I work out

Some of you are all, well that’s a random title. And the rest of you are singing “Girl look at that body…”

:)

It will be in your head all day now. You’re welcome.

Today I’m going off course as I do sometimes to talk about life stuff. I’ve had a bit of an epiphany over the past four months or so and I wanted to share a bit of the journey with you today.

I know too many people right now who are dealing with the scary, nasty, despicable disease that is cancer. It’s hit especially close and it woke me up to the fact that I have one body and I want to take better care of it. Simple as that. (And in no way am I suggesting those with cancer do not. I just want to do better by mine.) I’ve never treated my body horribly, but I haven’t treated like the temple that it is. Laugh at that if you want, but it truly is! 

So earlier this year I was on a mission. I don’t do resolutions but this mission started suspiciously close to the beginning of the year. ;) But that’s what I do every year just because it feels like new start to me. Thing is, usually by March I’m kind of done and I go back to old habits.

Last summer I got in decent shape and had lost quite a bit of weight – and I don’t know what in the heck happened but by Christmas I was inching up to dangerous territory for me again. It happened SO fast. I was still working out, just not as much. And I was obviously eating anything and everything.

I was tired of it. Tired of doing well and going backward and tired of not treating myself better overall. And I had that epiphany -- I have a healthy, working body and I’m going to take care of it and take advantage of it. How lucky am I?

This time I’m sticking with it. It’s my life now – this is a totally different outlook than I’ve had before. I’m SO thrilled with my progress so I wanted to share little things that have helped me along the way.

First up is tracking what I eat. I’ve had the My Fitness Pal app on my phone for years and never really used it till a few months ago:

So here’s the thing. I still eat. I don’t eat great all the time either. We go out to eat a lot. I like margaritas. And tortilla chips. :) I’m still not eating as well as I should but I have made changes that have helped.

I say that to be honest but I also say that because so often I think we feel like we can’t lose weight unless we eat like birds and eat nothing but lettuce. I eat bread, (real) sugar, meat, ice cream and even fried chicken occasionally – but I don’t eat a lot of it. I know myself and if I restricted everything I love completely I’d be back to my old habits in no time. It’s not always about willpower for me – it’s about enjoying life. I enjoy food and refuse to give up all the stuff I love 100 percent.

I was hard core with My Fitness Pal for months but I’m starting to log in less and less. Partly because I know what many of the foods are as far as calories so I can keep it going in my head all day, but partly because I’m determined to just move more so the calories don’t matter quite as much.

Here’s another thing – don’t eat too little calories! I think anything below 1,400 a day is too low. I’ve lost weight just fine at 1600 to 1800 a day – but that’s based on my weight and some calculations. You need to figure out the calories it takes to sustain your current weight and then from there figure out how many to cut to lose weight. (That’s a post for another day.)

Speaking of moving – you need to find a workout that you enjoy. I’ve tried to become a runner so many times in my adult life and I’m just not one. Although I’m realizing how it works my body in different ways so I’m trying to incorporate it more.

But group fitness I’ve always enjoyed -- in college I did kickboxing and loved it. When I was at my lowest weight about 14 years ago (low weight because all I did was work out because it was how I dealt with a sad time in my life) I started it up again.

But for years after that I rarely worked out at all. A couple years ago a friend had mentioned taking Zumba and it sounded fun…but it had been a long time since I had been in a fitness class. I was intimidated. So instead I got the Zumba fitness “game” for Xbox and starting doing it at home:

Being overweight, walking into a group class you are clueless about, not knowing a soul – it’s not something many people can just do. And if you don’t know what you’re doing and feel uncomfortable, you’re not going to go back.

So this was my way of easing into it – and I LOVED it. After about six months of doing it at home (and seeing some results) I started going to the class. And once you find a class that you love, there’s no going back. It becomes almost an addiction – you WANT to be there. I hate missing class – what?? 

