You make me feel great. How about you guys just move into our house 🙂 Seriously…your response yesterday was overwhelming in the best way. I even decided to do my first vlog to thank you. Ignore my sweaty self and lack of fancy attire. I should have planned more and dressed up for you guys, but this is just how I’m rolling this morning. Oh and ignore my lisp and how my voice gets a bit off from my actual lip movement. Vlogs are difficult. Who knew?!?!
And sincerely, thank you!
Happy Wednesday.
I love when I get to fill out occupation. I straight up, always, put ‘artist’. I sometimes think about adding blogger, but I don’t get paid to do that and laughter might follow. I love it because soon after I usually get some tattoo glances 🙂 But I especially like when I have all the kids in tow. I think some people think, “Really?” like is that a for reals job, but it is. It totally is. I have so many dreams and aspirations for where I want to take this whole artist and blogger thing, just so so many.
I love to create. I’ve told you guys this part before, but I feel it’s just one of the ways God designed how I would function…how I would cope and deal…how I would survive. It runs deep.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about hosting woman in our home for craft nights. Several months back Josh and I discussed it and I started brainstorming craft ideas. I like the idea of woman hanging out together and spending time being creative. Talking it out, eating and fellowshipping for the evening. I’ve even started my lists of ladies…my guinea pigs…who would test things out and give me feedback. A dream would be to do this with total strangers…meeting new woman every week and making friends. Ever since I experienced Craft Weekend…I’ve had the fever. It was just such a wonderful experience…a rare one.
I think I could do it…could pull it off. Then fear sneaks in a bit and starts throwing all the doubts of “would people really come”…”how are you ever going to pull this off in your home with 4 kids”…”you’ll fail miserably”…and these doubts could continue on for days. But there is something deeper in my heart…something I feel God pulling me towards…this love and care for other woman…this investment in friendships…this opportunity to be hospitable and to invite people into our home and love on them, probably the best way I personally know how. It makes me all tingly and googly eyed. It makes my heart flutter.
And I take a deep breath. This is quite possible and oddly enough, it feels freeing in a bit of a risky way. I’m anxious and excited to see what God has brewing…maybe He’ll say “go for it”, maybe He’ll say “reign it back in Laura”…either way, today my heart and head are all crazy with thoughts and ideas and dreams. Today is one of those hope filled days.
“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” -Vincent Van Gogh
So this weekend was exhausting, but amazing. Sometimes God calls you out and you say yes and then the work begins. Things aren’t always easy and Josh and I have always said, we’re not afraid of some hard work. God gives us opportunities and they’re not always a piece of cake…they require some work. This yard sale was one of those opportunities. Go ahead and laugh, but yard sales are hard work…like I need to sleep for a good 3 days, but God totally showed up. I said if we made $500 I would be thrilled. I said if we made $1K I would dance. Well at the end of Saturday I was dancing all right and should probably just dance all week. God knocked our socks off. He’s so amazing and it’s an honor to watch Him work.
I got to meet several blog readers at the sale and hang with some friends too. Friends who read my blog too. I don’t ever want anyone to think our life is perfect. I don’t ever want to make things appear a way they are not. I want to depict truth. Our life is crazy. But it’s our crazy life and we take ownership of the craziness and honestly, there is deep love here in the crazy.
I laughed as someone commented about how peaceful the yard sale sight was…it was at my in-laws house…way back off the road…lots of trees…on the lake…incredibly beautiful, but as the comment was made my kids were running circles and laughing and screaming and being their loud little selves and Amon was being nutso. Nothing about the moment made me think “Ahhhh, this is so peaceful.” Quite the opposite.
Just so you know…our life is crazy. Our kids are loud. I’m loud too. Let me keep it real for a moment. In the time frame of Thursday through Saturday while we were deep in the pits of yard sale organizing and pricing and selling and re-organizing and re-pricing…a time in which I’ve deemed ‘yard sale hell’…all of the following happened:
-Amon got a hold of my in-laws Tupperware container of cat food and dumped the entire thing on the floor
-Amon got a hold of my father-in-law’s large McDonalds coke and dumped it out on the floor while he was unattended and the coke ran down their baseboards and puddled into the basement below. We were baffled as to what the puddle in the basement was and as to what had happened and then I took it upon myself to taste the puddle of liquid…oh, oh yes I did…and it was coke. We then began putting all the puzzle pieces together and found the giant coke puddle upstairs and Amon’s sticky foot prints all over their floors.
-Amon dumped my father-in-laws cup of coffee out on himself. It was not hot. Thank God.
Do we see a theme forming here…I think we do.
-I ate 4 donuts on Saturday. Stress, tired eating, but hey, I saved it for the weekend.
-Sol got hurt…and cried.
-Huddy got his feelings hurt…several times…and cried.
-Huddy and Sol spent an ungodly amount of time watching TV or playing on the iPad.
