I’ve been quiet on here for nearly a month. Mainly because I’ve been contemplating some things. I like to blog, and I have so many partial posts–written with no pictures. I’m hoping the new camera will eliminate that, as it is much easier to pop the SD card out of the camera than it is to get the app working on my phone or to download pictures off my phone (a process involving about an hour and 3 rather painstaking steps).

The other issue I have been considering is, now that I have my new camera (and really before that), I have all these extra pictures. I’d go take pictures in the yard and come back with 50 pictures, but only use 5 or 6 of them. The problem was choosing the right ones. The struggle is real, y’all!

Another issue is that I have been attempting to maintain a couple of blogs on different subjects. One for rural living, and the other for planning and being a work-at-home-mom (WAHM). The second hasn’t done much, so it’s semi-retiring. I’ll be taking that content and adding it to a rotation of topics of weekly posts. Yes, weekly is the goal.

And finally, I’ve been contemplating how to add in some recipes. We do a lot of cooking that is absolutely related to our lifestyle. CAT and I were talking one day and I had a revelation. When we lived in the city, we cooked and we were always inspired to cook great dinners. Now that we have 33 acres, soccer, scouts, school, his business obligations, my business obligations, and more, we are less inspired and dinner is mostly about function rather than form. We cook because we have to eat, and the easier the meal, the better. I’ve learned that we don’t have to sacrifice the tasty side of the meal, and I’m sure people can benefit from some of what I’ve figure out.

So, what has all this got to do with a horizon, you ask? Change, my friends. Change is on the horizon. I am in the process of relocating my blog to a new hosting location and reworking it with some surprises in store. Don’t worry, you should see minimal to no difference in the way you receive the blog (email or in your Reader feed), because it’s still powered by WordPress. The type of content will remain, with some new additions in subject matter.

The differences you WILL see:

1. It will be prettier, because, let’s face it, I’m a girl and I want my blog to be pretty.
2. More pictures!! On a separate page–yes, pages!!
3. More streamlined and alive layout. Stagnant is boring, so I’m working on that.
4. More content (hopefully!), because I hear from good sources that this new program I’m using is amazing for adding content.

Stay tuned. The unveiling is coming, but I’ve been making slow headway in learning this new program. I hit a roadblock, but I think I found the solution! More to come, very soon!

Since I gave you the proverbial horizon, here’s a picture of the actual horizon to enjoy.

~Mouse

For July 4th, CAT and I both had 3-day weekends so we took advantage and headed to Texas. We typically stay with my grandparents when we head that way, and there is always some nostalgia.

These two people were a huge part of my life growing up, especially after we moved to Texas.

I spent a lot time playing with Grandpa at the park when I was young, and hanging out with him as I got older.

I spent time wanting and trying to be just like my Grandma, who is an amazing woman, by the way.

That is the house where the official first car photo happened.

Even at the longest distance, I spent the better part of 20 years living within an hour of them. Those years were rich with traditions, including many, many Christmas Eves all the way into our kids’ early years.

Anytime we visit, I smile as my grandparents influence and invest in our kids the way they did with me. Every morning my Grandpa would present the paper for the news article of the day. You can choose one, but if you opt to not choose, then Grandpa picks for you. Cricket enjoyed her article on women’s soccer.

Grasshopper opted out and was given an article to read, I believe from the Wall Street Journal.

Growing up, the newspaper article was accompanied by the word of the day. My first word of the day was eclectic, followed by defunct and so many more. Since the essential “Big Red Dictionary” lives at my house now, the kids were exempt.  Yes, the book is a true treasure from my childhood and probably an important part of my writing tendencies today.

Then we have hours upon hours in the same pool where I learned to swim. Here I am in all my childhood awesomeness swimming with my Grandma (this might be from my grandparents first Texas home, but, in all fairness, I couldn’t swim in this picture).

And here are our kids enjoying swim time.

And Popsicle break.

There’s always breakfast making for the crew. Cricket helped Grandma with the bacon and taking egg orders (scrambled or fried). Then Cricket and CAT made the eggs.

The one huge change in tradition, is that picture taking has moved down the line. Grandma has always taken some pictures and still does, but the primary photographer in our family was always my Grandpa. He was often missing from pictures of events because he was behind the camera, but the photographic evidence of my childhood adventures with them, my brothers, and my cousins is precious.

