2024 Highlights

It's hard to believe that I only touched my blog once this year! I think about it often, and really like to be able to look back at our life. Maybe it's just me, but I find that it isn't as easy to upload pictures as it use to be. Honestly, it really could be me because I am not a very techie girl. 

Life has kept moving along whether I blogged about it or not. *smile* We've had lots to keep us busy and were able to spend a wonderful amount of time with extended family. We'll start with Easter. We were able to join Chuck's family. Everyone happened to be there! There was some crazy number for 30 or more in attendance. That had only happened once in the 4 years since Chuck's grandma passed away. The following picture is of my family along with my mother-in-law and her husband, Mike. 

I am mainly posting this picture so I can show you all my big change for 2024. I have been on a weight loss journey. I started February 15th and so far I am down 60 pounds! It's certainly been a journey that has needed to happen for a long time. Although I knew it needed to take place and had played with weight loss here and there the final straw was a yearly doctors appointment.

He said he thought my numbers indicated that I was diabetic and I said, "Oh no, that's not happening!" That was the kick in the pants I needed to get serious. Chuck has been a huge cheerleader for me and he has recently joined me on this adventure. My goal is to be down 20 more pounds by my next appointment in March. Then I will see what he says, my numbers, how I feel and see if I am ready to change to maintaining instead of weight loss. We'll see. 

In May we celebrated our 23rd anniversary. It was a busy day, but we managed to go out for a nice dinner and snapped this picture on the way out of the restaurant. 

Megan finished her homeschool education last fall and we took a vacation to our favorite beach spot to celebrate in June. 

My parents, sister and nieces (along with their families) joined us on this trip also. My niece, Lauren had graduated from Purdue University and we were celebrating her graduation also. 

 We are already taking about our return trip.

We made a small addition to our back yard.

My parents have a pool and through the years we have spent countless hours there. It seems like it's been harder and harder to get over there with Megan's schedule. I may have convinced Chuck that we "needed" this. Oh my, I had no idea how much I would love it! It will definitely be making an appearance again next summer. 

Megan has been working hard since she finished school. She has a list of goals and was able to mark one of them off.  She was able to pay cash for this cute Ford Escape.  

She is super happy and so were we. Especially since it meant we no longer had to play chauffer! 

I'm pretty sure that I mentioned that we had gotten chickens. Six little chick last year that now have a permanent spot in our hearts. We had a very cold winter last year and our girls really struggled. To the point that one super cold week all six of them were in pen in our garage. That did not make me happy! So building a new coop was on the list for the summer.

The coop grew and grew and is now referred to as the chicken barn! I don't have a good picture of the finished project. (I can't snap one today since it is raining.) If we were going to build we thought we should have some space for growth and to store feed and such. It's funny how a little project will grow and grow. 

Another project was a little revamp in our kitchen. The cabinets needed a fresh coat of paint and I had never been happy with the hardware. The last time we did a refresh we decided not to spend the money on new hardware. I also added wallpaper to the inserts for the bead board look. It showed every nick each time it was bumped. 

This time Chuck took out the centers and added actual bead board paneling. I painted the hinges and added new knobs. While we were at it we debated on new counter tops. The previous ones were Formica and some of the edges had cracked. We looked at all kinds of options and decided it was more economical for Chuck to make custom butcher block counter tops. Oh my! That turned out better than I imaged! (you might see a little bit of our table. I also refinished it and painted our chairs black.) 

Can I say that I love the undermount sink!!

In July Megan turned 18 which meant that she was able to vote in the Presidential election.

I don't think she'll ever forget her first time voting as we waited in line for 2 hours and 15 minutes to cast our votes. It was quite the experience. 

We ended the year with my father-in-law and his wife coming into town. I hosted them and the step-brothers and their families the Sunday before Christmas. It was great to see them, but I confess having out of town company at Christmas is hard! We did mark some time off limits and had some wonderful time with our little family of three. 

It was wonderful Christmas season and great 2024. I am making list, setting goals and praying for what 2025 has in store for my family. I hope all of you also had a wonderful year and I pray 2025 bring even more blessings your way. I hope to "see" you all soon! 

Wendi

 

 

 

 

Update + Less

I'm not even sure where to begin! Let's dive in. Megan started working and let me say that it was hard on this Mama! We had a tradition of having pizza most Friday nights. I wrote this on my FB page not long after she started working. "Pizza Friday isn't quite the same without our working girl. She is rocking the working world, but we sure miss our evenings together."

There were many replies from mothers who understood exactly where I was. One of my replies to a comment, "Seeing her spread her wings and thrive is how it should be, but it doesn't mean it's easy on a mother's heart."

It was eight months ago that I wrote that post and I can honestly say that it has gotten easier. 

Not only is she working, but is has also graduated from high school. She finished this fall. 

Now she has moved from a part-time employee to full-time. Megan decided that college wasn't the route for her. Honestly, we are super proud of her for this decision. Not that we didn't want her to go to college, but she backed her choice up well. She stated that it was a waste of money to go if she didn't know what career she wanted. Then she went on to say that its her hearts desire to work until she marries and then stop to care for her family.

We felt that it showed great maturity to voice her desire. We know many who go to college, have a career and then really want to stay home and care for their families. Sometimes it happens, but many times we see that school debt and society pressure prevent that from happening. 

So now she works and saves for her future. Oh, she is also learning to drive. Dad is mainly in charge of that endeavor. Driving with a new driver raises my anxiety level!

Chuck is working for a new company. He has been for a little over a year now. He is doing the same job and going to the same location. His previous company sold off several areas of the business and Chuck's area was one to go. It hasn't been an easy transition, but I keep reminding him to be thankful for a paycheck! He may or may not have asked me about our retirement account. My reply was keep working! lol 

So we have talked retirement and will sit down soon and set some goals so that can happen in the next ten years or so. 

As far as me, well the break has been nice and much needed. Somehow I am watching my seven month old great nephew. I am still trying to figure out how I ended up providing fulltime care! He is a joy and since his parents are both teachers I have plenty of off time. He'll be returning tomorrow (Wednesday) after two weeks away. I've seen him a few times while he was away. I'm looking forward to getting in some snuggles tomorrow.

My word of the year (is that even a thing anymore?) is Less. The first thing is less stuff. I downsized Christmas décor and am going to slowly work through all areas of my home.  

Load one is out of here and the living room is almost done.  Now, I will say that my living room is in no way cluttered, but those hidden areas are another story. I am cleaning drawers, cabinets and the closet. It's past time for a hard cull. 

We have some big financial goals for the year. The first one is to cash flow a vacation to the beach. It will be a trip with my parents, sister and nieces to celebrate Megan's graduation and the graduation of a niece from college. Chuck and I have already decided this will be our last trip to the beach for a long time. Even splitting the cost, it has become quite expensive. Our portion of the beach house is paid so now it's time to save for the trip there and back plus the expenses while we are there. Mainly groceries as we pretty much stay at the beach house. 

I mentioned earlier that retirement is becoming a more frequent topic. We will be cutting expenses as much as possible to work toward our goal of paying off our home. That is the one thing that Chuck wants accomplished before he will leave the work force.

As always we have some home projects on the horizon. We have talked about a few things we'd like to do, but nothing is final yet. Chuck recently mentioned that we should sit down and make a list. I'm sure that will happen soon. 

It feels good to be writing in my little space on the web again. I have really missed sharing and being able to look back. So many times when we are discussing things Chuck will say, "Look at your blog." It'll be good to be able to do that once again. 

See you all soon!

Wendi