find of the day

It seems as if this fair city has a good number of decent Goodwills. (If they were crummy we always called them Badwills growing up. Ahh, poor family jokes.) This lovely lamp now resides in my new home, and I'm only $2 poorer. I think I'm going to use it as an inspiration to add more yellow to my living room. A whole room centered around a $2 lamp. Maybe next time I post a picture I will be more free to include the rest of the room, but for now it's still resembles a war zone. Although I'm thinking most war zones don't have cheery yellow lamps.

Changes all around

Note: I started playing around with the layout and colors and I hate this but I haven't had any time to go back and change it. I know exactly what I want it all to look like, but I have to figure out how to make it work. We haven't hooked up our internet yet, so it may be a few days before things start looking better around here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Our new digs are shaping up to be quite nice, and so much treasure in heaven has been earned through this one move! I had a huge amount of help from friends on the front end, and now new friends (and a lot of family) are serving me on the tail end. It is such a blessing and I feel like it's made this move as easy as possible.

Thanks to glowing reports from our previous landlords :) we were "chosen" on Friday to be the renters of the smaller house. I'm not surprised she had a flood of inquiries since the price was much lower than anything else around of that quality and size. We signed the lease at 10am on Saturday, had a truck by 11:30am, and were moving in by early afternoon. There was no rush to leave the basement, so we decided to transition into the new house over the course of a week, which has turned out to be a really easy way to move with preschoolers. Monday we unpacked the whole kitchen, yesterday some new friends from church came and stayed for EIGHT HOURS helping me unpack everything else. There are about 10 boxes that need sorting and a few for the attic, but everything else is finished. Not bad for 3 days. I'm waiting to hang most things until my mom comes (anytime is fine, Mom). After dinner tonight we will head over and make the final move. WH's sister has been such a gracious host and we will really miss being here! (Not enough to keep us in the basement.)

And Laura B., it is about 20 minutes from our family, but near 5 or 6 families from the church. It has a yard big enough for a swingset, and a front yard that we may fence in at some point to make it easier for the kids to play in safely. All in all it's a quiet little neighborhood of retired people, and Mrs. Feeny has already been over twice to check on us. :)

I'm off to restock my fridge...it will be so nice to be back in my kitchen. I got excited just making menu plans; it sort of feels like I'm still playing house.

Open House for Butterflies

This will have to be quick because I'm exhausted. But it's a good kind of exhausted. It's the "I just unpacked my whole kitchen with the help of my mother-in-law" kind of exhausted. The "my husband just got home at 9:55pm" kind of exhausted. Well, you get the point. Praise the Lord, we have a house. And as it turns out it's just the perfect little place for us. Not too big, not too small (although it's twice as big as our last place). It's new, so it lacks character, but it also lacks quirks. Well, the lattice on the front porch is pretty quirky, but it's a rental and I do love looking out from the porch (and my rockers look great there). So even though it's not the bungalow we'd like to build one day, or the farmhouse I fell in love with, I am really excited about this new little place. The inside is nice and clean, with tasteful fixtures, paint, etc....more pictures coming soon!

I'm off. More tomorrow. Thanks for praying!

hairbow help?

Just a quick question for anyone who has girls and might be in the know...

I am just starting to make some hairbows for Sweet A, and I was wondering what makes a good hairbow? Ribbon size? Pattern? Clip used? Any pointers or helps would be appreciated, or if you have any websites you like to use please pass them on. I'm just going to be copying things, but I know there are tacky as well as quality bows out there and I'm trying to avoid the former.

Gratefully,
Brite, who is looking for productive ways to use her time as a homeless person

What matters the most

God has a way of putting everything in perspective. It is very easy for me to obsess about all things house-related and forget about the really important events of life, whether trivial or monumental. The list of small things includes:

• Little T's almost constant smiles- he's such a happy baby
• teachable moments that come when I am reading to or playing with the other two
• the beautiful view of the mountains I can see from my bed- what a way to greet the day!
  
• the snow that fell throughout the day on Monday
  
• the joys of being near sisters-in-law and cousins
  
• watching my amaryllis grow each day
  

The monumental includes:

• my friend, Lauren, who is having a baby soon AND will be moving to another state immediately after
• A friend from our last church who just found out her cancer has returned and is looking to prepare her family for a future without her
• trying to get to know a whole new church body and learn how to serve them
• learning to hold all things loosely and be content with whatever God has given today

So even though I would love to go on and on about how desperately I would like to live in the farmhouse we saw yesterday (the house with the blackberries growing along the fence, the one that could house my entire family when they come to visit) it is really insignificant when seen with the whole of life in view. And even more insignificant with eternity in view. That said, I'll be sure to post a picture of wherever we end up.

And speaking of getting to know our new church family better, here's a great post on 20 Qualities of a Good Listener. Making new friends is never easy but this should help. I guess it would help you keep the friends you have as well.