-Harper had to clip down in class on Friday. She has never ever ever had to clip down…she’s an over achiever and a natural born OCDer…a perfectionist. But in the craziness of yard sale prep and a late Thursday night, she forgot she had homework due Friday and Josh and I completely forgot to even take a glance in her backpack. It was a good experience for all of us…we all learned…Harper learned she can live through mistakes.
-Amon fell and busted the corner of his eye on a bunny bench that was later purchased for $5 by a yard saler.
-Loudness in general. 4 kids = loud.
-Amon ran screaming and crying into the woods after a strange lady yelled to him “No, no, no. No baby, don’t eat that biscuit.” as he stuffed a piece of biscuit he dropped on the ground in his mouth. He’s kind of dramatic sometimes.
-I hid in the bathroom several times and cried because A) Yard sales make me miss my mom, like a lot. And B) I was tired and missed my mom, like a lot.
-I may have said some curse words in my head…and some out loud…about people who we encountered who were not very nice…and one dude who stole from us. I let him walk away. I figured if he needed it that bad, then he could have it.
-At one point I noticed I could smell myself from lack of personal upkeep…such as showering.
-Josh and I were ticked at each other for a bit because neither one of us remembered to transfer money when our checking account was low. The lady behind Josh at the doughnut shop paid for his doughnuts. This did not set well with either one of our prides. But thank you kind doughnut lady…you made some Kelley kids very happy. And your kindness in a very ‘ugh’ and awkward moment, made me feel pretty dang hopeful.
-And Saturday night…in the wee a.m. hours…I was awakened with Huddy directly in my face saying, “Mom, I think I’m going to die.” He was suffering from a severe asthma attack. I told him, “Oh buddy, were going to do our best to keep you alive.” We added more no sleep to our weekend. Dang you asthma.
So you see, I hope I never lead you to believe our life is perfect. It’s not. We tell our kids all the time when they get in trouble, “Nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. You make mistakes. Dad and I make mistakes. Who was the only person who never made a mistake?” Their response is always “Jesus”. We want them to know we are flawed…people are flawed. We are sinners saved by grace. What I want you to hear and see when you read our stories…when you read about our life…is that life is not perfect, but there is great love in our imperfections. This is the truth about us. Our family is flawed and crazy, but we love each other and we try our best to love God and others. That’s the message I hope and pray I send.
Happy Monday.
Well it’s yard sale time. That’s where I was all yesterday and today. There’s just something about taking people’s junk and God turning it into great things. It’s amazing and definitely one of my most favorite things. If it wasn’t so much work, I’d probably have a yard sale every weekend. I’m telling you guys, there is money to be made with yard sales. I actually wrote a post back in 2011 about my top 10 yard sale tips. You can check it out HERE and read the craziness which legit yard sales will ensue. The post was spurred on after we made $22K at our yard sale for Amon…POST HERE…I kid you not. So as you can understand, I dig a good, organized yard sale.
We did great today, but I would love to really move some stuff out tomorrow. It needs to go and we so desire to add to our growing moola for the 88 kids who come to the Ngungwane carepoint everyday in Swaziland Africa. I get to go and meet these kiddos soon…our specific sponsor kids also. I can’t tell you how excited I am. This will be my first time to Swaziland, but I have a deep feeling it won’t be my last. I’ve asked God for a few years now for this to be the year and each year He’s said ‘wait’…trips fell through, Mom died, Amon came home…God had different plans. I’m so anxious because turns out this year is the year. God is finally saying ‘go’ and I’m going. Eeeeek. I’m just over the moon.
So come see us tomorrow. We’ll be at 216 Neptune in Hendersonville. There is tons of stuff left and we want you to take it home …after you pay of course…and maybe throw in a little extra just for donation…see what I did there 🙂
Come see us and chat and hang out…or whatever…but also buy some junk. I think you should probably most definitely be the person who buys these tenderly hugging bears. What a gem of a treasure…I’ll throw confetti on you if you do.
And thank you to everyone who donated. Oh my goodness…we could not even have come close to rocking out this yard sale without you cleaning out your houses and saying, “Hey there Kelleys…you guys can totally have our junk.” Thank you, thank you and thank you!
So let’s recap…Tomorrow…Saturday…7-4pm…216 Neptune…Hendersonville…yard sale with a purpose…and gorgeous decorative porcelain hugging bears. I think we covered it all. See you tomorrow.
Happy Friday!
I’m clearly lacking in the blog title department today. Bear with me.
Last night…ummmmm, so much fun! Loved it all. Loved sweating so very very much and meeting new people and hanging with friends. Thank you to everyone who came out. You are so the bomb-to-the-diggity. Please come again. Wasn’t Janet the best? She just is. And she even did a new routine to none other than Katy Perry’s Roar. I’ll admit, I did get a little misty eyed, but Jen and Brea both admitted to crying. What is wrong with them…crying during zumba…sounds just about as lame as crying while running and watching other people zumba…maybe so. Amon and I may still jam out to it every single day.
And pay no mind to my sweatless boob area. My sports bra is dry fit..and clearly works very well…kudos to you Nike…and yes, my tee shirt clearly isn’t. You can just enjoy all that sweaty goodness. I recommend making it your screen saver. Oh and why yes, Janet did give me a grape freeze pop after class. It was delicious.
