Mother's Day Happiness

Happy Mother's Day! When I woke up this morning, I assumed that it would be a rather quiet and subdued Mother's Day.  My older daughter is deployed and far away, my younger daughter is still at college preparing for her very last finals and my son had his senior prom last night followed by the After Prom which means he didn't get home until almost 3:00am. I already received beautiful gifts from my daughters.  My older daughter sent me chocolate caramel fudge which I LOVE SO MUCH.  See?

It was sooooo good!

And my younger daughter brought home Mother's Day gifts when she came to dinner last week.  Not only did I get chocolates (yes there is a chocolate loving theme here) she also found my very favorite fruit in the entire world!

Passion Fruit!  Oh my gosh, how I love this!  My daughter is also planning a big cooking day this summer and I can't wait for that!  So this morning, I was expecting a sleeping son and not much else and then this was waiting for me when I walked into the kitchen.....

I was so surprised!

Immediately following breakfast, I was instructed to get dressed.  

I was being taken on an adventure.

Even though I asked and asked - I was not told where we were going

Finally we arrived at our destination.  

We were going hiking!

I love being outside and I love hiking and I love......

Hiking with these two!

Cozy cave for two!

Or maybe just one!

The deer were happy to share their woods with us

I LOVE big tall trees.  

I gave this one a hug and thanked it for my day filled with nature's beauty.

Super awesome hike!

We definitely got a good workout!

We climbed the equivalent of 68 flights of stairs!

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope your day is filled with love.

The Last Prom

Tonight is my son's senior prom.  It is the last time Mr. Yesteryear Acres and I will do the whole prom picture photo session, waving goodbye, oh how they grow so fast, routine.  We enjoyed every minute....

Bri kept her dress a surprise. It is beautiful!

Everyone needs a corsage picture

True Love

Awwwww

My son had Olive Doodle help with a big surprise

Olive was happy to deliver the present!

Open it Bri!

Thank you Olive!  Good job!

Olive did her job perfectly!

Olive says, "Well what is it?"

Olive has very neat writing for a doggie!

I think she loves her new earrings!

Well you know me..... Just a few more pictures!!!!

And of course pictures by the pond!

Ready to head off to Prom

Have fun you two!

Your chariot awaits!

Happy Senior Prom!

You're the Coolest

I haven't slept well for the past several weeks.  Like clockwork, at 4:16am, I wake up every night and then spend several hours trying to get back to sleep.  I usually fall back to sleep a little after 7:00am and then of course I am sound asleep when my alarm goes off at 8:00am. I wake up so tired and then stay tired all day. The past few nights have been even worse as I am up by 1:30am wondering why sleep is eluding me. The only thing I can come up with is that I feel like I am being boiled alive.  I am SO GOSH DARN HOT!  I am not saying that I am getting old, but, I am fairly certain that when I wake up with enough Btu's to heat an entire steam room, there is a chance that I may be getting older. There is a small chance this may be the text book definition of a hot flash, but I will never admit that! It is true that I will be 50 years old this August (or as Mr. Yesteryear Acres likes to remind me, 1/2 century) and evidently I am preparing for this by almost bursting into flames each evening. I can't even think of sleeping with covers on and I am convinced someone set the thermostat to 125* Fahrenheit.  The thermometer in our bedroom reads 68* but obviously it is full of lies! I shared my tale of woe with Mr. Yesteryear Acres this morning and he immediately set upon fixing my misery. He fixed up a cooling center on my side of the bed, complete with a fan and remote control. Now that I have a brand new temperature regulator system designed by the most thoughtful Mr. Yesteryear Acres.....maybe, just maybe....I will sleep through the night!  Even if I don't, I know I will be a million times more comfortable!  Thanks Mr. Yesteryear Acres - you're the coolest! Love, your fan club

Extra Place

Tonight I am setting an extra place for dinner!  My younger daughter is coming home for dinner and of course, I am super excited.  I have homemade bread rising in the oven and will be making her favorite dinner and homemade ice cream for dessert.  She won't get here until later tonight as today she has two interviews!  My daughter will be graduating with a degree in Psychology and Nutrition next week and finally this week, the job interviews started rolling in. It is a little disheartening to graduate with honors and have no future job lined up.  I keep telling my daughter that it will happen and to keep the faith and look what happened. This week, she has five interviews! I hope the interviewers will see my daughter's compassion, hard work ethic, dedication and kindheartedness and know they would be SO lucky to have her on their team.  She is a beautiful person inside and out and my hope for her is that she will let her inner light shine for all the world to see....
 What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen.    Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good luck today dear daughter of mine!  You are going to do GREAT! See you soon!