My sister-in-law has agreed to let me plan a few meals and make dinner a couple of times during the upcoming weeks. Even though I have loved being pampered and served (and she is a great cook who makes it look SO easy to feed the 12 of us) I am eager to get back to cooking, which is an outlet for me. My family used to say I cooked when I was mad...or sad...or excited...you get the point. Bon Appetit!

Who'd have thought?

Questions you never thought to ask when house-hunting:

• Do the bedrooms have doors?
• Is the washer/dryer in the kitchen next to the stove, or is there a laundry closet?
• Does the house have more than three rooms?
• Does the one bathroom have a tub?
• Do the gun racks above every door come with the house?
• Are the clothes rods in the closet longer than 15" (did they really only own three hang-up outfits)?
• Are you using the word "quaint" to describe a mobile home?
• When you say "place" instead of "house" or "apartment" what does that mean?

All I can say is that a lot of people in this country live in less-than-adequate housing, or my standards are way too high. One man was so emotionally attached to his shack of a house that I had to take courtesy pictures just so I wouldn't offend him. He said he cried when he had to move out (to his big, beautiful, new house a little closer to the road). I'd have cried if I had to move in.

So the house hunt continues. We looked at a great little bungalow on an acre today, and we put in an application for another house on a very small lot, but everything inside is immaculate and the lady who owns the house had pretty good tastes when it comes to paint colors, fixtures, etc. The bungalow was charming but needs a lot of work and they want to do a rent-to-own deal so that's probably out. There is one more house that I haven't seen, but it's in the perfect location- in the country on land, close-ish to family, close to work- and here's what the listing says:

Very roomy two story farmhouse with an open, modern look. Nine rooms plus two full baths. Wonderful sun room looking out onto open fields. Hardwood floors; open living room, dining room, kitchen. Laundry room with washer and dryer included. Full, dry basement. Three or four bedrooms. Two acres with nice outbuilding and barn. Plenty of garden spaces.

This sounds absolutely perfect, and one of my main regrets about the smaller house we were hoping to get was that it doesn't have as much of a yard and not enough yard for a garden. Anyway, I am praying that the Lord would save this house for us. We somehow overlooked it on Craigslist, so the listing is a week old. It's a long-shot, but obviously nothing is too difficult for the Lord. I'm more encouraged after a week of looking than I was before because new things are popping up every day and our options don't seem so limited. House hunting gets old quickly though, and I will be delighted to be cooking in my own kitchen again, sleeping in my own bed, and able to find most of my belongings.

I'm off to find my black boots for church tomorrow...they've been missing for a week. Maybe next Sunday they'll be in my own closet.

P.S. My husband says that the numbers system can easily be abused and does not in any way take the place of a good heart-to-heart. I should have put some sort of disclaimer on that post!

A husband's guide to understanding his wife's feelings

No, this is not our new house. I've seen some things that make this look desirable, though.
House-hunting is such a subjective process. I will love one aspect of a place and hate 5 other things. I saw an okay townhouse yesterday and a great house (this one was actually in our price range- I decided not to go see the one we can't afford). So in an effort to truly understand my feelings on various houses my clever husband made an Excel spreadsheet rating each house. Proximity to family has a 1-10 scale since that is one of the more important factors. All the other things (neighborhood, cost, spaciousness, layout, yard, etc.) get a rating of 1-5. So we put in all the numbers and **battabing** (sp?): the townhouse scored a 23 out of 45. The house scored a 22, even though everything about the house was great (except there was no yard) because it was so far away. We tried the "Your Feelings in Numbers" system for other places and it was suprisingly accurate!

I'm thinking he needs to market this...what man wouldn't love to have it all explained in such an objective way? He could come up with a spreadsheet/rating system for my days. I can see it now: I exercised and had a good quiet time so those were both 5's, but I was impatient with the kids, only read them 2 books all day, and ate way too much chocolate. So overall the day was a "19." Then he would wrap his arms around me and say, "That's okay, honey, tomorrow will be better." I wouldn't even have to explain it all, he would just know what a "19" day meant. I think we're on to something...

Three days and counting

We've now spent three full days in the basement of my sister-in-law's house, quarantined to keep her kids from getting the nasty flu. We've eaten our meals here, played down here, and rearranged to the hilt to make room for the five of us in this little space. For a basement, it is a luxurious 500 sq. feet or so, complete with a gas log fireplace...so I'm not complaining.

But being cooped up in here with the three kids is starting to wear on me so we decided to go out for a drive and see our fair city, and look for "For Rent" signs. Did you know that there are more students in this city than permanent residents? That makes for a LOT of duplexes and townhouses. After an hour of looking this morning, and an hour and a half this afternoon I'm fairly certain there is no real house out there for us. It was kind of discouraging, and so I find myself praying more for contentment than a house these days. We can't live in the basement forever (and WH's sister needs her garage, aka Our Storage Shed, back soon) so we have to go somewhere. I'm going to look at one, maybe two places tomorrow. One is a duplex I don't really like, and the other is a house that is out of our price range (but you never know...maybe they are desperate). I find myself more picky now that I have these little people to raise (yes, mom, the pictures are just for you).

the rest of the story

First of all, this little guy makes me so happy! And he slept the ENTIRE time we were in the car on moving day.

