My dear faithful readers,

Yes, you know who you are.  And I know you are out there all over the place. . . my sitemeter stats tell me so.  You are from different states, different places in your walk of life.  Some of you are my family, some are friends, and some are people I’ve never met before.   

Here’s the deal.  

I take pictures all week long, spend some time editing them, posting them and writing words to accompany the images.  You read the posts.  You are entertained.  You smile and say you are inspired.  You are reminded that you should take out your camera more to snap some pics of the kids, who are growing much too fast.  Or you are thankful that you can stay up to date with our family since we no longer live near each other.  Or you just like looking at the pictures because they make your heart happy.  

Whatever it happens to be, now it’s time for you to make a girl happy and give something back.  I write and post, and write and post, and hardly anyone comments! I have the same few, faithful commenters (who I am extremely grateful for), but I’d like to hear from more people!  Let me know you read these posts, so I know that I actually have a purpose posting them!     

Seriously, you would make my day, everyday, if you would comment every few times you came on and read a post.  Comment on this one!  Comment on a past one!  Comment on the next one!  And if you are facebook, reading this, click here and comment on my actual blog 🙂

So there you have it.  My desperate plea and your challenge of active participation.  I have lowered myself to the status of a pathetic blogger, in hopes that you will feel horribly bad for me and actually leave me a comment. 

Yours Truly,

Bethany

With all the craziness of our past few weekends, we reached near rock bottom yesterday and decided that instead of sitting at home dwelling on the realization that we are completely over our heads in housework, yardwork, cleaning, laundry and remodeling, we would instead go on a picnic.  

It was a perfect idea.  James and I couldn’t contain our giddiness as we stuffed our faces with subs, strawberries and carrots, while sitting in the gorgeous, glorious shade.  Brayden sprawled in five different directions as he happily took gigantic, juicy bites out of the giant strawberries.  Carter took a catnap, while the rest of us were on cloud nine.  We left all our worries back in our old yellow house.  That’s where they belonged.  

A few hundred feet away, sat the oldest house and workshop in our town. . . built in 1830 and home of the town’s blacksmith.  I found it intriguing.  Another hidden gem that was about a mile from our house.  And in plain site from one of the main roads. . . I had just never taken the time to pay attention before.  Life has a way of doing that to me.  Making me forget to look at the beauty all around–sort of what I mentioned a few days back in this post.    

Home is still a place I love.  No doubt about it.  But sometimes the stress overwhelms us to the point of coming down with a case of the crazies.  

Someday, all the work will be done, the landscaping will be weeded, all the dishes will be back in their rightful place, and there won’t be any dirty clothes in the hamper.  Maybe not all at the same time.  And maybe not in the next thirty years.  But until then, we’ll just keep on chugging along, trying to tread tirelessly and keep our heads above the water.  

And if that means taking a time out and hanging out at the park for a picnic, then that’s okay by me.  

And I’ll be completely subtle about your active participation task at hand:

Have a great Wednesday, my dear ones.