Simple Joys

We have had a great time the last couple days planting the garden. It has been relaxing, but hard work all at once. I have really enjoyed getting lots done outside, with all sorts of projects (see here for details). Wish housework was as energizing and enjoyable!

We have been doing basic stuff for school daily and then going outside to work and play. The kids have been happy to be able to play with the water hose a few times already this year. We will be doing some testing soon to see where we are with their learning and what we should work on over the summer and/or in the fall.

Tom and I (with Heather's help) have cleaned up our screen room outside and started enjoying sitting outside for our coffee in the mornings before he leaves. This always motivates me to read my Bible more regularly, having that quiet and peace in the mornings. My spirits are being lifted and my soul is at peace, I am sure the Vit D from the sunshine is really helping with that too! I have quite the tan going now. :-)

Tom recently found replacement parts for his grill and has it working quite well again. We LOVE to grill out in the warmer weather, use it almost daily - best Father's Day gift ever! We have also been enjoying hanging our clothes on the line to dry. Our washing machine is having problems remembering to spin out the loads, thankfully we have a back-up at the shop and will bring that home tonight and get this one repaired. We are also considering a new refrigerator, ours is 10 years old now and a fire hazard, doesn't seal real well and we really would like an ice-maker. Another thing we have been discussing is replacing our living room carpet with laminate... it really is time to get rid of that, blech!

The chicks are growing and ready to take over their whole house and have some new straw laid. We need to build their outside run very soon also. Carl and Molly are best buds now and Carl is growing up really fast. Cats and bunnies are doing well. Rose found a tiny turtle the other day and has adopted it for the time being. Liz, Will's lizard escaped on Saturday morning when Rose opened her tank - but was found again Sunday afternoon. We were very glad to find her, she is such a fun pet.

Our business is doing well right now. There is plenty of work for the 1-2 trucks that we are running now and bills are getting caught up on. Things seem to be stabilizing and I am growing accustomed to the added responsibilities.

That's really about it in our world right now - work and play, dirt and bugs, clouds and sunshine, animals and plants, rain and wind. Finding joy in it all.

A low valley

It's been a hard week.  I was planning to write here on Tuesday but wanted to wait until I was in better spirits... hasn't happened yet.  :(  Nothing horrible happening, I just am overwhelmed and not feeling great and frustrated that I am not taking better care of myself.  I am a hormonal mess right now, blech!

We are getting ready to take a trip down to GA for my brother Ryan's 30th birthday.  It will be good to see everyone again.  I am praying that I feel better physically by the time we leave tomorrow morning and that I am able to relax and leave behind my list of to-do's and enjoy time with family.  Tom is having to stay home for a dentist appt and animal care, I will be taking the kids and car pooling with my sis and her hubby and family.  We leave tomorrow morning.

It's been cloudy and rainy this week, probably hasn't helped with my mood.  I haven't gotten a thing done outside all week, which is frustrating, though I am thankful for the rain.  I will try to get out and walk around the yard at least this afternoon.  I need to trellis the peas and fence the strawberries which shouldn't take long.

I've been working on the house and lots of paperwork and business website updating, all good stuff to get done.

That's all for now, will try to be more cheerful next week!  :-)

Settling in...

Wanted to take some time to update tonight. We had a great visit with my sis Angela and her sweet boys. We really enjoyed it and it helped us to have the extra laughs, extra hugs, and extra hands around during that time. We got almost everything done on my large checklist during the week, and still managed to get out and enjoy ourselves a few evenings.

We are working hard at readjusting to life as it changes. I sat down and made a list of all my duties, divided it into days and tried to make it manageable. I think I have a workable schedule, but we will see how it goes. Hard to plan when there are so many variables in a day. I redid the chore lists also and planned time for school, office, home duties and garden time. It will take some tweaking and flexibility but I felt a bit less overwhelmed getting it on paper. I even divided my blogging into certain days... I have to laugh at myself - such a "list maker"! :-)

Right now, besides the office being moved into the kitchen and all the duties surrounding that, we have 27 baby chickens in the living room, 3 shelves of seedlings under lights in the dining room, and a very energetic puppy demanding love and training running through the house. We are having lots of fun, and going a little more insane each day!

Tonight, Tom and I got the plastic put on the hoop greenhouse that we have been slowly building. We have big plans for the garden, just have to find the time to carry them out now!

The kids are doing well. They have all gotten to a point of realizing that school can be done quickly if they apply themselves and they can have a lot more fun in a day if they just get it done. They have all been spending a lot of time outside lately, Will with his various bugs and critters... Rose running around with the animals... Heather usually with a book. The girls have been building mud cakes lately too which are getting more and more elaborate. I need to get some pics off the camera and post some soon.

Business is staying busy enough to run the two trucks. It has been an answer to prayer. Tom is feeling much better and adjusting well to the changes at work and home. We have been taking turns feeling down and overwhelmed, thankfully not at the same time so that we can support each other.

While Angela was here, my brother Justin and my dad and his family all came up to the shop and helped get some things moved out and into the storage bldgs. My dad then came and painted the front office area for us this week. I will be going up to clean the carpets and then we will hopefully have it all done! The back area has a lot of little things left to clean up and move out but most of the big stuff is done.

I guess that is about it. My brain is turning off for the night. So, that is the Tuesday update for this week! We are thankful for your prayers and for our Father who gives us strength.

Calm in the Storm...

"Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water:
and they ceased, and there was a calm."
Luke 8:24b

I sit here this Sunday morning - home from church due to Rose's fever (though she is feeling much better today) - windows open, I can hear the birds singing and actually hear Rose too... she is out on a stump in the middle of our woods "having nature time" which involves singing with the birds apparently. :-) Things are peaceful at the moment.

