Living a Sunshine Life

It’s been years since I picked up a stencil brush, and even then it’s an art form I’d never mastered. When Emily from Stencil Revolution contacted me and asked if I’d like to try out some of their stencils I jumped at the opportunity. With the new house I needed some new wall decor, and I’ve been itching to try out some crafting in my new office.

Motivation strikes at some of the strangest times. In the past couple of months the strikes have been few and far between. Often when my motivation is lacking I tend to play on social media or binge watch Netflix. It turns out, both of those things were beneficial to me in more ways than one….

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It feels a bit strange to be sitting down at the computer again after over two months of chaos, but we’re finally home and I’m ready to get back into routine. Relocation The last post I wrote was back in May for American Family Insurance. In that post I shared our plans for moving, and…

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American Family Insurance has us covered with their DreamKeep Rewards program. Thanks to all of the work we’ve done to keep our current home and community in good condition, we’ve earned enough points to cash out on some fun rewards.

Here are just a few rewards available in our current area.

One of the biggest lessons my girls learn is that we aren’t doing these acts of kindness for a reward. We do good things because it’s the right thing to do. With that said, a sign of gratitude is always appreciated and well received.

I participate in American Family Insurance DreamKeep Rewards program. One of my favorite activity sections they offer is the Do Good Things section. Do Good Things falls in line with my life philosophy of kindness. Also, it’s filled with things I already do on a regular basis to make the world a better place. Since I’m doing these actions anyway I might as well get rewarded for them too.

Last week we started in on our next big dream. Taking our backyard to the next level! Not just any backyard makeover, I’m talking one that will accomplish everything we need it to do.

We’ve always had some things in our backyard, but none of it was really planned. It was mostly just a project here or there. As an example, here’s a random painted bench next to our rhubarb, with raspberry canes in the background and a bunny waiting for her next snack from the garden. As I mentioned. Random. No focus.

Spring is traditionally the season of cleaning. Getting fresh air in the house, removing built up dust and germs, making sure the house is ready for the sun to shine and warm the surrounding world. For me, it’s the season of planning. I’m motivated to open up my planner and dive into projects head first….

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Inspired by Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die, at the beginning of 2018 I decided to create my own list of books to read. What amazed me the most is just by creating this list I gained quite a bit of inspiration and historical insight. That’s something I wasn’t expecting, but made me even more excited to read some of these books.

This list contains both fiction and nonfiction selections I’m interested in reading for one reason or another. Many were recommendations from friends or books that won some kind of award. Some of the books on the list will be books I’ve read in the past, but want to read again to see if I glean anything new from them now that I’m older and hopefully wiser. All of the books are of interest to me. You’ll notice a good deal of psychology, philosophy and science books on the list.

My family has a lot of dreams. Some we’ve realized, such as home ownership, home business, having kids, and homeschooling. Others we are still working at, such as having a secure financial future, career and education aspirations for the kids, and big plans for travel. The kids are currently saving up money for a vacation to Germany!