My view on ladders and life...

                   My life of late has been busy,

                                                    but busy in a weird way...

A good three quarters of my summer has been spent away from home.

Between Summit, vacationing, spending time with family.

I really don't know what the weather was like in New York this summer.

Now Ohio and Tennessee on the other hand...

I could tell you exactly what the weather was like there.

On this first day of Autumn, I look back over my summer, and think...

It has been a good but challenging summer.

It has been full of new adventures, new faces, new experiences,

now some of these experiences I never want to experience again.

But I know that every experience,

and every thing that I have experienced this summer is all part of a bigger plan...

Even when I can't see what that plan will be.

This has been my view of late.

The caption of the photo above is very true. In many different aspects of my life, it is very true...

My view literally has I have been on a ladder a lot more then I normally am, as I have been helping rip old siding off our old/new house and put on new vinyl. It has also been the view of my spiritual walk. I am sure this needs an explanation.

'You feel like your walk with God is like being on a ladder???'

Well, no, not exactly, but there are some similarities.

First of all, you must make sure that you ladder is on level sturdy ground. You must be set upon "the Rock of Ages." And as soon as you are sure that your ladder is on firm level ground, you start your ascent, just starting the climb up a ladder can give you a thrill, you get that, "this could be an adventure" rush to the head, and your heart starts racing just slightly. A whole new exciting world with just one step off the ground.

As you climb you discover new things about yourself,

such as your fears, where you are afraid you will fail or fall.

It can be a truly terrifying spot... especially when the breeze blows and the ladder quakes just slightly. That is when all your fears are revealed in their full light. And it can cause you to freeze in your ascent to the top. Now it is when you are frozen to one spot that the most work can be done on the house that your ladder is leaning against. I mean you can't work when all that you are doing is climbing. It is at these frozen areas in your walk where you can get out the hammer and the crowbar and you can start accomplishing the work that you were on the ladder to do in the first place. I feel as if I am in one of these frozen areas on my way up the ladder. In fact I feel like God has allowed my ladder to be shaken. Which having your ladder shaken by someone can be the most terrifying thing one can ever experience, it sure will make you sure footed though. ;) It is a time that you truly get to know yourself. And hopefully a time when you can work on areas of your life that need attention. A time to get out the old crowbar and hammer and start prying away the old beat up layers of house, to reveal the original work of the carpenter. For it is only when the old battered pieces of protective layers are gone that the house is ready for the new protective layer of vinyl to be put on. What a mess it would be if we tried to just ignore the old aluminum and just started putting on the new siding... what a mess. It is a long and sometimes painful process. But oh, so worth it. Because someday the ascent will start again, move one hand, one foot, the other hand, the other foot, until finally you can go up one more rung on your ladder, and so starts the adventure once more. One rung or...

one day at a time.

Just take it one day at a time.

Our house before

And so ends my ladder object lesson to myself. It sometimes is just therapeutic to write stuff out, so if you read through it and were like, 'she can live on her ladder if she likes, but I don't really think life is like a ladder, she is a little whacked.' That's okay, this is the kind of post that comes out of me when the hour is getting later and later, and I am listening to Emile Pandolfi Radio on Pandora (piano ballads) Listening to piano music tends to make me a little reflective. ;) And sometimes strangely... emotional. But that is besides the point. Back to our house transformation, and enough about how piano music affects me.

During

Our house literally looks like it had a face lift.

I think it actually looks more sure of itself and cheerful with its new 'garments' on.

And I don't have a better after picture yet. So this will have to do.

Our house just needs a porch swing for the front porch to be perfect... Time to get into that wood shop that I have been talking to much about and start working towards making a swing.

Just hanging out on the ridge.

What better place to hang out after ripping stuff off the sides of the house then the roof? Josh didn't help but he ended up being in the picture 'cause he brought his Pepsi out onto the roof and that happened to be when Mom came out to snap some pictures. He at least gave me a sip of his Pepsi. ;)

Our Home: My Bedroom

A very big "hello" to all who read this. It seems like ages since I posted last but it really has been less then a month. In that time we have had Christmas, New Year's, and we have moved into our new home! We don't have Internet in the new house yet, so I am sitting over in the old mostly empty house blogging. It is slightly chillier and sad feeling over here in this old house, it almost feels like it was abandoned, with its few furnishings here and there. Anyway, this post is mostly for my Grandma who has been asking for pictures, so without any more ado here is,

My bedroom

(which is pretty much my bed ;)

As I was flipping through a magazine after Prayer and Praise one night, I came across instructions for a built in bed and bookshelf... I showed it to Dad and he said that we already had the wood that we needed to make it... Green light #1 I got permission from Mrs. G--- to steal (or borrow) her magazine... Green light #2. I also had the perfect window in my room to build a bed around as my bedroom used to be a kitchen. Green light #3. Three green lights... I believe that made it a go. I drew up my own version of the original magazine drawing, (which I scanned in below) Dad did a lot of the actual measurements and stuff... I just knew what I wanted it to look like, he did most of the math. ;) I drove a couple of nails into it, but Dad did most of the hard work, thanks Dad.

Before bed...

Viola, After Bed... and thus you have my bedroom and haven.

I hope to do another post on the house soon, but you never know... My next post will probably be about the kitchen. We are still working on the basement level, Mom and I painted the utility room today. So some of the house is still labeled under construction and thus can't have anything blogged about it as of yet.

I am getting very cold sitting here so I think it is time to sign off. There is something very chilling about sitting in a cold empty house, it almost feels colder then the outdoors... almost. Well, goodbye y'all I am off to warm up.

The day my hair turned gray...

Yesterday my hair turned gray,

For a day.

