As The Next Generation is Home Educated {...another slice of life...a regular Thursday in this 'hood...}

Remember this?

Beauty really does spring from broken places.

There were some dark days in my 22+ year home educating career.  There were some dark years.  But we also had so, so many days like this:

My iPhone buzzed about ten minutes ago.  This is going on, next door, even as I type.  My daughter Hannah sent me the above little video clip of her going over Timothy's memorization assignment for this week - today, she happens to be including Timothy's cousin (and my very enthusiastic grand-girl) Aidyn Esther.

I die.  I die from pure delight, I resurrect, then I die again.

These moments are what makes having a career in teaching your own children at home so, so worth the cost.

My #UnstyledLifestyle House REALLY DID Get Featured on a Design Blog {...a major design blog...}

 I promised I'd tell you which design blog was going to feature our home.

Then, I forgot to tell it here.  I announced it on Facebook and Instagram, but forgot to announce it right here, where it all began.

{hint:  please consider this your invitation to join me on one or all of my other social media channels.  I would love to see you there!}

So.  Remember this post?  My "Unstyled Lifestyle House Tour For No Real Reason"?

In that blog post, I practically bragged on the fact that I have never-no-never been invited to participate in one of those "Holiday House" virtual house tours at Christmas time...you know...

...the blog hops.

Not once.

And I really didn't {and don't} care.

But as fate would have it, Gabrielle Blair over at Design Mom actually invited me to submit photos of our home for her weekly design feature "Living With Kids - Home Tours".

Apparently the sort of lifestyle we have, living with one of our grandbabies for two years, followed by living right next door to the same grandchild {and we will quite possibly be living two doors down from two of our other grandbabies by the end of this summer!} is fascinating to many folks...

...and I do have to say - I am living a dream I have not earned and do not deserve.  Hashtag blessedforsure.

Back to being invited to share our home on a real, true design blog.  I gotta tell you, the #unstyledlifestyle of that initial, silly blog post, became a "work-my-behind-off-to-style-my-unstyled-lifestyle" project.  A flurry of house cleaning and fresh-flower buying ensued upon learning that our home would actually be featured on - of all places, Design Mom.

Only THE website I have been "fan-girling" for at least two years!

I was over the moon, and still am.

You can find the shots of our home, and my interview here.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the "outtakes"...the shots that didn't make the cut for the feature piece:

Up In The Air So Blue {...the things my preacher can do, in no time flat...}

I mentioned it this afternoon.  That's all I did, was mention it.

I mentioned the fact that it'd be fun to have a wooden-seat swing, down there under the silver maple.

This evening, right before dinner, The Preacher went out to his workshop.  I heard the noise of the power saw and something else.  In less than an hour, this is what I was called outside to see:

And then this may have happened:

I was all, like, "Hey kid.  Get off my swing."  (not really)

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down! 

Robert Louis Stevenson