Mr. Prof designer home

  

And I don’t mean in decorating!

Thought I’d take you on a trip to the past…follow me through my growing up years and right on into today!

I was organizing my folders on my computer and putting some files that are huge with photos and documents from family genealogy onto CD’s– and for safe keeping and when I got to my family I thought what a fun idea to put me growing up…wish I had more in-between photos but what you see is what you get.

And NO giggling!!! Not Allowed!

I was born July 10, 1944 to the name Karen Sue…supposed to be named Lindy Lou..OMGosh can you imagine…lol
Mom said she was so out of it from the medication that she blurted out Karen Sue…OH THANK YOU MOTHER!!!

So here I am at age 2 – 1946
…had to fight curls then and now! Having short hair keeps them away.

Me an my cousin on my 2nd birthday
- he’s trying to get some of my ice cream cone

Still 2!

Let’s move on up…this is getting too repetitive!

I took Tap and Ballet classes…the day of the recital – I was 5 here
 

Christmas with my brother and sister – age 7, 1951 – yes, that’s really way back!

 Again look at those hideous curls! Age 7
 

Growing up a bit…age 9…the sweater I’m wearing is a funny story…it was my mothers – but it was pure wool…she washed it and then it was mine! lol   And I just loved it so – I had to wear it for school pictures.

Age 10 Mom took me to the Carnival this day and we each had our picture taken in the photo booth. Always remember this day!
 

This is when I start to get the years mixed…but I do know it was when I was between the ages of 12 and 15
Oh My Gosh….look at that slicked back hair!

If only I had known then that I’d only have my mother with me for just a few more years.

 

One Christmas morning – Dad got a Parakeet as a gift and I’m holding it for all I’m worth so it doesn’t fly away

Easter morning in my new Spring outfit ready to head to church

Well here’s where the really short hair comes in and stays for almost the rest of my life – hated those curls!
It grows out a bit here and there but always I go back to short somewhere along the line.

Remember the birthday picture with my little cousin…this is him.
We lost Gary in the 70’s during the Viet Nam War…he was a Machine Gunner in the front lines
 

Now why did mom always have me ‘pose’?
 

Am I praying…Nope, wasn’t praying…I’m posing…guess she like that!

Eeee Gads….more posing…lol  - what is it with the hands for goodness sake1
Notice that ‘Capris’ were big back in the 50’s??
 

OMgosh I just found this one – it was in my sisters ‘picture’ folder….tooo funny
No I’m thinking I’ve got a problem here…it might not be mom making me do this hands thing and looking down….
I just might be praying that someone would stop taking pictures of me!

Holy Moly – time for a break here if you need one…this one hurts my eyes, what is is doing to you….LOL,
What in God’s name was I thinking!
 

My gosh it just keeps getting worse!

 

This was at a family picnic and I do believe it was in 1959 – I was in Jr. High end of the 8th grade
This is the one photo that I look like our two sons Darren and Brett…well, they look like me!
 

Okay now we’re on into high school…this one was just before I turned 16 – went up north to visit a friend for a week and there were mosquitoes everywhere…wouldn’t ya know she snapped the photo just when one bit!

More beauty! lol
Not one person can say after this that ‘I take a good picture’ NOT SO….

Graduation 1962
 

On into adulthood…getting bored???? 
It’s almost over…

1983 – Sister, brother, me

This is 1994
Sister, brother, me

1996

2008
 

2010!  And you know the rest of the story!

So how about you all showing us a blast from the past!
I’d love to have you join me

Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane.

Karen

A home is only as beautiful as the harmony within it.  I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to live in a shack where peace abounds than in a mansion with discord. And so would our children, I’m sure of it.

Some things we try to practice here (never perfectly but always striving):

Everyone gives a cheerful "good morning" with a smile. It starts the day off right.

"A merry heart does good like a medicine."  Laugh together.  Take pleasure!

Show consideration by saying please and thank you and I’m sorry. Simple courtesies are often neglected with those closest to us.

