A Quick Trip to Georgia and Decorating at the Holidays

The Smokies

We recently took a quick trip down to Georgia to be with family at Thanksgiving. It was kind of last minute. We wanted to get away and then realized we hadn’t been with both of our kids, for this particular holiday, in seven years! So off we went.

Tennesee

The minute we arrived we realized our daughter was very ill. 🤧Honestly, had we known sooner, we probably would not have even travelled down there. She had been to the doctor but like I had guessed, probably was a virus and meds wouldn’t help. So I tried my hardest to help her get some kind of rest, but we were up each night till around 4 AM as her hacking cough just would not quit. (Poor thing, I know how that is…a nagging cough can just drive you completely mad!) She’s still my baby, so me trying to sleep in the next room and hearing her hack away …just not possible. I couldn’t handle it, and kept trying everything I could think of to ease her misery. Nothing worked. 😞 I looked like the walking dead. 🧟‍♀️

Which reminded me of a particular story when she was little, and I had a horrible asthmatic bronchitis with a cough that drug on for over a month. Absolutely nothing would help me sleep. NOTHING! I had even pulled muscles near my ribs from hacking so much. I remember one, long night finally thinking I’m just going to run out in that snow and no one will even find me! 🤪It just drives you crazy, doesn’t it?

And of course driving down to Atlanta the same old scenario, we hit lots of traffic, came to complete dead stops, and again accidents were witnessed. We literally see an accident every single time we drive through there; sometimes I think we’re going to be in one ourselves as people just race by us going 100 miles an hour!

But It was all worth it getting to see little grandbaby Chloe. Oh my, she is so doggone cute! “They’re” all so right when they say a grandbaby is like nothing else! 🤗

We went to a Christmas light show in a park one night and the baby was mesmerized by all the action and bright lights. I’m sure next year it’ll be an even greater level of excitement for her.

I brought matching hats for her and her mom to wear. They both looked so cute! The baby just turned 5 months.

We also had Thanksgiving dinner with my husband’s mom and brother now that they have moved down there. She is 81. And his sister, and cousins came over with their younger kids and there was a sort of a “kissin’ cousin” play date going on. 😁



Hey Ma! What the heck is goin’ on?!

Chloe wasn’t quite sure what to think!

My hubs also would turn 56 on our drive home, so while we were there the kids surprised him with a cookie cake.

It was fairly warm, so after dinner we walked downtown Newnan, Georgia and saw more lights. They have a quaint downtown square much like we do here in our town.

We left a day earlier and it’s good we did because as soon as we got home, my poor husband got deathly sick and has been sick ever since. Hes just laid around hacking and tried to work later but ended up having to take off some time. Now he’s counting down the day to retirement come spring. (Too bad it hadn’t been sooner.)

But Yay! 🤗

I recently talked him into letting me re-paint my daughter’s room that has been bright aqua for over a decade! We had an ordeal with the paint store and finding the right paint initially, but now I’m loving how it tuned out. I was actually thinking of more of a BoHo style and painted the walls white. He wasn’t sure about all white walls, but I assured him decorators everywhere were doing it and it’d be fine. Guess what, we BOTH really love it!

But you would not believe how many different shades of WHITE there are! I have a second decorating Instagram account @morgie_and_me where I share decorating ideas AND get ideas, so I am already enjoying this new decorating and photography space.

I couldn’t wait to decorate it for Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever fully decorated an entire bedroom for Christmas.

And to be real honest, I believe all the decorating helps my mind find rest as I’m forced to think of other things. I’m just not dealing well with what has happened to my mother among other bad news I received this year. It all really affects me. I just can’t turn it off. I think about the suffering my mom is going through, along with missing out on so much life and it just really gets to me! And for my own mental health, I think I decorate to try and force myself to escape because I literally think about her 24/7.

I guess decorating is less damaging than drinking or drugs so that’s how I try to give my mind a break.

But after 20 years in this particular house, I’m now itching to change everything. We’re still not sure what we’re doing in retirement. We actually had our house sold this past summer (we were selling it ourselves) then, at the last minute, we changed our minds and backed out. A long story maybe to share later!

Meanwhile, I’ve been decorating like a crazy woman for Christmas and with this new room, the kids soon to arrive, taking care of the hubs while also trying not to catch any germs from the hubs, it’s kept me pretty busy. And in full hasmat attire. Ha.

My husband actually went to urgent care last night. Poor guy, he is really sick this time. I don’t think I have ever seen him this sick in 32 years of marriage!

Have any of you caught this horrible bug? I’ve been using hand sanitizer and walking around the house grabbing things with my shirt sleeve instead of my hands. 😷

PS Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I was going to share some of my Thanksgiving decor initially, but didn’t get around to it as we headed out the door so quickly.