My instructor is now a friend and her classes are intense – almost like a Zumba boot camp. But I love that I feel like I’m dancing the whole time, not working out. The music is big for me – she incorporates some hip hop and top 40 that we know so it makes it so much more fun. Like I’m in da club. But not. :)

I started out with a little Fit Bit to track my steps every day:

It’s great – I wear it all day long now and it syncs to my phone. You’d be surprised how many calories you burn cleaning your house or walking up and down the stairs doing laundry. :)

The Fit Bit doesn’t track things like riding a bike or floor exercises (we do the latter in class a lot) so I ended up getting the Polar Fit as well:

This one is more expensive but tracks the exact calories burned (you have to wear the strap around your chest). Most times you’re burning more than the Fit Bit tells you so I like having both.

I think the biggest part of this journey is having support. You know the whole it takes a village to raise a child mantra? Well, I think it takes a village to lose weight. I really do. My husband is SO supportive of me running off to class each week. And I’ve made some wonderful friends throughout the process. About 25 of us did the Dirty Girl Mud Run this past weekend:

It was TOUGH (with five days of rain before) but we had so much fun. And now I seriously can’t wait for the next 5K. We even signed up to do the Indy mini next year – not sure where my head was on that one. It’s peer pressure – but the best kind. :)

Here’s another biggie for me – I have no idea how much weight I’ve lost. I don’t weigh myself anymore. It gets me down. Last time I checked I had lost about five pounds but what was months ago. But overall I’ve lost more than 18 inches in four months – that’s pretty amazing. That is encouraging to me – the scale is not.

Last night I remembered that I had taken some before shots of myself back in January. I never do that but I knew this time was different so I wanted to track the difference. Four months later (this morning) I took progress pics and when I put them side by side I almost cried. I couldn’t believe the difference! It doesn’t feel like much when you’re going through it but the pics made me realize I’ve really started to change my body:

I wore the same pants in the photos – I noticed the other day that they are starting to fall off when I wear them. WHOOT! I don’t really have a goal in mind – I’m just going to keep going and see where I land. Now I’m focusing hard on my arms and that middle pooch. I loathe that middle pooch.

My goal is not to be skinny. I want to fit and athletic and strong:

I do weight training with a friend once a week as well but want to try to start adding a day – weight training does wonders for your metabolism! It won’t make you bulky – it tightens you up and completely changes the way you look.

Even though I have more weight to lose I am in the best shape of my life at 38 years old. Seeing muscles develop is almost as exciting as fitting in my old jeans again. :)

One of the biggest areas I’ve noticed is the “back fat” – I am starting to get a little bit of definition in my back and I love it. And the side rolls are getting smaller and smaller:

I hate taking photos of myself but it’s actually really encouraging to see the progress!

But first, let me take a selfie:

Now THAT song will be in your head all day. Sorry. ;)

Just with DIY and decor I don’t think there’s rules to getting fit – you just have to figure out the way that works best for you. If you still want to eat your favorite foods I believe you can – you’ll just have to cut down and your progress may be slower. I think that’s just fine. I’m sharing my thoughts to encourage but take what works for others with a grain of salt – you need to figure out what will keep you going.

Do you struggle with weight and working out? Do you have a routine that you love to do? Do you run? If so teach me your secrets. :)

Home, to me

I’m feeling a bit nostalgic lately, so bear with me today. :) I’m coming up on two big anniversaries of sorts – by next month I will be blogging for SIX years. Crazy. And next week it will be ten years that we’ve owned our home. I can’t even believe it. Ten years and six months ago this is what it looked like:

Having my child, marrying my husband and building our house – three of the most exciting times in my life. :)

So every once and awhile I think about what I do, this blogging about houses thing, and I wonder how important it is in the scheme of life. As you can imagine it can feel materialistic at times, because decorating is often about STUFF. Adding stuff, moving stuff, spray painting stuff.

Does all of that matter? No. But I’ve realized over my years of writing about our home and others that your home and how you feel in it absolutely does. It’s nothing compared to our health, well being and family, but to me home means SO much.

I say this a lot but I mean it with every fiber of my being – your home should be your haven. It should be the one place where you feel safe. Our homes are so much more than buildings and the stuff we buy to fill them up. I think people often confuse a love of houses with a love of things. It’s not that at all, at least not for me.

