Late October

All photos by my amazing husband Steve

 I love the fall - and living here in the Monadnock region of NH means that for most of this season we live in a picture postcard of swirling leaves and amazing color.

It is a time when - as a friend stated - God pulls out his easel and paints amazing pictures for our enjoyment.

It is also a time of change, reflection and sometimes quiet introspection.  These things can be good or they can be terrifying - sometimes they are a combination of both.

I'm missing dear friends... learning new things... finding new rhythms for my days... some things cause my heart to ache, some are exhilarating and others exhausting and emotionally draining.

My last two children are both in college full-time locally - so commuting to school, and working part-time jobs which means our family dinner time together is sporadic at best.  And keeping track of who is where and when is often a good trick. We are four people sharing 3 vehicles.

For the first time in almost 20 years I have a job.  I'm learning - or trying to re-learn - how to balance being home and being at work... and trying to figure out if this is a good thing for me.  I'm learning new things with my quilting and am tremendously excited about my new studio and machines and the potential they bring to my passion of fabric & thread.

I trust completely that the Lord knows exactly what is needful in my life and will give and take and move as I pour out my heart to him and wait on His providential hand. Unfortunately that waiting is a hard, hard test for me... but He is faithful so I'm trying to be obedient and follow His lead.

Wishing you all blessings on the journey~

Random Brain Ramblings

I haven't posted much of late as I've been sort of in a low spot in many ways and have had trouble pulling my brain out of the fog for more than is required for just general life a lot of the time.
We've had a very long stretch of cycling snow storms and freezing cold temperatures and that has caused it's own issues as well as creating a certain amount of drab feelings and cabin fever alternatingly (is that really a word?).

We've had frozen heat pipes, a giant frost heave just outside the garage door, the chicken coop is at a definite angle - probably also due to frost heaves, we've had ice dams and leaking into the house, and as of yesterday, a different heating pipe has begun to leak and the plumber can't come until next week Tuesday.  I've had a weird tendonitis thing in my right hand/wrist that has made life very challenging and has completely thwarted my self-therapy of sewing.  The dog had surgery and then a weird doggie vertigo episode that has resulted in lots of vet visits and bills.

All this is fairly negative on the surface, however there have been many good things and bright spots as well.
There are things to be thankful for even when things are hard:

• After my temper-tantrum with God back in September (mom-camp), we started attending church in Peterborough (Monadnock Congregational Church) and that has been a tremendous blessing and source of peace.  Steve and I even attended membership class with the Pastor and are planning to become members during the month of March (Lord willing).
• We've had some rough spots with friends and family that have required us to speak up and step out of our normal non-confrontational lifestyle to deal with uncomfortable issues - this has resulted in shifts in relationships that prayerfully God is putting on the right track again.
• Almost all of the house issues have resolved - mostly - without any really dreadful situations or too horrendous of expenses.  And we are really evaluating what is needful for projects and home improvements both long and short-term.  I do see having to paint the family room this year after the water leaking in left water spots on the ceiling, but that was sort of needful anyway.
• My chiropractor has made great improvement in my hand/wrist with a new technique.
• Today it is 40 degrees and the sun is peaking out!
• The kids are healthy and doing well with their school work and we are working on our plans for next year including starting to look at colleges for Jess.
• Ben is learning to drive.
• I'm reading several books right now.
• Steve built Jess some fun built-in bookshelves in her room.

• Steve is working on building me a design wall for my sewing room.
• My chickens are all still laying and seem to be surviving their first winter okay.
• My new cat Gypsy is settling in nicely and loves to sit on my desk with me.
• We have had some great silly laugh-fests when we get a bit stir crazy.
• I've got lots of projects to work on once my hand heals enough to get back to sewing.
• There is prayer meeting on Thursday evenings at church and it's wonderful.
• There is coffee and chocolate and fudge in my world.
• I have a husband who is truly amazing, loves me so and cares for me completely, and we've just celebrated 19 years of marriage!
• My kids are awesome, smart, funny and very helpful.
• I have dear friends to share with, laugh with and who will keep me in prayer.
• I know that Jesus loves me and will carry me through the toughest things by His grace & mercy.

