ok so i have said for a long time now that i want to travel around on the back roads of the south and take pictures of old barns. i love old barns i think they are so simple and rusticly pretty and they make me think of a simpler time when families just worked together to survive. nobody builds real wooden barns anymore they are always the cheap meatal buildings.
anyway...i was driving home the other day and i passed a field that i seriously have passed thousands of times before and back behind the fence i saw a beautiful old barn. i decided that i should start taking pictures of the barns right next door to me. all of these different barns are within a 5 minute walk from my house! i just have never taken the time to really notice them. my favorite one is the red barn in the big green field. i went out on wednesday evening b/c there was a big storm brewing and i knew the lighting would be great. hadley waited in the car while i took the pictures with lightening all around me. i kept thinking that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to walk around with a metal tri-pod with lightening striking all around. oh-well. i had a lot of fun doing it.

Life Changing

why, why, why has it taken me my whole life (at least it feels that way) to figure out the laundry and the laundry room?? ell...i think i finally did with the help of mark. we started using bins for everyone and added another laundry basket/sorter in the laundry room. then i made myself a wrapping paper station using pegboard. i love it! it has been a little over a week and i can't believe the difference in the whole house. now whenever i find junk of the kids i throw it in their bin. how does that work? something like this:
kid: "mom can i go bla bla bla???"
me: "check your bin, is it empty?."

now, as weird as it sounds, i love to do laundry. i always loved it because of the smell but hated pretty much everything else about it. the folding and putting away and it taking my whole life. blargh! now it is simple--a little batch here a little batch there. done. even mark likes to do laundry now. this has been life changing.

i heart dogwood trees

april is one of my favorite times of year because of the beautiful spring we get here in arkansas and all of the beautiful dogwood trees that lace the forest. the dogwood has always been a special tree to me because when i see the trees i think of the legend i learned as a kid. today i had to go out and take some pictures of the dogwood trees in our backyard.

the legend....

at the time of Crucifixion the dogwood had been the size of the oak and other forest trees. so firm and strong was the tree that it was chosen as the timber for the cross. to be used thus for such a crul purpose greatly distressed the tree, and Jesus nailed upon it, sensed this. in His gengle pity for all sorrow and suffering Jesus said to the tree: "because of your regret and pity for My suffering, never, again shall the dogwood tree grow large enough to be used as a cross. henceforth it shall be slender and bent and twisted and its blossoms shall be in the form of a cross--two long and two short petals. and in the center of the outer edge of each petal there will be nail prints, brown with rust and stained with red, and in the center of the flower will be a crown of thorns and all who see it will remember."