Challenges and Triumphs

I keep thinking of myself as a modern pioneer in our new adventure. It makes the challenges seem more adventurous and conquerable. What do I see as a challenge?

Here's "The big one": BUGS.

Our house exterior is not sealed well. Or at all. I've discovered that pesticide doesn't make a big difference if you have cracks providing a personal invitation to any bug that wanders by. We also discovered to our chagrin that much of the 'landscaping' that had been done by the previous owner merely created the IDEAL breeding ground for scorpions. I'm not exaggerating. We've delcared an all-out war. Luckily no one has been stung yet and we've only found 4 of them actually in our house....but still.
I. Hate. Scorpions.

I keep finding spiders in places- even though I've thouroughly cleaned, scrubbed, pesticided, disinfected, etc. I can't figure out where they are coming from. It's very frustrating. We've adopted several new family rules in light of our unwelcome guests. We don't let any bedding touch the floor and we don't use bed skirts any more. I can just imagine creepy-crawlies hiding under the bed, hidden from view by blankets hanging down. Now we make beds with hospital-corners tightly tucked away. All the furniture is kept several inches away from the walls so I can easily check behind them for webs or bugs. Everything is elevated off the ground, so there's no hiding places left. I'm much more meticulous on cleaning now, which I suppose is a blessing in disguise. :)

We adopted a cat last week. Several neighbors have told us that indoor cats help with the bug problems in the country. It's an orange kitten named Saffron. He fits right into our family- we love cooking and we adore Indian food. It's a perfect fit. I was very hopeful that his hunter-instincts would help  him chase little bugs. As an experiment I rolled a live rolly-poly bug (wood louse) towards him last night. When the little ball touched his paw, Saffron leaped away in fright and shook his paws in disgust as if he'd just been contaminated. Bother. He might not be much of a help in our war. At least he's cute and the children love him.

Blast- the library computer I'm using says I'm out of computer time. I'll have to finish this article next time. Coming soon: some triumphs of our experience!

A week with an angel

I was feeling overwelmed and getting burned out last week. I can't imagine how my sweet husband felt; he's been carrying much more of the weight around here since my pregnancy limits my activity so much.

One night I was crying and praying to the Lord for more strength. I asked that if I couldn't be blessed with more physical strength, would He please send someone to help me. Cue our angel here. Nathan's mother came to stay with us for a week and help with the move. I didn't expect the Lord to answer my prayer in such a perfectly delightful way. I'm amazed at how generously He answered my selfish plea.

I wish you could meet my mother-in-law. She's always serving the people around her and blessing them with her unfailingly cheerful demeanor. I feel so incredibly blessed to have her optimisitic spirit as my companion when I was so exhausted and spiritually drained.

She swooped into our lives for a whirlwind of work. She single-handedly painted three huge rooms in our home, transforming our dingy grey walls into a bright and welcoming atmosphere. She worked ceaselessly to load and unload the moving truck with Nathan. Twice. She scrubbed out nasty closets and bathrooms, cleaned ceaselessy and ran long errands for me. The only time she sat down was for quick meals, then she'd whisk herself away to work some more. She even would tiptoe to my bedroom door and close it in the mornings so I could sleep undisturbed after the children awoke each morning.

Even though she worked nonstop each day, she'd still take time to play with her granchildren every evening. No matter how tired she was, she'd read several pop-up books to my kids at bedtime. She was so patient and loving with them all the time. She even rubbed my swollen feet and ankles for 30 minutes one night. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness and I learned so much from her example.

I had been selfishly focusing on my own discomforts and fatigue for so long. I'm sure she was more tired and sore than me each day, but she never complained or said anything unkind to anyone. I felt very humbled as the Spirit gently reprooved me for my recent poor attitude.

I feel like she bouyed our entire family. I feel like she rescued me when I was floundering. She is amazing and I'm so thankful to be a part of her family.

Tender Mercies

Today I was visited by two angels. They came and folded all of my laundry while they insisted I sit and rest. They are Sister A and Sister W from my current ward family. This is the second time they've visited and served my family this month. Last time they scrubbed bathrooms after cleaning the laundry. While they worked they talked of faith in our Savior and appreciating life's joys. My spirit feasted on their friendship and I was left feeling so strengthened and loved. I will sorely miss them when I move away. 

The Lord has been blessing me with many moments like this one, where tender mercies are extended to answer my prayers. I feel like I need to start writing these down before I forget.