Amon had therapy yesterday and when Kathleen arrived we were all like, “What up Kathleen. The ‘more’ sign ain’t got nothing on us. Boom. Watch us now.” And then Amon whipped out his snazzy ‘more’ sign and wowed her. He threw in some gang signs at the end for dramatics. We then worked on some other goodness and the sign for ‘eat’. When Harper got home, she picked out some popcorn for snack and I watched as she got him to do ‘eat’ ‘more’ over and over again for popcorn. It was the sweetest thing. She is amazingly good with him. And he adores her. She adores him too. We were just so crazy proud of that little ‘eat’ sign.
Amon has also started making the long e sound whenever myself or Harper bring out our cameras. So instead of cheeeeese, he just says eeeeeeeeeeeeee, which I think should totally count. It’s adorable or adorbs as the young people are calling it these days.
And please just take a moment to check out those big, gappy toddler teeth and those sweet in-need-of-chapstick lips and the seriousness in which he is trying to touch the lens of my camera. He doesn’t play around.
If you aren’t putting your kids to work in your house, you totally should be. Just go ahead and thank me for the time and energy you are going to save. Heck, go take a nap or eat some ice cream at 9am while you put those little humans to work. Lately, I’ve been branching out more in the chore department. Harper has been vacuuming and cleaning the chalk board was literally a chore they fought over to see who got to do it. I even had to let each of them have some cleaning time. I understand as they grow up, this will likely not last. But for now, well, I’m taking full advantage of their enjoyment to clean. #childlaborlaws
Sol rocks a mean Kelly Kapowski. And yes, I had to google “Kelly Kapowski” to make sure I spelled her name correctly. I would never want to offend such a predominate fictional character from my childhood. Ever.
And lastly, I snagged this sweet picture at Josh’s ball games Saturday morning.
Oh where was Amon you ask? Yes, well he wanted nothing to do with this picture, but everything to do with this splintery railroad tie. And he preferred to maneuver across it on his knees. I particularly loved when he tried to mess with all the exposed wires in the light pole beside it. Not a safety hazard at all. Note his very intense and determined face…actually he was staring at a huge dog behind us.
So that’s all I’ve got. Big day planned with grocery shopping and finishing up my last few custom orders and hanging with Amon while all the other Kelley kids are off at school and MDO. I will more than likely feed him the entire day, just so we can continue to work on ‘eat’ ‘more’. It’s the life…and I do so love it.
Happy Tuesday.
Anyone else singing Smashing Pumpkins now? I know my girl Ashley Frost is like, “word-to-the-up” and singing right along. Okay, so listen up all you local peeps, tonight is the night. I told you guys about Janet last week (READ HERE) and her amazing zumba class and tonight at 5:30 I’m inviting all of you to the Delmas Long Community Center in Goodlettsville (by the city hall) to get your sweat on. Class is normally just $3, but tonight, if you’re new to Janet’s class, I’m paying your way. Free class. I’ve also got door prizes for the entire class…newbies and oldies. Check them out.
4×12 “Where you invest your love, you invest your life.” canvas
8×10 “Let all you do be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14 canvas
9×12 “Be brave, strong and courageous. Seek adventure and truth.” canvas
And I have 5 key fob sets up for grabs as well. 1 for you and 1 to share. Or you could keep both…or you could give both away…it’s a very versatile door prize 🙂
I will be waiting for you at the front desk where you check in. Introduce yourself…I like making new friends…and tell me how excited you are to be trying Janet’s class for the first time and your $3 is on me. And invite a friend. Friends make you not as nervous or cautious about trying something new. They’re comforting when stepping out of your comfort zone, but you’ll be so glad you joined us. I promise you will have fun and burn calories. Afterwards you can eat ice cream for dinner…guilt free. I kid. Maybe. And all you regular attenders of Janet’s class…invite someone new. Strike up that conversation and ask them to join you tonight.
Let’s recap:
Exercise. Sweat. Fun. Friends. Encouraging women. Free class. Canvas and key fob door prizes. Delmas Long Community Center in Goodlettsville. 5:30pm. And Janet…sweet, sweet Janet.
Janet did not ask me to do this…no way…I just really dig her and her crazy fun class and all her energy and big love. I can’t deny it…I love me some Janet. Can’t wait to see you all there. The more the merrier. Let’s pack the gym out and show Janet how much we adore her.
Happy Monday!
Just a reminder, I’m inviting all you locals to Janet’s zumba class this Monday evening at 5:30pm. Class is held at the Delmas Long Community Center in Goodlettsville, right beside city hall. You should probably go ahead and put your clothes in your car now 🙂 And get on the phone and invite your friends. If you’re new to class, you will be getting in for free. FREE is a good thing. And I’m bringing door prizes to giveaway to the entire class…new people and Janet’s regulars.
It’s going to be so much fun. Please join us. Start making plans now.
Happy Saturday!
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