My first apartment out of college.

Sure, the things are fun. (Have you been to HomeGoods??) But it’s the act of fluffing and adding and tweaking that makes me even happier.

The fact that we’ve lived her for ten years is mind-boggling to me. Truly. Before this home the longest I had lived in the same home/apartment/dorm was two years. Well, I take that back – we lived in an apartment before this house for four years. But before that for my 24 years of life I moved at least every two years.

Our first apartment. I dragged that tree up the stairs by myself.

I didn’t mind it as a kid – I’m sure I did at the time but I don’t remember it. The only time I was sad about leaving a house was when we left this farmhouse. And when I was older and had deeper roots and closer friends I wasn’t changing schools when we moved, just houses.

I have no desire to leave this house. It makes me tear up at the thought of it. It makes me wildly happy that my son has been raised her since day one -- that’s how my husband grew up and the thought of it was so foreign to me. There’s nothing wrong with moving a lot – you gain a special set of life skills from it. But if I could choose I’d want my kiddo to live here till he leaves for college. :)

My dorm room for two years. Cat posters rule.

I have a deep connection to our home for many reasons – because everything about houses is a passion of mine, obviously. I could watch, read and breathe house stuff all. day. long. But it’s because home feels like a part of our family to me. It’s the joy of having a home base. That is so easily taken for granted! 

I went through a time of about eight months (that I touched on here) when “home” was my dorm, motel rooms and my best friend’s house. That stays with you forever. There were a few times in my childhood when things hit bottom and my mom was struggling to get back up – one of those time we lived in our friend’s basement. My mom, sister and I lived in their basement (we used a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom) for a year.

As a kid it wasn’t a big deal. It’s only now that I look back and feel sadness for those times. Sadness because I now know my mom wanted so much for us at the time. But I’m also grateful, I don’t wish any moment of my life away.

Our duplex after after the basement.

This little walk down memory lane is just to say that I think our homes matter. Sometimes working on them can feel trivial, but my goodness – it’s not. Home is everything. Home is what you make it. Home doesn’t have to be perfect – making it what you want is the JOY of it! Even if it takes you 30 years to get it the way you want, how lucky are you? So lucky.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be talking about a few things “home” – my thoughts and recommendations on building a house, what I would do differently and the same and reflecting on some of my favorite rooms over the ten years in our home. Lots and before and after pics – my favorite!

Thanks for letting me look back today. :)

House happy

Hey hey and welcome to this beautiful Friday! (At least here…hope you’re having a nice one too!)

I call these posts house happy and I’m not sure why because it’s not really stuff from my house. It’s mostly fun stuff from my Pinterest, Instagram, etc. that I like to share occasionally. I need to change it. Social media happy perhaps? Doesn’t have quite the same ring.

Anyway, it’s just fun stuff to end the week. :)

I shared this one on Facebook and it couldn’t be more true:

For real. Good mail is the BEST!

I learned that Siri has a sense of humor and she’s up with the latest:

Ask her who took let the dogs out too. :)

There are only 37 spots left for the upcoming Haven Conference this summer!:

Did you see that Chip Wade is our keynote? I LOVE HIM HIS SHOW. We are planning on having the sessions and speakers up online by April 1st – it’s going to be another great event!

Every year Target comes out with cute new gardening tools and every year I feel I must get new ones:

My dream has always been to have built in seating around a kitchen table. This is dreamy:

I pinned this one from Houzz but it’s originally from Southern Living. Gorgeous.

This mud room (it actually just looks like a little mud room “nook”) is just beautiful:

(BHG)

I wouldn’t change one bit!

I’m sharing ten awesome spring cleaning tips over at the Home Depot blog – there are some really good ones in there people! I use all of them and they all work great. :)

And finally, I haven’t meant to hold on out on this so long, but I wanted to share a picture of my BEAUTIFUL grandson:

I don’t share many photos of my son here so I won’t be sharing many of sweet cheeks either, but my stepdaughter said this was fine. He is seriously precious and cuddley and smooshy and such a good baby. We are SO blessed to have him in our lives and family.