Last Saturday our new congregation welcomed us into the ward with a large service project to help us clean the property and scrub the home. We met many friends and the many hands made light work. I felt especially blessed by the brave souls who volunteered to tackle the messiest or most difficult jobs. They saved me weeks of work! (A new post about this project will follow shortly- as soon as I can upload the pictures.)

Brother O offered to tackle the largest pile of trash in the pasture. This particular pile was as tall as Sarah. This man carried the debris by hand across the property, and he did the entire project while smiling and joking with those around him.

Sister W in my new ward cheerfully stayed an extra hour so she could scrub out all of the kitchen cabinets. Goodness gracious, I'm so thankful for that service! The kitchen is the most important part of the home to me, and I really dreaded cleaning out the webs and grime from all those nooks and crannies.

Sister S has volunteered to come help me scrub the house a few times. The last time she came, she was prompted by the Spirit to bring her leaf blower and garden cart. Those two tools have proven to be much-needed and very valuable. I'm so thankful for her thoughtfulness. The Lord worked through her to help avert some minor emergencies.

Sister H has helped me many days to prepare my current home for the real estate market. She helped me pack boxes, deep clean, stage the house, and landscape the front yard. Friends like this are better than earthly treasures. The Lord has been reminding me repeatedly of our blessings- and true friends are such a priceless blessing!

We were notified by the county that we had made a mistake in where our friends relocated the trash pile. Even though it was still on our property, we were going to be fined by the county for 'illegal dumping' unless we could clean it up immediately. Boy, were we stressed about this! The F family let us take their vehicle and trailer for the day so we could haul away the trash. Nathan took the afternoon off work and we worked together all day to remove this monstrosity. The Lord blessed us with health and strength to get through the long job. I was so very thankful.

 I have been a bit worried about providing for our new baby. I haven't had time to hunt thrift stores for baby clothing or basic supplies. I figured if we just had a car seat (so we can take him home from the hospital), we could make do without the other accessories. The Lord knows I have been thinking about this and has blessed me abundantly. I've been given a car seat, baby swing, baby carriers, and a crib. I'm so thankful to have friends who ask if I'd like to inherit their old baby supplies.

Our family has been blessed with health so we could work hard and prepare our new home to receive our family.

It's temptingly easy to be negative--- I'm 8 months pregnant and trying to fix up a new house, sell our old house, and pack everything. I'm so tired all the time. But this experience has been a fantastic time of personal growth for me.

As I've read the scriptures in my daily study, the Spirit keeps whispering the same lessons lately:

1- Express sincere gratitude to the Lord for our blessings, for they are many. Appreciate the little things.
2- Be cheerful and not down-trodden. Even if everything else fails, I can always have deep joy through our Savior and His gift of the Atonement. 
3- Trust in the Lord and exercise more faith.

Progress is slow and steady

Some highlights of the new house from the past few weeks-

We've been going to the new house several nights a week to clean it up. Our kids love playing on the property. They've climbed up to an old tree house in the pasture and created another play house amidst a circle of juniper trees. They all purchased slingshots with their birthday money this year. The pasture is the perfect place for target practice. We encourage them to shoot the cacti and bugs they find.

We didn't have water available at the house for several days, so we had a perfect excuse to meet the neighbors and fill up water containers. They seem very friendly and they have five kids. We're SO excited to have children living next to us! They are very kind and have let us borrow several tools already. They saved the day by lending us a shop vac when we had a water leak fill the laundry room with hot water. (Yay for running water!) We are so thankful for our kind neighbors!

It's been a bit of an adventure to turn on the water to the house. Each time Nathan switched the water main on, we'd find new leaks in diverse places. Luckily the neighbors had a wrench for us to borrow and fix the spewing faucet. The other leak was in the pasture, so no big messes happened. It just created a colossal mud puddle to play in.

We had a family party and ripped off all the old wallpaper in Sarah's new room. It was lots of fun when the paper came off in big pieces. The remaining bits and glue was more tricky to remove. It took two afternoons to get it most of it off. I'm still working on it. I'm never wallpapering anything. Ever.

It's been like a treasure hunt at this place. Our children have so much fun discovering what 'neat' trash has been left behind. Some of their favorite discoveries include a train set, dolls, cool wire springs, a horseshoe, and a bright pink bowling ball. Doesn't the landscaping look terrific? What a great modern art sculpture we get to have in our pasture!

