CRYSTIR

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. photo credit:  David Sobina Photography photo credit:  David Sobina Photography photo credit:  David Sobina Photography photo credit:  David Sobina Photography photo credit:  David Sobina Photography Intentional Outdoor Hours: 351+ hours (of 1000) Up 19 hours this week, which is just okay.  I want to make a goal this week to shoot for 4 hours a day outside.  That should put me at least on average to get to my goal of 1000 hours for the year...we will see.  Besides the stuff I talk about below - I also scored some outdoor time with dog walks, fires on the patio for dinner, our volleyball game (last regular season game!), and dinner & a night swim at Pappy and Gigi's house! Reading and finishing The Dry by Jane Harper .  Just like everyone else who has read it this year, I really enjoyed it and liked how I kinda knew all along what was going to happen but not enough that ...

We love celebrating in small ways for every holiday possible.  We hang paper lanterns on Lunar New Year, eat King's Cake for breakfast on Mardis Gras, tell ghost stories around candle light for Earth Hour , hug trees on Arbor Day, light sparklers in honor of Juneteenth , and sing Happy Birthday to our pets on our own designated Pet Birthday Day. Shark Week gets tossed into the mini-celebration bundle for holidays in our house and so when I reminded Grey that Shark Week begins on Sunday (7/23/17), he broke into a huge smile.  I try to keep it festive but also simple because #keepingitreal. Here are some of the ways we celebrate Shark Week in our house: Read Shark books We have a collection of Shark books that we keep tucked away until Shark Week and then dig into the deep all week. Sharks and other dangers of the deep  by Priddy Books, Sharkopedia  by Discovery Channel, Sharks from National Geographic Reader, and Hungry, Hungry Sharks a Step into Reading book....

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute. photo cred: Greyson Studer Intentional Outdoor Hours: 332+ hours (of 1000) Up only 20 hours this week, bleh.  Got some time in though through dog walks, mowing, and yard sprinkler fun. Reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott , still, floating my way through it and being really inspired to write.  Picked up a new book club membership with my sweet friend Lonnie and so much looking forward to our in-person book discussion later this month about The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (which I just re-read a few weeks ago, yay!), and thanks to Prime Day ordering (!) I received The Dry by Jane Harper just yesterday.  I opened the box, opened the cover and dove right in immediately.  Grey is slowly (a chapter a day) making his way through The Magic Treehouse Pirates Past Noon to keep up with summer reading.  He is right there at the cusp (of it no longer being difficult to read) and needs encouraged ...

Almost six years ago now, my first child; our son, Greyson, was a year and a half and I felt like I was losing my mind.  As a brother-less mother, I felt blindsided with every new age and stage as our son started to grow out of his babyhood and turn into a toddler.  In a panic, I bought a ton of raising son type books, talked to and asked questions of as many Boy moms as I could, and scoured Pinterest for tips of raising boys. Finally, after being inspired by a list I saw for Dads raising daughters by Michael Mitchell , I put together a list that I would be able to come back to if and when I started to doubt myself as a Mom again (and I have doubted myself about three million times since then!).  Something I could use as a foundation for the kind of Mum I wanted to be for our son(s) based on what I aspire towards and all the good that was raised up in my husband (thank you Gigi!) This was how 25 Rules for Moms with Sons was written in November 2011. About three months lat...