There you go – some good, pretty, fun, precious stuff to kick off your weekend. :)Hope it’s a great one!

 

P.S. The pin it button is now on all of my photos but I ask you visit the original source to pin from there.

Freaky Friday

Every once and awhile I like to take a break from DIY and decor talk – to just chat about other life stuff. I love hearing your stories and I’ve thought about this kind of post for a while. Mostly because I just want to hear your experiences. :)

I was reminded of this topic yesterday. Does randomly “freaky” stuff happen that weirds you out a little bit? All my life I’ve had stuff like that happen. When I was younger I would experience that déjà vu feeling ALL the time. You know, that feeling like you’ve done whatever you’re doing before? It would happen about once a week, even into my 20’s. When my mind was young and free I guess. ;)

(Paula Becker)

I’ve always been fascinated by those kind of experiences since then. Stuff like that doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but it still freaks me out when it does. Yesterday was a mild one – I go to Zumba classes four to five times a week and the instructor is now a friend of mine. I’ve been attending for nearly two years and in all that time I can’t remember ONE time she’s canceled class for being sick.

Wednesday, about three hours before class, for some reason I had this strong feeling she was going to cancel class because of the flu. This woman is NEVER ill, and if she is, she powers through, so I don’t know why I would think that. Class happened that night so I forgot about it.

But yesterday…at the same time of day I thought she was going to cancel for being sick the day before, she canceled because she was sick…with the flu. She NEVER does this. Ever. Why would I even have thought that?

DID I SEE THE FUTURE?? ;)

Or perhaps just a coincidence? Most likely.

All I know is it weirded me out.

I visit a local shredding company a few times a year and had an odd experience there recently. I used to shred our junk mail and papers at home but it got out of control, so now I take anything personal to be shredded every four months or so – the $10 is totally worth it. So anyway the same office manager has been there for the few years or so I’ve been going – even though I only stop in three or four times a year, she’s there every time.

Two times ago I went in and she was out of the office, which I thought was weird because she’s always there. The next trip a few months later, I walk in and she was in the back and called out to me that she’d be right up. And the thought just hit me – I bet she’s pregnant and last time she was out because she had morning sickness.

And then she walks out with a very (cute) pregnant belly and I think she was probably wondering why I was staring at it like an idiot. That one really freaked me out.

I had one scary experience when I was nine years old. We lived out in the boonies and I was at a friend’s house. It was about this time of year, about February, and it was snowing like crazy. My friend’s parents got a call that their older son had been in a car accident. The dad left to head to the hospital while the mom stayed back with me, my friend and her other siblings.

All the sudden I felt this horrible sense of dread, and told my friend my mother had been in an accident too. I remember feeling so heavy and sad and knew with all of me that she had been in an accident. It was terrifying. I was only nine but I knew better than to burden her mother with my fears – she was dealing with enough as it was at that moment.

The time for my mom to pick me up came and went and the feeling got worse and worse. (Of course there were no cell phones then.) I knew without a doubt something had happened and I remember crying at one point because there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Thing is, my mother was pregnant with my sister at the time, due just two months later.

It was almost two hours later when my mom finally arrived – and she had been in an accident (a man in a truck had plowed into her). The other driver was seriously hurt, she walked away with a tiny cut on her chin. I will never forget that as long as I live. I knew with all of me that something had happened.

I wonder to this day if it was a sense I had about my mom or a connection with my sister who was born a couple months later. Most freaky stuff I can pass off as coincidence – that one sticks with me because I know it wasn’t.

So do you ever experience things like this? These stories fascinate me.

Do you think it’s intuition or just coincidence? Or something MORE? :) Do your young children ever have a sense about things?

Freaky.

My sister’s blog

Hello and how are ya? I’m knee deep in a bunch of projects in the house – after I showed you the new floors in the master yesterday I went in and tore all the door casings down to do my DIY craftsman trim in there. What the heck -- the house is already a disaster right now, why not add to it?

