my hometown of tuscaloosa

i'm thankful that my family is safe and my thoughts and prayers go out to those less fortunate. it hurts to look at. i don't know what to say.

sometimes life is frustrating.

sometimes i feel inadequate and way behind the learning curve. (in this example of trying to make sugar cookies.)sometimes we feel like nobody is listening. or helping. or leaving us alone.
sometimes we feel trapped. like the world is coming down on us. like everybody can see that we're backwards except us. like we've been abandoned.

i love this

after he spoke in conference, i was floored. I thought the whole thing was so profound. i want to make a list of all of the christ-like attributes I want to teach my children. I feel like the only attribute word Jackson knows is "nice." I want to build his vocabulary, and who he is, to include words like perseverant, honest, grateful, generous, willing, humble, considerate, dependable, friendly, helpful, positive, and faithful. That's not saying anything about all the ways I need to improve how i discipline and even more importantly, who i am myself.

I did stuff to my house

I read this blog called nester and she talked about taking risks. Risks are different things to different people. For me its deciding to hang up a picture already. All frames in this post have seriously been laying around unused because I was unsure how/where to hang them.
Maybe I'll do a separate post on this one but we painted this room and I started it by myself. I love the color. Its exactly what I wanted. kind of a brown/gray. It's beautiful if you ask me. (Brent painted the art on the walls in college. It's a collection of chemical engineering supplies that he, dad, and granddad have all used.)
We also pulled the living room color to the foyer and this will be our living room color that you see in the foreground. We couldn't decide and Brent just picked it up one day. I think it'll be really pretty even though I wouldn't have picked it out.
You can't really see here but I used to have pine cones in the glass vases and bowls on the mantel. I decided for summer I wanted something brighter that was fun for kids. (I was thinking may to use for rewards for chores or whatnot) I have starburst and balloons. any ideas for the third?
this is how I hang my jewelry. I bought a wooden picture frame, painted it white and put long screw like things in for bracelets/necklaces. On the other side is fabric rings for earings.
We've had this picture from Jacksons namesake (his great grandfather) for years but I didn't like the framing. I always thought I would get it reframed but then in a whim just decided to paint it white and I like it ok enough to hang up. I don't love the painting but I love having something from William Jackson.
The heart on the bottom left is a scrap from Jacksons beloved kiki. (his blanket)
seriously, all of these frames were just in stacks around my house not being used. I just decided to put them all up. I actually love it but jackson keeps telling me he doesn't like the picture of the bears.
well thats more than you cared to see but i feel good having done this little house projects. It makes our home feel more ours.