Best Dinners are Outside

Warmer weather is here to stay and so we finally got our campfire furniture out of the barn attic and got the good ole campfire area ready for the season.  We try and have campfire dinners at least 2-3 times a week all summer long.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres is King of the campfire grill and I am pretty sure he can make anything on the campfire. Even Cake! I enjoy eating out by the pond while watching the sky come alive with all the colors of the sunset. One of my favorite things in life is taking time to enjoy nature's beauty.  I feel rejuvenated and restored. It is one of the things I am most grateful for. I am so glad campfire season has started.....

and I am not the only one! 

 Of course once we got everything set up for the campfire season, we had to test it out.  Smoked Sausage anyone?

I think the moon was happy to see us 

Ready for S'mores!

Moonlit filled happiness

Number 6?

This afternoon Mr. Yesteryear Acres and my son and I walked into our voting polling location and we were met with rounds of applause.  I was wondering what we did that was so wonderful.  Turns out - the wonderful thing was that we walked in. At 2:00pm this afternoon, my son was number 4, Mr. Yesteryear Acres was number 5 and I was number 6.  As in I was the 6th person ALL DAY LONG to show up at our polls.  How can this be?  I realize it is a special May election but there is no reason to be apathetic in exercising the right to vote. We have a school issue on the ballot and only 6 people bothered to show up.  It certainly wasn't the weather as the sun is shining and it is beautiful outside.  The poll workers were beyond bored starting at an empty room with no voters.  We cast our ballots and collected our "I Voted" stickers and walked to the empty parking lot shaking our heads in disbelief.  Number 6?  I hope the late afternoon voters show up in record numbers.  Let's VOTE!

So much cuteness!

Marmalade's puppies are SO adorable!  She is a great mommy and is taking excellent care of her Double Doodle babies.  This week we have more Doodle puppies coming!  We will have Goldendoodle puppies and Chocolate and Caramel doodle puppies.  Look for Triple Puppy Doodle Cuteness next Monday!
Here are Marmalade's beautiful babies....

Sleepy Little Puppies

Dreaming of romping in green grass

and Sunshine 

and going for walks 

and Playing Fetch

and growing a little bit bigger each day!

All 10 Marmalade Double Doodle Puppies say.....

HAPPY MONDAY!

Virtual Groceries

Today my older daughter had access to the internet which was an AWESOME surprise because we got to send messages to one another for a huge part of the afternoon.  She is 5 months into her deployment and "spending" the day with her was just the best! We talked about everything. We talked about how she is doing.  We talked about home.  We talked about her dreams and goals and her hopes for when she returns. She said that when she thinks of home, she misses it so much, it hurts.  I told her we miss her that much too. During our conversation, I told my daughter that I had to go to the grocery store.  I might have even complained about having to go.  That is when she said how much she MISSES grocery shopping.  She would do anything to be able to go to the store and get groceries....so I took her with me!  I took pictures of me getting in the car, then heading down the driveway, a few pictures of the road and finally of the store.  Once in the store, I took pictures of the aisles and all the food. She almost cried when she got the picture of the milk aisle.  She hasn't had a sip of milk since December. My daughter decided that she would pick out a few things for Mr. Yesteryear Acres.  She wanted to go shopping for her dad and so I put whatever she chose right into the cart.  After we were all done shopping together, I sent more pictures of the ride home and then pictures of Mr. Yesteryear Acres opening her grocery selections.  She picked out an awesome menu for dinner and Mr. Yesteryear Acres was really super happy with all his goodies.  I think his favorite might have been the stone ground mustard she chose for him.  Tonight we made her dinner and then sent dinner pictures with smiles all around.  She  can't send any pictures back so she emailed me and thanked me for spending the day with her and taking her grocery shopping.  We both can't wait until she comes home and we really go shopping together. We miss each other!
 Dear Daughter who I miss so much, thanks for shopping with me! Stay safe.  Come home soon.  We love you.

Good Start

This morning my son and I left super early and hit the road.  Our mission today.... Help move most of my daughter's belongings out of her dorm room in preparation for her upcoming college graduation. Mr. Yesteryear Acres brewed excellent cups of coffee for the road trip and my son and I were out the door before 7:00am.  Our three hour drive went quickly as we talked non-stop the entire drive.  It was awesome to have so much uninterrupted time and I think we covered just about every subject.  Once we got to my daughter's dorm room, we had a lovely bagel brunch.

and then it was time to start packing.  We packed up the majority of her belongings so now graduation day should be a quick and easy move with the last of her things.  