So today I’m sharing a blogger very close to my heart…my sister. :) I actually have four sisters but this one is the one I grew up with so we have a special bond. She’s also ten years younger than me (she likes to specify that it’s really nine and a half) so I still tell what to do a lot. And she gets stuff for me. It’s going to be that way till we’re old and gray – I’ll be all, go get my my teeth! She’ll be all, whatever, get your own teeth! And then I’ll pull the older sister card and she’ll get them.

Anyway. Back when I started this blog my sister Elizabeth was known as “stink eye” around these parts. She lived with us for a while after college and it’s so crazy that she’s now a married woman with a blog of her own. Sniff. They grow up so fast.

My sister is a great cook and loves to be in the kitchen (that gene skipped over me), so that’s what her blog, Organizer By Day, is focused on for the most part. She brought some of these over yesterday and I ate four within minutes:

I would have eaten more but she had to take the rest back home to take “pictures for the blog.” Blah blah. (It’s a little weird to know someone else who uses that phrase all the time now.)

These strawberry cupcakes were delish!:

We always go strawberry picking together in early summer so I’m hoping she’ll make me some more of these. :)

Her 20 crock pot meals post was super popular:

She makes them ahead of time and freezes them – brilliant!

This apple pie chex mix was super yummy too:

I love how she changes things up – she likes to experiment with ingredients and try new things and it usually ends up pretty darn good!

These homemade cheese its looked so good:

That cute cutting board was from me. Just sayin.

And this loaded baked potato chip dip looked amazing…but I wouldn’t know how good it tasted cause she didn’t bring me any:

Whatever.

My sister Elizabeth is so creative and loves to craft – I thought this wine cork heart was SO cute for Valentine’s Day:

Love it!

By the way, she goes by Elie on the blog, but don’t listen to her. Her name is ELIZABETH. Whole word. I don’t know an Elie.

As you can tell, it’s fun to have younger siblings, cause you get to harass them. :) But in all seriousness I don’t know what I would do without her and I am so proud of her!

Check out her site if you love to cook or bake or even if you just want some easy snack ideas. Be sure to tell her her awesome older sis sent you. ;)

Give yourself a break

So a couple weeks ago, I had one of those moments. I honestly don’t remember what got me so upset, but my husband had been out of town for days, I had forgotten something for the Bub’s school, I had overextended myself blog-wise and I was just feeling like a bad mom and wife in general. Just one of those days.

I was talking to myself (I do that a lot) and lamenting all the things I had done wrong that day and really just beating myself up about it. And then I started crying (just great), which is not something I do often.

So I’m standing in the middle of the bedroom, crying, and I it just hit me – I told myself (yes…out loud) to just give myself a break.

My husband was gone and during the fall that was a common occurrence (he’s retired from teaching music but as busy as ever with other stuff) and you know what – like always, I was handling things by myself and doing a decent job of it. I needed to give myself a break.

This blog is now my “job” and I love it so dang much, but there are times that it gets stressful. And then I beat myself up for even thinking that this perfectly perfect job is stressful sometimes. Like that means I’m not grateful for it. But I need to give myself a break. Every job has stress.

And although I don’t feel like a bad mom often, I do hate when I don’t stay on top of things for my son. But in the end, he’s an incredibly happy, well adjusted kid. And that night he went to bed content and without a care in the world, and that is all that matters to me at the end of the day.

I thought about all of us women – I believe the men in our lives stress just as much (you may not realize it but they do), but I think we expect every aspect of what we do to be pretty darn perfect, and our men take it a little easier on themselves.

So, as we roll into the holiday season I wanted to remind you all to GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK.

The past two years I’ve not had time to write out and send Christmas cards:

It is STUPID how bad that makes me feel. Like I failed at Christmas.

I didn’t. Santa still came. Joy was had. My friends still know we exist. :)

I always like to hand write my cards – but this year maybe I’ll print out address labels and do the photo card. Or not. Either way, life will go on.

I LOVE holiday traditions but they can get out of hand. There’s only so much time in the day people! So our Elf doesn’t get into crazy antics (although I enjoy seeing what he does at other houses):

And sometimes…sometimes, he stays in the same spot two (three!) nights in a row. Mama has stuff to do. I may not be able to pull that off this year though, the boy is getting older and smarter. (Last year was stretching it.)