It has been a very difficult week for us. Tom made the decision to downscale his business as things had slowed down lots and there was not enough income to support the salaries of all the men and make payments. It was a very hard and emotional decision for him. We have been blessed to have friends working with us and it has been wonderful as we could trust them and work through things, but it also makes it a LOT harder when we have to let them go. Things are strained, Tom is very sad and depressed and feeling like a failure. It is hard to see him like that, and hard to know how to help when he so rarely gets this way. In all honesty, I have NEVER in our almost 16 years of dating/marriage known him to be like this. Please pray for his spirits to be lifted as he worships in church today, that friends and brethren in Christ would give him the support that he needs.

Yesterday, we moved the office to our kitchen. I will be taking over the office work and job dispatching again... yes, along with being a wife and mommy, homeschooling, housework, gardening, and caring for our animals. It will not be easy, but it is the best thing. We will close our office location, but still operate as usual - just with Tom and 1 other tech. It is a lot of change to process at once, but I know God will give us strength.

At this moment, I am waiting for my sweet little sister to arrive. She drove from MN with her 3 little boys to come be a help to me as I readjust. If she can keep the daily things running while I catch up on some big stuff and get into the groove of office work it will be a HUGE help. However, even if she only entertains the children and boosts my spirits, it will be the BEST thing ever! THANK YOU Joe for sending your family in my time of need. We love you all!

We'll see how it all goes... but for today, enjoying the calm in the midst of the storm.

Request for prayer

Please keep us in prayer. Our business is not doing well in the current economy and we are struggling. I know that God will provide and we trust for our physical needs to be met and see that already, but it is hard to see Tom so down and stressed. Please pray for us to glorify God in all things and to learn and grow through this. Pray for strength for me as I try to support and encourage Tom. Prayers for more work and for past customers to send their payments would be much appreciated! We also covet God's wisdom in future decisions. Thank you!

Revealing, Refining, Challenges and Blessings (an update)

I haven't really done an update here for a bit, so here goes...

Business has been S-L-O-W. It is hard when you planned for growth based on the last couple years and then the economy throws you for a loop. As of this week, I am fired... :-) I had been getting a small salary to answer the phones from home and be available for questions and to go in and help at the office when needed (pretty much oversee, but not do day-to-day), now that is gone. I only pray that we can afford to continue to pay Tom each week, though that would be next to go, our employees come first. So... please pray for us in that!

The good thing is that we are FINALLY seriously setting a budget and a plan for getting out of the financial mess we created when we were first married and that snowballed from there. We had very little if any idea of how to handle money when we got married and we created debt and allowed payments to slip and interest rates to rise, etc... SO this has been a wake up call (been getting a lot of those lately!), that we are not prepared for emergencies or lack of work! I've been reading Dave Ramsey, and finally ordered a CD and put it on where Tom could hear. So we sat down and are working through getting some financial peace!!! Which means lots of sacrifices... but is totally do-able, as long as Tom gets paid. :-)

We have been blessed already in our efforts. Less strain, more a feeling of control - having a direction feels good. We dropped the kid's Friday Arts and Fun classes, though we hated to do it. We got e-mails today from teachers who want to offer the classes for free!!! What an unexpected blessing! God is so good.

We sold one car, and have continued to repair the van rather than get a loan for another. The van has been paid off for a year and we don't want another loan. Lord-willing, we can keep it running until we have enough saved to buy something with cash. Another blessing there, we took it in for some repairs and were going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel... but the repair man offered to curve the cost way down and swap for plumbing work! That was a HUGE help!

We are doing some e-bay, yard sales, and selling some larger things to get some extra cash in the bank. All good things we've been needing to do for a while. Has felt good to clean out and organize a bit and see some profit for that too.

This year has been full of refining/refreshing/renewing, fun but hard too!!! The kids and I read in Proverbs 17 this morning about how gold and silver are heated to refine them, remove impurities and make them beautiful... and God does that to our hearts too sometimes. That's what this year has been about for us. Also a lot of *uncovering/revealing* what needs dealt with and learning to rely on God for strength to do what He asks of us! :-)

Let's see, what else? We are feeling a little more each day like our new school routine is normal. It is a full day of learning, hopefully they will get faster as we go through the routine daily. We have been having fun and I am seeing benefits in the behavior of the children, as they have my full attention for much of the day for the first time in a few years. We are enjoying one another and our activities with school.

I have been struggling with my health a little again, I have let my eating slip, am not exercising or taking my vitamins and am getting back into my patterns of not sleeping normal hours and being tired and achey all day. It is SO hard to deal with stress, focus on the children like I should, try to maintain the house, and take care of my "special needs" too... just so overwhelming. I am in pretty good spirits though, and I think I can get it back - one thing at a time, with God's help.

I guess that's it... more on the homeschool page, and kid's pages of my blog if you want to read them. I am still enjoying my photography, though not as much time to pursue. I signed up for some daily photo prompts at HerSpace:MySpace, and a weekly Thematic Photographic challenge, those are great fun when I have time to do them!

Love to all! Tom is on his way home now, so better close.

I can see the light...

... at the end of the tunnel.

Today I started training my replacement at the office. I am thrilled to have somebody competent and interested in learning, and that we have known for years and completely trust. It is wonderful. I am putting in some major hours training the next couple weeks and then will be on-call as needed, but soon, very soon I should be able to focus on being "just" a wife and mom again. I am excited to be keeping my home again!

Check out the new sign at our store!

My brother Justin did this for us - it looks SO great!

New lettering on Tom's Isuzu truck

Nobody can miss us now!!! :D