Rachel's random ramblings and a little survey check in

Hi friends! It's been awhile since I've done a Rachel's random ramblings post {pretty sure I say that every.single.time}, so I thought I would check in with some random things that are rambling around in my head. About 6 months ago, my then 16 year old son told me that the only thing he wanted for his birthday was to go to The Gentleman of the Road concert with me. Not his friends, but me. Now, he could have been saying that because none of his friends could afford the steep ticket price and the long weekend away on the other side of the state, but what I heard was I WANT TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU. So, I bought overpriced concert tickets and we had our best time spending the weekend together.

I'm going to brag here for a second {it's my blog, sue me} because, what is important to mention is that Aidan is probably the best drummer I have ever heard in all the days of my whole life. He's ah-mazing. This isn't just my opinion, this is substantiated by pretty much whoever hears this boy play. 

Aidan's played on some pretty awesome stages and in front of some pretty big audiences, but he's never actually been to a concert. We pretty much changed that by going to this full on music festival and listening to live musicians for days.  It was great.  And you know what?  I heard some pretty amazing drummers and I still think my kid could drum circles around all of them.

What I love about music festivals is that you get to find new artists you might not have found otherwise. One guy we loved was Jack Garratt.  He's pretty amazing. He's essentially a one man band. It's impressive.

We had a pretty awesome summer. It's been really hard to get back into real life again. 

We spent a little more than a week on the Big Island of Hawaii this summer staying Real World style in a house for a family reunion. One of my many talents is that I can sniff out a good beach. It's really an art.  This is one of my favorite pictures from our trip taken on my favorite beach that we named Turtle Town.  My son took it. He actually takes some pretty awesome pictures that often appear on my blog and on my Instagram.

Last night he was complaining that I didn't give him photo cred.  So, here I am, giving him photo cred.  You are welcome Aidan. By the way, I took that awesome pic below when I snuck up on him napping mid day.  Isn't he just precious?

My daughter gave our youngest son this helium filled battery operated RC powered fish {because everyone needs a remote control helium fish} for his birthday. It shockingly only cost 75cents to fill this bad boy up even though it required more helium to float than the house in Up. Thank you Safeway.

This sweet little boy is Austin. He's 3 and last month he made an appearance in my blog on a post that I did. Austin and his family were visiting from California. We don't see them nearly enough, but when we do, we have our best time. Less than two weeks after this picture was taken, Austin was rushed to the ER and diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma in the form of a really quick growing tumor in his head. My heart breaks for this family. Cancer sucks.

This is probably my favoritest clip ever. 

My Grandma's name is Gladys and one time when I was in middle school, we were sitting around the table and she told me when she was younger some people used to call her happy bottom.  It took me awhile to get it but once I did, it was the funniest thing I had ever heard before!

While we are talking about loving Jesus but liking to drink a little, I have to make a confession. I probably like watching Drunk History far more than I should. Don't tell my kids.

Speaking of kids. I was telling my 8th grade daughter that I wanted her to try an after school activity this year.  I picked her up after school from the first drama club meeting and as soon as the doors on the van closed she was in tears. She hated it. The irony wasn't lost on me during her dramatic outbust on the way home.

However later she was having a discussion with her dad about after school activities.  Mind you, this child is 4'5" tall and weighs 65 pounds. She's our peanut.

Child: Mom is making me join some after school activity so I'm just going to join the football team.
Dad: You? You are going to join the football team?
Child: Yep. I'm going to be the goalie.

I've been writing Holy Craft for about six years now.  I must confess that for years, I looked at it as a hobby. An outlet for me to share my crafts and life with, but it's turned into much more than that. If you asked me last year what I did as a profession, I would say that I was a stay at home mom, even though I was putting in tons of hours working on my blog. The game changer was going to my first blog conference {SNAP}. There was no shame in having a hobby blog, but I realized I had nothing stopping me from turning my blog into my business.  The glorious part of being a stay at home mom is that your goal is to work yourself out of a job. With my oldest going off to college next year, I am doing just that. All that said, I have made some changes at Holy Craft and have more ideas for change in the future. I would love to have your input and your feedback. Would you mind taking a few minutes out of your time and taking this short 10 question survey? Please be honest with me, but remember, I am human and will be reading each of the responses, so please respond constructively.