Author Archive for Karla Neese

I had intended, and even attempted, to post something on Thursday, and then on Friday but things kept interrupting me and it never got done.

Brad’s parents came this morning and picked up the girls for a trip to their house for a week. Nearly every summer the girls spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa before school starts. It gives Grandma and Grandpa a chance to spend some uninterrupted time with the girls and it gives the girls a chance to do something other than be at home (until this year it used to be at the office) all day long. Gideon, our Lhasa Apso gets to spend the week at Grandma’s too. He loves Brad’s parents Bichons, particularly their boy dog Obie (Okie Beau is his real name, which is abbreviated to O.B. which translates to Obie, so no he’s not named after Star Wars). So anyway, Brad and I have a week alone, except for the two pugs. You’d think this would be incredibly romantic and all, but after a few days, we usually miss the girls and can’t wait for them to come home. We enjoy our time alone together and usually go on a date or two, and even though we really love each other, we just somehow don’t feel complete without our girls here at home.

Yesterday Brad sent me a link to a really excellent article about how having more mess around you can mean less stress in your life. Wow, did it hit home. So often I struggle with feeling the “shoulds”. You know - I should get rid of all this clutter, I should have a perfectly clean house, I should have it all together, I should be the Martha Stewart of Edmond, Oklahoma. Somehow reading this article puts things in perspective for me. When I do tolerate the clutter and just ignore things a bit more, I do tend to be happier. That perfectionist monster gets put back in its cage and the stress seems to lessen. Hmmm, I think that’s the key, isn’t it? Enjoy the present, change what I can, learn to prioritize what is REALLY important and ignore the rest of the stuff that really won’t make the world end.

Speaking of things putting life in perspective. Did anyone else see the tv show called ManMade this morning on National Geographic? They had an episode about Living Small in a Big City, which featured houses and apartments in Tokyo. Wow, there was one apartment that is 200 sq. ft. and is one room, where they even have to share a toilet in the building and have to use a local sento (bath house) to bathe. The Asians are amazing innovators when it comes to space!

My friend Aisling’s daughter spent some time in Taiwan a couple of years ago. She posted some wonderful things about that time and some great photos that her daughter took. Take a look at The Quiet Country House, Aisling’s blog, and go through the archives if you’d like to see more about her daughter’s trip.

One thing I’ve always admired about the Japanese is how they take a small space and make it so efficient by using incredibly creative innovation. I mean take the Bento Box for example. Who would have thought you could fit so much food into such a small little package? If you’d like to learn more about Bento Boxes, check out one of my favorite food sites, Lunch In A Box.

I hope you all are doing well. Tomorrow I plan to skip church and stay home to hang out with Brad. I will probably wake up at my own leisure, fix frozen waffles for breakfast, mow the grass and then spend the day catching up on magazines and blogs.

My mind has been adrift lately, seemingly tossed by many waves and not knowing where the shore is. Work is going well, but next week the sales rep. I work for goes on vacation for 2 weeks and I’ll be honest, I’m scared to death of handling all of his clients by myself. The truth is, there will be others here who can help me tremendously, but inside my head it feels like I’m all alone. A silly myth that has caused my fears to get out of hand. Why do I still get myself so easily stressed even before I know the situation I truly face? 

This morning on the way to work I was listening to a favorite album by David Lanz. He’s a wonderful composer pianist that we all love to listen to. I’ve learned to play a couple of his songs and so has Ashley. We even have autographed books of his music. And this morning as I listened I realized how much I miss playing the piano. Momentarily, I thought, perhaps I can go back to piano lessons. I’d love that. BUT - I know it’s not practical time-wise. Because of my work schedule, I’m only home an hour that Brad isn’t home (some days not even that long) and the piano is in the living room where the television is, so practicing will be a real challenge. Not to mention the fact that I have felt overwhelmed even with what I’m doing now, so why would I even think to add another stress factor? My saner self said, you can start by going back to actually touching the piano once in awhile, then if you are faithful in a little (practicing) you can think further about going back to lessons. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll try to get my house in order (Ha! Who am I kidding?), get on a routine that will help keep me sane and try to fit in playing for fun on the piano once in awhile.

I just recently checked out a book from the library about handmade journals that was absolutely fabulous if you are a journal keeper. It’s called Making Journals By Hand and is written by Jason Thompson who is a bookbinder and artist by trade. The ideas in the book are incredible. I’ve let my paper journaling go by the wayside, for the most part, since I’ve been blogging. But I think it might be time to pick one back up and start writing, and drawing and finding my creative self.

I hope you all are doing well. I’ve been reading snippets of blogs here and there as I have been able to. Thanks for being my faithful readers!

In my last post, I mentioned a 3 Doors Down video called Kryptonite. Here it is for your entertainment:

Last year after my aunt passed away, my brother and I rescued box after box of old photos from her house. We’ve had a fun time looking through them and a couple of weeks ago he gave me a few of myself he came across in his portion of the stash of photos. This one is my favorites of the pile. It was taken at my grandma’s house, and the door behind me is my aunt’s bedroom. The sticker behind my head says “Church: The Sunday Night Place.” I must have been around 7 or 8.

Now, I must confess I have no memory of this costume. I think it must have been Halloween, but though I have fond memories of most of my costumes as a child, this one slips my mind. I’m naming this one after the popular 3 Doors Down song (Kryptonite) that has the line “if I go crazy will you still call me superman?” (Love that video, by the way.)

