Taking a Pause

*Update* I will post later today my $5 Pantry Challenge I am participating in with Mrs. Patsi @ A Working Pantry.

Hello! I just wanted to pop in and say I need to take a pause for a few days here on my blog. I will still try to capture my daily photos for July. My plan is to post maybe Wednesday and Friday this week. I will combine my photos. I have been posting almost daily since my surgery. I mainly have done that to stay connected and to feel a little community as I heal. I love this community. With that said I am feeling that "less than inspired" blogging mode at the moment. I will be honest my days seem super long. They feel pretty monotonous with the recovery. While I have been trying to be joyful and find little things of joy and beauty, I am really beginning to feel that stir crazy feeling. 

I hope I can drive this week. I am pretty nervous to get behind the wheel and drive. I think I will just drive in our neighborhood a few days to practice twisting at the waist and putting on the breaks to make sure all is well before I venture out in our busy little "city." I live in a college town, and public schools start school here NEXT WEEK. INSANE!!! It is still summer to me. Our area has a year-round school model. I homeschooled all of our children for 20 plus years, so we did not go by that, thankfully! Anyway.... that means it will be traffic heavy and busy this week. 

I do plan to hopefully to walk a little further and more each day. It has been a challenge doing what I have been which is very small amounts. I am trying to not be frustrated. I have people saying I should be able to do this and that. Yet, when I do try, I begin to hurt and feel exhausted. I truly believe each person is different. If I could make those good meaning people believe that would be great. :) 

Today's challenge is SHADOW. This one is going to be hard for me. I do not know if I will capture it. If I do I will share it Wednesday or Friday when I do my recap of all my photos. 

Jump in anytime you can! Have a great week.

Thanks for visiting me today. See you soon. 

With Love,

Chrissy T

Soft & Cozy ~ Nature Can Help in Healing

 Hello everyone. Today's photo theme is SOFT. I knew I had to share my pillow that I purchased for my recovery. It has been such a blessing to me for when I cough, laugh, sneeze, and sleeping. It also protects my tummy against the seat belt. So, this is my SOFT photo today. This gray pillow is among all my COZY SOFT pillows as I rest today.

I am craving time outdoors. Even in the midst of this HEAT. Normally in the summer I get up around 4:30 to 5:00 to hike early once or twice a month. I am dreaming of the moment I can do this again. The Lord has blessed us with such a wonderful creation that can uplift, reset and has calming properties. 

I am sharing some images from Pinterest that I love.

I can honestly say I always enjoy my time in nature!!! 

Here is the daily photo challenge list...

With Love, 

Chrissy T

Good Ole Mater Sammy~ Susan Branch Summer Read ~ Wax Seal Fun

 Hello everyone! Today I worked on Thank You cards and making my wax seals for them. I really enjoyed making my seals. It has been since Christmas since I have made them. I usually make some up in advance so I can easily add them to cards. Here are a few I made today. Toward the end I also painted some to enhance the imprint and they turned out great. I did not get a pic of those. 

I use two methods. I use a glue gun method (my preferred way) as well as an electric wax melting gadget (better for just one or two seals). I usually work with the glue gun mostly because you can make more at a time and they come out better looking to me. I had a lot to make today so after using the electric gadget I switched to the glue gun method. 

I did a few different ones today! I went back and forth using some of this stamp, a sunflower and a thank you stamp.

I colored some more thank you cards as well. I had to take a few breaks as sitting for long periods of time still for some reason is causing a lot of discomfort in my pelvic area. So, when I felt this discomfort and pressure, I would take a break and rest in bed with the newest Susan Branch edition of The Summer Book which was on my Summer "To Be Read" list. Oh, her work is so beautiful and cozy.

 I mean how can you not love these illustrations! This book has some neat quotes, artwork, sayings that hit the heart in a joyful Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of way. Perfect for summer!! There are a few recipes I would like to try one day.

SPEAKING OF SUMMER.... IF YOU ARE FROM THE SOUTH (USA)... THEN YOU KNOW!!! Is it REALLY SUMMER if you do not have a good OLE' Mater Sammy?! Today's daily photo theme is Fruits or Vegetables. So, here is the PHOTO OF THE DAY!! I enjoyed this delish sandwich for lunch and also ate the remainder of the tomato to the side. This is straight from a garden from a man in our church who loves to share his bounty! 

I love cracking fresh pink Himalayan salt and ground pepper on the tomato!!! Oh, summer sandwich perfection!!!

Here is the PHOTO CHALLNGE LIST.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your weekend!!!