We transported our chicken flock to the new house. We're testing out the chicken coop facilities with out old flock of birds. We'll see how predator-proof it is before we invest in our new batch of chicks. (I can hardly wait for the new chicks!) I have been told that we have bobcats, coyotes, snakes, and raccoons that will eat our birds. So far everyone's accounted for and happily scratching up bugs.

There's the update of some of the things we've been working on. I feel like there are a lot of challenges as I find more things that need repaired (only one toilet works), replaced (all the baseboards, window screens, etc), or removed (we found a strong, healthy colony of mold growing in a wall). It's easy to feel completely overwhelmed.....

The Lord has great ways of reminding me to count my blessings. I was asked to give an hour-long devotional last Sunday on the topic of the pioneers who sacrificed everything to cross the plains. I was reminded by the Spirit to bear all things with cheerfulness and gratitude.

Compared to the pioneers I live a posh life, right? How can anyone complain about anything when they have air conditioning and running water? Compared to my ancestors, I'm living the high life. I need to keep reminding myself this.

The Hitchcock House - our moving story part 2

Let me tell you about our new home. I guess I should call it a house. It's not a home yet. I affectionately call it my house of horrors for now. But I see it's potential- that's important to remember.

Apparently the previous residents didn't own a garbage can of any kind. They'd throw trash on the ground wherever they happened to be standing. The 4 acre property has wrappers, bottles, cigarette butts, and other random garbage scattered across the grounds. There's also large trash. Imagine the queen-size mattress on the front lawn. Bucket seats from a missing vehicle. Pipes and tires and tarps galore. Behind a thick stand of trees there's an actual dumping spot full of rusting cans, bottles, and other garbage. The interior of the home is similar. Did I mention the dishwasher full of dead leaves and cigarette butts? How about the attic full of pornography? Yikees.

Let's move on. The previous occupants kept dogs. A lot of them. There were nearly a dozen dogs on the property, given open access to the house and outdoors at all times. There's even two dog doors cut into the walls of the house to let them roam freely. The dog doors were always open- there's not even a flap to cover them. Imagine all the dirt and pests they brought in. The animals chewed up the door frames and baseboards as well. There's a LOT of scrubbing to do.

The entire home smells....really badly. I think they were chain smokers. We'll be repainting every surface in the home. This is the only time I'm not happy to own vaulted ceilings. I'm scared of heights. I should clarify this: I'm TERRIFIED of heights. I can't imagine climbing a ladder high enough to reach the ceilings.

There's literally pages full of home repair items waiting to be addressed (honestly, who in their right mind BURIES the dryer vent?!). The 'to-do' list will keep us busy for a long time, but I can deal with it. 

There's only one thing I really can't deal well with: pest infestations.

This is where the Hitchcock-element comes in. Imagine cobwebs in the corners and ceilings of every room. Cobwebs draped in the windows. Various beetles crawl along the floor of literally every room. Some of them are cockroaches- shudder! There isn't a space without a resident insect.

 The pest inspector was kind enough to point them all out to me, then he'd try not to laugh at my reactions.
At the end of his inspection he asked us to sit at the table with him while he presented his report. I could only imagine what was crawling under the table, but gingerly pulled up a chair, trying to touch as little as possible. At one point of our conversation, the inspector asked Nathan, "Will you please get that off your sweetheart?" EEK! There was a beetle on my forehead! 

After the inspections were complete, Nathan and I were a bit in shock. How could people live like this? Could we handle the repairs ourselves? Was it going to be worth it? Should we back out of the contract after spending almost $1,000 on inspections? I felt a bit panicky and we couldn't sit to think anywhere in the house. We sat on the front steps to talk.

We listened to the birds and looked at the trees while we thought. We love the property, specifically the trees. They are perfect, like from a fairytale. Huge ancient oaks spread their limbs across the yard. They are beautiful, and will only become more beautiful when they support a tree house and swings from the branches. All I can think of is my children playing under these trees. I've long fantasized about owning a home with huge trees for my family to enjoy.

Our kids hate this house. The rooms are smaller and the house needs a lot of work. They ask me, "Why on earth would you want to leave our big, beautiful home in the city and move to such an ugly, dirty little house?" I tell them it's an adventure. 

We've been reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series this year in home school. In one book Laura lives in a sod hut. I keep telling them that anything is better than a sod hut. That makes my new home look like a palace. 

We can fix the house, even if it takes a long time. We can make it into a lovely home full of love and laughter and cleanliness. We decide to go for it. 

