Porch Chat - Our Last for a While?

I have really missed my chats on your porch, Patrice. This time, I am joining you for what may be the last time - at least for quite some time. 

But onto your questions for this week.

1. Are you planning on doing most of your Christmas shopping in stores, or online?

I have really cut down on Christmas shopping over the past few years, but quite a bit of what I do will be done online. 


2. Have you ever been to a bonfire?

Er, is that a trick question? Yes! See here for this year's bonfire, and go to this post to see last year's bonfire. And this post is our Bonfire from 2010.  Thankfully, our 'bonfire night' is in winter and so it's dark nice and early. We'd have a bit of a problem with bonfires and fireworks on the 4th of July ... even at midnight, it would barely be dark enough to even appreciate the beautiful fireworks.

3. What would 'simplifying life' mean to you?

Maybe stopping blogging?


4. Tell me about one blog you really enjoy reading.

Oh, only one, Patrice? 

Please let me give a few. I'll be good and not write a full blown essay on each one - simply the name and link.

Cranmer

Spilled ... Because my Cup Overflows

The Pioneer Woman - not only for her fun posts, which always make me smile, but for her wonderful selection of recipes.


5. Have you ever had someone who isn't in your family, but felt just like family?

Yep! 

There's this fella, who gave us all these wonderful photos from St Kilda. (Click on the link to re-visit.) When he joins us in evenings,  he kicks off his shoes, and eats as much chocolate as ourselves. See ... one of the family.

This lady, pictured here with my mum, has been 'Auntie' Jessie to me all my life. She is now the same to our own children. I never think of her as anything less than a real part of my family. Being a 'blood relative' couldn't  make me love her more than I already do.

Oi you! What are you doing here again? I told them about you. Now, watch you don't fall off that cliff....

When Laurie comes to visit, I never feel like I have a visitor in the house. She's just 'part of us'. Oh, she's also handy when we're lifting peats or planting the vegetables. And, oh, that coffee cake! Read here.

And then, we have this dear, dear couple. Read here about how we first met.

Once again, Patrice, thank you so much for your questions. I have missed our weekly chats.

I may pop back to the blog with a couple of posts that are 'sitting' there, waiting to be spruced up and posted. And I may come back to blogging at some point in the future, but for now, I think I'm going to say a huge Thank You to all of you who've visited with me and commented to make me feel like I wasn't totally blethering to myself.

I have loved this blogging journey. I have met so many wonderful people. It was actually a real blessing for me to have begun it, but now I think it may be coming to its natural end.

Please feel free to browse older blog posts, and feel free to keep commenting - I'll read them all, and will enjoy reading them, and answering them.

(As I say, I may return to blogging sometime - if I find I have begun to talk to myself incessantly, and if I find I really have stuff to say and nobody around me wants to listen, then I may decide that my blogging friends will have to, once again, be the receivers of my wisdom(!), my photos, and my ramblings. Oh, and if the Builder grows his goatee again, I may find my inspiration for blogging may return.... I mean, seriously - how is a woman to be inspired when her Builder removes his goatee?? We may have to begin a campaign.)

For now, thank y'all so much for putting up with this woman who is blessed 

- to be saved;

- to have been born in this era of history, and on this teeny wee insignificant-to-most-of-the-world island;

- to have been blessed with a husband and four wonderful children;

- to have been convicted of, and blessed more than words can say, by this homeschooling journey on which God placed me;

- to have the internet, through which I have been blessed with much wisdom and teaching; with friends who are now firmly entrenched in my life; with countless opportunities to learn with my children.

Love y'all!