There's No Place Like Home

At my home, where I love to be, there are flowers blooming everywhere. Here one of our many rose bushes is in bloom over a basement window. Shannon took pictures of our flowers and it has been a joy to me to be able to give some of these beautiful blooms to loved ones who have popped in for a minute or two over the last couple of weeks.

The youngun's enjoying a day in the sun. We have had much rain lately, but as you can tell by the dogwood in the back of the picture that the rain has been good.

My dear, handsome, strong and amazing hubby and me. This was the background that my mom painted for a formal dinner and dance that we held in honor of Amanda and her home school graduation.

We have been pretty busy around here lately. We've had two graduations, finished up another year of home school, been serving in our community, planting bits and pieces of our garden and I have been loving being home.

Our garden is well on it's way. We've already been eating the lettuces from it and soon we will be chomping away on the broccoli that has little baby heads out there. Our cabbages are huge, our peas are blooming. We have four kinds of squashes up, two kinds of cucumbers, green beans, potatoes, various herbs. We have planted pumpkin and brussel sprouts, have the tomato and pepper plants ready to go in, turnips going crazy, and we are almost ready to plant our corn and pole beans. The only thing left is the okra. We have been eating very well from our "forest foraging" that we do each spring. The paw-paw trees look like this will be another bumper crop year. I found a book with recipes for the paw-paws and also persimmons which I had to let go last year because I didn't know what to do with them. The peaches are already the size of golf balls here, too.

Inside, the Lord is finally answering my prayers for helping me learn to be diligent and get things in better order. Much of that, I believe, is that I am feeling better due to the supplements I have been taking and I have been running. Not errands, but actually running four miles about three times a week. Who knew that I could love running? Anyhoo, feeling better is helping me do better in other areas. And more and more, I start feeling like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz. She had to go places, do things and meet people before she found the value of home. I find myself happily cleaning the kitchen, clicking my heels together and saying "there's no place like home, there's no place like home!" How I praise the Lord for this home, my hubby, my children and my place in life at this time.
I hope all of you are enjoying spring as much as I am. Oh, by the way, it's good to be back here in the blogging world. I would love to hear from all of you!

Take care,

Elizabeth