Beyond the Garden Gate

Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks. Dr. Seuss Well, it is safe to say Dr Seuss would be proud of us...  We literally have books in every nook and cranny of our house. Maybe it is understandable given the size of our cute house in which books have no real home of their own. Although, Is it because there is no more space to fit bookcases? Or if we had a bigger place would we run into the same problem?  Hmmm I wonder, I wonder…  given the amount of books we have and the ones that seem to sneak into our house in the middle of the night while no one is looking, it might be a safe assumption that maybe the size of the house is not the issue. Maybe if we had a bigger house it would just mean more books? although I am not quite sure about that theory, seeing that the size of the home and the number of books seem to be in no way correlated to one another.  One thing is safe to say, this situation grew exponentially with the decision to...

As I walked amongst the "plumpy" blackberries (like we like to call them) taking deep breaths of their sweet smell mixed with the recently watered garden dirt. While I filled my mouth with the black honey of summer straight from the sun kissed branches,I watched my little girl happily humming to herself beside me with grandmas colander overflowing and trying to figure out how she could cram just a few more without them rolling off. Just then couldn't help but think of how romance doesn't just die, we let it, oh and how easy that can happen when we are not intentional in finding the beauty and wonder in the simple, monotonous, and humdrum rutine moments in our everyday life that seem meaningless and ordinary but are actually the opposite, those are the moments that we will look back to some day, those are what memories are made of. We are a tad spoiled, I have to admit, by thornless blackberry bushes! What a joy to pick berries without bleeding ...

Yep, it's me, once more popping in this little corner of the internet after a few years since using this blog.  Why am I back? Well in a nutshell I decided a while ago to take a break from Instagram, it's been a few months now since my last post there. I used that platform as a mini blog mainly because I enjoyed posting beautiful pictures and it also gave me the chance to write recipes, fun tips, life musings, and shenanigans plus make friends. But I started to feel burned out with all the changes and I also noticed It started sucking me in more. I lost so much precious time in it instead of providing a place to express myself.  It has been quite interesting to see how social media has changed over the years. Mainly Instagram (but the same applies to facebook and youtube), where artists used to share beautiful pictures. My feed was a place of beauty and inspiration. And now it has morphed into a tiktock-ish mini facebook with video clips, "influencers" convincing us t...

Even though I am a work from home mom, I take pride in calling myself a homemaker. I think It doesn't matter whether we stay home or work outside of home in the end we are all Homemakers. We use our time, strengths, gifts, and service to make our house a home, and no matter what the culture says, being a homemaker is something to be proud of, You are more important than you realize!  Homemakers possess a lot of great qualities, they are thrifty, organized, reliable, flexible, and resourceful . The roles of a homemaker includes food planner, shopper, and preparer, housekeeper, budgeter, errand runner, child caretaker, empathetic listener, host, and many more. So, if you manage your home with care and pride, and you try hard to make your home a special, peaceful, and comfortable space for you and your loved ones, you are a homemaker 💕👑 Like C.S. Lewis said: "I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife's work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rollin...

Starting my first blog post back with what is heavy on my soul...  Lately the  phrase that keeps coming to mind for me is "look at the fruits of the tree"... so much wisdom from the bible verse Luke 6:43–45 (KJV): "For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. I look around and what I see are fruits of discord, anger, resentment, attack, division, hate, anxiety disorders worsened, panic attacks, overwhelming stress, toxic work environments, friendships shattered, sadness, discrimination... the fruits of C19? Politics? Of social media? A mixture of all?  Then I wonder maybe our heavenly father  is taking this NOT good tree and using it for good as he always does. Maybe this whole thing in a way is allowing us- if we are willing- to heal some of those past experiences and stories we kept buried in the darkness and now are being brought to the light to be healed.  Like @journal...

Lately our little one is obsessed with Fancy Nancy and honestly the stories are quite fun… and I still think so even after reading them over and over and over again. But as I read them they started to get to me, the whole over sexualization of our girls… have you noticed it lately? Going shopping after the cute toddler stage is a nightmare! With a wide array of mini skirts and micro shorts makes me want to hide inside of the clothes rack and cry, where did all the cute stuff go? Ok ok, back to my story… tonight I had enough! I grabbed a set or markers and a black pen and gave this children’s beloved character a makeover, well at least in our book. And I honestly think Fancy Nancy looks way cuter now! Mama’s we have the duty to raise the little souls entrusted to us, to protect them, guide them, and keep them safe physically, emotionally, and mentally. We need to raise them to respect their bodies and to see their innate beauty. We as women don’t need to be flaunting everything God gave...