Weekends, Weary, Wedding Dresses, Whew!

We're in the final week of our A to Z Blog Challenge and as always I'll be limping across the finish line. Since it's Monday there will be a weekend recap (with Holly and Sarah) along with my letter post on the blog today. 

There's a lot going on here this week and I'm trying to be a 'one-day-at-a timer' but it's hard not to look at the very long list in front of me. That list includes some things that will be emotionally draining and physically demanding but we can do hard things, right? 

Right! 

The weekend. 

Friday I had lunch with three friends from my old Bible Study group. We hadn't seen one another in several months and it was wonderful to catch up. Lunch was served on one friend's beautiful back porch and everyone contributed something to keep it simple. These ladies have been, and continue to be, such a blessing to me. 

I played Mah Jong at a neighbor's house later in the afternoon. 

Before I left my house that morning I made a big pot of sauce, and when I finally arrived home around dinnertime I congratulated myself for thinking ahead. Hubs had out of town real estate clients in all weekend so he was gone from dawn to dusk too. 

Saturday we sipped our coffee with the sunrise, then hubs was out the door early for another day with his house hunters. I had some errands to run in town so made the loop and was home about one. I spent the afternoon getting things ready for my mom's move. I am not going down that road on the blog today, but I'm sure will eventually gather my thoughts and put them in writing. 

We had plans Saturday night to celebrate a friend's birthday in our neighborhood clubhouse. The menu was tacos and margaritas and a delicious homemade cake baked by another neighbor. A fun night spent  chatting and catching up with friends. 

Sunday morning we went to church, then hubs and I stopped at Waffle House for a late breakfast. We needed energy for the afternoon's activity aka porch cleaning. Honestly we have had so much going on this past month we have not gotten to this dreaded but very necessary task. 

The pollen sits about an inch deep so all the porches and decking and outdoor furniture need to be hosed down and cleaned. We roll up our outdoor rugs during pollen season so they needed to be put back outside. Hubs operated the power washer and I had the tedious job of wiping down all the deck railings and spindles. We have over 200 spindles, not that anyone is counting, but yeah. It's a lot. 

And you have to keep changing the soapy water out because it turns black very quickly. 

But! we're getting there! The upper deck and the screened porch are mostly done and he made a good start on the lower level patio and dining space. Still more to do, plus there's also the boat to clean, (well for hubs to clean) but we're making forward progress and we can once again enjoy our favorite thing about this house, which is the outside space. Cheers to summer porch sittin'! 

I still need new pillows for the deck sofa and a few more flower pots but that will happen soon. Not this week though because this week is already a doozy. 

Now for today's letter which continues my theme of The Things We Keep: Ordinary Objects From A-Z. 

Day 23-W is for Wedding Dresses

Do you still have your wedding dress? When we returned from our honeymoon I took my dress to the local dry cleaners and they boxed it up in that fancy way dry cleaners do to keep it from yellowing through the years. 

You hope. I mean I wasn't even certain it was my dress in that box but we trusted the cleaners. I don't know if in 1984 I dreamed of having a daughter who might wear it someday, but I wasn't ready to part with it either. Into the box it went. 

From there it moved with us umpteen times, always in the unopened box. There it remained for 30 years, until in 2014 daughter1 was engaged to be married and thought she might like to try it on. I have a picture of her in it somewhere but I can't put my hands on it right now. Anyway...

She actually loved the idea of having the dress reworked and made to look a little less 80's bride, but logistics were not in our favor. I was in one state, she was in another, and the wedding was in a third so it all felt like an additional stress we didn't need. 

She found a dress that looked like it had been made just for her and she spun and twirled and smiled from the moment she put it on until she and her brand new husband left the reception. 

My dress went back into the box, and then a few years went by and now daughter2 is getting married and she took a turn trying it on too. 

Not 80's at all-ha! However Daughter2 had already fallen in love with a dress we'd seen in a fashion show so that was that.

But! I heard about a company that made dressing gowns/robes from wedding dresses and I decided to surprise daughter2  with a gift for Christmas before her January wedding. I had my wedding dress made into a getting ready robe for her and it turned out beautifully. 

She was, quite literally, overcome with emotion when she saw it. 

I wrote about it here (Let's Review) so I won't recap again, but suffice it to say I might never give another gift that lands as perfectly as this one did. 

And now here we are with one daughter married ten years and one married five, yet somehow we have their wedding dresses in our storage area. These boxes are not small either. 

Question-why did I tote my wedding gown from pillar to post but my girls dresses have stayed with me? I'm thinking I should hand them over and they can decide what they'd like to do with their gowns. 

They both have tiny daughters so maybe someday I'll get to see granddaughters walking down the aisle looking every bit as beautiful as their mommas. 

That makes them worth keeping. 

Home Sweet Hodgepodge

Hi Peeps! Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions, add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Here we go-

1. Spring has officially sprung (in the northern hemisphere anyway)...did she roll in more like a lion or more like a lamb in your neck of the woods? What needs more of your attention in terms of a good spring clean this year-your house or your garden/yard? 

More like a lamb. A lamb who rolled around in the grass and is now completely covered in yellow pollen. Hubs took the blower to the grill deck this morning to get rid of some of the pollen and I snapped this picture just a few hours later...

The struggle is real y'all. 

