Happy Summer

 It's what's written on our letter board. 

Happy Summer. 

Indeed.  Happy Summer!  We are happy it's summer.  2021.  I still get mixed up what year it is, truly! I think its been a couple years since I last wrote.  I really do forget.  But its so fun to look back on things we've done, faith journeys, and of course photos.  I do struggle a bit with how much to share and I think that prevents me at times from sharing my life.  It can definitely be a highlight reel, but it can also lead to unnecessary judgements. 

Last year we were just getting some landscaping done. We had to build up our yard and dirt was EVERYWHERE!  Ella had horse lessons. We tore down the old house across the yard. We went to Disney World/Land! We thought we had the Corona!  We planted some new trees.  The grass came in!  We got a puppy!  We had a nice warm spring.  We lost a cat and got a new one! We enjoyed some great dates in Minneapolis. 

Easter 2021

The old house

Our cat, Toby

Disney World, 2021

Our first pup

Dates in MPLS

Pat, our first cat.

Disney Land 2020, before you know what.

Disney Land

sunflowers from our flower garden

lots of walks and bike rides!

Produce from our lovely garden

Ella's horse lessons

We've enjoyed many fun things and experiences the last couple years. Of course this is a highlight reel and I haven't posted the hard, the ugly, and the miserable.  But all the same-- we have to experience the rain before the growth. 

The Emojis of life

I'm delighted about summer vacation.  Truly. It's been a long year.

Not in a bad way!  Our school year has been fantastic!  For sure ups and downs, fear and confidence. Homeschool can stir up all the emojis. 😄

Speaking of Emoticons, if I could share my top 5, this is what they'd be:

😴😍😭🙌😡

so, let me explain these

1. 😴  pretty self explanatory! Lots going on this year, including packing which tired me out the most.  Grading papers and helping the kids study for tests equally tired me out!   Detoxing, cleaning & organizing VERY much tired me out.   And not sleeping.  That really tired me out too.

2. 😍  this one's obvious too. How can you not have heart eyes?   We traveled twice,  designed and built a house,  and live here now!  Spring has come, summer will eventually,  and i have energy for walks.

3. 😭   this happened a lot.  stress of course, well, stress stress stress.  And i am not one to handle stress well!  However, through out this year, I've learned to take my thoughts a little more captive and understand just how toxic stress is to physical health.  This alone has helped me through many days of stress!   Grief has also plagued me as I think back to the yesteryears of life.  I'm learning how to work through this.  I read a book recently that asked these important questions:  

"what time is it?"  NOW
"where are you?"  HERE

"We spend too much time thinking about anger, worry, fear, etc,  and because of it we miss out on the present"

4. 🙌   Living out in the country has really brought out the praise in me.   Praise you God for peaceful walks. Praise you god for a warm cozy fireplace.  Praise you God that we can afford organic food.  Praise you God for energy.   Praise you God for monthly trips to the cities.   Praise you God for such good sales on desires we had for the house.   Praise you God for seasons.

5.  😡  I maybe shouldn't have ended with this emoji 😂   It certainly is not the most important one, and is not the most dominant!  But it is a part of life.  There are many times of madness in this home, but the trick is letting it go.   Wow, that is hard!   hard hard hard.   There have been many sticky situations that I have had to convince myself to just LET. IT. GO.   Force it out of the being of my mind.   The truth is, all thoughts take up space. They have to go somewhere. And where do they go?  They settle in your body.   This my friends, is one contribution of poor health.

"If any man desires long health, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking lies"

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to God. 

Thank you Lord, for teaching me! 

There is nothing I lack..

Its 10:30 and I am sipping some coffee.  My kids are listening to some christian music, and the farmers have finished planting.  We are so grateful. I'm trying to think if there's anything worthy to share 😁   - it might be easier to share as a bullet list

• went to the cities for blood tests and appointments
• my sister in law had a baby while we were gone!
• we started siding the house
• I planted some flowers
• I became a distributor of Organo Coffee 
• my back is finally feeling better after doing cart-wheels
• I mowed our grass for the first time
• planning out a slab for driveway and possible basketball hoop soon!
• Ella lost her first front tooth. Its a sign to me of getting old 😭
• We are not done with school 😦
• The inside glass of my new oven is already dirty 😱
• I just cleaned it (the new ovens are 100% easier to take apart!)
• sleeping has been 95% better (besides the last two nights)

it sure has been a long year so far, and it is only May.  

Photos I've Taken

Maddy got a new smurf and had to celebrate its' birthday

Our kitchen

What our laundry looks like. Yes, we got the old fashioned washer and dryers! 

Siding started. Can't wait to see what it will look like! 

In The Kitchen

snacks for the workers

AIP meal for me! 

Individual pizzas for the rest

Things I'm Learning

 This comes as no surprise, but i am stuck in the reactive mode. I'm not sure how this comes about, but our bodies get used to stress all the time. Sometimes we get stuck in this "Red Zone" as they call it.   Our bodies were made to be in the Green zone (rest & digest) and sometimes of course we fall into the Red Zone from stressors in life. We were also made to return to the Green zone (Response) shortly after. When our bodies have trouble returning to the Green Zone, that is where illness enters.  According to this chart,  if I were in a healthy mindset, I would view the world as protective, sufficient, inclusive.  Instead, I view it as dangerous, dissatisfied.  And it's true!  I fear for the health of my children with food,  illness,  etc.   My Bodily systems are wearing down, my health is pathogenic, my central experience is definitely fear, frustration and heartache.  Ive known all these things, but to see it on paper is extremely helpful. 

