This means I’ve sold $12,000+ in the current quarter (October-December)! I still can’t believe it! Of course I don’t anticipate this being a regular thing, but it is a great accomplishment and I’m super proud!

This means I’ve sold $12,000+ in the current quarter (October-December)! I still can’t believe it! Of course I don’t anticipate this being a regular thing, but it is a great accomplishment and I’m super proud!

Tom really wanted to go solar once we got our forever home so did ALLLL the research this summer and today was finally install day! Now we just have to wait for the inspection and the switch to be flipped! Eventually we will get another row (at least) but since this is a new house to us and we don’t have enough usage history, they would only let us get this many.
We will own the panels outright so we will take out a loan for them, but with all the rebates and incentives, our total bill (for a few years) will be the same as if we didn’t have solar. So after a few years we’ll see the benefits!

A drive-thru animated light show at the local fairgrounds! It’s really a neat experience!










I never use Snapchat except to have fun with the filters. A friend told me about the one that makes you look like a Disney princess which started today’s addiction (I roped Tom and Katie in to that one as well).


THIS IS SO PAINFUL. This literally took her HOURS AND HOURS to do. And she still didn’t even get the few things done that I asked.

Pick up ALL the clothes. ALL. From everywhere. On the floor, behind the door, between the dressers, in the closet. Everything. Every single thing. Put them all in a pile in the hallway.
I couldn’t have been more clear. But all I hear is OKAAAAAY MOM. I KNOOOOOW MOM. But she picks up some of the things and thinks she’s done?! I demonstrate how to do it. I explain again I mean every. single. thing. And still not done. I mean she says she did it…but when I check it’s obviously not done. And it took an hour or more—not minutes. Because she starts playing. Or needs to take a break. Or plays with the cat.
Pick up all the garbage off the floor. Same as the clothes, just all the little bits of crap—tissues, broken crayons, wads of hair, pieces of ripped blanket, scraps of paper, clothes tags she cut and just left on the floor. ALL OF IT.
Again, she says she did it…but there’s still just so much.
Pick up all the Legos, dolls, makeup, and put them in their designated bins.
I even got out her bins for her. And she did some. Over hours.
I had a serious heart to heart talk with her about it all. She knows we are serious about emptying her room because she saw us do it to Owen. She has no reason other than she just doesn’t want to do it (like the homework). But she doesn’t want to lose her stuff. She says she feels like we want them to have less stuff like we did as kids. I tell her that’s not true—we want them to have more than we did (and they do!)—but they need to take care of it.
This. Is. Exhausting.
Mom, take a picture of me in this hat from Grannie.

Not only is Katie’s room a disgusting mess, she has started filling other drawers in the house. OH HELL NO.
(These are in the hallways upstairs. I’m not quite sure what’s going in them yet—I’m thinking craft supplies—but I sure as hell know it’s not more of her crap!)


I can’t even. I’m fine with some mess because I know what I was like growing up but I feel like this is insane.

So she got her final ultimatum. This gets cleaned up this weekend or her dad and I will go in with garbage bags and she will lose it all and will be left with furniture.

The kids get a Lego advent calendar. We get good chocolate. (And cheese!)

Tonight was a fundraiser for the food bank—Woodland teachers and administrators read their favorite books on Google meets! Every 15 minutes you’d switch to someone new! We listened to Katie’s current teacher and her second grade teacher, Owen’s third grade teacher, the Elementary Principal, and a friend who is a teacher! We loved it, and the past teachers remembered them and loved seeing them, too!


FYI this is what an order looks like when it’s been building for three months! Kristin lives in New Zealand and consolidates her orders for shipment to a stateside relative’s house! This goes all the way back to my birthday party month!!

A totally inferior substitute to be sure. I will never cheap out again.


I just want to thank everyone who shopped with me this month. I am so very thankful for each and every one of you! When you make a purchase with my SMALL business, it means a lot for my family! And I love spoiling all of my customers, too…giving gifts is my love language.
Kim Kruse, Michelle Galvez, Cheryl Malato, Brianna Powvens, Jannie Louise Sandifer, Kristin Huff, Heidi Leafblad-Habel, Lindsey Mares, Britt Nickelsen, Rebecca Whitley, Ashley Bouchard, Pam Kozu, Stacy Bishop Stark, Anna Bennett Chang-Yen, Ann Balat Gasperini, Rachel Young Wehrle, Jackie Moens, Amber Bookhout Dennis, Leah Waters Cossarek, Suzie Girard Teal, Jami Wallis, Clarencene VanVuuren, and Monique Morrison-Meyer!

