projects

A couple of weekends ago, Brandon and I took the kids to a local historic home, the Carl Sandburg House.  It is peaceful and quiet there, with easy trails to walk.  We went on a Sunday afternoon, packed a picnic lunch and spread a blanket under the shade of some great trees in the gardens.  Afterwards we went to visit the baby goats.  I had already taken the kids on a previous weekend when Brandon had been working on the flooring in our laundry room + kitchen.  (More on that in a minute.)  Brandon has talked about wanting goats for years now, so I knew he’d enjoy visiting with them.  I’m not ready to own goats right now, but maybe down the road?  I love the Nubian goats with the long ears the best, I think.  The nubian kids were the cutest running around, just like puppies. We got to see Nellie, the grandma goat of the crew, who was laying in the grass one day past her due date with multiples.  I felt sorry for her!  She looked weary.  Philippa dutifully checked all of the goats ears, noses and mouths for them. 🙂  By now, I’m sure Nellie has brought a new litter of kids into the world.  Savannah, the goat with the little hand-knitted sweater on, was just a few days old, and we all loved meeting + petting her.

It was good for us to take a day and set aside projects, enjoy a little bit of the quiet of the outdoors, and just be together.  The last few months have felt chaotic and we’re just starting to feel like we can find  a new normal again.  Phoebe’s good test results have made us feel like we can breathe a bit in terms of worrying over her.  She goes for another general check-up in six months, unless we see something that concerns us.  So for now, I’m trying to allow myself to rest in those good test results (versus worry and be fearful which is my MO) and allow myself to believe/hope that the worst is behind us.  I was talking with a friend recently whose daughter has just come out of having brain cancer–obviously a far scarier ordeal than Phoebe’s in a lot of respects.  But we both agreed and understood one another in how hard it is to hear GOOD news after hearing a lot of bad.  In order to survive you begin to stay in a continual place of bracing for the next disappointment/bad result, and it’s very hard to shut that off.  I don’t know how people walk through things like this without knowing the Lord.  I don’t know that I would have made it through without Him!  Even still, I look to Him for rest and healing and hope.  I lean on Him to carry me now into this new season with its own set of joys and challenges.

Much of our “free” time in the evenings or weekends has been taken up with little projects here and there, fixing leaky faucets, replacing broken things, finishing the flooring job, etc.  I am thankful Brandon is so good at all of these things!  The flooring we put down was to cover a section of the home that had asbestos tile in it (the laundry room was the worst, as you can see that part of it had been disturbed).  It brings me a lot more peace of mind knowing we have covered that area and I’m really happy with our flooring choice!

We borrowed a neighbor’s tiller (after I attempted to till by hand) and are preparing a small little portion of the yard for a garden.  I know, we are late!!  I was debating putting off a garden until next year, since we still aren’t even fully settled or unpacked!  It seems silly to start another time-consuming outside project when we have so much work to do inside.  However, we have so missed growing a portion of our own food the last couple of years when we were renting (and had ZERO sun in our yard).  We just couldn’t resist, and I’m glad we are going for it!  I picked up a few things from the garden center today and hopefully things will grow well, despite our late start.