pondering moving on

I'm linking up with the lovely Kate Motaung at Five Minute Friday where whoever loves to write decides to silence the inner critic and write for five minutes straight. Today's prompt is "notice". 

I took some larger things off my wall yesterday and took them right to the consignment store. A large clock, a large shelf, a picture and a sunburst decoration. It wasn’t necessarily difficult to get rid of these things. 

What I notice now though, with those bare spots on my walls is that I’m a bit more uneasy.

I am not a meticulous house keeper, so it’s not that. But, those gaps in the décor are staring at me, reminding me that in the next few days time, everything on the walls and on the floors must go (to the new house).

I am excited about this, but I have a feeling there are deeper feelings underlying my reluctance to start packing in earnest. I have a feeling I will have to grieve some of the collectibles I will have to get rid of to move to a smaller home. 

I will grieve those times in the past fourteen years that our family has made memories in this home. When we moved in our children were 7, 10 and 12. Now they are 21, 24 and 26. So much has changed over this past decade plus four years. We had children, now our children are adults.

Maybe this is why the gaps on the walls where pictures have been taken down stir an uneasiness in me. Maybe this is why I can’t seem to tape a box together and start putting things in it.

I will cherish the memories, even as I am excited to move on. And, as I pack I’m going to keep noticing my feelings and thoughts and honor them as they should be honored. 

Blessings to you friend! Thanks for stopping by today!

10 things painting walls has taught me

My husband and I and our two adult kids are working very hard lately to paint the inside of our (1948) new house. There are lessons to be learned while painting.



1.  Nothing is ever going to be perfect. Get used to it.  I have had the job of trimming along the ceilings, doorways, floorboards, you name it. I told my husband, "I remember being better at trimming the ceilings than I am now." He said, "Maybe you're not remembering correctly." Thanks, dear.

I've had to tell my perfectionistic self many times that our paint job is never going to be perfect, because we are not perfect. 

2.  Paint covers a multitude of past poor choices.  The paint in the front room was a very dingy yellow in the room and in the closet with no doors. Painting Mindful Gray over that dingy yellow has given me the warmest of fuzzies. Glorious.

3.  Doing a project like this with hubby is fun.  We are both very compatible and we are friends, believe it or not. And, doing this project together has made me realize that our relationship can handle quite a bit. Never mind that he wanted the same color paint in the whole house (except for the bathrooms), and that is what we are doing. 

4. I've been telling my hubby for years, "I want a new palette to decorate." Well, with painting Mindful Gray on all the walls, that is exactly what I'm getting.

5. This is making me thankful.

6. I'm tempted to throw out my old decor. I'm being inspired by this new gray backdrop to change some of my wall decor. And, even though I do not have a big budget, or any, I'm inspired.

And, I can do a lot with very little.

7.  My son, the art major, is a much better ceiling trimmer than I am. This is a new experience, my "kids" helping us paint the house.

8.  My daughter likes "rolling" the walls better than trimming. This is a good thing because she rolled on two coats of gray in her new room in two hours yesterday. Wonderful.

9.  Listening to Frank Sinatra Christmas music makes painting on a snowy day much more fun.

10.  Make sure to mix your gallons of paint or you might have a subtle gray two tone on your walls. We'll need to check into this one a little more in depth.

Thanks for letting me share a little of what my life has been about lately!

Blessings to you, friend!

~Anne

Linking up today with Coffee for Your Heart and Three Word Wednesday!!

Thoughts on being still

Today I'm linking up with the lovely Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. This is where we write for five minute on a prompt given for the week. No fancy writing or edits, just writing for the fun of it.  Won't you stop by and see what other writers have shared on the prompt "still"?

Life seems to work out so much better when I regularly tell myself this phrase,

 “be still”.

 It may be the right thing to say, but not the right time to say it. If I wait, maybe you will say it first. Maybe the conversation will go better. 

Maybe there will be more peace and less misunderstanding.

Being still has it’s advantages for sure. The one who keeps silent is considered wise, the scriptures say. I want to be considered wise even if I’m not. Is that unfair?

Being still might make you feel more important. Maybe if I let you talk more than I try to talk you will feel the love I have for you. Yes, there will be a time for me to share, but maybe this time it is time for me to be still and let you share. 

This is love.

Being still allows me to listen. It allows me to hear you better. It allows me to hear God’s voice better. 