This weekend, I was there with my new camera…

Until the battery died and we figured out that we didn’t bring the charging cord. Good thing we live in the technology age, because we all had phones to take more photos.

While there have been changes, especially the part where we live nearly 7 hours away, the fundamentals remain. That house has always been a sort of home-base for me, and a big part of my roots, which is important. It is my hope that one day Ramblin’ Ridge will be that for our children, our grandchildren and, God willing, our great-grandchildren.

The rest of our weekend included a visit with some friends and their new dog (I think we will have a bird dog sooner rather than later despite CAT’s “objections”), dinner with CAT’s parents and my grandparents, and the FC Dallas soccer game with CAT’s sister and family, complete with an amazing fireworks show.

Of course, I can’t leave you without a cute animal photo. So here is Sophie hanging out a very safe distance from the pool at Grandma’s. As much as she loves swimming in the pond, she had no interest in the splashing or pool water.

~Mouse

**Note: Photo credits to my Grandparents in addition to what CAT and I took!! This post wouldn’t be possible without all those throwback photos.

It really is! The last month has been a hodgepodge of just real life living.

I traveled twice for work, taking the kids with me for one trip. Shout out to my Dad and Mum for giving them an amazing week in Orlando while I worked. I did get the fun of that first Disney experience over the weekend before we headed back. The only “thing” missing was CAT, who stayed behind due to work commitments.

The forced smile from Grasshopper pretty much defines the trip of “Hey, smile so I can take your picture. Try again. No really… Take 3. Smile dude! Fine, good enough.” And Cricket’s look by the third or fourth attempt at each shot. Overall it was a lot of fun though.

Back at home base, our neighbor brought us gallons of cherries that the kids washed and pitted so I could freeze them for cobblers and ice cream later. After pitting them for hours across multiple days using the pinching method, they decided that we need a couple of cherry pitters in time for next year’s harvest. Next up: blackberries!

The temperamental weather has not done any good as far as the garden goes. We have a few things trying to produce, but most of my second round seeds didn’t make it after rotting from too much rain. That was after a 50% sprouting on the first round. I got a few sugar snap peas off the plants before they withered away.

Most of the herbs drowned, but I did have a good return on the mint and oregano from last year. I have been clipping and drying them both periodically.

The very edge of that picture is the ONE salad worth of lettuce that actually came up. The other 5 plants drowned, so no garden fresh lettuce this year. We’ve had a couple of strawberries and I am hoping for a few more this week, now that the bunnies quit stealing my plants. Yes, whole plants went missing.

Meanwhile, we have been able to get a few projects done around here. Well, mostly done. CAT brought a big storage cabinet home to help manage the stuff in the shop. We put some large casters on it and had quite the adventure getting out of the trailer. But it’s standing. Next up is cleaning and painting.

Especially the shelves.

My boys worked hard at getting some rock out on the driveway. It was getting rough in some spots and slippery in the rain in others.

This was my view, driving the truck as they shoveled the rock out of the trailer.

In the midst of projects, the dryer decided to stop working. So we did a quick internet search, and we were able to determine the issue. Thankfully, it was a pretty inexpensive and easy fix. So easy, in fact, that I took the dryer back apart, installed the new part, and put it back together by myself.

All that fuss for that little white conductor. But we can dry clothes now.

On our last trip to the city, we picked up a ballast for the light in my closet that had not been working well. CAT made that a priority (so good to me!) and got it repaired.

While he was at it, he fixed the light in the garage that was having the same issues.

While he worked on that, I started on the new garage door opener. It looked something like this all spread out over the garage floor. Tank is supervising. The opener is together and hanging. We just need to level the door out and hook it all up.

That pretty much sums up our time since the rain has stopped and we can actually get some things done around here. Oh, and cute kittens, just because. Here are Boots and Blinkin, trying successfully to be adorable.

Oh, CAT did buy me a new camera, so image quality might improve if I remember to grab it before projects… 🙂

~Mouse

It’s been some time since my last post, but it has been a hectic time. Both Cricket and Grasshopper participated in the fall soccer program, which entails 3 days a week of games and practices for 2 hours each day for the duration of 6 weeks. That means that CAT was busy coaching and I was busy being the administrator.

