Loving My New Simple Life – Page 19 – finding joy, peace, and happiness in knowing who I am and appreciating all that I have!

08
Apr
2016

Living with Multiple Sclerosis

In several posts I have shared that my husband Jim, suffers from Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.

Our days together can be so difficult and challenging, filled with overwhelming sadness for me to see what this disease is doing to his body.

Diagnosed many years ago, starting with numbness and double vision, the doctors told us that they thought he had a “mild case”, if there is such a thing! They stated that he would probably not be crippled.

At one point he suffered from extreme, relentless neck and shoulder pain. His neurologist sent him to the Mayo Clinic for a week of testing, only to be told the pain was due to Multiple Sclerosis. Jim described the pain, “as if someone were putting a drill to his shoulder and neck”.

As with many episodes of the disease, the pain eventually ended, but the fear that it may return is terrifying to him.

I have decided to post more, from time to time, on what we face living together with Multiple Sclerosis. I need someone to talk to and I have chosen my blog.

After a bit, no one, not even family members, who love us, can understand the devastating way this disease is taking his body from him.

Can I say I am “Loving my New Simple Life” when my husband is deteriorating little by little every single day?

Believe me, if I had not changed my way of thinking about life, identifying what is really important, love, family, being together, our lives now would be filled with even more unhappiness, depression, and dark clouds. We do laugh and find joy in being together on most days.

Life is rough, but I knew when I stopped working it was the right thing to do, to be with Jim.

Living with less money, doing without a bunch of extras was hard for me at first, but now it has taught me to love all that I have.

Maybe some of my writings will help others who are living with someone with a physical hardship.

Until the next time, I wish all of you love and courage.

23
Mar
2016

DIY Scrap Wood Open Shelving

categories: DIY, Home Projects, My Simple Home

My TV passion right now is watching “Fixer Upper” on the Home and Garden TV channel. The show features a husband and wife (Chip and Joanna Gaines), who live in Waco, Texas, on a restored farmhouse. They are so cute together and the show is delightful. Each episode of the show highlights how they restore fixer upper homes for other folks within their budget. It is amazing what they can do.

Joanna’s style tends to include antique pieces, industrial items, and of course farmhouse, especially open shelving, featured in most of the kitchens she designs.

My kitchen is old, small, and nothing expensive about it, no granite countertops or fancy backsplash. Recently, I did paint it a nice gray and we do have fairly new stainless appliances. Not much money for anything else, but for now I wanted to share a fun DIY project, spending less than $20.

It’s my little bit of farmhouse style using scrap wood.

Now that it is completed, I have a bit of farmhouse open shelving on a small wall in my kitchen. I really love the look and that it also allows me to display some of my white dishes, bowls, and pitchers.

The wood was a scrap piece I found in my garage, a 2″ x 8″. I had it cut into two pieces, sanded, and stained with Mimwax, Special Walnut. Purchased the brackets at Home Depot for $5 each. That was it!

A DIY project like this brings me joy, it is simple, clean looking, inexpensive, and so fun to put together.

Something I always try to remember about my home, “all that I have, is all that I need”.

I have a sweet home, filled with all the things I cherish, and blessed with love and laughter.

Blessings to all!

21
Mar
2016

Not Just a Cup and Plate

categories: Flea Market Finds/Thrifting, My Simple Home, Random Thoughts

An enjoyable afternoon for me, when I just want to get away from the everyday things in my life, is to visit an antique shop or antique mall.

On my most recent trip I stopped and focused on this glass plate with a sweet matching cup. I almost immediately remembered why I loved it so!

Years ago, when my parents bought a new home in an ordinary subdivision setting for that time, my mother began to experience lots of neighbors. Most women in those days did not work, so getting together for coffee and such was common. Once a month the ladies took turns hosting luncheons. This was something new for my Mom, and I still recall her anxiety when it was her turn.

She cleaned and cooked and she even managed to buy some special dishes. She wanted everything to be special. The dishes were glass with small matching cups, which fit on the plate. She loved the little dishes, and although I was only in the sixth grade, I loved them too!

I bought the plate and cup and will always cherish the things I have in common with my Mom, especially the love of caring for my home as she did.

My story has a sad ending, my father was troubled and eventually lost our home. Overwhelming heartbreak fell on us, especially Mom.

This memory brings sadness and tears to my eyes when writing it, since today is my Mom’s birthday. Mom would have been 92 today.

My parents divorced, but Mom kept us all together with her love and caring. We all miss her every single day. She was the most loving Mother and Grandmother to all of us for all of her life.