Blessings on the journey~

Chapter 8 Lines

Chapter 8  Spiritual Surgery: Forgiveness

p 151  Community always involves a kind of promise, whether or not it ever gets stated out loud.  It is a promise of commitment and loyalty.  When that promise gets broken, so does someone's heart.

p 152  Forgiveness is the only force strong enough to heal relationships damaged by hatred and betrayal.

p 156   But forgiveness does not come cheap.

p 157   Some things forgiveness is NOT:
             1. Forgiving is not excusing - forgiving doesn't mean tolerating or pretending.  When an action is excusable - it doesn't require forgiveness.
             2. Forgiving is not forgetting - forgiving is what's required precisely when we can't forget.
             3. Forgiving is not the same thing as reconciling.

p 158   Forgiveness takes place in the heart of one human being. It can be granted even if the other person does not ask for it or deserve it.  Reconciliation requires the rebuilding of trust, and that means good faith on the part of both parties.

p 158   Forgiveness begins when we give up the quest to get even. This is difficult because getting even is the natural obsession of the wounded soul.

p 159  Of course, letting go of vengeance doesn't mean letting go of justice. Justice must still be honored.

p 159  The next stage of forgiveness involves a new way of seeing and feeling. When we forgive, we begin to see more clearly. We don't ignore the hurts, but we see beyond them. We rediscover the humanity of the one who hurt us.

p 160  The third stage of forgiving, the one that shows you have begun to make some real progress, is when you find yourself wishing the other person well. When you want good things for someone who hurt you badly, you can pretty much know that the Great Forgiver has been at work in your heart.

p 160  God commands us to forgive because it is the best way to live. God commands forgiving because to refuse to forgive means I allow the one who hurt me to keep me chained in a prison of bitterness and resentment.  No human beings are more miserable than the unforgiving.

p 164  If you don't forgive - if you let pride, resentment, stubbornness, and defensiveness stand in your way - you become a hard and bitter person.  You carry a burden that will crush the humanity out of your spirit.  You will grow a little colder every day.  You will die.

p 165  True forgiveness is never cheap.  Hurt is deep; hurt is unfair. ... only one thing costs more than forgiving someone - NOT forgiving them. Non-forgiveness costs your heart.

p 166  Don't forgive, and your anger will become your burden. Don't forgive, and bit by bit all the joy will be choked out of you. Don't forgive, and you will be unable to trust anybody, ever again. Don't forgive, and the bitterness will crowd the compassion out of your heart slowly, utterly, forever.

Chapter 7 Lines

Chapter 7  Community is worth fighting for: Conflict

"Communities need tensions if they are to grow and deepen. Tensions come from conflicts...  A tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly. " ~Jean Vanier

p 127  There is no greater challenge in building community than to master the art of handling anger and conflict.  ..we must consider how important this topic is in God's eyes. It is both remarkable and appalling that by and large in churches today, we are not scandalized by broken relationships and chronic enmity between people.  We are not scandalized by lack of love.
But Jesus is.

p 128  We have been invited into the Fellowship of the Trinity. When we violate oneness, when we contribute to relational brokenness, it doesn't just affect us and the other person.  We are contributing to the destruction of that which is most prized by God and was purchased by him at greatest cost - the oneness of the Trinitarian community.

p 130  Matthew 18:15 may be the single most violated of all the instructions Jesus gave the human race.

p 131  To be alive means to be in conflict.  It's part of the dance of the porcupines. People may not be normal, but conflict surely is - at least in our world.

p 132  Interestingly, while Jesus tells his hearers they should take the responsibility to set things right if the other person has sinned, in another setting (Matt 5:23-24) he tells his hearers to take the first step if they are the ones in the wrong.  Jesus puts the burden on you in both cases.
Why?  Because people who value community are people who own responsibility to deal with relational breakdowns.

p 132  "Go" Jesus says. Take action. Don't let resentment fester.

p 133  Anger exists to tell you something is wrong and to move you to action.  Anger exists so you will be motivated to make it go away.  However, remember Proverbs 14:17 and Ephesians 4:26.

p 134-135 Causes of our anger? Fear? Frustration? Hurt? What outcome do we want? to win? to hurt someone?

p 136  Sometimes you should become angry. However even then you still must decide how to express your anger.

p 138 Conflict is inevitable. Resentment is optional.

p 139  The need for sensitivity is one of the most important - and often misunderstood - aspects of healthy anger management.

p 141 The simplest guideline is to approach the other people the way you would want to be approached in their place.

p 142  We must speak truth in love - clearly.

p 143  The goal in conflict resolution is not to win or score points - it's reconciliation.  Your aim should be to restore the relationship.  Reconciliation is rarely simple and almost never quick.

p 144  Direct confrontation doesn't always do good.  Sometimes it escalates the conflict. Sometimes it leads to violence. Confrontation can do tremendous damage. Then we need a miracle.  God created one.  It's called forgiveness - that's in the next chapter.

Biggest Project Yet - The finale

Part One and Part Two.  ***Photo heavy***

Here is the big reveal!