We also celebrated a very important birthday in the midst of soccer. Grasshopper is officially a teenager.

We also adopted a new dog, Sophie. She is just over 2 years old and needed a lot of attention–training, spaying (no puppies in this house!), general vetting, flea removal, and just flat out TLC to help her adjust. I am definitely her person.

Immediately after soccer season, CAT and I began an alternating travel schedule. I traveled for a week. The following week, CAT was gone for part of the week. Then we were both gone for the majority of the week after. And the last week of October our little town held its annual Halloween festival, complete with rides, carnival food, and parades. So we were just flat out busy with family time.

I’ve since traveled again for work, and hunting season began, taking us to Texas and Western Kansas to fill our freezer for the year. It also means training dogs to track deer.

That time was not without education, for me. Let’s start with the fact that I work in technology. On one of my journeys, I had the pleasure of spending my lunch with one of our clients, also a parent, named Tim. We avoided the topic of the conference because we were pretty spent on that topic. Instead, we ended up talking about our kids.

During the conversation, Tim labeled himself as a “Yes parent” (YP) and me as a “No parent” (NP) in regard to electronics. As a YP, Tim’s 12-year-old had her own tablet, laptop, and smartphone. She had constant access to information and electronic entertainment. She struggled in school and he struggled with the electronics. She was sending text messages at dinner and was on the phone after bedtime. Even grounding her from the phone was impossible because he had come to rely on it to communicate with her.

As NPs, our children have no cell phones. They share a tablet that belongs to the family. We have a desktop computer that is older, that they share. We have a Wii, but the games are sports and trivia games that require them to move around or think. The Wii is connected to our only television.

We do have DISH, but a package just big enough to get ESPN to watch March Madness and the World Cup (priorities). Anything not rated PG or below is locked and requires a password, which means that the show must be Mouse-approved. Their time on electronics is earned by having good grades, doing chores, and following the rules. They only get 30 minutes a day during the week and must choose what device is most important to them that day. On weekends they may watch morning cartoons, but only until 9. If you sleep until 8:45, tough luck.

Our kids get toys at Christmas and birthdays that encourage outside play, like basketballs and a goal, soccer gear, tether ball, and croquet. They have basically unlimited access to books of all types. We buy books at auctions, and we frequent the local secondhand bookstore. They often get gift cards to bookstores as gifts, which they love.

The discussion with Tim was mostly a comparison. No one was deemed right or wrong. There was no “My parenting is better because…”, and no judgement. I expressed the challenges of being a NP in a world of YPs. The YPs are everywhere and always telling me why our kids should have phones and more electronics, and fewer chores and responsibilities. And their children tell our children how Mom cleans their bedroom and they don’t have chores; they just do whatever they want. That makes it hard to stand your ground.

By the end of the conversation, I was a little more pro-YP. I came home and upgraded the TV rating from Y-7 to PG. Our children still do not have cell phones, but there are times when we loan them one of ours if the situation warrants. CAT carries one for work and one personal, so we have a ‘spare’, especially if we are together. One of Tim’s parting comments was, “I need to be more of a NP. She needs more boundaries and less encouragement. Thank you!” I was pleased to hear that someone agreed with my parenting choices, because, aside from CAT, I generally hear that I’m wrong.

How on earth does this relate to rural versus urban? I’ve been excited to see that fewer children here have phones compared to our previous school. Even at the older ages, the kids are still without smartphones. This is mostly because we see more parents actually with their kids. Middle school parents actually come to soccer practice, and they stay. They take their kids to the grocery or farm supply store. Less kids need phones because their parents already know where they are, because they are together. Our kids are nearly always with us. If they aren’t with us, they are on the school bus or at school, or with a neighbor. They are not alone, wandering the streets.

YP or NP, or somewhere in between, what’s your preference?

Welcome to Urban Mouse, Rural House!

I’m just getting started, but I hope you will come back to see how our front yard went from this:

to this:

I plan to include everything from learning the ropes through everyday life and adjusting from our city life to digging back in time as related to living rurally.

Please check back soon.

~Mouse