My comfort is knowing she is in the presence of our Lord, and the suffering she experienced at the end of her life is over.

Happy Birthday dear sweet Mom.

17
Mar
2016

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

categories: Celebrate, St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Are you all wearing a bit of green today?

My husband’s grandparents came to the United States through Ellis Island from County Galway, Ireland. They met in New York and married before moving to Ohio. Grandma was a maid and Grandfather worked for the railroad. They were truly wonderful people, loving parents of six children, hard working, and devout Catholics.

I love these wedding photos taken over 85 years ago.

Grandma looks so lovely, and Grandfather so young and strong.

When my son was small, not yet in school, we would make a trip to see Grandma once a week to help with cleaning or errands. The best part of the visit was sitting and having a cup of tea with her listening to her stories of Ireland and of meeting Grandfather.

We do not have a huge celebration on St. Patrick’s Day but I try to do a little something special and always Shamrocks on the table.

Although I was having dinner out with a friend tonight, I left chocolate cupcakes and Cincinnati’s famous Greater’s mint chocolate chip ice cream for my husband and son.

Yummy!

Wishing all of you lots of Leprechaun kisses on this day.

May your troubles be less

and your blessings be more,

and nothing but happiness

come through your door.

17
Mar
2016

“And the rain will fall ….”

categories: Random Thoughts

I have always loved the Bee Gees, especially Robin Gibb. When he passed I was so very sad.

The lyrics in a song he sang comes to my mind as I think of events in my life over the last few lost months.

On my last post I wrote of losing both of our beloved pets, but I did not know at the time that there would be more “rain” to fall.

With Christmas approaching, I had to pick myself up and try to make our home festive for the holidays, although my heart was not there. My family was coming for Christmas Eve so with the help of my son we worked on painting and carpeting our finished basement, which we had not used in years. When completed it was so very nice.

Two days after Christmas, the “rain” did come literally. On the morning of December 27th, I discovered that our newly finished basement was flooded. Our hard work for so many weeks was ruined. It was such a mess!

With a calmness I can’t believe, and again with the help of my son, we cleaned once again, dried up everything, and moved on looking forward to a new year.

The weather turned very cold and on January 5th, we decided to warm up with a fire in our wood burning fireplace. After about an hour we suddenly started to hear a noise which I can only describe as pounding coming from our fireplace. My son ran outside and when I got to the door he met me saying, “Mom, we are in trouble, call 911”. Flames were coming from our chimney!

The “rain” had once again fallen on our lives.

Thankful to the Fire and Rescue folks, and so very thankful the fire did not spread into our home and to others homes around us, and we were all safe.

Smoke and a black soot rested on many rooms in our home, but again with a calmness from God, we picked ourselves up, brushed off the soot, and started again with our lives.

I really do believe God does not give us more than we can handle.

In the song the lyrics continue to say, “and the sun will shine, it will shine on you”, and I am happy to report, the sun is shining once more on us.

Hope your lives find calmness when the “rain” falls on you.

25
Nov
2015

My Lost October

categories: Autumn, Random Thoughts

I have always loved the fall time of the year. Love every special thing it brings to our lives.

The colors, pumpkins, apples and apple recipes, cooler temperatures, getting out my favorite sweaters and scarves, going to Starbucks for a pumpkin latte or maybe a coffee and a pumpkin cream cheese muffin.

This October started with joy and excitement, but ended with overwhelming sadness and helplessness.

I have written and mention many times about my two cats…….

Squeeze Box, adopted at 3 years old, so sweet and just a beautiful, loving pet.

and “Kitten”, our older cat, seventeen years old.

We brought “Kitten” home when she was just a kitten. Petite, loving when she wanted, just such cute ways about her, smart, my son’s favorite.

Our two females did not get along, so when one wanted out the front door, we had to bring the other in the back door. Crazy, but we made it work because we loved them.

“Kitten” wanted out on a beautiful early October evening, so “Squeeze” reluctantly was brought inside. “Kitten” stayed out all night, as she had done so many times over the years, but in the morning when I went to the door she was not there. She was always there waiting to take her turn to come inside, knowing she would curl up at the bottom of our bed for the rest of the day.

I went to the door many times throughout the day and called her, walked around our yard, searching under bushes, under our back porch, checked with neighbors in case she might have been closed in one of their garages, but she was no where to be found.

We called local vets, and over the next week drove the streets of our neighborhood, and also to many shelters to see if she was turned in, not likely, since she did not go to strangers, but we tried everything. Our “Kitten” was gone.

