A T T H E P A R K ' S

Ok. I cannot hold it in any longer. OUR HOUSE IS ON THE MARKET!! Once the house closes and we move, I'll post all of the photos that our wonderful photographer captured a few days ago. He made our house look amazing!!! Specifically, I love the evening shots where the house almost glows, and the drone shots. A few years ago I wrote about our home list which included all the lofty projects we wanted to complete in order to make the house our dream home. Well, plans changed and we decided to do just a few upgrades and leave the rest as is. We are so happy with the results and are so thrilled with how the photos turned out. This week we had a large group of realtors come in and tour the home before the house went "live" and then this weekend (today and Sunday) we have our open house! We already have a number of showings scheduled so we'll see what happens. We've been officially on the market for a couple of days and have had a ton of interest so far. O...

Not long ago I had a purse that was filled with stuff that I didn't use but I stored items for the "in case I need it" moment which never came. You can read about it  here . It was a hassle to constantly transfer stuff from one bag to the next if I wanted to change purses for every outfit change. As we have been decluttering our belongings, I decided I'd also downsize the contents of my purse just to keep things a bit more simple and ended up purging all but one purse in the process (read down below to see the other purse I use). Then I began looking for something that had a simple design, in a neutral color, and was compact. I was interested in a purse that would allow me to carry the essentials and nothing extra. First off, I had to decide what I deemed as my essentials, then I could determine the size of purse I needed. Secondly, I wanted something that would go with a lot of outfits, whether I was attending a wedding, or wearing jeans and a t-shirt. INTRO...

A couple of months ago, as I wrote about here , we started the process of infertility testing and treatment. After a few appointments, blood draws and an ultrasound, we learned that I have an autoimmune disease causing, among a number of symptoms I won't go into detail here, thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, and infertility. On top of that, the tumors I had during our miscarriage are back. This season of our marriage has been incredibly trying and incredibly precious. For some, going through a miscarriage and/or infertility can break a marriage. But, because of God's grace, JP and I have grown closer together in our marriage and are stronger every passing day. JP is the best thing (besides Jesus) that's ever happened to me and I am so proud to call him my husband. He is a gift that I never want to take for granted. Through these trials, we've learned some painful life lessons and I thought I'd share some of them with you: ONE: FLEXIBILITY Oh man....

source Back HERE , we shared about how JP and I are beginning to transition to living a more simple life and really, into minimalism.  We've also written about how we've wanted to switch to all natural body care products due to some of my severe health issues so I thought I'd share some of the progress we've made thus far. I read somewhere that it takes only 26 seconds for chemicals in your personal care products to enter your bloodstream and it makes me so happy to know that I am no longer exposing myself to any toxic chemicals. We have enough chemicals in our foods, our water, the air we breathe, but I digress. If you have any suggestions for natural/chemical free products, I'd love to hear from you. We don't have it all figured out, but we're learning! FACE + HAND WASH My naturopathic physician suggested DR. BRONNER'S PURE CASTILE SOAP with heavy dilution. She says she uses it to wash her hair, body, face, hands, and it also works g...

Picture your dream home. I bet it's not filled with clutter, am I right? The photo you pinned on pinterest of the perfectly staged home doesn't have stacks of papers on the dining room table does it? Or clutter filling up every nook and cranny on the bookshelves? Or in the garage? Yeah, neither does my dream home. Source We thought we'd share with you our progress for decluttering our home and simplifying our lives (we shared about starting the process here ). Over the course of about eight weeks, we've downsized a TON. We've gotten rid of four loads of stuff in our 4Runner and donated to garage sales and to our local teen challenge . We've sold items on CraigsList and we've given stuff away to friends.  It really is amazing how quickly things accumulate! Here is a list of what we've accomplished and what's left to do (as far as we know). Check back periodically for more updates on our progress and tips for how you can simplify your lif...