘not so silly’ cards created for me by the twins, Shaylah and Julia.

Julia complained that she had to have Shaylah help her draw the tulip on the card she made me, but as I pointed out to her, everyone can’t be perfect at everything, and Julia can write the most beautiful, heartfelt and heart warming, words.

It says:

every day when I look at you I can’t believe that I can have you as my mom. You are pretty as the prettyist tulip in the whole world. 
I love you very much mommy. 

Shaylah also has a way with words, she made me two cards.
The first one said:

 My Dear sweet mother I hope your day 
Is filled with Love and laughter smiles and happiness!!

I Love you mom 

From: Shaylah
Thank you mom for every thing <3 Love ya 
I know that I don’t act like I do but I do love you

She’s wrong. She does act like she loves me, she just has to work on her grumpies and complaining.

But then, couldn’t we all?

Now, onto the SILLY stuff!

And boy, do we have silly today!

Elsa, as I’ve shared in the past, can not avoid speaking the truth in anything and everything. Her truth is very ‘candid’. Some people might find some of her words ungrace-ful, and at times, hurtful, but really, you simply have to know Elsa, and I suppose some understanding of Aspergers helps as well. Her truth is not gray, it is black and white. EVERYTHING is black and white. Everything just is as it is, and it is as SHE perceives it. She doesn’t intend for it to be hurtful, she just intends it to be what it is!

Because of her learning ‘issues’, Elsa is behind in some areas. Reading and Writing are two of those areas. Everything else she fares out pretty good and even excels at math etc., but reading and writing she just doesn’t care much for and it’s a constant struggle for her.

So, when I opened Elsa’s card today and saw that she had written me not just a quick “Happy Mother’s Day!” but taken the time to put THOUGHT into her card, and quite a few WORDS, I was VERY impressed indeed!

This was BIG.

Here is the inside of Elsa’s card to me this Mother’s Day.

Just in case you can’t read the card, I shall type it out for you, and I’ll fix her spelling mistakes too.

To Mommy

Mom The kisses you give to me and your hugs you give to me is good and sometimes all of it makes me want to puke!

Love Elsa

Yep! That’s my Elsa.

Here on the homestead, we try very hard to let our kids grow up being THEMSELVES. That can be a constant struggle as a parent, trying hard not to ‘squash’ their uniqueness while trying to raise them to be good and honorable!

Some how, I think we’ve succeeded in letting Elsa truly be Elsa.

Ha!

There was a fairly good uproar of laughter at the breakfast table. I told Joshua that she may just have out done his Mother’s Day card.

I hope you all have a great sense of humor, I found it very funny.

Gross, but funny.

My beautiful Mother’s Day card from my one and only son.

To make it a little more ‘family’ friendly, I added a flower sticker. Hee hee.

And, the inside. The outside would be nothing without the inside.

I bet you thought I had the most perfectly behaved and respectable kids on the planet, didn’t you?

Well I do really, but they all have a great sense of humor too!

Saturday Six.

Six things, each Saturday, that I am glad for. It’s good to ponder on those things we’re thankful for in our lives. This Saturday I ponder  “Mother’s Day“.

M is for MY Mother. Here she is with Julia this past Christmas. I love this photo!

O is for my other mother, my mother in law. She always takes time to send cards to the kids (and us!) for EVERY occasion!

T is for Teagan. Even though my kids are growing up, he’s staying ‘baby’ size, just the way I like it!

H is for Husband. I’m so thankful for mine!

E is for Elsa, Elisabeth Grace is her full name.
She is my most difficult child, and I could complain about that, but instead, I embrace it. Why? Because SHE truly defines me as a mother. If I do well with her, I can be proud of my mothering. When I fail her, I fail as a mother. She has opened my eyes to so many of my faults at times it causes me to just about crumble. When I embrace it though, it causes me to be strong. I want to be strong, SHE does that for me.

R is for reality.
No matter how much I dream, how much I desire out of this life of mine, the reality is that my life is now. Today.
Whatever today is, is whatever I make of it.
The reality is, I’m ok with that. I like my life.

No, I love my life.

For that, I am very thankful!

*If you’d like to play alone, post six things that you are thankful for on  your blog then leave a link for all of us to come visit!

When I was younger, I actually had the spare time to do things such as painting.

I loved watercolors best. I still have many of my old watercolor paintings, tucked away in my large art folder. I pull them out every few years and show the kids.

I always dreamed of a day that I could paint beautiful landscapes that I would see with my own eyes first, then turn into paintings.

Now I have the beautiful landscapes I’ve seen with my own two eyes in person,

but no spare time to paint!

So I snap photos instead,

BUT, I dare not complain about having no time to paint!

It’s only due to my life being so full of other kinds of landscape photos instead,

those filled not just with the beauty of the surroundings,

but the beauty of those I love as well!

I recently watched a few episodes of “real housewives”.

