blessings amidst the clutter

Ah, blogging.
It's fantastic and sometimes not.
It can generate jealous and envy quicker than you can snap a finger.
(Pinterest has a way of doing that, too!)

Not that I am super prone to feelings of envy, but they can sneak up on me.
All of a sudden I look around my tiny and always cluttered home and sigh.
Why don't I have a beautiful kitchen?
Why can't the walls be free of scratches from previous owners?
Why this?
Why that?

But really, it's not such a big deal. Yeah, it may take me almost the whole week to clean up after our friends visit on the weekends (just in time for them to show up again, haha), but we spent that time with our friends. It's not our things that matter.

Obviously, I take pride in a clean house and yard and stuff.
But if when I wake up in the morning I give thanks to the Lord for all I have been given, clutter included, then I remember I am blessed.

Though you're still not seeing photos of the house on here when it's a wreck.

musings no. 7 [in other news, my legs are killing me]

 I sat down at my computer and was about to write a "Motivational Monday" post when I realized something.
It's not Monday.
Oops.

Well, I'm totally okay with that.
Mondays aren't usually the best day in the week for most people.
Yesterday I spent the morning baking and the afternoon reading and the evening watching Star Wars with my husband, so overall it was a pretty good Monday.
That certainly doesn't happen every week, though!

Last week, I wrote a post on taking walks.
I'm here now to tell you that I took my own post seriously!
I wrote that post last Thursday, and by that point I had walked roughly four miles, two on Monday afternoon with Nate, and two on Wednesday morning alone.
On Friday, though, I hiked/walked a total of almost nine miles.
Friday morning I hiked a 3.5 mile trail by myself, while listening to the soundtrack for Fellowship of the Ring; it was an awesome hike.
Friday afternoon, Nate and I hiked a 3.1 mile trail, at which point my legs were screaming at me, but I still felt pretty good overall.
Friday night, we went to the Cheese Capital Jazz Crawl in Plymouth and that was roughly two miles of walking in the four hours we hung out there.

Honestly, at that point, I was totally beat.
But it was good for me!
I'm not bragging or anything, though I suppose I could since this isn't something I do all the time.
My stamina isn't really that great, but after last week I think I'm well on my way to building up some more strength.

I'm taking it easy this week because my leg muscles are still a little sore, and I have a couple of lovely looking blisters on my feet.

Annnnd since I just spent an entire post talking about myself...I guess I'll just shut up now.