Hopes Realized

I added a post a while back detailing our house hunt and some dashed hopes concerning a certain white farm house out near Berryville. Well, I'm countering that post with a testimony to God's faithfulness, His omniscience and His protection of His children. 

First, as far out from Jason's work as we are now, we're finding that we have just enough time to care for 1.7 acres and keep up with the little housekeeping projects that pop up here and there. We would not have been happy campers with five acres and the addition of at least another half hour each way to Jason's commute.

Second, this is not a huge white farm house. It's a friendly yellow split-level. Our house in Hamilton is not nearly as big as the house in Boyce, but it feels huge to me, especially when it's time to clean it! It's as cute as a button, it's not nearly the fixer-upper that the house in Boyce might have been, and it's a lot less to clean.

New Favorite PJs

Dancing in My PJs

 All of the above might not seem like such a blessing until you factor in the fact that doing this home school thing is like having another job. It's a super-fun job, and one that we're all excited about, but it definitely requires a lot of work and prep.  My house just doesn't get cleaned much these days. There are a lot of "move" things that haven't happened. A lot of pictures still sit propped against the baseboards. Quite a few boxes are still sitting unopened in the garage.  However, the important things are happening.

Home Made Space Helmet

Preparing for a Trip to the Moon

Moon Cake

Violet really should have a post all her own. She's been quite a blessing to us and she makes the friendly yellow house in Hamilton even friendlier. I saw a little mouse skitter into our garage just after our household effects arrived. So, I decided to see if a "free" kitten might be available somewhere as soon as possible. By mid-summer, we'd located Violet, and not long after that, we brought her home. She is not a typical cat. She likes to be where we are, and she licks us like a dog.  Maybe that's why I like her so much. She seems more like a dog than a cat! As soon as we get her ID tag and her flea and tick treatment applied, she'll get to roam the great outdoors and hopefully keep our mouse population at a minimum. 

Third - we have community. We are close to church, grocery stores, shopping and parks in two fantastic little towns and we have excellent neighbors with kids. I don't think we managed to get pictures, but, on Saturday, we were able to attend a birthday party for a little boy whose yard adjoins ours. We drive to a larger town on Tuesdays for gymnastics, but, for the most part, everything is very close. 

How Old is this Gigantic Tree?

Rocks

 The kids and I ventured out with a picnic lunch to a "new to us" park on Tuesday. There's a little play ground there, but the huge rocky outcroppings and large fields were more attractive to Jonathan and Melanie. Needless to say, we'll be back!

I forget how slow this process can be until we're right in the middle of it again. It takes many months to figure out how the finances will work - how to find groceries at the right price, how to get the best deals on gasoline, the best routes to avoid too many tolls, how to economically heat and cool the house. It's expensive here! Thankfully, we still own the kerosene heaters that we bought when we lived up this way a decade ago. We've already used one! I'm not sure how he does it, but Jason is a whiz at computing our spending per kilowatt hour vice the burn rate on a gallon of kerosene. Typically, kerosene is less expensive, but that also depends on where you buy it.  Right now, Jason is setting up racks for three cords of wood that will be delivered this week. The Hamilton house came with a wood stove that we plan to use a lot this winter.

Tin Whistle Time at CC

 We are so thankful that God plunked us down right here! We aren't in a perfect situation by a long shot, and we certainly aren't perfect. I hope I don't make it sound that way in my updates here. I want to bang my head against almost anything available more often than I care to admit. I still feel so overwhelmed by all this "new", and all too often I'm irritable and grumpy and unkind to my family. I could definitely use an extra measure of patience and love. We spend a lot of time speaking the Gospel into our children's lives, yet we don't spend enough time living it out in front of them and toward them. I am increasingly convicted on that score. But peace is coming as the finances get ironed out, as little projects that concern us get completed, and as we learn back roads to avoid traffic snarls. It's this snarl in my heart that needs the most attention. I'm increasingly aware that the church we are attending is helping us all find the discrepancies between our outward lives and the state of our hearts. We will never find perfection until we see Him face to face. We will need Him desperately as long as we live in this broken world and in these broken bodies. But I'm learning to pray, as a sweet friend mentioned the other day, for the grace that brings us to holiness in Him.