Oh my goodness, has it really been a week since I last posted anything? Time sure gets away from me these days. I do have several posts in mind to write, just haven’t sat down to do them. I’ll try and be a little more faithful in posting. I’ve got a post planned about keeping an eye out for spam text messages and erroneous charges on your cell phone bill. Then I’ve also got a fun “looking back” post planned as well.

We had a nice long weekend for 4th of July. On Friday, we went to Enid to spend the day with Brad’s family, including cutie patootie Miss Rachel Nicole. We had a nice visit and really great food.

On Thursday of last week, Brad had a minor surgical procedure done to remove a cyst from inside his neck. He seems to be healing well, but we are keeping a close watch on his incision to prevent infection.

This weekend also saw the return of Ashley back into our midst. She was at church camp last week and reports that she had “an absolute blast”. She did kayaking, nature hikes, mountain man lessons, ate a carpenter ant which she says tastes like a lemon drop, and almost beat a boy for the skeet shooting championship. We’re glad to have her back.

I don’t know about all of you, but getting up to head back to work was a bit more difficult this morning thanks to that long lazy weekend we just had. But it’s back into the swing of things and after a cup of coffee, I’m feeling back to normal.

Check back in the next day or so for the posts I mentioned earlier. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  

We went and visited our new niece, Rachel, over the weekend. Oh is she a doll. It was a pleasure to hold her, and a pleasure to hand her back and leave her with her mommy and daddy to stay up nights with her. Seriously though, they are just thrilled, as we all are. She seems like a really sweet little lady and a generally good baby so far. 

Ashley goes to church camp tomorrow. She packed yesterday. We are all a bit surprised that she waited that long. Normally she packs at least 4 days before an event, sometimes a week or more before. She’ll be there until Sunday evening. There are only about 7 kids going, all girls except for 1 boy. She’s planning on going horseback riding, canoeing and I think doing archery. I know she’ll have a great time.

Work is going well. We’ve slowed down quite a bit, which is very common in the summer months for the industry I’m. I’m still adjusting and trying to manage my time wisely. Managing my time at home isn’t going so well, but Brad and the girls are chipping in where necessary. 

We all have medical appointments of some kind coming up. Brad is going in for a small surgical procedure this Thursday, Sarah has an eye appointment next week and then us three girls have dental appointments in August. We will all be checked out and healthy by the time school starts hopefully.

We all had that stomach virus (although Brad only had a brief touch of it) that has been going around. Sarah started it, then Ashley got it and finally me. It was rough but thankfully we all made it through without too much trouble. I hope you are all able to avoid it, as it feels just like the flu. Yucky.

My reading list isn’t very long this summer because I don’t seem to be finishing anything. I have been catching up on my magazine stack, which thankfully was whittled down to a very small pile by decluttering. I have three books checked out from the library - one about simplicity and the other two about handmade journals - to get through this week. And the Lord knows how many unfinished and unstarted books I have right there on my own shelves. 

My de-cluttering is going slow, and often I feel like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back, but reorganizing the laundry room last week felt really good. I’ve gotten back into reading FlyLady’s emails, on my iPhone and am planning to do some cleaning this evening, even if it’s minor hotspots. 

Blogreading is slowly, but surely, coming back into my routines. I’m able to read, or at least skim through my favorites a few times a week now, which is nice. I’ve missed finding out what’s going on with all of my bloggy friends. 

That’s just a bit of what’s going on in my world. What’s going on in yours?

Brad’s sister, Nicole, had her first baby yesterday. I know you all love babies! If you’d like to meet Miss Rachel, take a look over at Brad’s blog here and here. But be warned - she’s a cutie patootie!

You know you’re a mom if you’ve ever received text messages on your cell phone at work that go something like this:

Ashley: Can I keep a pet worm?
Me: It’s going to die if you keep it.
Ashley: But Herman is my friend. Can I keep it if I take care of it?
Me: He can live outside and you can visit him whenever you want.
Ashley: Aw, darn.
Ashley: Herman is on his own now.

I love jars! I even collect old canning jars, although not on a grand scale. For a long time, I’ve loved how things look when you decant them into another container, preferably a pretty one. Alison, over at Brocante Home has inspired me many times to try and find ways to make things look nicer by decanting them.

Lately, I’ve sort of fallen off the bandwagon, due to time constraints and sheer laziness. But then last night, as I was catching up on some blog reading, I came across one of my favorite blogs and there was a post all about jars and containers. Deb, over at Homespun Living (the woman is a homemaking genius if you ask me) was talking about redoing a cabinet in her bathroom. She mentioned putting some items in pretty jars and shared about a wonderful source for jars and containers.

If you haven’t ever visited Homespun Living, you will love it! Deb’s blog is filled with homemaking tips, recipes, and utter loveliness. The source she mentioned is American Science & Surplus. They sell jars and containers meant for scientific purposes but some of them are really cool and would be beautiful filled with household products.

Everything from kitchen spices to laundry soap looks prettier in nice jars. Some items aren’t practical to put into a jar or a bottle, but many things are. Make sure you label your jars, or you could end up putting a cup of baking soda into your peach cobbler instead of sugar (don’t ask how I know this)! For more ideas on decanting, you can also check out Martha Stewart, HGTV.com and many other blogs and sites.

See what happens when you swallow your gum?