Real Life with the Taylors: Scenes from Our Living Room

It's time for another episode of Real Life with the Taylors, where I encourage you with my imperfections and let you know that you're not alone!  Or maybe show you that you're a lot more pulled together than you realize.  And I remind myself that just because I'm a mess doesn't mean I'm a failure.

For dinner tonight we had leftover grape salad from this weekend, and cheesy brats from Aldi.  Cheesy brats from Aldi are becoming an alarmingly frequent meal at this house.

The good news is, I just ran 2 miles!

PSA: Cheesy jalapeno brats and running are NOT a good combination.

But we're not talking about nutrition and exercise tonight.  We're going to talk about the living room.

Real Life with the Taylors: Vegetables and the Garage

Earlier this summer I was visiting family, and a few of them mentioned they enjoyed reading my blog.  Alyssa said "I really admire people that find the time to do things like that."  I assured her that the reason I do have time is because I don't clean my house or walk my dogs.  I shared this conversation with Cheri later, and was explaining to her that people only see the things that get done... not the 1,000,001 things that I don't do.  I don't have a clean house (like, ever), and I don't workout very often either.  Well we don't know that!  Just let us keep believing it! Was her simple, reassuring reply.  I could just show you all of the productive things that I do, and let you guys think I do ALL the things .  But I don't want you to think that!!!  Because I don't do it all, and I'm not pulled together at all.  I'm a mess, People!

summer salads and songs

You may or may not know this about me but... I'm kind of a health nut.  So while I sit here and drink my milkshake after a dinner of pasta and cheesy bread sticks and wonder why I gained 2 pounds this week,  I'll share with you some awesome salads I've found, tried, and loved.  You will probably notice that they are all from two of my favorite ladies in the world of the wide webz.

Back to Normal...?

I hesitate to say this (and I knock on wood as I do so), but its sort of starting to feel like life is getting back to normal.  Kind of.  Sort of.  For the most part.

Its a nice feeling after 6 11 months of crazy.  About a year ago it seemed like all crap hit the fan, we were booked every weekend, we were planning an anniversary party, family retreat, and a trip to Honduras.  Once we got through the holidays and Honduras, we hit the ground running with the church project.  Then it was Mandy's wedding, then the sprint to get things done before vacation.

And now vacation is over.  And life is sort of normal.  We're still way busier than I want to be, but its sort of a routine busy.  Like the same kind of busy on a regular basis... NOT leaving town every-other-weekend busy.

I've decided to enjoy it.  And soak up summer.  Here's one of the awesome things about being childless (and not a teacher): we don't live on a school schedule.  Summer for us really runs from mid-June (when it really gets warm) well into September.  As long as the weather's warm, it's summer!

Here's a little bit of what's been going on around here.

Wyoming: the overnight hike

I was going to wait a few days to post this, to space things out a bit.  However, this part of the trip felt very long, and also we took a ton of pictures.  To more accurately portray the experience, this post is long, with lots of pictures.  I am posting it in the middle of the weekend so you might have a better chance of finding time to read it if you want to.  Or you can just scroll through and look at the pictures.

Wyoming: The Early Days

We packed A LOT into the first two days we were in Jackson Hole.  Sunday all 21 of us went for a hike.  Tim and Nate had spotted the trail on a map in our condo, and the adults in charge of making the decision chose the trail completely independently of knowing Tim and Nate had been interested.  It was rated somewhere as an "easy to moderate" hike, it was a couple of miles before you got an awesome view of the Grand Teton, and then a few more miles around a lake.

Wyoming Adventures

We've been on a bit of an adventure lately.

Photo Credit: Emily Taylor