I will never feel bad about my house again

Okay, I can't reveal ANY of the details pertaining to how I got my hands on this photo, but suffice it to say that police officers get invited into a LOT of homes they wish they didn't have to visit.

Let me just say right now that I will NEVER feel bad about the messy condition of my home EVER again, and you shouldn't either. Here's why:



You know a house is bad when the occupants, completely unworried about the possibility of someone breaking into their abode, secure the front door with DUCT TAPE ALONE. Heaven help us.

Updated to add: The ironic part of all of this is that this was NOT (as I would have assumed) a shack in a seedy part of town ... this was a nice middle-class neighborhood with homes in the $180,000+ range ... I started to post of photo of the outside of the house but thought better of it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From all of us at The Potter Place to everyone at your place, Happy Thanksgiving! We've had a grand time this week counting our blessings, and they are many. We hope that you can say the same.

Here are some highlights:















Our precious Pilgrim Rachel














Gathered around the feast giving thanks













Our place "cards" ... aren't they
adorable?

If I weren't so tired, I'd have a title for this post

It feels like a hundred Sundays ago that I last posted to this blog. And I don't really know why I'm writing tonight except that about 30 minutes it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't even remember how to log in, y'all. So I tried various and assorted passwords, everything from my ATM password to Old Faithful, the password I've used for simply everything for the past ninety-eleven years. And now that I have finally remembered how I used to get into this thing back in the days when I, you know, used to share my fascinating life with all of you, I feel obligated to write something. Only I'm not really sure what that something should be.

It's like this ... I'm tired. Really tired. And I don't just mean because it's a few minutes before midnight. Trying to work a full-time job, teach part-time, run a business on the side, be involved in a Bible study, volunteer at church, AND tend to the never-ending duties of managing a home, being a wife, and raising children has just worn me out lately. I keep trying to think of something "deep" to write about, but truthfully, if there has been a thought deeper than how to get my children to like each other that has fluttered through my mind recently, it got lost in between all the sleep deprivation and caffeine-induced insomnia.

Jeff and I talk often about how I need to give something up, but we never seem to come to any conclusions about what that something should be, because I really love everything I do. I love my job at the hospital. I love teaching my sweet group of 28 sophomore and junior English students each day. And I love the creativity of designing gifts for people that bring smiles to their faces and occasional tears streaming down cheeks. And, it goes without saying, that I'm absolutely head-over-heels crazy about my man and three kids (despite an occasional threat to hock one or more of them on eBay!) How in the world does a person make a choice like this? And yet to continue living this way, pushing myself to unhealthy limits, is utterly crazy.

Midnight is here now, and my alarm will be going off in a little over five hours. Although I can think of at least three more things I really ought to get done before calling it a day, common sense is telling me those things can wait.

'Night, y'all.