This definitely isn't a christian book! It actually talks about evolution.  However, I'm still taking quite a bit of helpful information away from this book and filtering out what's untrue.  One thing that I read that was helpful is that when we are in this Reactive Mode, we often view life as lacking.  We all have needs, and if we believe we are lacking in any of those needs... well its self explanatory!  Negativity comes in.

"When our brain is not disturbed by threat, loss or rejection, it settles into a resting state. "

That is where focussing on the good comes in.  Our mind switches from what we lack, to what we have.  Our stress becomes rest.


Psalm 23:
The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack

Lord, teach me! 

One month

We've been in the house one month.  Truly, half of our things are not even unpacked. They aren't in the house in boxes. Or the garage.  Ive purposely left them at the shop we have in town.  Time will tell if I'll open them.

This is one of my favorite photos of us setting up. I couldn't wait to set up our new table and chairs. The chairs are from wayfair, and the table was from a local furniture shop.  I was sad to leave our table of 10 years behind, but it was time!  I am much happier with this one, and it is fun to have so many seats.

My mother in law repurposed her antique table and its the perfect size for our breakfast nook. I think white was a good pick, and love the mixture of black around the house. 

  One of the rooms i looked forward to so much was our sitting room (piano room) Its super cozy in here with the barn doors and the shiplap. Its the first room I knew I wanted shiplap in (and gradually kept adding!)   The rug was from wayfair and the chandelier was from world market.  This style was easy for me to pick out and had things chosen paid for well before the shiplap was even put up. I go here every morning!  

First day setting up. 

We moved in the Thursday before Easter. Two days later we hosted a birthday party and had 3 kids stay over night.  Sunday was Easter and I was completely wiped out from all the cleaning and celebrating.  We spent the week after cleaning the old house, still moving things out and cleaning up dust from construction.  We love living out on the farm. Walks have been daily;  some include peter! Farming has been super busy but manageable with meal delivery. I spend way less time driving and making sure food is hot! I clean the oven often :) 

Time for bed,

xoxo

Just two weeks

In about 2 weeks, we close on our house!  I am beyond excited.  Things are finally coming together. All the last minute details are almost complete.  For sure it has been overwhelming and stressful at times, but much better than I anticipated, truly!

It was just a year ago this little seed was planted in our head in Marco Florida.  It has been something we've talked about and prayed about for a long time, but waiting for the right time.  I can see that God has paved the way.  Sometimes I wonder how I can doubt his provision.

Honestly Id love to share every detail. But unfortunately I am fearful of judgements made on us and our decisions. I'd like to be one of those bloggers who shares any good ideas she came across, to help others in their building process. After all, it is those exact pages on pinterest that helped us build our own home. I'm so grateful!

 Opening up though, is hard for me.  The pendulum can swing hard both ways. You can overshare, and get lots of criticism or secret eye rolls and gossip behind your back.  And then you can isolate and not share anything, and find yourself with less friends.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

The celebrating is officially over, though I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for gatherings. There are still plenty of birthdays, NYE parties, Super Bowl, and vacations.  Yesterday went by in a flash.  Here's some photos of our day below.  We started the day getting ready for church and packing up our things for the day. Church was absolutely excellent! We rushed home and loaded all of our goods to grandmas (Peter's mother).  We ate a delicious meal consisting of ham, potatoes, homemade root beer that Peter and I made,  salad,  roasted root vegetables and more. I always look forward to the 'candied' cucumbers. I am sure they have loads of sugar but i just dont care.

After this, some went outside to ski. i did some dishes and peter and I practiced our song for our program. The girls played piano, Ella recited Psalm 34:14-19 and I sang.  We opened gifts after that, and then it was time for our picnic outside.  This time it was in the evening, which was fun. Desert was after and at 10:30 we finally crawled into bed.

I'm still unsure how to get photos lined up nicely.  It has been really fun to go back and read some of the posts written years ago. It has been 5 years at least. Little Maddy was only 4 and Ella just a baby. Since then, so much has changed. I really miss those years when the kids were so young, and its sad that I'll never get them back. 

Its been years..

Wow! I cant believe I'm doing this!  It's been years. 

So, why am I back?

I'm not sure that I am, but the thought came into my mind this morning as I scrolled feeds of others who share their paint colors of their new house.

There's so many decisions that go into a house. But I am so thankful that it hasn't been too overwhelming as I thought.  I mean, let's be honest here.  There have been stressful times! Years ago when we re-did our kitchen, it had seemed to be a nightmare. And that was just a kitchen!

I'll tell you some of the stressful times we had/have during the process:

• the layout.  I mean, this is the bones of the house!  Two story or one one and a half? Where will the powder room go? What about laundry? How big will the rooms be? What will the exterior look like?   Can you imagine?  So glad that part is DONE!
• Door.   This was very stressful for me.  We still don't have one! 
• Size of windows.   This is honestly a big thing. I remember us measuring my mother in laws and going through the blueprint to make each one just right.  
• Flooring & Tile.  We still are not done choosing all the flooring yet! 
• Vanities. I have logged a lot of time on Pinterest.

I would say the #1 stressful thing of the house has been the layout. I lost many hours of sleep over it. In fact, i scrolled through so many layouts that i did some minor damage to my eyeballs! (true story) 

its been so long that ive forgotten how to easily add photos.  More later!