Living Large In Our Little House

28 Jul, 2011

Zen Doggy

My week has gotten away from me and I have a ton of work to finish before the end of the month. I thought you might enjoy contemplating “Zen Doggy,” today before taking a browse through my 7 favorite Living Large Links post from Tuesday (read the comments too as there were two posts readers liked as well!)

I’ll be back on Tuesday with more news from Our Little House!

Paging….Mat…..you need to claim your audio book at fivecoat@ozarkmountains.com

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Small House Living

26 Jul, 2011

My Best of List for Living Large

Mat, you’re the winner of the audio book, Ozark Mountains Fishing Stories,” by Rolland Love! Please email me at fivecoat@ozarkmountains.com with your snail mail address by the end of this week.
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I was tagged by our friend over at Frugal Kiwi in The Seven Links circle going around blogs that began at Tripbase.

Here are my choices for the “Best of” Living Large:

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Small House Living

21 Jul, 2011

Life’s Defining Moments

It’s Summer Book Giveaway Thursday. Read to the end of my post to see how you can enter.

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There are defining moments in everyone’s life.

Graduating from high school and college, getting married, buying your first home (or dream) home, having your children.

There are the ones that aren’t considered good, too. Events we see as failures and the death of the ones we love.

Today marks the 30^th anniversary of the first defining moment of my life. My dad suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 58. I was 17.

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Small House Living

19 Jul, 2011

When Giant Alien Green Worms Attack

Mary Nida Smith, you are the winner of the book, “A Pug’s Tale.” Thanks to everyone who commented, Tweeted and voted in the Petties for my other blog, K9 Chronicles Rescue Me for the Best Cause Related Blog. Remember, you can vote up to 2-3 times per day until July 29! There will be more book giveaways to come this summer!

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Photo Courtesy of University of Minnesota

When I went to let Molly and Dakota out before dawn one day last week, I knew there was something strange about my three potted tomato plants that sit on the party deck.

As I stood there, keeping one eye on the dogs and one eye on the tomato plants, I thought I saw one of them move.

“What the…..”

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Small House Living

14 Jul, 2011

Lessons our Dogs Teach us and a Book Giveaway

Molly, giving Dale one of her famous kissies

The tell tale signs were all there: The coughing, heaving, wheezing.

I tried to ignore them. After having pets all of my life, I knew deep down that it wasn’t allergies or a cold.

Last week, our (approximately) 8-year-old red Dachshund, Molly, was diagnosed with an enlarged heart.

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Small House Living

12 Jul, 2011

Silver Anniversary at Our Little House

First, these winners need to email me at fivecoat@ozarkmountains.com ASAP with your snail mail address: Cheryl, you’ve won a copy of Vision Boards and Tabitha, you’ve won a copy of Math for Grown ups! Thank you all for entering. I have more giveaways coming this summer, so keep reading!

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Today is our 25^th wedding anniversary. Besides feeling really old because we’ve hit our Silver Anniversary, it’s also a day of reflection on how much we’ve changed in our goals and how we envisioned our lives.

When we met on July 11, 1979, we were very young and we envisioned the suburban American Dream. Two kids, a nice sized house, good jobs that could buy us our wants.

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Small House Living

6 Jul, 2011

Math for Grown ups at Our Little House

Note to our Living Large community: I took an extended weekend this past holiday. This is Thursday’s post, coming to you a bit early! Nest week, we’re back to our regularly scheduled Tuesday and Thursday posts!

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Raise your hand if you’re one of those people, like me, who have had problems with math all of their lives.

I’m not sure where my problems began, although I do know my mother didn’t like math and wasn’t good at it. My dad only had an 8^th grade education, so he wasn’t a lot of help either.

I had to take Algebra I in both 8^th and 9^th grade and because I wasn’t required but to have one year of high school math, my second attempt at it counted as my math credit for graduation.

I was thankful I didn’t have to take it again until college, at which point, I had to take remedial college math to even make it into statistics, which I also had to drop once and take again. I had to pay for a tutor both semesters.

Math wasn’t my friend and by the time we built Our Little House, I was not ready to deal with the square footage measurements, dimensions to get cabinets and the refrigerator to fit, or even the coordinates for our land survey.

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Small House Living

30 Jun, 2011

My Favorite Space Saving Gadgets at Our Little House

Danylle and Sandy: You’re the winners of the drawing of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Vision Boards.” Please contact me by Monday, July 4 at fivecoat@ozarkmountains.com with your complete snail mail address. Thank you all for commenting and entering! I hope the post was inspiring and prompts you to create your own vision journal or board!

I posted sometime back that I thought I was ready for an e-reader. I love to read and my four bookshelves are crammed full in The Belle Writer’s Studio.

I do get books and if they aren’t keepers, trade them into the used bookstore. The library is really out of the question as the one closest to our home is tiny and it typically takes two years to get new releases.

I’m a person who likes to hold paper in my hand and read. I still have a subscription to the local newspaper because I like to sit on the sofa and read with my coffee before coming over to the studio and reading further online.

That’s the reason I resisted getting an e-reader.

But I was wrong. I love, love, love my Kindle!

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