Hello! Welcome back! Yes, you ARE in the right place!

It’s starting to feel like spring here in Vermont — finally. Today, that meant that it was in the 50s and raining. After church, we somehow ended up inviting four kids over to play. If you’re counting, that’s a total of eight kids in our house. Which works beautifully when we can kick everyone outside. When it’s raining: Not so much.

Thankfully, AFTER they put together a full wedding ceremony for our youngest daughter and our cat (complete with invitations and programs, music, readings, a reception, cake, and some attempt at dancing) the rain slowed down. These are Vermont kids; they’re not afraid to go outside in a drizzle.

Since the house was quiet, since this is the last day of our family’s spring break, since we were supposed to do some spring cleaning on this spring break but all my girls declared themselves “too tired” and asked for an extension, I retreated to the office/laundry room/linen closet and decided that in lieu of actual spring cleaning, I’d clean up this blog. I’ve been wanting to give it a bit of a facelift for a while. I neatened some things up and gave it what I hope is a more simple, clean look. I like it a lot, and hope you do, too.

Things have been simpler on this blog in a lot of ways, lately. You may have noticed that I’m using it mostly to post links to “Faith in Vermont,” my bi-weekly column for The Addison Independent. For a while I felt badly that I wasn’t writing more outside my column, but I don’t anymore. That’s about what I have capacity for right now, between homeschooling four girls, shuttling them around to activities, trying to keep our little homestead in working order, and still having time to spend with my husband, my friends, myself, and God.

And, in case you didn’t hear, “Faith in Vermont” won “Best Blog on a Newspaper Website” in the New England Newspaper and Press Association’s 2018 Better Newspaper Competition! Awards only go so far — my kids still don’t listen to me — but it was a nice little affirmation that I’m focusing on the right thing…for now.

I think I’ll stick with this new blog look for a good long time, though.

Wishing you all a wonderful Sunday. Check back in on Tuesday; I’ll have a new “Faith in Vermont” column up!