Tom accidentally knocked it off the tree when he was trying to fix something for me so I can’t even be upset!
This just means we have to go back to Mackinac Island. Hopefully this coming summer?!

It’s been somewhat clean a half day here or there but overall this is what it looks like all the time. But look who sleeps in there? Can you even see her?

I love decorating for Christmas but the first year in a new place is always hardest because you don’t already know where everything goes and it takes longer to figure everything out.
Which wall do these kid Christmas paintings go on? Or do they lean on a shelf? Or do we not put them up this year?
What wreath fits on the door? Oh, this hanger won’t work but we can’t find the magnet. And that wreath is too thick for the storm door so where could it go instead?
And oh wait. We don’t really have a mantle like we’ve always had so my favorite mantle clips (that I bought new last year) TOTALLY won’t work.
And we don’t have spindles on our stairwell so no garland like I love. So how and where do we divvy up the four strands? Well we can put these here but we need to add another so now we have one left. If we put it there we need another (which means a trip to Costco and $30). Keep thinking.
And on and on. So after I unpacked some things…I had a glass of wine.

Check. This. Out. Look at my skin over two years.

This is using the skincare every. single. day. I didn’t use everything every single day but I did use the cleanser, daytime moisturizer, and evening moisturizer for sure. (I know the lighting is a little different but even so you can see how much it’s changed.)
I am just gobsmacked.
I know two years is a long time but you have to start with Day 1 at some time, so why not now?
My skin feels totally pampered after steaming, masking, showering, then layering on all the daily goodness (plus Nangai) and rolling (using my Jade roller from the SeneGence stress free gift set).
Happy Sunday, all!


We have plenty of room for TWO trees this year…so you can bet your butt I’m doing it!! A friend knew we didn’t have an artificial tree anymore so found one for me and then I snagged one from Amazon Vine!

I had my doubts but love how this tree turned out! My friend Britt helped me design it using a bunch of random fake berries, branches, pinecones, etc. that I had originally intended for topiary-type decorations—along with a specific selection of color-matching ornaments from our collection.


Buuuuuuut it’s just a bit small for the room (YOU THINK?!) so we are hoping to find at least a 9′ tree, if not maybe a 12′ tree on clearance after Christmas. I finally have the space for a huge tree (my bucket list!) so I’m gonna do it.

Tree number two was planned to be the more kid-friendly tree with all of our fun ornaments and crazy lights. It’s definitely not the best fake tree but once you get it zhuzhed with lights and ornaments it’s fine.


The lights are actually insane LED lights with like 12 colors that chase and flash and race and it can be quite anxiety-inducing. The kids love it (and it is cool) but when I get to pick it’s a calm purple.


This was the closest Britt and I got just for a quick pic!

Back at the house we sat outside across the deck and I was too lazy to actually remove the chair cover and it kept falling down so we joked it was our way to keep distanced.

Tom said he wanted to cut some branches or trees down so imagine my surprise when I look out and see the entire back yard covered!

Needless to say we have firewood again! (Both of these bins were empty.)

Burning some of it, even though it wasn’t warm enough to sit out and enjoy it.

Friendship means Thanksgiving dinner plate leftovers delivery at 10:30pm because we had deep dish pizza today. (And we had had a game night with a bunch of us!)

We just finished a 2 1/2 hour Zoomfest with the whole Schwalmlette and Schmittlette family! We visited and played a few trivia games

…and took our family photo.

We were going to have dinner with Anna and David but Covid kinda put a stop to that…and since the kids don’t really like any typical Thanksgiving fare, we opted against all the work and Tom made pizza (and I made mozzarella bread balls)! It was yummy!

Aaaaaand what would Thanksgiving be without…a chocolate martini…?!

When you’re on a cheese party zoom call in the kitchen you have to make do.

Playing some new online collaborative games. Quiplash is my favorite!
