 My family moved a week ago yesterday. What an adventure! This isn't the first time all four of us has moved, but I sure hope it's one of the last times. LOL
We were actually very organized. Boxes were all properly labeled, we had a couple of yard sales and sold or gave away as much as we could to make the moving process that much easier. We moved from a 950 sq. ft. house to a 1600 sq. ft. house with a double garage. How hard could it be? What I would like to know is where all this stuff came from?! Now, granted, we still had some things boxed up from our move two years ago because there was no storage space or kitchen space in our previous house. I must admit, I'm loving all of this room. There's room to spread out. We don't have to step on shoes to get out the backdoor. And I have kitchen cabinets! Yes! I even have a dishwasher now, though I've yet to try it out. I guess I'm so used to washing by hand I haven't even thought to get the dishwashing soap to use in it yet. I will, though. The backyard and front yard are both beautiful and we spent some time planting flowers in the flower bed by the front porch. We are already enjoying this house and having more room! Now to get back to normal again. Back to blog posts and writing. Back to school tomorrow and a schedule. Yeah, it'll be nice to have a schedule again! Speaking of writing, I know I was supposed to have a cover reveal for my next book by now. I'm very sorry about that! The official reveal will be this Wednesday, May 6th. Which is timed nicely (and completely accidentally) because Wednesday is Nurses Day and the book is all about Lexi! I am very thankful for your patience during this transition to a new home. I appreciate you all!
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 Happy Spring, everyone!
Don't you just love the bluebonnets? They are one of my favorite spring flowers. I took that photo five or six years ago. We don't see many of them here in West Texas, but they really are a colorful sign of warmer weather. I'm so sorry for my absence lately. It's been a really rough week and a half. My family and I were out of town right after the CIR sale and then I ended up sick. My husband says it was the sickest he's ever seen me since we've been married. Between the coughing, headaches, and fatigue, it was a blur. I'm just finally feeling better this week and now having to get caught up on just about everything. But I'm so very thankful that I have the energy to be able to do that. I just wanted to touch base with you all and let you know that I'm still here. I'll be posting regularly again. 
We have added some non-human members to our family in the last couple of weeks. The first is a twenty gallon aquarium in our living room. I have always enjoyed fish aquariums, but haven't had one since our son was born. Our son is especially enjoying the aquarium and both kids love feeding the fish. We have six long-finned zebra danios, three long-finned black skirted tetras, and three red minor tetras. It seems to be a really good mix! I've got some herbs sprouting and we plan to have a mini aquaponics setup with the herbs. That way, I'll always have fresh ones to cook with, the tank will provide the water they need, and the herbs will help clean the tank. Win win! 
The most celebrated addition is Tweak the rabbit (anyone here have kids who are Octonauts fans?). She's a very sweet little rabbit and so pretty! She is a dwarf lionhead. She was bred an angora, but I guess the lionhead look (long hair only around the head so it looks like a mane) is somewhat new. My understanding is that they are working on making it an official breed at some point in the near future.
Both kids really enjoy her, but our daughter especially. One of our dogs, Jessie, is cracking us up. Every time we say Tweak's name or talk to her, Jessie runs from anywhere in the house and stands at the cage whining at the rabbit. If Tweak lays up against the front of the cage, Jessie is licking her. We can't figure out if she really likes the rabbit, is jealous of her, or wants a rabbit sandwich. We are letting Tweak out to hop around the living room for a while every day, but always put the dogs up during that time. I'm really having fun with Tweak, too. We're having fun figuring out what she likes - so far spinach and apples are definitely her favorite treats!  Photo by Melanie D. Snitker I hope you all are having a great start to 2015!
We had an icy start with some incredibly cold weather and freezing rain. I think the kids were about to go crazy being stuck in the house for four solid days. Even the blades of grass - as you can see in the photo above, had layers upon layers of ice on them. When the sun finally came out and shone through the ice as it melted everything, it really was beautiful. I'll admit, though, I'll be fine if we don't see any more icy weather like that for the rest of the winter. The new year was an exciting one with the release of Finding Peace on January 3rd. 340 digital copies of the book were sold in the first three days - a completely humbling experience. I want to send a big thank you to each and every person who bought a copy. I truly hope you enjoy Tuck and Laurie's story. Now that the holidays are gone and we're into 2015, I'll be starting on the second book in the Love's Compass series this week. I'm currently in the process of outlining the story and doing some research. For those that are curious, this second book will be Lexi's story. I hope you all find 2015 to be filled with adventure. God bless you and your family in this new year. 
Our almost nine-year-old son has autism. He has a huge vocabulary, but is non-conversational. What that means is that he has a very difficult time expressing himself. He can use sentences - which is huge considering he used only single words at the age of five - but they are still very limited when it comes to trying to explain something.