Items found for home decorating at: #Pier1, #AtHomeStores,#Walmart,#T.J.Maxx, #Menards, #HomeDepot, #HomeGoods #RossDressForLess #Target

Take care!

And have a Merry Christmas!🎄

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Morgan and Logan’s 4 Year Anniversary

We had our 32nd anniversary yesterday and my daughter just had her fourth today. Well, it only took me four years to add more pictures to my website that I promised readers waaayyy back when. Better late than never!🤷🏻‍♀️

To see the original wedding video and read more about the details of the wedding day and venue in Georgia, go to our previous post here:

https://thentherestwo.com/2016/07/03/fall-farm-wedding-georgia/

*All photos ©Haley Dawn Photography & property of this site thentherestwo.com

To contact Haley: https://www.haleydawnphotography.com

Thanks for visiting!

We Won’t Forget

I took this photo after traveling to Georgia to make some wedding plans for my daughter’s wedding several years ago. The sun was beginning to set as the planes took off. One by one they started to climb against the sunset backdrop till they disappeared. I quickly went back and grabbed my camera and headed over to the other side of the airport. I couldn’t help but think of the tragedies on 9/11 and what the passengers must’ve felt on that day. Those were some true heroes! May we never forget! God bless their families and the families of those that sacrificed their lives to rescue them!

College Bound

The Indiana University students are back! We observed many a mom and dad walking alongside their new college student. Boy, that sure brought back memories of me choking up all the way home from Missouri and Georgia.

My kids both left home within a year of each other and I found myself walking by their bedrooms to say something then would quickly realize they weren’t there.

I ended up just shutting their doors. 🗣😭

Leaving our babies behind, wondering when we’ll see them next is a difficult transition. And many of us are/were going through menopause at the same time! 😳 I always said it was God’s cruel joke! We put in all these years of hard work, making lunches, sewing costumes, throwing parties, working in their classrooms, for all of it to come down to moments like this. This is when we do double duty praying that our kids meet professors that align with their upbringing, meet encouraging friends that have the same morals, that their minds only be open to things that will help them grow and become the people they were destined to be.

We’ve worked with college ministries as well as international students. And can you imagine leaving your child in another country? 🙀

We pray our young people come to know God and make a change in this world just by being who God always intended them to be.🙏 .

Do I Represent God Well?

I took this photo on one of our walks nearby.

I have always loved Francis Chan and this quote came from reading his book “Crazy Love”.

My other Instagram acct deals with fashion, food, home decor and faith. @Morgie_and_Me

My Valentine to the Readers

Even if you don’t have that special valentine today, or you are feeling sad and low… I, even a stranger to you, want you to know that someone DOES love you and saw you before the beginning of time. You are important; you were designed to come into this world, you have something to add, and you are still here for this purpose.

Be you…but be kind.

Don’t listen to naysayers.

Dig deep.

Keep going.

Happy Valentine’s Day❣️

 Psalm 139:15-16 (NLT) – “You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Fall in the Midwest

This past fall was some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve had here in Indiana for a few years. I did a lot more driving up through southern Indianapolis, Danville, Mooresville, and Plainfield due to the sad fact my mom had a stroke in October. She is fairly young and went in for a rather routine heart cath and stroked. (The odds were less than 1/2 percent.) All our lives changed that day.

I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it completely. When you see someone go from totally functional, driving, etc.. to needing help with everything and their mind just not all there…well, I still think I’m in shock. It all happened within an hour. It wasn’t a slow degredation, nor something we saw coming and could attempt to prepare ourselves for as we did with my husband’s father. He dealt with Parkinsons. It has just been a lot in such a short time with sudden adjustments.

Not only is mom dealing with a severe stroke, but they also found her heart to only be working at 25%. (According to her doctors, this heart thing could’ve been going on for years.) She had already been dealing with severe, undetermined pain for decades, along with pain from fibromyalgia. So, my poor mom has been through A LOT, and having entered that arena of severe pain, especially these last ten years myself, I am realizing just how REALLY TOUGH my mom truly is!!

Mom was over an hour away from us; first in the hospital, ICU, then went on to a rehab facility. So, I had a lot of time to drive and think. As I drove (and prayed), I thought of how much my mom would’ve loved these vibrant colors. She LOVES fall. She used to paint, and I thought she would’ve loved painting all this beautiful color!

While on the road, I positioned my camera to catch some of the fall foilage. (You may have already seen some of my IG photos.)

But here’s some of my video links: Driving through the Indiana countryside.

Driving the new I69 from Bloomington, IN up through Martinsville.

AND my YouTube channel: thentherestwo

I’m not a professional by any means but someday maybe my grandkids will see the clips along with everything the grandparents were up to. 😉

Pathways

You never know what’s just around the bend (good or bad). Refocus to assure you don’t swerve too far off the chosen path you’ve been asked to travel.

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