As far as what needs the most attention I'm going to say the house. Without question. Normally it's just the hubs and I living here, and hubs is neat as a pin so the house is almost always tidy and dusted. We've had our daughter, son-in-law, and their three littles living with us since mid-January so there's more 'stuff' out than there normally would be. We pick up regularly and embrace the chaos. 

Mostly. Sometimes hubs looks around and twitches a little lol. 

2. What's put a spring in your step lately? 

We're very excited for the new home my daughter and her hubs are in the process of purchasing. I'm not saying too much about it now, because nothing in real estate is a done deal until the keys are handed over and of course the money too.  So far the process has been smooth, and everyone is eager to settle in. 

3. When you were a kid, what was the best snack to find in your lunchbox? If you didn't do the lunchbox thing, tell us what was your favorite after school snack. 

We walked home for lunch when I was in elementary school so no lunchboxes during those early years. My mom always had lunch waiting for us though, and I would be most excited to find she'd made egg salad sandwiches which are still one of my favorites. 

I took lunch to school in a brown bag in junior high and sometimes high school, and my favorite treat to find there would be a Drake's Ring Ding. Does anyone remember those? Do they still make them? The cake-cream-icing proportion was exactly right. 

And yes, they do still make them (I had to check). I wonder if they taste the same? 

4. In what area of your life are you planting seeds? 

I think if you're a parent you're always planting seeds, no matter your child's age. Grandparenting is also an opportunity to plant seeds and I hope I'm a good gardener. Kindness, fun, a gentle tone, time to spend, lots of prayer. 

5. Why do you live where you do? Would you consider living somewhere else? Why or why not? 

our lake lot pre-build, 2015

We live here on purpose. Some people end up retiring or living in the place they last worked, but our last work assignment was North Jersey, and we knew we needed to get away from the crazy taxes and the equally crazy winters. 

clearing brambles from the newly purchased lot-2015

moving dirt, October 2015

We chose this lake and this lot specifically, and then retired and built our home here. 

From the earliest days of our marriage we agreed that someday we'd live on a lake. 

dock construction October 2015

dock in place-October, 2015...way before the house was completed 

Hubs grew up on lakes and I'm all about a great view so we were totally simpatico in that department. My daughters both went to uni in the nearby town, which is how we discovered this little bit of paradise. 

home sweet home

It used to be something of a well kept secret, but word's out now so it's busier than when we arrived in 2015. Still beautiful though! 

Would I consider living somewhere else? I guess. I mean never say never. I imagine someday we'll move into something that requires less maintenance, but we'd probably stay nearby. Particularly now that we have a daughter and some of our grandchildren living in our same town. Our other daughter and grands are just a three hour drive from here, so this area makes sense. 

Plus it's beautiful. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

There are four Hodgepodges (counting today) between now and Easter so I think I'll post some throwback pics in my random space every Wednesday between now and then. 

Cheers to spring when little girls wore brand new coats that were a smidge too big or maybe just oversized on purpose? (hey, it was the 90's) and also completely precious...

Happy Wednesday and happy spring everyone! 

Thankful Thursday

I've recently had some new visitors to my blog, which has been a lot of fun. I've visited their blogs in return and discovered some fun new bloggers to follow, something I haven't had a lot of time for in the past year. Several of these writers blog in a similar vein to me aka the everyday ordinary stuff of life, and those are my favorite posts to read. I'm pretty certain we're the silent majority on the interwebs lol. 

In an effort to get back into some sort of rhythm here I'm going to try linking up with some blog hops during the month of May. Hopefully I'll find some inspiration there, and at the very least will get back into the habit of writing. 

Note to self...take more pictures. Words come more easily when there's a photo to serve as springboard.  

Note to readers...my photography skills are something slightly less than excellent. 

All that to say, I'm participating rather late in the day today with Thankful Thursday hosted by Jennifer at Overflowing With Thankfulness.  Never too late to be grateful though, right? The news lately is just one awful crazy unbelievable thing after another, and making a short list of things I'm grateful for helps shift my perspective. 

Let's go with a list of three things on this gorgeous Thursday afternoon-

1. It's an absolutely gorgeous Thursday afternoon. 

The sun is shining, the air is warm, the pollen is ka-raZy...

Okay maybe that last one shouldn't be there but hey, if we didn't have pollen we wouldn't have plants. Perspective is everything. 

2. An afternoon cuppa. 

Like a big exhale that feels so necessary at 3 o'clock on a sunny spring day. Winter day. Any old day. 

"Tea is to the body as music is to the soul" Earlene Grey 

3. Cousin time. 

While it didn't work out for us all to be together last weekend, my girls have managed a mid-week get together with all their littles...

Where there's a will there's a way. 

Daughter1 hadn't met her brand new niece yet, and that absolutely needed to happen. And of course the rest of the crew is just party party party, so a good time was had by all. 

They're wearing the matching shirts I bought for the weekend that didn't happen (if you're in the dark you can read about that here). The boys shirts say 'cousins make the best friends',  Little Miss has 'cousin crew' printed on her pretty pink tee, and Sugar's little onesie says 'new to the cousin crew'. Trust me, they're adorable. 

And we know to take what we can get when it comes to photos with the six and unders-ha! 

Back in December I'd given both of my girls as well as both of their girls matching pjs and they remembered to wear them ...

They also remembered to take a picture which in my case is the next best thing to being there. For that I'm grateful.