I always have grand plans for baking and cooking and trying new recipes and entertaining like a BOSS…but then the day of the party comes and I end up throwing together my cheater cookies that are just as yummy and festive:

And the elaborate recipe I was going to try out ends up being frozen meatballs in the slow cooker.

But you know what? Who cares?? People are fed and it’s good. Give yourself a break.

This is just a friendly reminder – think of me as the tiny voice in your head this holiday season. Take care of yourself. Try to take it easy. Cut yourself some slack. It will be wonderful, even if the Elf on the Shelf actually stays on the shelf. ;)

Winner and birthday quiz answers

Well thanks so much for joining in on the birthday fun with us last week. Some of you did really well! Some of you, notsomuch. But we still love you.

We’ve got a winner! For that name and the answers to my quiz questions, read on:

Chris is freaked out by The Wizard of Oz and can barely watch it.

TRUE! Man you guys are good, most of you got this one. And I know, what the heck, an American classic! Although the monkeys still freak me out to this day too. Shiver.

Sarah and her husband have been married 18 years.

FALSE! My hubby and I have known each other for 21 years but Chris and her hubby are the ones who’ve been married that long. The answers on that one were pretty split down the middle.

Chris and Sarah’s sons have the same middle name.

FALSE! Stumped ya, bahaha! Most of you thought that one was true. Although I had a moment of panic and had to double check with Chris after I used that question. :)

Sarah loved high school more than college.

TRUE! Yeah, totally used this one last year. Told you I was boring. But even so most of you thought it was false. I LOVED high school. So easy breezy fun. College was were I worked my behind off. Still fun of course, but the high school days were my favorite.

Chris hates attending weddings.

FALSE! So apparently I used this one before too? I don’t remember this. My mind is obviously going. This one was neck and neck! I guess “hate” is a strong word but attending weddings really isn’t my favorite thing. I know, what’s wrong with me?? I should say that once I’m there and watching the bride coming down the aisle and crying and all, I’m enjoying myself. But by the reception I’m ready to get on home. I’m sure I’ll get tons of invites now. ;)

We’re in trouble next year cause I seriously can’t think of any more questions for another quiz. I guess I have a whole year, it’s a good thing! You can see the answers Chris’s questions here.

The winner of our $100 Target card is Marita who got 6 out of ten right. Congrats Marita, I’ll be emailing you and sending out your gift card this week! :)

I’m letting the HomeGoods giveaway run through the weekend so be sure to check that out if you haven’t yet. Hope you’re having a great weekend!!

Justa Thrifty Birthday

Well it’s here. The day you’ve been waiting for all week…my BIRTHDAY! Have I talked about it enough yet? ;) Thing is, I firmly believe, especially as we get…ahem…older, that we shouldn't ignore birthdays. We should celebrate them and enjoy and take advantage of a day that can be all about what YOU want to do. Or in this case…me.

All that being said I really don’t run around all week with arms flailing telling everyone it’s my birthday. I save that for you all here on the blog. ;)

Blogging has been a blessing in my life for more reasons than I can count, but one of the biggies right up there at the top is my friend Chris. She’s truly a best friend now – I have a few of them and they all come from different times of my life. This girl is from this “season.” Otherwise known as the OLD season.

She’s a blogger, teacher, momma, wife and to top it all off, an amazing decorator. I want to move in to her house:

Amazing right? I know.

This bathroom is one of my favorites:

And of course her daughter’s room is so fun and sweet:

The thing is, we have the same birthday. Sisters from another mother, in so many ways! But she’s 40 today (choke, gah, cough) and I’m only 38. Don’t worry Justa, age ain’t nothin’ but a number. As far as you know.

So today, just like last year, we celebrate by sharing how weird, yet boring we are:

Seriously, it took us like two months to come up with ten (somewhat interesting) things about ourselves. Coming up with ten last year hurt our brains so doing it again was nearly impossible.