So now it's official: we own 4 acres of Texas hill country. 

Still Alive- Our moving story part 1

Yes, we're still here. We ARE indeed alive, just crazy. 

Who in their right mind would think it's a good idea to do a major lifestyle transition and move into a major fixer-upper house? Isn't it crazy to do this when I'm in the last trimester of my pregnancy? Let's add to the fun mix that my sweet husband has a major deadline this month which requires extra hours at work. Sound fun yet? 

Miracles have been happening in our little lives.

Let's start at the beginning of our 'moving' story.

Originally I planned on placing our current home on the real estate market AFTER we moved out. It sounded so easy that way. There'd be no home staging to worry about. It's hard to keep a home staged and immaculate when we're a home schooling family. We're always HERE.

After some praying, Nathan and and I felt like we should list our house as quickly as possible. We were leaving in a week to drive across the country to attend my sister's wedding. Could we get our house packed up and cleaned and staged in one week? Not a chance.

Enter miracles here. The Lord poured out blessings on us abundantly. Several friends offered to come over and help me pack boxes. It was such a blessing- especially since my pregnancy fatigue severely limits how much work I can do in one day.

Some days I packed all day only to realize around 6:00pm that I had hungry children and had no idea what to feed them. I had put off the trip to the grocery store and had no food for them. More than once I answered my door to find friends standing there with a meal for my family. The Lord answered prayers, even when I didn't have time to actually kneel to pray and was merely carrying a prayer in my heart.

One day I was feeling completely overwhelmed and exhausted emotionally and physically. I was doubting myself. I prayed for increased strength and confirmation from the Lord that we were doing the right thing. That afternoon I opened the door to find a friend that I hadn't seen in over 3 years. She asked if I like Indian food (how could she know it's my favorite cuisine?) and gave me take-out from a local Indian restaurant. There's nothing as comforting as hot Na'an and Chicken Tikka Masala after an exhausting day. It was such an amazing 'coincidence'. I feel like the Lord was blessing me with a tender mercy through this friend. He wanted me to know that I was loved, that He knew me, and He was watching over me.

One of the biggest challenges was this: how could we hide all our food storage? I didn't want to rent a storage unit for it. Nathan stacked all the 5-gallon buckets and boxes into the shape of a queen bed and two nightstands. Viola. Doesn't it look like a nice guest room? No one knows it's all long-term food storage.

Several friends from our home school group and church congregation helped me stage the house, landscape the front yard, and deep clean. With their help we were able to list our house on the market the day before we left town. I am so thankful for their generous hours of service. I feel so richly blessed. Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.

A grand adventure begins!

Our house full of boxes waiting to be packed

We are moving.

A crazy whirlwind of events are happening. 

We've been interested in moving to the country for a while now.

We want to experiment with livestock, gardens, orchards, and bees.

We started a casual search of houses a month ago...just for fun.

We had strong feelings that the Lord was directing us to a particular house.

Suddenly we are barreling full-throttle forward. 

We are closing on our new house on April 28th.

We came across a great-looking property at an amazing price (it's so cheap because it's a fixer-upper). Here's the details:

It's 15 miles from the nearest grocery store. 

It's 5 miles outside of the nearest 'town', population less than 2,000.

It has 4 acres of property.

It has very old oak trees towering over the yard.

It already has a pasture fenced off for livestock.

It's in a nice equestrian neighborhood.

There's a neighborhood pool.

It will take a month of hard work to make the house even habitable.

We can't move anything into the house until then.

If we're lucky, we can move in during the last month of my pregnancy.

We have two Cub Scout troops volunteering to help clear all the trash. 

They get a merit badge for the project.

The house and yard are absolutely filthy.

The current occupants never used a trash can. Or the dishwasher.

The dishwasher is full of dead leaves and cigarette butts.

Our new church congregation is already arranging a service project to help.

Families will come together and deep clean the house in one big day of service.

I'm a complete stranger to most of them.

I feel so blessed by the Lord to have so much help.

So many little and big miracle are happening with this transition.

It's very humbling to see the Lord so completely taking over.

The front of the new home

My favorite tree in the yard. The trunk is over 3 feet in diameter!

In our current house we are working at breakneck speed to get the house ready for the market. There is so much to do- repainting, new carpets, moving out furniture so it will stage nicely, cleaning up the yard, etc. 

We are trying to get  it on the market before we leave for my sister's wedding. That's not much time. 

Maybe more miracles will happen to get us there.