After a week or so had passed, realizing “Kitten” was not coming home, we started letting “Squeeze Box” go outside again.

She so loved just curling up under one of our large backyard trees, and staying there all day, or sleeping on one of the back porch chairs. It was rare that she ever left her yard, her safe place, or so we thought.

After a few days of adjusting to caring for just one cat, I went to the backdoor to feed “Squeeze” and she was not there. Walked around the house looking for her, but as with “Kitten”, she was no where to be found.

I panicked, surely she was not gone, I woke my husband, and we spent the entire day searching, “Squeeze” was gone.

If you have ever had a pet you know the hurt, the sadness, the emptiness our family was going through. Two loving, sweet, members of our small family were gone, without a trace.

We still do not know what really happened to them, but the best guess is unthinkable.

We have since discovered that our area is home to many coyotes, and cats seem to be there main target. Coyotes can grab cats and carry them off, even back to their living areas, to be eaten. It is so very hard for me to write this, and to think of what my beautiful pets might have gone through the last minutes of their lives.

This is now November, and we are finally moving on, even talk of another kitty for Christmas.

We miss them and their unconditional love, every single day.

I can hear my husband many evenings before coming up to bed, when he is securing our house for the night, locking the doors, turning on the front and back porch lights, still giving a call or two to each one of them.

Sure wish this was the beginning of October again!

Blessings and love to all of you!

13
Oct
2015

Spending Time with Ana!

categories: Summer

The leaves are falling in my part of the world like crazy, so before the snow falls, I want to share a special time I had at the end of summer with my niece Ana.

I have written before on the joys over the years of spending special time with all my nieces. Since God blessed me with only one son, my nieces were gifts that allowed me the fun of shopping, buying dolls, dresses for special events, crafts, all the things you just don’t do with boys!

During our few days together we shopped, for clothes, some extra school supplies, including a silver glitter notebook, and some neon colored pencils. Ana loves “bling”.

I let her pick out her favorite treats, cereal, donuts, Sun Chips, nothing healthy of course, I did say treats. This is something my Grandma would do when I would visit her as a little girl. Such a sweet memory for me even to this day.

We played “Crazy Eights” until I thought I was going crazy, decorated a large wooden “A”, painting it glow in the dark hot pink with black glitter dots, and put together an outdoor place for Ana.

Our days were perfect, warm and sunny, so we set up our “swimming pool” in the backyard.

We came up with a game where I gave her actions to complete around and over the flowing water, so many cartwheels, jumping jacks, and such.

The morning we decided to build Ana a special outdoor place, we first needed to shop for fabric. Ana picked a black and white zebra like print.

Once we were home, we found a rope in our garage, attached it to two branches on the large maple tree in our backyard, and using some bricks we secured the fabric across the rope.

We added a quilt and lots of pillows, and finished up with a chalkboard paper banner, “Ana’s Place”, which added the final touch. Perfect!

We did laugh together and enjoyed our creation all day. I felt like a kid again.

Although Ana also loved time spent on my tablet, playing games, and working with my touch screen computer, watching movies, listening to music, I thank her for spending time with me doing creative things and spending silly time with her aunt.

As this second part of my life is playing out, and Ana is growing up, I thank her so much for being with me for a few days this past summer.

Life has a way of keeping us from our love ones, jobs, relationships, just life and living it our way, good or bad.

I so regret the years that passed and I did not keep in touch with Marissa, Amanda, Dawn, Amber, Carrie, and now Ana. Those years are gone.

Please make time to connect and be with your family as much as you can, even if it is just a call, or text. “I love You’s” mean so much, especially the unexpected ones!

Blessings and love to all!

19
Jul
2015

Sunshiny, lemony…..it’s the color Yellow!

categories: My Simple Home, Simple Recipes, Summer

Most of my life I have loved the color yellow!

In the past, I have had a yellow front door, and when country decorating was so popular, I had a yellow and white checked, wallpapered kitchen.

Even with changing styles, I have not let go of it!

I now have settled for using yellow in my living room and dining area. The white sofa with the yellow drapes works happily, for me, especially with the floral print on my dining chairs and matching toss pillows.

I think I have mentioned and shown you in the past that I absolutely love toss pillows. Pillows are an inexpensive way to change and update any room.

I like to bring other simple yellow things into the room when I can find them.

Found this distressed yellow clock at Hobby Lobby when all clocks were 50% off!

Our home is small and our budget, even smaller! I really cannot do a bunch of decorating and updating in every room, but oh how I have learned to embrace what I have in my home, even the messes. There is beauty in taking care of what you have, and of course, in appreciating what you have! It took me a long time to realize that!