When we are tempted to raise our voice, lower it instead. “The sweetness of lips increases learning” and “A gentle answer turns away wrath.”.  Good ones to commit to memory.  Recite as needed.  (even if it's 100 times a day!)

When someone is speaking to us, look them in the eye and give full attention. So much communication can be lost because we don’t truly listen.

Encourage praise amongst siblings… “Do you see how sweetly Caleb is playing with his sister? He is always so patient with her, don’t you think?”

But more importantly, model praise with our spouse. Little ones are watching and always learning.  From us!

And this rounds it all out: "Pleasant words are like the honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones."  And ultimately... health to our homes.


References:

Proverbs 17:22
Proverbs 16:21
Proverbs 15:1
Proverbs 16:24

Remember this forlorn beauty in need of a facelift...




Well, she and her twin sister got one alright...









I tell you it's killing me to sell them... But I must...

Make a mad dash to Tent H Booth 14 at Marburger Farms to put a sold sticker on these fabulous babies...

1. On HEALTH: I've been trading off between the Jillian Michael's 30-day Shred and Firm Yoga. I feel good after both of them, but they're quite different. I want to keep it up but also want to be careful to maintain my milk supply, as I've felt that it's been affected some by the additional strain from exercise. I'm also trying --trying!-- to stop drinking my husband's awesome sweet tea throughout the day and just limit myself to a glass or two at dinner. But man, I got into a bad habit in the pregnant heat of this summer. So I'm aiming to replace those sweet tea hankerings with ice water. Yum. Really, there is something about water that just hits the spot. Plus, like I mentioned, I wanna keep up that milk supply.
   
   
2. I also went to the mall all by myself-- I can't remember the last time that happened-- and bought a couple of shirts and a new skirt so I have something nice to wear from time to time. "What Not To Wear"'s Clinton & Stacey resonate in my head sometimes, and I heard them dissing my cooking-oil-stained, ill-fitting, everything-in-my-entire-wardrobe-is-several-years-old clothing selection. So I did something about it. Well, I have to be honest, I did a little something about it. Most of what I have in my drawers still fits that description, but a girl can only do so much solo shopping with a little sweet nursling waiting for her to get home at a certain time. Anyway, I had fun buying a few new things. Frugality is wonderful, and contentment is a key to joy. But it feels nice to at least feel like I can be presentable and not distracted wondering if anyone around me has noticed the huge oil stains from when I made fried eggs and forgot to wear an apron one time two years ago.
   
   Living overseas, getting used to different shops, sizes, and clothing quality, as well as just the normal time constraints of a homeschooling mom of (now) five has definitely put a damper on my ability to shop (and even my awareness of how to shop). In America, I used to just occasionally pop into Kohl's or Old Navy, head straight for my favorite section of the store, browse the sales rack, try a few things on, and buy what was needed. By that method, pretty much for my whole adult life, I'd continually maintained a presentable wardrobe, no matter what size I was, no matter what our budget was (both Old Navy & Kohl's have killer sales!), etc.
   
   But here, the quality of cotton here is poorer, the washers and dryers are harder on clothes, and it's an indoor/outdoor culture. The rules are different. Let's says you buy a few new shirts for summer, by American standards, you think you're all set, and that those shirts should last you at least 2-3 summers before wearing out. But here, the seams pull on one of the shirts and it's ripped and ruined the first wash. Or, the cotton that was strong and pretty at the beginning of the summer is faded and worn and thin by the end of the summer. Or, moths eat through it despite your best efforts to kill any ones you see and use cedar blocks and mothballs anywhere clothes are stored... because the windows and doors are constantly open since there's not central A/C. And I'm not whining, I'm just saying, the rules here are different. But at least I have a few nice things for now.
   
   
3. On CUTTING COSTS: This week, I made a price book. And I'm really excited about it... I can't wait to go grocery shopping this weekend and have another receipt worth of prices to enter in. :) That sounds really geeky, but I really am looking forward to this. I can think of all kinds of great ways to use the information I'll learn. Not only where to stock up on which products, but also knowing for sure what constitutes a good deal.
   
