My little broom collection...

Hi friends!  What have you been up to?  I've spent the past 2 days deep cleaning my laundry room.  Whew, that's hard work but I am very thankful to even have a laundry room.  At our last house, the washer and dryer were in a small closet behind bi-fold doors in the kitchen... it was crazy, ha!  So today I played around a little.  I bought a few brooms this past year at garage sales and they've been tucked away.  My very favorite is of course the oldest one with the green handle.  This other one I added a strip of burlap and cheesecloth.

Then I added my favorite homespuns to 2 more of the brooms, along with a strip of green burlap.  I like the rusted handle on the other broom but I'm gonna have to cut off those little blue pieces... I think I'll just pull it off completely because it's such a bright blue (hope my broom doesn't fall apart, lol).

The brooms are displayed on an old corn cob dryer that I found at an antique mall last year marked down to $6.00!!

I found all kinds of neat ways to display brooms on Pinterest.  I came across this corn cob dryer as I was digging out all my brooms and thought it would work well but I didn't want to hang it on the wall so I put some twine through the top loop and tied it to the back strip of my wooden ironing board.

We finally got SNOW!  Ever since my oldest kid was born, we've had snow every year.  Last year was the first in 17 years that we didn't get any and we were all sad.  I love our neighbors home in all seasons but it's so pretty when the snow settles on the big boulders that their log home sits on.

Our neat little creek that runs between our home and the neighbors.  The kids love to play in it year round.

Lastly, it's home sweet home...

I'm grateful for... even having a home to clean although it is a huge pain.  Also very thankful that I have this time to clean the inside of our home before warm weather hits and we can go outside.

Thanks for stopping by friends.  It's back to cleaning for me.  I tried a tip on Pinterest for cleaning the inside of the washing machine and it worked okay but looks like I'm gonna need to use some elbow grease on the agitator.  Once that is done I will be able to move on to the next room, yippee!  Have a warm and cozy week~

Black Buggy Day

This post is dedicated to my sweet friend and fellow Amish lover, Michelle from Simple Pleasures.  I live 20 minutes from a small Amish and Mennonite community in Chouteau, Oklahoma.  Once a year in September the town hosts "Black Buggy Day" that is open to everyone.  I love going just to watch the "English" and the Amish come together and have some good old-fashioned FUN!

How about some fresh apple butter?  Can't get any fresher than this!

Wonderful gospel music by the Harbinger Quartet.

We rented turtles for $1 each for Amariah and her friend Britlan so they could join in the turtle race.

Amariah's turtle  (#3) crossed the finish line in 3rd place, haha!  They had such a good time with this, I was actually quite surprised.

Such a cutie with his blonde hair but I was afraid he was going to fall.  I was shocked at the number of young ones that were allowed to freely roam.

Hanging out at the Horsin' Around Arena.

I adored these sweet little girls in their matching outfits...

My lunch for the day was of course homemade Amish noodles.  They were so delicious, I had to have two helpings, yum!

This frustrated little man was having such a hard time with his horse.  I couldn't help but laugh and feel sorry for him all at the same time.

Yay, he got it!

A row of distinguished gentlemen...

I can't remember what they called this race but it was actually fun to watch.  Each rider had an end to a PVC pipe that held a hedge apple in the middle.  They had to carry it down and drop it in the barrel then race back to the start with the pipe.  Quickest time without dropping the hedge apple was the winner.  I was looking around for some of them hedge apples to take home with me but they must have had them hid, lol!

The girls and I had a great time.  Who knew that teenagers would enjoy hanging out with the Amish?!  Haha!  Yes, actually a picture of me standing by one of the buggies.

I'm grateful that there are still communities around "where cultures come together".  "Chouteau consists of two different cultures coming together with one purpose, to make a better community for our families to live and grow.  Black Buggy Day is a day where we come together to celebrate the ways we are different but more importantly, the ways that we are the same."

Simplify...

Simplify...

I know lots of you do this and can do it quite well.  But for some reason it's really, really hard for me!  Shoot, I don't even know how to relax.  I try but it doesn't last long and I just gotta be doing something.

My father-in-law went into the hospital unexpectedly and passed away a couple of days later on Dec. 17.  My husband was immediately thrown into making the funeral arrangements and taking care of the estate because he is the oldest of the two sons.  Don't you know that it has changed our outlook on many things about life.

You don't realize how much of life you are letting slip you by until you stop and take a good look around.  So we, mainly I, have decided it's past time to simplify.  No, no, no... not my home lol!  I have tried and tried to "simplify" by getting rid of things but I just can not seem to part with a single thing.  Instead, I find myself buying more things that I don't need, hehe.  Like the beginning of my gray granite collection (I only have one piece but it will become a collection one day!).  Also couldn't pass up the Edwards Mill sack because it comes from a real working mill at College of the Ozarks in Branson, MO, a college I didn't attend but had many friends who did and spent a lot of time there.

Had to throw a picture in there because this post needs one, ha.  Back to the subject... along the lines of simplifying, I had two blogs.  This prim blog and a family blog called "Ramblings from a grateful heart".  It became difficult to keep them both up so they both suffered.  I have decided to combine the two blogs into one and use this space to talk about two of my loves: my family and my home.  So if some of my posts seem odd or like they don't belong or my wording is weird... it's because of the consolidating.  One thing I did with my Ramblings blog is to always end a post with something that I am grateful for.  I want to carry that over into this blog because it's important to me.

And because I am bringing my family over to this blog, I gotta show off my handsome son Ryan, a junior (and yes it says Chuck, that's his nickname from the coaches because of our last name being Berry) with his new letterman jacket we bought him.  He's quite proud but so are we!  =]

Then we have pretty little Amariah, who is an 8th grader, and the little guy named Robbie that is in the 1st grade.

I promise you that I will try not to bore you with my family but I am proud of all of them and love them dearly.

Losing the first of our parents has opened our eyes to many things this past month.  I am truly grateful for relationships that I am determined to nourish... my husband, my kids, my extended family, my friends, and of course all of you my prim blog community friends!!

Thank you for being a part of my life, I love you all!  =]