Happy Homemaker/Hello Monday!

                                       

   Hello friends!  It's so good to be joining all of you today!  It's hard to believe its an all new year!  I LOVE the idea of starting with a new year, a blank slate and a chance to start again!  I've done great with some of my resolutions, and others need work- and since we were out of town this past weekend I haven't gotten a chance to type up my resolutions post.  Today is the day for that, as well as undecorating the remainder of our Christmas decorations.  As much as I LOVE the holiday season, I'm ready to see the decorations back in the box.  I think that's the only time of year I have up a lot of decor, and its fun but as I said, I'm ready for it lol.  

   We had a great New Years eve, my kiddos were still in the mountains so I enjoyed a lazy evening watching a movie with my best friend (my husband) we actually went out to order pizza from Pizza Inn, and since it was New Years and just the two of us, I enjoyed one pizza and two pizzerts lol (dessert pizzas!) we def didn't eat it all but it was a fun way to ring in a new year, and of course we were facetiming our kids when the ball dropped.  The next day we headed to the mountains to spend time with family and celebrate my daughter's high school graduation!  She had an amazing party!  It was a great visit!  Now I'm ready to settle back in and find our routine!

   So today I'll be joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at home Mom as well as Holly at Pink Lady for our Monday catchup posts!  We aren't starting school until Tuesday so I will be able to visit some of your blogs today and I'm super excited to catch up!  If you're into resolution posts stick around and I'll have that up today, and if you made some resolutions yourself leave me your blog in my comments, I would love to follow and encourage one another!

♥♥The Weather♥♥
   The weather in the mountains was good to us!  It was in the 50s which is unseasonably warm for the weather there in January!  Its cold this morning, but its supposed to warm up a little.  It's January- we only have a couple of months that its cold even in the mornings so I'm just going to power through lol.

♥♥ Right now I am ♥♥
Just finished my devotion and morning chores, so blogging is all that's on my list for right now!  And laundry- because I don't get behind on that lol.  


♥♥ Thinking and pondering ♥♥
I started my new devotion this morning, Stop the Spiral by Jennie Allen, and I just saw its on sale for 1.99 on kindle!  I have enjoyed reading this book, and its been helping me to have a healthier thought life, which is something I've studied a lot on the last month.  I'm really working on trying to be Renewed.  It was interesting today also that Romans 12:2 was my husbands verse for the day, the first thing he read when he woke up so he read it to me excitedly.  I really feel like God brought me to this place to heal.  I'm so thankful.


♥♥How I'm feeling♥♥

  I have a lot of feels this morning lol.  My daughter started cosmetology school this morning.  I'm so proud of her, its unbelievable that she's in college already, but I'm so proud of the young lady she's became.  I have to get ready to start a new semester of homeschooling on Wednesday, so I'm mentally preparing for that.  Since Stephen and I started our journey of renewing our minds, it wasn't a super easy trip to our hometown.  Nothing can make you fall back into old thought patterns more than returning to a place that holds the hardest parts of your past.  But we wrestled with a lot of things and did a lot of talking- and I think we're stronger than we were when we left.  It's also a lot lol.  We drive around a lot while we are there, and its already a long trip- so we are a little tired and a lot happy to be home.  

♥♥ From my blog♥♥

   This week I shared my journey with leaving the blogger world and what brought me back.  I'm so thankful to be in a good place, excited about blogging and at complete peace about being here!  I've prayed for this feeling for a year now, but I'm glad for the journey; it taught me a lot.  My Journey Back: Part One

♥♥From a friends blog♥♥

   Joyce from This Side of the Pond  visited last Monday at the linkup and invited me to join her Wednesday Hodge Podge.  I really enjoyed linking up, I enjoyed her thought provoking questions and I met a lot of fun new bloggers!  She posted her Hodge Podge questions to be answered to linkup on Monday, and I'm excited about joining!  You should stop by as well!

♥♥On the menu ♥♥

   My daughter bought me a cute meal planning white board for Christmas, so I think this will help me keep up with this a little better!  So far our plans are:

Monday: Vegetable beef soup

Tuesday: Tacos

Wednesday: fellowship meal at church- I'll be making Tomato basil with three cheese tortellini

Thursday: Chicken and dumplings

Friday: Salmon cakes

How cute is this!

♥♥ What I am wearing ♥♥
   I've found my 'at home' wardrobe lol.  I bought a few pair of the Wild Fable sweatpants from Target, and I've really loved the Time and True Tshirts from walmart.  They are inexpensive so they are easy to replace when they get worn out.  


♥♥On my reading pile ♥♥
I'm reading Jennie Allen's Get out of your Head, as well as my Amish Christmas story that I haven't finished yet.  I have Kyle Idleman's Every Thought Captive in my cart but I haven't bought it yet.  I want a hard copy of it for sure.  Stephen and I listened to the Bible study that follows the book on audible on the way up to the mountains, so now I for sure want the book.


♥♥ On my TV this week ♥♥ 

I'm rewatching Once Upon a Time, and loving it just as much as I did the first time lol.

♥♥Looking around the house ♥♥
  It feels much calmer with most of the Christmas decor taken down.  I also got a new roomba for Christmas and its been amazing.  It does such a great job and its the first one I've had with mapping and I'm so impressed!  I need to re-do the map a little since we don't have Christmas decor, it was neat that I could set it to go around the tree and gifts.  I've done quite a bit of deep cleaning while the kids were out of town, so its actually really clean at the moment!  I'm ready to declutter my closet one more time, and work on some projects we wanted to do around the house this year!  


♥♥ To do list for today♥♥
  Laundry, take down the Christmas tree, work on resolutions post, clean out my old computer so my son can have it (since I got a new one for Christmas, YAY!) 

♥♥What I am creating ♥♥
This week I'm going to try my hand at making wax melts and laundry soap.  We shall see how this turns out!

♥♥ From the camera ♥♥
   We had a great crowd and an amazing time celebrating my beautiful girl for her graduation!  My sister in law outdid herself with the decorations.  All of her grandparents, her aunt and her great aunt contributed to the food, and we had an amazing time.  I'm so proud of this beautiful girl, and I know her future will be amazing!

I'm almost the shortest person in my family now lol, I love these people

I'm so proud of my cowgirl!  I can't wait to see what her future holds!

*** Devotional, Prayers, Bible Verses ***
Ephesians 2:4-5  "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)"

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