Freecycle rant!

Does everyone know about freecycle? Here in Ohio we have an e-mail group called freecycle. People throughout the county post items that they no longer want & offer them to others free of charge. Then if you are interested in something you e-mail the original poster and request it. It's an awesome idea! For people with things to get rid of it is nice because you are helping your community out and still clearing out unwanted objects. And of course for the people that get the item it is awesome because you are receiving items for free!

Anyhow, as I mentioned the other day, we have been working out in the yard decreasing the size of our flower beds. I had alot of plants that I no longer wanted so I offered them on freecycle. I got tons of responses which was good because I had a ton of plants too! I ended up offering the plants to 40 different people. Should be a happy story, right? Wrong! Of the 40 people that came to get plants from me - 6 of them didn't get anything because other people had taken their bags of plants. I had put them out on the porch in labeled bags and as a result some people felt it was fine to take extra bags. Terrible!

So, please, if you are a participant in freecycle, make sure you only take the items that were actually promised to you. It hurts other people that you are taking from - plus the original poster (like me) feels so bad over it happening!!

Bye,

Quilting

I got an e-mail from a friend of mine who I hadn't heard from in quite some time. She sent me some pictures of a quilt she had made. The whole center was made from charms squares she acquired from a swap that I had organized. The quilt was beautiful and really got me thinking of quilting again!! I miss it alot. I've been feeling like I needed some motivation to get started again. Her e-mail came at the perfect time.

I have a long list of UFO's that I need to focus on. It's hard though because there are always so many tempting patterns I want to start. My husband keeps telling me I need to finish some of the things I've started first. :) He's probably right too!

My goal is going to be to quilt atleast 15 minutes every single day. I mean it....every single day!! If I could do that I really think that the quilting bug would bite me again. Plus, I'd probably be surprised at the amount of projects I could finish with just 15 minutes a day. Hopefully soon I'll have lots of beautiful pictures of my own quilts to post!

Bye,

Teenage girls can be exhausting!

So, my husband and I have one child. She is 16 and her name is Ashley. Any moms out there? You know what I'm dealing with then!! She really is a great kid - very mature for her age and not into all the typical teenager things. BUT her emotions are all over the place! One minute she can be happy and carefree, then down in the dumps and pitiful, then mad or frustrated, then back to happy again! All within a span of a few minutes. Of course, I was even worse then that when I was a teenager. My poor parents. Tom and I got married when I was 19 and my mom used to joke that about the time she started liking me again I had moved out and gotten married. It used to make me really mad that she insinuated that she didn't like me as a teenager but now I'm understanding why. I know I should be thankful for what a great kid Ashley is and I am thankful. She is so responsible and capable. It is wonderful to not worry about her getting into trouble or running with a bad group of kids. I just would like it if her hormones and emotions could calm down alittle! I guess she would probably like that too!! :) The craziest thing is that she is going to be leaving for college in just a couple years! It's hard to believe she is that old. I'm proud of her wanting to take that big step, but we sure are going to miss her when she's in college!

My wonderful husband!!!

I really just wanted to take a minute and write about my wonderful, amazing husband. He is my very best friend and has been for a long gime. :) We've been together since I was 16 years old. We've been married for 18 1/2 years and things are better now than ever before! I'm so happy to have him in my life. Lately, I've been pretty stressed. I've been feeling like I need to hold everything and everyone together all the time. The other night I finally opened up to Tom and he was so great. He let me talk and vent. Then he held me and it was beautiful! Since that talk he's been trying so hard to make some big changes. He loves me so much. I need to always remember that. I need to start showing him how much I appreciate all the wonderful things he does for me. I just thank the Good Lord that he is in my life!!!!!! A hot, exciting, fulfilling marriage is a beautiful thing!

Gardening stress!

Today has been a stressful day and I think it's probably going to get worse. My husband and I bought this house about 3 years ago, after living in different apartments for the first 15 years of our marriage. The house has a really nice yard - picket fence in the front and privacy fence in the back. The previous owners had done some landscaping but we wanted to change it. Of course, we didn't know anything about flowers or gardening.

That first summer I made a friend on the internet, Becki, and she helped me so much! She gave me lots and lots of great advice. And she also gave me tons of plants - mostly daylilies that are beautiful. It got me going and we did alot of work to the yard.

The next summer I was feeling overwhelmed with everything and didn't put much time into the yard. My husband and I made a few changes and began to downsize somewhat. Plus we were both terrible about weeding.

This summer we started out great - weeded and put down lots of mulch. But then as it got hotter we got lazy. We didn't make it out much until this past week. Now we've weeded everything again and it's looking nice. We've decided to downsize more and only have beds that are about 3 or 4 feet deep. Right now the beds are about 15 feet deep.

This is where the stress is coming in!!!! We're trying to decide what to keep and what to pass onto other people. We're also trying to decide how to set up the beds. I am always so bad about cramming too much stuff into beds. They end up looking way too crowded and just messy. This time I'm hoping Tom will help me to plan it all out. He's much better about spacing stuff the right way.

I'm hoping that we'll get it all done within the next few days and I can post some awesome pictures! :)

bye for now,

Welcome to my blog!

I'm so excited to start this new blog! I hope to find lots of new friends that are interested in the things that are going on in my life. It's going to be fun to write about all my different aspects of this wonderful fairytale I'm living! You can expect lots of different posts because I have lots of different interests. I love quilting, reading, gardening, reality television, listening to music, raising my new puppy, being a homeschooling mom, working on my already wonderful marriage, and of course above all else is giving glory to my Lord and Savior. I hope everyone enjoys my blog!

Oh, to explain the title of my blog "Life Full of Laughter". I got that name from some lyrics from a new Daughtry song. The song is titled "Life After You" and it's on his new CD called "Leave this Town". It's a great CD, by the way, everyone should go out and by a copy!! Anyhow, the song is about a man that wants to enjoy a life full of laughter with his loved one. That is just what I am blessed to have. My husband and I have a great life and it's filled with laughter. Of course, there are rough times sometimes but we work through those quickly. Praise the Lord!

I'd like to dedicate my first post to my beautiful dog, Daisy, who passed away at the end of May. She was a great dog and an important part of our family. She was a boxer and was 9 years old. She passed away suddenly and we all took it very hard. We miss her so much everyday! Here is a picture of her. Isn't she the greatest?!?