During my growing process, I know that everything doesn’t have to be perfect in life, or in our homes. Much work to be done on the rest of this life of mine, but today I took a big step by sharing with everyone a bit of my home, feeling proud of it….it is beautiful to us!

Today was a perfect summer day, hot and humid, so I made a pitcher of lemonade, photo above. Tall glasses, filled with ice, and garnished with “yellow” lemons. So refreshing, and a treat for us when taking a break from our yard work. I have included my favorite lemonade recipe at the end of this post. Invest in a wonderful glass pitcher!

Yellow will always be somewhere in my home, it’s brightness, joyfulness, like bringing sunshine into our lives!

Love you all so much, enjoy some lemonade today!

Simple lemonade recipe:

Ingredients:

Bag of lemons squeezed to 1-1/2 cups of lemon juice

1-3/4 cups of sugar

8 cups of water

Directions:

In a small saucepan, combine sugar and one cup of water. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve. Allow to cool to room temperature and then refrigerate to chill.

Remove seeds from the lemon juice, but leave the pulp. In pitcher stir together chilled sugar syrup, lemon juice, and remaining 7 cups of water.

Enjoy!

07
Jul
2015

Celebrating the 5th!

categories: 4th of July, Celebrate, DIY, Summer

We were invited to my sweet niece’s new home for the 4th. Just being with my sister and her family is always a reason to celebrate for me. They are all so dear and such an important part of my life!

On Sunday, July 5th, I decided to bring out my red, white, and blue for a small celebration with “my family”. Of course, we had another reason to celebrate, looking forward to watching our USA women’s soccer team playing in the final game later that evening.

I set a small table on our back porch with a few special colorful, holiday items.

The utensil bags were easy to put together using a cut off small brown bag and adding a band of star paper and a glitter star.

I love the red and white dotted ice cream cups which were perfect for our dessert, Greater’s chocolate chip ice cream. Greater’s is a famous ice cream shop in our Cincinnati area, and now famous across the country.

Greater’s is also a candy maker and uses the broken chocolate pieces for the “chips” in their ice cream selections. Some of the “chips” are small candy bars!

If any of you ever visit the Cincinnati area, stop for some ice cream at Greater’s. They not only offer chocolate chip, but also chocolate-chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip, and the cherry cordial chip is one of the most popular.

I brought out the beverage tub I recycled last year at this time, and tried a Martha Stewart idea, filling balloons with water and freezing, using to surround the drinks.

It worked great. They froze hard and did not break! I like the idea that you can choose any color of balloons for the occasion.

Our day was fun, peaceful, and most of all, “my family”…… me, my husband, and our son, were together for another 4th and 5th of July!

The day ended with our USA women’s soccer team winning! What joy!

Love and joy to all!

Happy summer!

23
Jun
2015

“Our Red Wagon”

categories: Random Thoughts

Many times I have talked about the large amount of magazines I have accumulated over the years. Some are very old and it is hard for me to trash without going through each one to clip out articles of interest, recipes, DIY projects, etc.

Found this photo when searching through one on garden ideas.

Instead of focusing on the lovely variety of flowers, my mind immediately went to the red wagon and a memory from my past.

I was in high school when my parents divorced after years of hell, both for my mother and for me, my older sister, and younger brother.

The divorce left us without a home, which my father had lost to foreclosure, due to his spending and wasting money on alcohol and having a good time with others. It also left us without any means of transportation. This might seem like a small thing, but not having a car was a really big deal to teenagers, we had to rely on others for rides everywhere!

Even the smallest task of bringing food into our new apartment was a big deal. In steps the red wagon, if we wanted to eat we had to walk blocks to our local grocery store pulling the red wagon behind us.

Mom made sure we all went along on these grocery trips. As teenagers we felt somewhat humiliated pulling a child’s wagon filled with bags of food back to our new “home”. Especially humiliating for me, the prissy child, caring to a fault what others thought of us. I remember just praying that no one I knew saw us, saw our family parade with the red wagon.

We were poor, and after the divorce, I hoped things would get better for our family. The arguments were gone, horrible ones between my mother and father, but the hurt and sadness, especially for my mother, lingered for some time. Mom did her best to make this apartment a home, and eventually we settled into our new lives.

My sister saved us when she landed her first job and was able to buy a new car.

God never gives us anything we cannot handle, including pulling a red wagon.

Love to all of you today, with a special hug to my sister for that big black new car she brought home over 50 years ago.

Blessings.

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