   I don't know what happened. I used to be able to keep track of all that (really!) in my head when we lived in the US, but something about translating everything into another currency and then throwing in kilograms and milliliters just really blows a hole into whatever knowledge of price per pound or cents per unit I used to have stored away in this here brain.
   
   
4. Oh. I probably should have mentioned this first. My computer died. It ought to be sort of a sad thing, but really, aside from the inconvenience of having to write things down to remember to do later rather than just being able to quickly answer a question or pop off an e-mail when I think of it, it's really been quite nice. (I did predict that the poor thing was declining, so I'd already copied all relevant files/pictures/music to an external hard drive, so there's no tragedy involved.) I've spent even more time with the kiddos. My house is cleaner. And my brain is less distracted, somehow. I like this. I'm not sure we're going to replace my computer, so I guess it's a good thing I like it. :)
   
   
5. Amendment to that last point: I did lose all of my bookmarks. This is not something of tragic proportions, but I do feel a good bit of loss at all the great bookmarks I had saved up for a Show & Tell sometime soon... AND for all of my homeschool tabs. Anyone happen to know if you can retrieve bookmarks from a dead computer? It's a Dell, and I used Mozilla Firefox, if that makes a difference.
   
   
6. I had an idea last week to share some of my best nursing tips, but as Steve Miller might say, time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future. So instead, those of you new mamas checking out Making Home and needing encouragement in the breastfeeding department ought to check out this post. She said lots of things I hoped to say.
   
   One thing she didn't say, particularly for avoiding breast infections, is to ditch the underwire in your nursing bras. At least initially. Something about that dadgum underwire pressing into me, well, I don't want to get too explicit, but I've found that when I wear one in those early months, it just contributes to or leads to a breast infection... and when I wear just a normal, supportive, non-underwire bra, well, I just don't end up in pain. So that's one important tip I've picked up along the way.
   
   And, if you're wondering, I did not obey this rule of mine and felt an infection coming on last week. It took a couple days of nursing first on the painful side, drinking tons of water, getting extra rest, and taking the occasional pain med before I got rid of that dad-blasted infection. Fifth baby, fifth infection. Go figure. I thought this would be my chance to avoid it... but I forgot my rule about no underwire. I always try to go back to wearing underwire too soon, drat! You can do better than me. Avoid underwire like the plague in those early months of nursing!
   
   
7. A semi-embarrassing story: At some point this last week, I was reading an article online and it vexed me greatly. Though I can't now recall what the article was about, as I was reading it, I reacted out loud: "What a bunch of CRAP!"
   
   My four-year-old daughter looked up from across the room and said, "a bunch of crap? I want to see a bunch of crap!" And she ran over to where I was sitting as Doug & I glanced at each other (can't believe she just said that!), stifling our horrified giggles. Peering at the computer screen, she said, "where? Where are the crabs?" She thought I was referencing a picture of a bunch of CRABS. I told her there weren't any crabs, and she (quite naturally) was thoroughly confused! Oops.
   
   So there's a little slice of life here, just keeping it real.

Poke Acupuncture is a very non-traditional acupuncturist office -- just take a look!






Acupuncturist Russell Brown says:

What I am, and what I want my office to reflect, is an eclectic and stylish mix of fine and creative arts, and culture, and knowledge and music. I love birds, and vintage medical equipment. I like paint-by-numbers and photographs that tell stories. All my good friends know that I love the smell of old books and holding them always makes me cry. I want to showcase the tremendous talents of some of the great artists who have donated pieces to my “gallery” and I much prefer the sound of a great melancholy band to the tinkle of a mechanical fountain that just makes me have to pee. I think most of us feel better when we’re cozied up in our living rooms than in a cold medical office and I want that for my patients when they come here.

To that end, I have created this office for my patients, to relax in, to let go of their day, and to be transported into another world where they might be nourished not just by alternative healthcare, but an alternative environment to receive that care.

Via Apartment Therapy, thanks to Jesse Hayes.