With Love, 

Chrissy T

Busy Bee~

Hello everyone! Today's photo challenge was a little hard because I wasn't sure how to capture the theme BUSY! As you all know I am far from living a life of "BUSY" at the moment. 😆

BUT..... I captured this BEE on the Crepe Myrtle blooms; it was BUSY doing its thing. It could have not been a better capture of BUSY. 

Look closely....

I hope you all have a great weekend. I will leave you with this that I seen on Pinterest. It is so fitting to add to this post.

Feel free to join in on the daily photo challenge at any time. 

With Love, 

Chrissy T

Things that CALM

 Hello everyone!! Today's photo challenge is CALM! I knew immediately that I would take this picture today. Because during this season and truly all my seasons of life being in the presence of the Lord and in His Word always bring me a calmness!!  MY PHOTO FROM TODAY THAT REPRESENTS CALM IS BELOW.....

I am going through all my digtial photos while I am in recovery to start completing my photo books. I thought this would be a good time to clean up my photos on my phone. I have been using Amazon Photos for extra storage for years. Each year I usually get on and download all my phone photos to the storage and then I will go back and clean up the ones I don't need. I will make photo books or prints for the year. I am behind two years so this is a great time to catch up. 

With that being said as I was going through photos for 2026 and 2025, I decided to share photos of things that also BRING CALMNESS to my soul or makes me remember how calm I was in that moment that I took the photo!!

In no particular order here are things that always brings me calmness. From Sunsets, family time, church moments, gazing out at overlooks on mountain tops, hiking trails, kayaking, eating outdoors, waterfalls, sitting by creeks, forest walks, walking through gardens, sitting by campfires, and sitting on a beach watching and listening to the waves.... here we go.

Oh, I could share a ton of photos of things that bring me calmness. Worshipping Jesus, sitting in an empty or full church, watching animals, listening to ocean waves, light spring rain, and creating... Oh, I am so thankful how the Lord has created so many wonderful things for us to enjoy and that bring a calm salve to our souls. 

What a WONDERFUL WORLD! 

What brings you a sense of CALM? Share!!! 

With Love, 

Chrissy T

A Yummy Drink~ Photo Challenge~ Where Would You Travel??

 Hello everyone. I had a yummy DRINK of sorts today for the July Photo Challenge which was a DRINK.

There is nothing like a float! I love a good ole float. While some may not think it falls under the category of DRINKS I beg to differ. 

I love a good ole Rootbeer float but I had to settle (deliciously so) for a coke float! It was treat after dinner!

Thank you to those that are joining me for Photo of the Day July Challenge. Hop in anytime!! Even if you can't do it daily. **Reminder, this was found on Pinterest with no information or link to the creator. I cannot take credit for the design or challenge creation. **

I did take a little walk today. I was able to do 10 minutes today. I will say I am actually having a harder week as far as pain, uncomfortable feelings and lack of energy this week more than the first two weeks. I do hear that this is fairly normal for some in the third week of recovery. So, hopefully that is all it is. My days seem very monotonous, but I am reading some good Bible studies, listening to good preaching and teachings, journaling, scripture writing, and reading lot of good books for leisure. As well as coloring and resting A LOT. 

The crepe myrtle blooms are in full glory this time of year. I have 4 crepes in our yard. This one is huge. 

I am still not able to stand long and cook so the hubby purchased two premade "homemade" meals at a local place that makes homemade meals for your freezer or for catering. He picked up a chicken alfredo. So, we made that this evening. It was so nice to just put in the oven and bake it up and serve. It reminds me how I need to get back to freezer prepping. I did that a lot when all our children lived at home.

I did have some bread in the freezer that I popped in as well to serve alongside. All of our grown kids were over tonight as well as their "significant others" which meant a full table. We laughed and had good conversations. We each shared a dream place we would like to visit in America and outside of America. It was fun hearing all their desired places that they want to travel to.

I love moments like this. I love that so far, our grown kids want to spend time with us. It could be the "free" food but hey I will take it. LOL! It isn't every day. 

Back to our travel dreams! I was surprised how many of us had similar places we would like to visit.

The Hub said he would like to visit some states in the east and see the Redwoods in California and for out of the country he wants to go to Scotland or New Zealand.

Ethan (26) our oldest said he would like to visit New York and Japan.

Hannah (21) said Glacier National Park Area and Thailand or Iceland.

Clayton her boyfriend also said Glacier and New Zealand.

Kyle our youngest (19) said Miami and Germany.

Carleigh his girlfriend said anywhere in the West of USA (California, Oregon or something) and Japan or Korea.

Of course, I had a hard time answering this because I love to travel. I said for the East of USA~ Acadia National Park, Salem, Massachusetts, Cape Cod or something like that. For the West of USA~ Hands down dream National Park is Glacier National Park. Out of the country~ The Cotswold's in England or New Zealand or Sweden. 