When my voice is operating, it is interfering 

with how my ears are functioning.

I truly want my ears to function well. I want my voice to be still enough to hear what is important. Then, when I do have a chance to say something, maybe wisdom will come out of my mouth and not just a wave of hot air. 

Maybe it will be of substance and come across as wisdom to you, wisdom to me and wisdom to the world.

That is what I want out of choosing times to be still.

There is a time to be still and silent, and times to speak.

May I know the difference.

Thanks for stopping by today for five minutes of free writing!!

Blessings to you, friend!

~Anne

God's dimmer switch

Ever wonder why dawn and dusk come gradually and not all of a sudden?

Evening comes and the sun gradually sinks lower and lower on the horizon until it's hidden from our view for that day.

It's like the sun goes to sleep in our part of the world 

so we can, too.

Then, while we're fast asleep, the earth is turning, turning, turning until the sun starts to gradually come into our view again. 

Gradually showing more of herself to us in our corner of the world until she's in plain sight. She's giving us a full view of herself so bright we're told not to look directly at her brightness.

Why the gradual, slow sinking and rising?

Why didn't God decide at the beginning of time to make these transitions sudden, like a light switch being turned off and on? 

Instead, he made sunrise and sunset on a dimmer switch.

Slowly, 

gradually 

light rises and falls at the start and end of each day.

I wonder if he knew (because he made us after all) that our souls would need to keep up with our bodies.

Thanks for stopping by today, friend!

Blessings to you!

I'm linking up today with Coffee for Your Heart, Three Word Wednesday and #TellHisStory.

Six things I learned in October

I'm linking up today with Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky for her monthly "what I learned" link up. This is a time where we share some things we learned during the month. The silly and the serious. Won't you hop on over and see what other people are learning? 


1.  Last spring I took a watercolor class at the local art center. I hadn't done any watercolor painting since the class until I got a whim to paint pumpkins in October. I sat down one afternoon at 4:30 and in about an hour and a half I had done this little 5 x 7. It was so much fun. I have a new excitement to try something else now, maybe a basket of apples, or something for Christmas!

2. There's a beautiful tree in our neighbor's yard across the street. I see it every morning when I sit in my reading chair. I watched it turn from a vibrant green, to vibrant orange and red starting at the top of the tree, with the color inching down the tree each day. 

Now the tree is completely bare of all traces of this year's leaves and I so wish I would have taken a picture each day in October to show you some of the beautiful changes this tree went through. Oh well, something to think about for next October!!

3.  In October I bought my first new belt in YEARS. I've needed a belt for a long time. I know it sounds silly, but shopping for a belt ranks right up there for me on the same level as shopping for jeans. Never been a fan. 

So, consequently, I've been going for a loooooong time with a belt that I couldn't tighten to where I needed it, and therefore it didn't work too well for what it was intended for. The first time I put on my new belt with my favorite jeans they felt like brand new jeans. And, I wasn't hiking them up every 30 seconds. I know, not rocket science!

4.  On October 8th, I woke up around 5:30am and couldn't sleep so I picked up my phone. One of my friends had just posted about the Blood Mood (or total lunar eclipse) that was happening in my time zone right then. I hopped out of bed and grabbed my little digital camera. I watched and took photos for an hour. I was totally in awe of what I saw. First time ever for me.  I don't think I've ever been so excited about something in the night sky!

5. My daughter has been watching every episode of Friends ever made. Mostly she watches it after I've gone to bed, but one night I was still awake when she started an episode. I started watching. It was not the first episode ever, but it was MY first episode of Friends ever.

I have never ever been remotely interested to know about Friends, or what it was, or who was in it. But, I found as I watched that I started to laugh. Then I laughed some more. It's pretty silly, and a little off color at times, but you know, it's pretty funny, too. Maybe I'll watch some more episodes with her. 




6.  We bought a "little house" in September, which we close on today! We accepted an offer on our "bigger house" this week. But, what I did in October was start to read the book, The Nesting Place, in earnest. 

We are downsizing from 2500 square feet to 1186 square feet. I think I will really need to put some of her wisdom to work in my "new, little" house. Like "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful." 

I'm looking forward to making our little house a home while taking peeks at The Nester's book and her blog while I'm doing it. 

Thanks for stopping by friend! Blessings to you!