peelosophy

This is the second year we have gone to stay at a farm over the kids spring break.  We go for a long weekend to let the boys loose in the country and this year we stayed at Hinch Creek Cottages. (our cabin on picture left)  It’s a fun weekend with no agenda except to meet up with our friends in the country at some point – this year it was to picnic at Maramec Spring State Park.

Although, the weekend is a ton of fun, it’s rather exhausting too – must be the country air, or trying to catch up with the boys,  but this year it was Emma.  It was a hard year for her to go because she is just into EVERYTHING in the cabin and outside she is not so steady on her feet yet.  I think I said, “No Emma.”  about a million times!  She got a good scrape across her nose from falling off the cabin front porch steps and then a rug burn from falling down some of the cabin’s inside steps – I was maybe a foot away from her each time!

The owners of Hinch Creek, Sam and Nora, raise goats and while we were there were several pregnant goats.  A couple of the mama goats gave birth the day before we arrived so we were able feed these sweet newborn goats.   It was really neat and way different than Grants Farm – they aren’t trying to knock you over to get to the bottle.

Here are some highlights of the weekend…

Read more…

on my new car.  Ugh.  Our neighbors rotted tree fell on it during the big storm last week – the storm where most of STL had to wake up perfectly sleeping children to go into the basement in the middle of the night.  Thankfully our neighbors are super cool and are going to take care of it for us.  Just mildly annoying.

My project chair is stripped.  Whoohoo!  The internal diagnosis is not too bad. Some mild wood work and some spring work – you can see the back right spring popped off.  Fixing those will be my next step.  As I was taking the chair apart,  I came to realize this chair is more complex than I had thought, which leaves me a little freaked out but up for the challenge…I think.

The chair was really nasty to take apart too.  For some reason the fabric is disintegrating (bc of age or type of fabric or combo of both) and there was this fine yellow powder that went on the floor (or on me) whenever I took more of the fabric off.  You can see the yellow powder in the picture on the floor.  Yuck.

Anyways, still not sure of the fabric.  John reminded me of a chair I did for his sister that was made out of a pink ticking (stripe) and it made me crazy lining up all the stripes.  So I’m re-thinking the circle fabric that I loved before.  I did find this website the other night and it offered some other fabric choices I’ve been entertaining.

important definition you must know before the story…

“butt-butt”(noun) – a word used in affectionate teasing between the Peel brothers.

JJ’s 7th birthday is today and we went to Steak and Shake for dinner and then onto the Boy Scout Talent Show.  As we were on our way to the talent show we passed our street and Henry whined, “Where are we going again????”

John: “To the Boy Scout talent show.”

Henry complained: “Why are we all going to the Boy Scout talent show??”

George says, “Because we are a family,  butt-butt.”

Seriously, where did he get that from?!? It was totally unexpected and hysterical -preach it brother George.

It’s 9am on Wednesday.  An ordinary Wednesday in the middle of an ordinary week.  We have a day with no plans and I am fighting the urge to have an agenda lined up.  Whether that consists getting something done or planning something.  Both tasks I love to do and I find myself planning a lot when I have downtime like today.  You see,  I plan when I am uncomfortable with not moving.  I plan when I can’t handle the mundane.  I plan because I want to get over the slowness of a usual day and move on to something more exciting.  (I have have an old draft I need to post later that will really get a glimpse of my insane planning mind.)

I would say John hates how much I plan and look ahead.  He is very good at living in the now and resting.  I think my planning stress him out at times.

With the conviction of my obsessive planning, I worked on being present in the downtime we have today.  I lie when I tell myself that I am good about being in the moment.  I am not.  Especially with my boys, I’d rather watch them play or let them play with each other than to be fully engaged with them.  I do play with them, but it’s really challenging for me, I think of what’s next or what I need to do.

I keep coming back to questions like, where else do I really have to be?  What else do I really need to be doing? What is more important than right now? For instance, digging through a bizzillion Legos to find just the right piece? To me – honestly I can think of a lot of things, to Henry it was the most important thing right then.  It was showing him love to help him find the piece he needed and that’s what I really needed to be doing above all else.  So, coffee in my hand, we rocked out to an 80s station on Pandora and sifted through the tiny plastic pieces.  And it actually felt good, no need to plan, no where else I needed to be but just right here, right now at my kitchen counter.

My super talented friend Greta has a giveaway on her blog. Check it out here!