Okay, now for the rest of our little moving saga. Can I just say how grateful I am that SO many people have given their time, energy, and possibly their good health to get us where we are today? Too many to name, but many of you are reading. :)

WARNING: Most of our story has to do with having a weak stomach so if you already have a weak stomach this is not the post for you. Come back tomorrow.

So we packed up the moving truck on Thursday (I say "we" but this is not woman's work, as we all know) and everything was finished in time to have dinner with some dear friends. After a short visit we left to spend the night with some other friends from church (and I really hope all these sweet people aren't deathly ill right now). Anyway, Coop started throwing up in the middle of the night and WH (my husband) was feeling not-so-hot himself. Since we had already been through this with Sweet A (the 1 1/2 year old) on Tuesday and it was just a one-time deal we thought little of it. We had breakfast with yet another friend and Coop and WH ate little to nothing. We started out our journey tired from being up in the night with various children, I in the van (I mean, superwagon) with Little T and WH in the moving truck with the older two kids. We never would have left if we knew what was ahead of us. :::::::scary music:::::::::::

An hour and a half into our trip I noticed the moving truck pulling off at an exit. My suspiscions were confirmed when I got the call. Penske would replace the truck if it broke down, but would they give us a new truck with a vomit-free cab??? Coop had managed to finish the job in a Wal-mart bag but when's the last time you got one without a hole in the bottom? Apparently the mess was somewhat contained to the passenger's side until Coop tried to hand the hole-y bag over to his dad. We spent about 30 minutes at a gas station doing our best to clean out the truck with my little bottle of hand sanitizer and a box of wipes. Besides puking all over himself and his carseat, he managed to have perfect aim and completely douse our basket of snacks for the trip. Thanks for the little brownies, Christina, but they had to go. In God's great mercy we forgot to pack up a small bathroom trashcan so it got chucked (no pun intended) into the back of WH's truck (which he was pulling on a trailer) and I could see it out the back window. Ahh, blessed trashcan. How you have saved us from many more long and tedious stops. After we had bagged up all the contaminated clothes, carseat cover, etc. we were on our way again. I don't really remember how many times Coop threw up...I know he went through at least 3 outfits because that's all I packed and if he'd done it again he would have been in his church clothes.

The trip to our new town usually takes about 6 hours...we figured it would take longer with a moving truck. But after 6 hours we were just over half way because of all the stops and at one point WH said, "The PIONEERS went faster than this!" He was feeling miserable, too, but as usual, kept his wits about him. The low point of the trip was when I noticed the moving truck had slowed to about 45 mph. I was watching and expecting us to pull off at the next exit so Coop could put on his church clothes but the truck was not stopping. Soon the truck sped up again. Didn't really make sense, so I called WH to see what was up (no pun intended). He was the next victim, only he was so desperate to just GET THERE that he was throwing up while driving. Didn't he at least want to stop to empty the can??? We arrived after 8 hours, which shows how much time we made up in the end.

Never has one little family been so glad to have a warm welcome and a comfy bed. Everyone except me was asleep by 7:30pm.

It was a horrible, no good, very bad day for our family. But at least we weren't moving to Australia.

I've succumbed

Thanks to Moriah and a few others who have pressured me to start this public record of our everday happenings, we now have a blog. The layout will change, but I have lots to learn and not a ton of free time for blog-learning, so you may have to look at this boring layout for a while.

I have been on a quest for normalcy for several years now, and my husband finally sat me down a few weeks ago and set me straight. (That man is so wise.) He told me that I spend my life trying to figure out how to get things back to normal instead of embracing whatever the Lord sends. I'm a firstborn. I like my days to be structured and productive. Order is good, right? Instead of seeking joy and being thankful in everything I've been frustrated by lack of control. You would think that having three babies in three years would cure me of that, but it really hasn't been until our latest adventures that I've made baby steps in redefining normal.

So, before the birth of baby #3 in November I decided the only thing that would keep me from going crazy was to have a VERY CALM LIFE after he arrived. Well, here's the new norm: A week after the birth we found ourselves in the hospital for several days. (Baby T is fine now.) Three weeks after that my husband got laid off from his job. We spent three weeks with his family over Christmas (not in my house, my beloved bed, etc. but it was very restful and his mother took good care of us), he interviewed for a new job less than two weeks ago and after nine days of frenzied packing we have moved all our earthly possessions and our little family. We are living in his sister's basement until we find a place. My husband and 3 year-old are very sick with the flu (between the two of them they threw up four or five times in the moving van on the way here) and I directed the unloading of the moving van into my sister-in-law's garage while my poor husband found himself unable to get out of bed. If order and control were necessary for my sanity I would be in big trouble by now. Oh, and baby T has a severe sensitivity to all things dairy so icecream can not be my comfort in these troubled times, although there is always Soy Dream. And yet life is good, and I am happy. Weird, huh?