I’ve seen about 5 episodes of the New York housewives, and 1 of the Orange County and I believe 1 or 2 of a couple of others. I honestly can’t keep up with them all, so I’m not sure exactly WHICH ones I’ve seen. I’m just not all that into tv except after I’ve gone to bed and want to wind down before closing my eyes.

After watching some of these episodes, I’m amazed.

Seriously.

However, not by the show, but that these shows are such huge hits!

Is this really what our society WANTS to spend their free time watching?

Free time is SO scarce in the busy busy lives we live! I guess I’m just really surprised!

Not that I see anything ‘wrong’ with the shows.

I suppose I can see how mindless television can be really entertaining.

But the surprise is just how far these shows are going! In ratings, popularity,
AND all the extra’s these women are doing because of the show.

Writing books?!

I would love to write a book. It’s been a dream of mine since I was teen, maybe even before then.

My younger sister and I always talked about writing a children’s book, or two, or three… or more.

Guess I need to figure out how to become famous first… hmmm….

To do that, it seems I’d need to start figuring out how to create drama.

I explained to my husband that on these shows, the main drama seems to be ‘cat fights’.

I can’t seem to get my cats to fight.

I suppose I could if I put them both in the shower together and turned on the water?

I know I COULD get our two shetland sheepdogs to fight.

I could just toss one bone out on the lawn.

Dog fights.

Any interest in those?

I could video tape with my iphone. That’d be like tv.

Hmm… I don’t like our dogs to fight, and somehow, I don’t think that’s what our typical “audience” here at our little blog on the web is really into.

Hee hee.

You all know I’m  just kidding right?

Right?!

Anywho…

These shows have caused me some food for thought.

I enjoy blogging, and I enjoy the success of Homestead Emporium and I hope for the same success here, on this blog.

I ponder on these things and consider the how’s, why’s and where to’s of how to do that.

When I see a show like ‘real housewives’ being so successful, I can’t help but ask myself why, from a business perspective.

These are not actresses. These are real people, sharing their real lives, or at least the parts of it we are privy to see, the parts that ‘sell’ tv.

At Homestead Emporium and on this blog, we are real people, sharing our real lives.

Not much difference, EXCEPT one big one.

We’re not on tv, and we’re not making the big bucks!

I guess we’re just too laid back around here to be very exciting.

Yesterday our typical routine was interrupted by house showings.

We really don’t much care for house showings and all the preparing that goes into getting a 5 acre property with a home, studio, workshop and barn ready to be shown. So we always try to have some sort of fun DURING the showing.

My favorite place to take the kids during a showing, is the ocean. By the time we arrived, the sun was starting to set a little so I thought I’d “play” with it.

I’m no pro photographer, but I do enjoy taking photos. I enjoy learning through the whole process, but most of all, I love having these memories, forever.

While at the ocean, I stood facing the sun and snapped a photo of Julia, this is what I have.

Turned right around and snapped a photo of Elsa and Shaylah, with the sun to my back, and this is what I have.

The kids are all great explorers.

When I snapped both photos, I never moved from my position except to turn to the sun, and away from the sun.

It’s fun to see what happens!

Then I ‘tried’ to get a nice shot of Teagan. It was his very first time ever going to the beach and he wasn’t co-operating. Too much sniffing to do!

When we walk Teagan in situations like this, we jokingly (sort of) call him “eagle bait”. That’s what it feels like.
It wouldn’t take much for an eagle to swoop in and snatch up our 2.5 pound doggie!

A couple of face shots straight out of the camera. One day I may ‘play’ with these a little, I liked how the sun was shining a nice golden glow.

Such a typical glow here of the evening sun.

I love it!

Since weekends can get busy, I thought Sunday’s would be another good day for a new tradition!

Silly Sundays!

One silly photo, of anything.

Here’s my Silly Sunday photo. A donkey we had visit for a week while his owners were away.

I’m glad we had him visit for a week. I now know I do not want a donkey, no matter how cute they may be.

They are NOISY!

I thought roosters were annoying!

Donkey’s beat out roosters a hundred fold!

*If you want to play along with Silly Sunday, leave a link to your blog post here in the comments!

I’m going to start a new ‘tradition’ here on the blog.

Saturday Six.

Six things, each Saturday, that I am glad for. It’s good to ponder on those things we’re thankful for in our lives.

If you’d like to play alone, post six things on  your blog then leave a link for all of us to come see!

• I am glad for my husband. It was his birthday on Tuesday, and I’m just so happy he is home! After him being away so long this winter, I’ve sure realized how much I appreciate him! He’s a great father, a great husband, and one heck of a sexy 45 year old! (hee hee)
  
• Flowers from Alesia. This is the newest bouquet she brought home for me. Said it’s an early Mother’s Day Gift.
  
• My children’s relationships, with each other. They aren’t perfect, they don’t get along ALL the time, but they love each other and are always there for one another. I love that.
  
• The business. It keeps this family afloat while times are tough!
  
• My horse, Raiah. One day I’ll ride her as free as Alesia does!
  
• Spring. I think it’s FINALLY here!
  

What are you thankful for this Saturday?