Oh, it was so hard for me! HAHA! The kids got a good laugh because they said the question was for top dream place and I said those all are!!! HAHA! 

Anyway, we had a good dinner. I am almost finished with one of my second reads for this Summer. Midsummer Mysteries (collection of short stories) by Agatha Christie. It has been very enjoyable. I will be sure to be done with it by tonight or tomorrow. 

I finished the book Kim (Exquisitely Unremarkable blog) sent me as a Get Well gift last night. The book, Comfort Prayers. I LOVED THIS LITTLE BOOK. It had become a nightly ritual to read some of this book every night after surgery before bed. It really soothed my soul and had so many wonderful prayers, poems and etc. I loved it so much. I was sad it ended. 

Anyhoo.... I would love to know what is a dream place you would like to visit? Share in the comments!

With Love, 

Chrissy T

My First Outdoor Walk ~ Photo Challenge~ WORDS

Hello friends. I hope you all are doing well. It is a little cooler here than it has been. Mind you it is still very hot. I was able to take my first "walk" after surgery yesterday. I haven't gone yet today. I had a lot of office/church book work I had to do. I do not want to get behind in bookkeeping for the church. It is a beast already. 

Today marks the beginning of my third week. I can now walk 5-10 minutes on a flat surface this week. I can eventually build up to 15-20 minutes. I was thinking 10 minutes would be no biggie. THEN..... I started walking and realized 5 minutes was HARD. So, I will be taking my time for sure. 

I am shocked how much pressure I felt. It was actually very shocking. This was a sign that slow and steady is my lot right now. 

Today, I had a little more energy and I needed to get some office work and church bookkeeping accomplished. 

Lots of printing, scanning and recording! LOTS! It is all done and I am all caught up. I am so thankful!

Today, my heart is swelling with THANKSGIVING because the Lord answered TWO specific requests for me and my husband. We had some deeply personal prayers where we really needed a miracle for our youngest son Kyle (19) and he answered it. We still have ongoing prayers for him and a very serious prayer for this coming Thursday. I believe if He answered this one for today, He will answer for Thursday! My husband and I without realizing it was praying about the same thing for our daughter, Hannah (21) yesterday. Neither of us knew until this morning that we both had focus prayer time for her job and for her a raise yesterday. She works very hard and is the "face" for her orthodontist. She is the first person that people see when they go to a consultation for braces. Since she took the position, their patients have increased by 75 percent. She works very hard and always has a smile. Not only that she jumps in all areas that are needing help. She celebrated being there a year last week and they had told her when they hired her last year, she would be evaluated and possibly receive a raise which is MUCH NEEDED as a young lady trying to kick off young adulthood in these times. The Lord answered my husband and I (her too) and unbeknownst to her when she got into work today they blessed her with a raise. We are thankful. 

On to my Photo for the July Daily Photo Challenge! The theme is WORDS. I am sharing TWO today! 

The first photo is of my Thank You cards that you can color. I am having a lot of fun with them. I also do wax seals for letters and cards. I am so excited to get my seals and wax out after I color them to have some fun!

My second one is this lovely sign with the words Simplify on it. A statement by Henry Thoreau one of my favorite poets.  I admire him for being a naturalist. His love for nature and simple living is what drew me to his writings. 

A little story about this sign. I found this primitive sign about 21 years ago for $1 at a yard sale. This sign is so meaningful to me because when I came across it, I had begun to shift my life and was craving a slower and simpler pace for my then young family. I was going 90 miles an hour serving, volunteering, running a cleaning business and raising small children. I had a moment where I knew the Lord was calling me make some changes. Oh, That I did. I went to our Pastor (we were not pastoring at the time) and stepped down from all ministries I was heling in but for two areas that I felt the Lord wanted me to continue. I stepped down from many volunteer positions. I put my house cleaning business on hold. I started homeschooling our children, taking nature walks with them and on my own, reading and playing with them, we took naps, picnics, learned so much and had so much fun. I began to stop and smell the roses, learn how to simplify things, started thrifting, being a better steward with things we owned/had, decluttered our entire home and began having a hospitable home for slow and relaxing moments with friends and their children. Oh, we built so many memories and what a treasure those years were. This sign caught my eye right when I was kicking off my life of "simplicity." It has been hung in every single home we have lived in even if it doesn't really match the home. It will always have a place because it serves as a reminder the importance of a simple life for me.

It is one of the first things you can see when you walk in our front door. What a great reminder for us all.

Thanks for joining me today, 

Chrissy T