The whole somewhat interesting part is relative, but we did come up with some. This year they’re true/false so even easier! We aim to please.

The person who gets the most/all right wins $100 to Tarjay from us:

I know…lots of giveaways on the blog this week. It’s my birthday so I can.

Just answer these five questions here and then visit her place and answer five more. We’ll pick a winner at the end of the week. Here’s the details:

Take the quiz here (remember your score!)
Take the other half of the quiz at Justa’s site here.
When you finish with her quiz, leave your score (out of 10) in the comments section of her blog. That will count as your entry for the giveaway.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Have fun and be sure to tell Chris hi for me! And remind her how old she is while you’re at it.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes all week, I really do appreciate it. You guys are so wonderful!

Weekend in the woods

Hello and welcome to a new week! Hope you had a lovely weekend! I didn’t get anything done and it. was. awesome. No projects, no cleaning, no decluttering, no organizing – just being lazy and hanging with my family and it was a welcome change.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I have a large family – both extended and immediate. I have six sisters and brothers (a mix of full, half and step) and with the addition of some grandkids now, the our group is BIG. It gets harder every year to get together for holidays because there are so many of us now. :)

Family means everything to all of us I’m sure, but my Dad is one of those people who is truly bursting with joy when his family is around. So every year now he and my stepmom rent a cabin so we can all get together and have a fun fall weekend with just family.

This year we had an amazing view:

It’s a little early for the leaves to change but you can see little explosions of color starting to happen. :) We were near Lake Monroe in Bloomington, Indiana and if you are nearby it is an amazing time of year to visit.

I didn’t get many pics inside our cabin because I was usually either eating or laying around and I was just too lazy, honestly. (It was fantastic.) It was a big place with plenty of room for all of us – not overly cabin-like, but rustic.

Saturday we rented a double decker pontoon boat and took off for the afternoon. This was especially fun for me because every weekend growing up was spent on this lake with my Mom and Dad. Most of my memories as a child (up till about seven years old or so) were camping and then hanging on that lake in our teeny tiny metal boat. There was room for the three of us and that’s about it. ;)

I’ve only been back to this lake as an adult a few times so it was special to be there again, especially with Dad. As a child I remember thinking the rocky shores were so beautiful and I was still taken with them as an adult:

Some people aren’t lake swimmers – are you? My husband is not – I think it freaks him out. :) Even I was a little hesitant at first, but then Dad and the siblings started jumping in and I finally did the same…and then you couldn’t get me out:

I’m in the middle with my boy. :) My son is so like me when it comes to things like this. We watch and take it in for awhile…then we do it and love it and you’ll have to drag us away. I was SO proud of him for getting in to swim (he’d never swam in a lake). The boy is a FISH.

When you sit on the life jacket just right you can just hang out there forever…it’s bliss. ;) The water was chilly at first but within minutes we’d get used to it and it was perfect.

I don’t share many pics of my son on the blog but I am so in love with this one:

He drove the boat with Grandpa pretty much the entire time. Like a boss. ;)

On Sunday it was raining and chilly (a perfect fall day in my opinion) and we took the long way home through Nashville, Indiana and Brown County:

Downtown Nashville is a treasure. A quaint little area with shops, wonderful food and fun stuff to do:

And of course this is the BEST time of year to visit!

It was SO lovely – the rain made everything smell amazing and the mums were popping:

Every single shop and restaurant is decked out for fall and it’s just gorgeous:

We also stopped at a roadside pumpkin patch on the way out of town:

We saved the regular pumpkins for when we go to pick them at the local patch but got a bunch of really unique ones here. I’ve never seen a selection of gourds and pumpkins like they had!:

I was giddy, I must say. It was just a lovely weekend all around.

I am so blessed for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is that I am a part of my big beautiful family. Thanks to Dad for forcing us to hang out together at least once a year. ;)

Have you been to southern Indiana in the fall? Do you have a favorite spot near you that you like to visit this time of year?

Hope your weekend was wonderful too – this week I’ll be sharing more fall-inspired posts as we continue our parties again tomorrow! See you then!