I think we got a good start!!!!  My son and I loaded up all the boxes and then it was time to head back home again.  We were pretty tired for the road trip back so my son started a game in the car which led to non-stop laughter the entire trip back home. At one point, I had tears rolling down my face from laughing so hard. I was glad I wasn't the one driving!  I don't think I would have been able to see the road.  We had the best drive home and now.......it is time to unload.  I think I will get my exercise points in today! Good start....AND let's finish!

Make the Time

We are blessed with the kindest neighbors on both sides of Yesteryear Acres.  We see one of our neighbors quite often as we share driveways and we help one another deliver the daily mail and packages.  The other neighbor lives about 1/4 mile down from us and we don't see her as often as we would like. She was married for 63 beautiful love-filled years and her sweet husband died almost 5 years ago. My son mows her yard every week and tries to help her out whenever she needs a hand and we do our best to check up on her as often as we can. Today I decided that I would make the time to go visit with her as we haven't had time lately to just sit and chat.  I walked on over, and of course, she was out in her small garden working. She was picking fresh asparagus for her dinner tonight. Even though she will be 88 years old this October, she hasn't slowed down one bit!

She works in her garden almost every day and treasures all her gifts from the garden. We sat and talked for about 2 hours about all her blessings and she said the things she remembers the most aren't the big events, but instead she remembers the little moments in between.  It still feels like it was yesterday when she and her husband sat together shelling lima beans. Those are the things she misses the most. She wouldn't trade all their hard work for anything and is grateful for every moment they shared. She fondly remembers all the little moments and is grateful for her love-filled life. I said I knew just how she felt and am grateful for all the moments in between.  They are the fabric of our lives.  As I headed on home across the field I took a moment to appreciate the view.  

And was thankful for this beautiful day. 

Make the time - treasure the time - appreciate the time

and all the moments in between

I confess

While watching the morning news, I found out that today is "National Honesty Day."  I didn't know that such a day existed.  I didn't realize we had to have a national holiday to celebrate precisely one day of being honest within a calendar year.  Shouldn't every single day be "National Honesty Day"?  I think Mark Twain said it best when he said, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." At Yesteryear Acres, we live by this basic fundamental principle each and every day. If you do something wrong, admit it, apologize for it, try to make amends and then move forward and improve next time. Learn from past mistakes and become a better person. Sometimes you can find solace in knowing that others share your same shortcomings. For example, given that today is this supposed "Day of Honesty"....I will confess a small setback I experienced yesterday.  Despite my strong belief in eating nutritious healthy whole foods and exercising daily, I can still hear things like Doritos calling me from the kitchen.  Cookies can sometimes call to me so loudly that I have no other choice but to answer their cry. Well yesterday, WHILE I WAS ON MY BIKE, exercising like a very healthy person, I heard my son's caramel Bugles calling me.  I was already on my bike.  I was already several miles into my workout.  I could not drown out the call of caramel and so what did I do?  I stopped pedaling, walked all the way to the dining room, opened my son's bag of caramel Bugles, grabbed a handful and then walked back to my bike and began pedaling again while devouring the evidence.  Honestly!  Who does that?  The answer.....me!  Happy National Honesty Day (everyday)!

Poop Patrol

I was out early this morning doing my Poop Patrol duties and the day was just so beautiful that even though picking up Doodle Doggie poop is far from glamorous, it actually isn't that bad either. The sun was shining, the grass was a brilliant green, the buds on the trees were in bloom and the doggies were giving me a lot of tail wagging devotion.  You will never find more thankfulness for the simplest of things than a bestest furry four-legged friend.  They thank you with their wagging tails and love you with their whole big beautiful hearts each and every day.  They are just the most grateful creatures and I couldn't ask for a better life. Doodle doggie devotion makes poop patrol chores not a bad way to spend the day. Good thing too.  Cause I get to do it all again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and the day after that..... Thanks Doodle Doggies for sharing the love!

Shared Walk

This afternoon as I was working up the motivation to get my daily workout in, my younger daughter called just to chat.  We have been so busy lately that we haven't had time to catch up on all the happenings so I was super glad to get her call.  I told her I was just about to go for a walk and she offered to come along. So she put on her shoes and I put on my shoes and even though we are half a state away from one another, we went walking together. It was nice to have the company and we spent an entire hour together.

We sent each other pictures while we were walking

That way we wouldn't be lonely 

"Hi Mom!'

My daughter took the best pictures of her walk

She has the most beautiful paths in the woods by her school

 

Yesteryear Acres might not have all the bluebells.....but we do have a Double Doodle Doggie named Blue - so I think we are even in our awesome walk adventure. Dear daughter...Thanks for the shared walk!  It was great!