The most recent example - M&M balls. He has been telling us for three weeks about M&M balls. The conversation usually starts with him asking, "You would like the M&M balls?" To which we would reply either "We don't have any M&M balls" or "I'm not sure what M&M balls you're talking about." He would come back with, "Sure! You can have the M&M balls." Truthfully, we thought maybe he had seen an M&M commercial where either one of the cartoon M&Ms had a ball or were pretending to be a ball. We wracked our brains and couldn't think of anything he would be referring to. Most of the time, our conversations are very similar to the above. And one of the things we love about him is his sense of humor. He absolutely loves to take something, give it an opposite spin, and wait for a response before laughing. For example, today he would refer to a local fast food restaurant's paint color by saying, "Taco Villa is red!" Then he watches us, a huge grin on his face, and waits for us to respond, "No! Taco Villa is green!" He laughs, which is incredibly contagious. :-) We had begun to think maybe that's what was going on with the M&M balls, too. Maybe he was making a joke about them. Until today. We stopped at Academy and as soon as we got there, he was very excited about the M&M balls. Thinking we may finally get some answers, we all went up and down the aisles with all different kinds of sports balls. He was starting to get frustrated when he finally saw them. Proudly, he plucked a package of Wilson foam tennis balls, the W on each one, and held them up. "M&M balls!" He quickly read the logo and corrected himself, saying, "Wilson W balls!" He was happy to have finally found them, and even more excited that we now understood what he had been talking about. Yes, you bet we bought them for him. Not only that, but my husband created a makeshift basket for his room so he could throw the foam balls through it. It takes a lot of effort and thought for him to try and express himself. But you know what? He never gives up. Never. How many of us could go through three weeks of trying to explain something you had seen without wanting to put our fist through a wall? I bet not too many of us. I'm pretty certain I couldn't. Our son is a hero to me and an inspiration. I admire his perseverance, his honesty, his ability to be himself, and his outlook on life. I am truly blessed to be his mom. 
It's an overcast and rainy Saturday morning, a site that is relatively unusual here in West Texas. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest a good part of my life, I'm loving every minute of it. It's one of those mornings where I am happy to be indoors as I work on my writing.
The majority of the family feels the same way: My husband is playing a computer game and our son is watching Aladdin on TV (which brings forth even more emotions now than it did as we remember the late Robin Williams). Our daughter, however, woke up bored and kept insisting she get to go outside and play in the rain. While I don't necessarily have any objections to playing in the rain, I was looking forward to a cozy day indoors. So in contrast to the gray weather outside, I thought I would bring out the rainbows. The rainbow rice, that is. It was a project the kids and I did back in February where we used rubbing alcohol, food coloring and rice to create a bright alternative to sand. Our daughter was clapping her hands as I spread the sleeping bag on the floor, collected a variety of items for her to play with, and then opened the container of rainbow rice. Since then, she has been creating rainbow rice milkshakes, burying her feet in it, and letting it slowly flow out of a funnel into another container. Even Jessie, one of our dogs, got into the action. Laying with her body just off the sleeping bag, she expertly used her tongue to grab rogue piece of rice as they bounced off plastic containers and scattered her way. This is a great way to keep little ones (and even big kids) busy when they are stuck indoors! If you are interested in making some rainbow rice of your own, check out this blog post and recipe from Joybilee Farm! Just be prepared to have fun. And if you happen to have a rainbow-rice-eating dog, cleanup is a breeze! ;-) 
Our poor daughter. We discovered a black widow near the door of our house a couple of days ago. She is three-years-old and has never liked spiders anyway, but apparently seeing the large arachnid was the last straw.
That night, she woke up three separate times screaming, nearly hysterical, after dreaming about spiders. I do know that, at one point, she had a dream that giant pink and black spiders were crawling down her walls to sit on her tummy while she was in bed. We finally just let her lay in our bed for a while and eventually I exchanged my pursuit of sleep for a zombie-like stupor while she watched an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. All day yesterday, she talked about the spiders. She was so frightened of them, she wouldn't even go into her room with the lights on until I went with her and showed her that there were no giant pink and black spiders hiding in her covers. Exhausted, she fell asleep in the car for a while yesterday. When she woke up crying about spiders trying to get her in the car, I knew this wasn't just going to go away. So yesterday evening, we mixed up some spider spray. A special spray of water with lavender essential oil that she could use to spray all over her bed and her room and it would keep those nasty giant spiders from even coming near her. We sprayed her bed, the walls, her umbrella, each of her stuffed animals (especially her teddy bear so that he could help bonk spiders on the head), the rug and even the ceiling. Then her daddy brought in a wooden mallet that she and her teddy bears could use to really knock those spiders out, though she shouldn't expect to see them on account of all the spray. Our daughter was nervous. But after saying a prayer for peaceful dreams and giving hugs and kisses, we left the room. Thankfully, she fell asleep almost immediately and slept peacefully all last night. This morning, she woke up with a triumphant grin. "There weren't any spiders in my room!" We have a lot of extra anti-spider spray and we may have to use it again tonight. But here's hoping there aren't any giant pink and black spiders wandering the house at night anymore.
We often walk to our post office and lately, we've been collecting pine cones along the way. Today, my daughter and I painted them. She loves painting. At three-and-a-half, she happily spent over an hour and a half working on them if that tells you how much she enjoys it.
I really had a lot of fun as well. The best part, however, was spending quality time with my little girl who is getting big way too fast. I'm not sure what we're going to do with these pine cones yet. For now, they are sitting on a paper towel on the counter drying, looking cheerful, and reminding me of my daughter's equally bright smile. :-) |
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