Believe Manifesto

It’s been a while friends! And I haven’t had a lot to share with you all, but I thought I would share a few things I have been up to!

1 / Lyla started pre-school last week and although I thought I was going to turn into crazy-mom and lose my mind over it–it was actually fine! She did great, I did great and there weren’t any tears until Friday when she was soooo tired that she basically woke up crying. I did want to share the slightly funny story about the “school blanket”. First, you should know that Lyla loves silkies (aka: anything that feels silky or appears to be silk, but started out with 3 blankets she has had since birth.) So whenever I found out she needed a blanket to have and keep at school for nap time, I knew some struggles might present themselves. I thought,  I couldn’t send one of her three silkies because then she would carry them around all day…can we say Linus from Charlie Brown? Anyhow, I decided that I would just make her a new blanket, that just had a tiny bit of silk ribbon on the edge. She actually rubs the silky and this is how she puts herself to sleep. I knew we couldn’t do a ton of silk or she would again be dragging it around rubbing it all day. This way it would be new, and she would know it was ONLY for nap time, and all the other silkies had to stay at home. She really got into it. I let her help pick out the fabric and ribbon and then all we needed was Gramie’s help to put it all together. We had it done with three days to spare but of course I would wait till 9pm the night before to do the final stitching. But she went off to school rubbing it all over her face and she doesn’t carry it around all day so we will call this a WIN.

2 / I finally got rid of a ton of things from our home, and I am in the final stage of purging: donation. This week I plan to donate no less than 10 trash bags full of clothes and house goods and I pray that our home will finally feel clutter free. This has been so hard and I’m not sure why. One of the ladies we go to church with who has known me my whole life said, why is this so hard? You live with Derick! I couldn’t help but laugh, I replied that I hadn’t really ever even thought about having my organizing freak of a husband do all this purging instead of me. But we are in the final stages and from here on out hopefully putting him in charge will give us a clutter free home.

3 / Fall things: I am so excited it is apple and pumpkin season! Honeycrisp apples are my favorite and they even grow them in Missouri so many of us can get them locally. Pumpkins are hands down my favorite thing about fall. I am kind of a weirdo because I love all the fancy weird colored ones (I call them “fancy” pumpkins). My dad said over the weekend, “I have never seen a pumpkin that shade of green!” Me either, and I love it! I decorated my mailbox, set a few on the porch and then got a few things set out around the house.

Which brings me to somewhat of a rabbit trail: Manners. A few weekends ago I decided to go grab some fall things and have some “alone time”. I was high on life friends, kid free and fall shopping. First, I went to the nursery I love to get mums. Every year I buy a few of their smallest potted mums…did you all know that if you are buying the massive ones you are going all wrong? Buy the smallest ones, plant them before Thanksgiving and they will come back next year HUGE. Anyhow…I grabbed a fall planter and a small sunflower as well and I set it all on a pallet by the counter. I was looking around and came back and a lady walked up, took my sunflower, told the lady she wanted this as well and then walked off. I was speechless. When it comes to garden centers, nurseries and pumpkin patches…usually if you see a pile of random things you know that is someones treasures right? Apparently wrong, I chose not to say anything and pray that the women would do better in the future to be considerate and I went and grabbed another sunflower and went on my merry way. Next up was a local farm where I buy my “fancy” pumpkins every year. Right away I spotted the beautiful light green one, and some baby white pumpkins and I grabbed those first. One of the men who worked there came over and asked me if I needed any help, I said I was just looking but I set all my pumpkins down and said, I was starting a pile and was going to look for more large pumpkins. He told me he would keep an eye on my pile and I walked over to another section. As I came back I noticed ALL of my small white pumpkins were gone. I set down my other stuff and asked the man if he had set them inside. He said, no they were just here. Another customer spoke up and said, I think those little girls over there took them. The man who worked there asked if I knew them and I said no. He asked if I wanted him to go ask for them back and I said no. I’m sure the parents heard this whole thing going down–and they did nothing. They also saw me walk all the way to the other end of the farm to get more white pumpkins. When I got back and the man was totaling my order one of the little girls came over and sat down on one of my pumpkins. The man asked if she was with me and I said no, he politely asked her if she wouldn’t sit on the pumpkins and she ran off. Moral of the story here friends is that I was flooded with feelings about manners. About the way adults treat other adults when we are in public places and about how children treat adults in public places. To me, manners are a default. If my children don’t use manners in public, they are immediately reprimanded and asked to apologize if another person or child was involved. This being said, they mess up. I even mess up sometimes and I have to check myself. Am I treating others how I want to be treated? I feel like this is such a basic principle, and one that is so simple, yet can make such a huge impact whether negative or positive. I hope we all will chose to be kind and use our manners and set the example for the younger generation before kindness is extinct. And if someone steals your pumpkin, just get another one and make a pumpkin pie!

Happy Monday Friends! What things are you doing to prepare for fall?