Life Lately

Tuesday night I went to the Ellie Goulding concert here in Austin and was bowled over by how incredible it was. We were all on our feet dancing by the end! Ellie has the voice of an angel and her show is electrifying. And man, she rocks the upper octaves!

I thought it was cute when she said, “I write about love, usually romantic relationships, but I realized I had never written about the love of my best friend,” so she wrote a tribute to her bestie. Add Ellie to the list of things I love about Great Britain.

In local wildlife news, this Monarch butterfly caterpillar arrived in my backyard on a milkweed I planted over two years ago.

This is exciting because he’s my first Monarch visitor ever and he’s decided to stick around for his cocoon phase, during which he will turn into a Monarch butterfly. His cocoon is right by my backdoor so I can watch this whole process unfold. And I can nerd out all I want! I will keep you posted on his progress.

 

In farm news, mom and I have been working on finding a countertop we love for the farmhouse. It is so hard to choose. I’m amazed by the incredible stones that are made by mother nature.

How could I ever go with boring white when there are stones like this?

But we’re trying not to get too fancy. It is a farm house after all.

Last time we were there, bees started coming inside the house through a crack in the wall. This had happened once before, when they took up residence in our ceiling and caused honey to drip down into our house, which then attracted ants.

It was it’s own little ecosystem. I’m good with ecosystems, just not in my house. Sorry bees. We didn’t want it to happen again. After about half an hour of holding smoking logs near the crack in the wall, (over dry grass, mind you…and I could just hear my grandfather saying Don’t catch the field on fire!) they got the message, and headed out to find another place to light.

There’s always some puzzle to solve on a farm, that tests you in a way you’ve never been tested before. This time, it was bees. I don’t want to know what it will be next time. Please God, let it be something easy.

It has been raining a lot so the creek by our house is raging! Troop and I have been out trying to hit 10,000 steps a day. I’m pretty sure he hits about 40,000.

 

A pooped Troop.

Brandon and I went to Hopdoddy burger joint on our anniversary. My favorite burgers and my favorite guy, topped off with a Nutella and Pretzel Shake….yum.

Life is so good with this crew, and I am one grateful woman!