I was over with the boys cleaning the house and the vacuum was not working quite right, so I decided to check and see if the vacuum was full. It was not full, that was not the problem, but the filter looked like it had about 10 lbs. of sheet rock dust ingrained into it. So I promptly took it outside to shake it out. And as everyone knows this little town that we live in is prone to windy days especially in the winter... and yesterday was no exception. The wind was blowing and blowing and blowing, and I even made sure it was blowing away from me. But the next time the boys saw me, they asked what happened, as it looked as if the vacuum had blown up and then sucked everything including me inside it. As I was sitting at the supper table last night, the boys were commenting on how dirty I was, and we were talking about how I had taken the filter out to shake it and that the vacuum was working much better now, and Dad made the comment, "Three accidents happened today on Main St. in O- because of low visibility." For a second I looked at him in shock half believing him, until I remembered what we had been talking about and that the wind had been blowing towards the road, and that there probably were people wondering what in the world the white dusty stuff was pouring out from behind that house.

That was the day my hair turned a whitish sort of gray.

Yesterday was also Dad's birthday, and I would just like to say,

"Happy Birthday Dad! I love you!"

Another Update

Phew! Back to blogging and back to the people who faithfully check it to see if anyone has posted anything "new." As you all probably know we have been keeping extremely busy working on completing the house. We also have had Thanksgiving and a couple of birthdays and now, ready or not...
Christmas is coming!

Nathanael and Claire both celebrated their birthdays in the last couple of months. Nathanael turned 9 and Claire turned one... How time flies!

One of "my projects" in the house was painting a medieval looking shield display on Isaiah and Nathanael's bedroom wall. It turned out pretty good, and it didn't take as long as I thought it was going to. The boys like it anyway, and that is what counts.

And this final picture is the first box that made its way over to the house today, it even managed to get unpacked onto the bookshelf it is sitting on. Exciting! This bookshelf is actually the foot board on my bed, and hopefully I will soon be able to post and show you the whole bed.

I have been taking pictures for the whole house project, and I really want to do some "before and after" posts on different rooms, it will just be a matter of when I will have the time to do it. But for now this post will have to do.

A Progression...

Our house project started over a year ago, and at that time we didn't know that it was going to be "our" house project. At that time we were planning on using it as a guest house for friends and family. So with that plan in mind we started by putting new shingles on the roof. It was a fun job, Joanna, Anja, Olivia and I did a lot of the work with the guys helping out when they could.

Several months went by and the plan was changed, my family would be the ones moving next door. So with that change of plans came another change of plans, instead of just patching and painting up the walls and fixing the floors we were going to gut the whole place. We will be forever grateful that we picked the gutting instead of the patching route, as we found major problems with the structural soundness of the house.

(a picture of our soon to be kitchen)

After putting in beams and supports to insure that the house would not collapse on top of us, we were finally ready to start studding in new walls. Next came electric, plumbing, inspections, insulation, and dry wall.

Our 2" tongue and groove flooring was now ready to be put in, which involved measuring, marking, sawing, nailing, sanding, and three coats of the same stuff that they use on gym floors. The floor turned out beautifully!

We are finally to the finishing stages such as painting, putting the kitchen in, and putting trim boards up. We still have quite a bit of work to do, but we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are trying not to put a time on when we will be able to move in, but hopefully I will soon be able to post that we are moved in, and give you some before and after pictures. But until then I will try to keep you updated. ;)

(the beginnings of our kitchen.)

The "eyes" have it...

Mark Shultz wrote a song, it is called "Running just to catch myself " right now that is the story of my life, and the lives of those around me. We have been running and running and sometimes it feels as if we are running in circles... or at least painting in circles. ;) Yes, we have been painting an awful lot! But through all this painting I have learned two things:

1. Make sure paint can lids are tightly secured before tipping paint can over...

2. Do not wear contacts while painting ceilings without wearing the proper eye protection, or this might happen to you. Little droplets of paint all over your contacts.

A big "Thank You" to Mom who finished painting the ceilings for me!

Well, I was kind of posting this as an excuse for why I haven't had time to blog lately, but hopefully it will also motivate me to blog more with updates on the house and such. So, goodbye for now and I hope it will not be as long between posts next time... ;)

Oh, and here is a sneak peek of our new kitchen cabinets being safely delivered to there new abode.

"Well if were going to go to a barn raising then lets go!" - Adam from "Seven Brides for Seven Brother's"

Sunny day, blue skies, a nice breeze, a good work crew.... ahhhh, it is a perfect day to be on the roof. Last Saturday felt a lot like the barn raising scene from the movie, "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." All of the guys were on the roof and all of us women were in the house making "viddles." There were only two things missing, first was the line dance, second was the fistfight that breaks out. ;)

Joanna and Curtiss' barn was in need of a new roof so a couple of the families from our church joined us out in S---- on Saturday to get the roof put on before Curtiss and Joanna cross "the big pond" as they call it.

The new roof was a lovely color green that gave the barn a whole new look.

Joel looks like he is about to use the roof as a big slide.

Enjoying the "Viddles" i.e. Cinnamon rolls and Lemonade

Mr. G... working very hard, or at least he looks like he is... ;)

Hanging out as the work day comes to a close

The younger boys spent there day on the back of this little wagon being pulled around by Zack. They did an awesome job getting all the sticks and pine cones picked up out of the yard.

After we were done cooking the snacks, Joanna and I sat on the porch working on starting our tans and painting our toe nails. lol

Curtiss our host, he kept himself so busy I never was able to get a good picture of him on my camera.

And our beautiful and charming hostess, who kept all of the guys hydrated and fed.