So now we were ready for finishing touches and furniture!

Instant fun... just add teens! They are enjoying their space immensely and I am so amazed at the transformation!  I'm also once again so amazingly blessed that my husband sacrificed so much time and effort to create a beautiful, inviting, comfortable space for our kids and their friends.

Now if he can only get around to that shed....

Blessings on the journey~

Biggest Project Yet (Part 2)

Part 1 of this project is HERE.   ***LONG AND PHOTO HEAVY POST***

If you remember from the last post, we are now to the point of mudding.  This was the most ridiculous part of the entire project!
We went through SO MUCH mud!  Like way more than any of us would have ever thought.  I think we had 4 complete 4.5 gallon buckets plus a couple smaller ones and then part of another 4.5 gallon bucket

We had never done this part of a project before and were totally winging it.  Steve watched several YouTube videos and we bought some special tools and gave it our best shot.  If you notice the ceiling is VERY high and has some seriously funky angles - with accompanying enormous gaps.

Steve worked his regular job during the day and then came home and worked here for hours more to fill holes, seams and then did all the final sanding himself.  Crazy and so wonderful!
Finally we were at the point where we gave the boys the task of washing walls (ok - I did help a little) and then a couple gallons of primer and some rollers (this I did NOT help with!).  And let them go to cover the ceiling and the walls to seal the sheet-rock and get ready for paint.

They also painted the ceiling with only minor touch ups after the fact.  They did a great job and I was very thankful for the help.
After some negotiation and about a hundred paint chips and some samples on the outside area wall, we decided on a two color scheme of Behr paints "Dark Storm Cloud" and "Tibetan Orange".  I'm not sure who names paint colors.
Then Ben helped me paint the walls.  I started with all the edging of the ceiling and where the two colors would meet and he began with the first coat of roller work.

It took about 2-3 days to do two coats of each color on the walls, but it came out really terrific.

Next came the windows - which all had to be trimmed out with extension jambs, sills, and molding.  We also opted to simply cover the yucky window with a vinyl privacy film until we can figure out about replacing it. I painted a million feet of baseboard molding to be installed after the floor was installed.

Then onto the flooring!  That remnant piece of carpet we bought was almost large enough for the space, but not quite, so we decided to install laminate floating 'wood' flooring in part of the space and do the carpet in the rest - sort of a divided living space idea.  It was, again, something we'd never done and Steve did some research, rented a tool and we dove into carpet installation.

Then Steve installed the laminate flooring.

To be continued...here.

Biggest Project Yet (Part 1)

**Warning: Long and photo heavy**
16 months ago we moved to our home.  In those months we've tackled a lot of projects here.  We've ripped down wall-paper and painted, had the roof done, painted, had septic & well work completed, painted, had a floor re-done, painted, built a chicken coop, painted, got chickens and did I mention all the painting?  So we have been pretty busy.
On Memorial Day weekend B (our teen son) and a friend were hanging out and discussing how it would be cool to take the storage area over the garage and make it a hang-out space for all the teens that God has blessed us with as friends to our 2 young-adults.
So Steve told them that the first thing that needed to happen was to clean out the space of all the piles of junk/stuff that was there.  It was a massive catch all for anything and everything from recycling buckets, chicken food to outgrown bikes and light fixtures we didn't need.  It looked like this.

In short... it was a disaster!

But during that one day the boys and Steve worked hard and by the end it looked like this.

It is hard to see, but the walls and ceiling are covered in sheetrock that looks like it was installed by drunken blind people.  The gaps are HUGE and it is crooked, not screwed into studs in some spots, hung in wonky directions and with LOTS of odd angles and about a zillion seams. And the window in the center of the back wall is an old mobile home window with a broken seal and moisture between the panes of glass.

At first we thought - fine - they can hang out in the empty space.  We found a remnant piece of carpet on craigslist and bought that to throw on the floor.

THEN... Steve started thinking, and drawing, and planning.  I prayed that God would allow us to do whatever was possible to create a fun, comfortable space for our kids and their friends to hang out here at home.

Steve took the week of his birthday off in June - the plan was that he was going to begin building himself a shed in the yard.  Then he did something characteristically marvelous of how he lives his life and loves us so well.  He and B and his friends started working on the room - jokingly christened Club Temple on Steve's drawings.
First - Steve took down some water damaged sheet-rock and did some electrical work - moving a ceiling fan and switches.

Then he and the boys built a wall.

Then they hung sheet rock on the new wall.  We also took turns beginning a first coat of spackle/mud on the 90-bazillion screw heads and seams.

To be continued....here