Ovewhelming

Yesterday I ended up enjoying the outdoors and planted my day lilies. My friend stopped in and also gave me some hyacinth bulbs. Got right to work and put those in too. (The spindly green things on the right in the photo. LOL)

At church, last night, a friend gave me some clippings from her spearmint. I planted those this morning in my pajamas!! No photo to share from that! (Probably would have been if Mike had been home. LOL)

Mike and I are both feeling overwhelmed again with the amount of work our yard needs. Between trying to get grass to grow and putting in a vegetable garden it can really overpower a person. We'll just continue to lean on one another and inspire each other and know that it even took God 6 days of work to create the world and all that is in it.

After all that work...

Allowed myself some much needed downtime with the knitting needles last night. Although I didn't finish the sweater yet I was able to finish up another dish cloth.

Nearly Finished and Settling In

So, my dad doesn't usually read my blog, but if you do today Dad please stop reading!

With the move into the new house I haven't had as much time to knit, as I would like, but I have found time to nearly finish Dad's Christmas present. Here it is:

All I need to do is put the neck band and arm bands. I'm really pleased with it. Because he lives in Florida he doesn't have too much of a need for wool sweaters, but he is 76 and tends to get colder than most. That is why I decided on a vest. I used Heirloom 100% wool, machine washable. It knits up beautifully, and I have bought more for my stash.

As for the new house: We are settling in and getting into a routine. There is still a lot of boxes to unpack, however we need to get them from the rental into the new house. We've been doing a little at a time, so it isn't too overwhelming.

Mike got his new shed on Friday,

As you can see we live on the side of a mountain. Having to jack up one end of the shed isn't uncommon in these parts! LOL

There is No Place Like Home

So, things are progressing with the move in. However, I'm exhausted!! The only down side to the move is I haven't been able to knit as much as I would like. Dad's Christmas gift is progressing, but I should be done.

We have all been really busy here at the new house. Mike spent the day cutting trees with an older gentleman friend we made, Cecile Foster. Not sure how old he is, but let me tell you that man has the stamina of a man half his age.

Faith spent the day playing in water and dirt in the yard. Then a long bath before dinner. Haley was Mike's shadow, as usual. Except for when she was riding her bike up and down the traffic less road. Jacob went hunting both this morning and this evening and otherwise played his guitar and piano.

Guess you could call this home!

We Are Here!

Well, we are here, and today we got the Internet. We ended up getting HughesNet. A little slower than DSL, but surely faster than dial up!

We have slept in the house 3 nights and it is beginning to become familiar. I'm sure it will take us a while to figure out what all the switches do. I'll probably be spending a few months moving things around and learning what works, but it is fun . This is the first weekend since moving that I haven't missed our old house. It feels real good. Now I just need to have some company.

The Countdown Begins!

Well this is it our last day and night living and sleeping in a house that isn't our own. Yippee!! It will feel really good to be in our own home again. I'm especially excited because this house is brand new, and the house we owned before was over 50 years old. It was a nice house, but everything was old. Made that way by someone else. This one will be all ours. Kind of like when you buy a new car vs. a used one.

I'm not feeling too much pressure to pack because we'll still be renting this house for a while, so everything can stay until I get around to bringing it to the new house. Movers are coming Sunday to get the big items for us, and Mike will do our beds.

Not sure how I'll sleep tonight. It's better than Christmas Eve!

Life is Good

We have phone lines to the new house! Yippee!! However, the big draw back to living out in the sticks is going to be the lack of high speed Internet. The only Internet available is dial up. I know! Dial up still exists? It is amazing how we have come to rely on high speed Internet so much. We will have to find a way around this, but if this is our only real difficulty, life ain't so bad.

Last night was pot luck at our church. Remember I mentioned they do this every month or so and they had one again to celebrate Halloween. The kids played games, wore costumes, and got these incredible grocery bags full of loot!

It was great to be able to tell everyone that we would be moving in to the house officially, and people even offered help. What a wonderful community we have found. We are truly blessed.

Counting our Chickens

Okay, so maybe we are counting our chickens before they've hatched, but Mike and I just couldn't help ourselves. We went shopping today for the new house. We knew we wanted to get a kitchen island and Mike really wanted a new table.

We went to a couple of big warehouse furniture stores, but hated what we saw. It was all the same old, same old run of the mill stuff.

We ended up looking up hand crafted furniture stores in the yellow pages, and found an awesome store in Forest, VA, Henderson's Furniture. Over a lot of deliberation and discussion we ended up purchasing items made by Borkholder Amish-Crafted Furniture.

Now I'm more excited than ever to get into the house! Although, it will be another 10-12 weeks before the furniture is made and delivered.

Although the colors we chose are a little different than these pictures, you get the idea. There are 4 chairs that we chose to go with the table also.

Just Everyday Stuff

Not much happening around here.

We had to renegotiate the contract on the house because the appraisal came in lower than buying price. Which is good for us. One more hurdle to hop over that is all. Because it is a new construction there are a lot of forms that need to be completed that we have to wait on. But, we still expect to close before the end of October.

As for knitting, I'm still working on Laura's 50th birthday gift. Almost finished there and formulating the next project. Thinking Dad will get something knitted for Christmas.

Today we all go to mass at 1:00, and then we will do some shopping. Haley is in need of warmer clothes. Then off to Liberty University for Jacob's piano lesson.

Doesn't everyone have one in their yard?

As I've mentioned, we are working on buying a house here in Virginia. There have been a couple of times now that we have been up to the house/property for one reason or another. On a few of these occasions we have found this one animal wandering around, aimlessly.

Today was another time we found this animal. When the kids and I decided to take a walk down the road, this is what we saw:

Believe me when you see this thing a few feet off it can easily be mistaken for a very large bear! The kids and I had such fun laughing about scenarios of how cows being in our yard may be a normal routine. Some of them went something like this:

"Kids before you go out to play be sure you have your cow beating sticks with you."

Dad when he comes home from work would say, "What is for dinner tonight?" Mom's reply, "Steak. One of the cows walked in front of car when we were pulling into the driveway today."

Such adventures we are in for!

A New Home

One of the things our family discussed on our ride to and from the zoo yesterday, was what house did we like the best. So, after we weighed all our options and the pros and cons of everything we signed papers and put an offer in this morning on this house.

Offer was accepted, and if all goes according to plan we should be in before Thanksgiving.

Counting My Blessings

Being in a new state and a new house, isn't easy. Trying to find and make new friends can be difficult. It can really bring a person down.

Then you wake up on September 11, and realize how much you have to be thankful about.

God Bless the souls of the lives lost 7 years ago, and the families they left behind.