Warning: Grouchy Post

I'm getting sick of everyone on facebook talking about "the warm sun on my shoulders" and "flip flops" and "first picnic of the year."

It's warm here too, you know. It's the talk of the town that it has been up to and even above the freezing point lately. It feels balmy. Lovely weather. Ah, springtime.

Seriously, it's been near-record highs, but it won't last long.

Even so, I'm kind of ticked about all of it. So I went to weather.com to check the forecast. I didn't like what it said. I went to weathernetwork.ca to check their forecast. I didn't like what it said either. The temperatures may have dropped now, but I'm so glad to hear it will be warming up to 3 degrees Fahrenheit by tomorrow afternoon.

So there's my grouchy post. Good night. Time to curl up under my down duvet. And since my Bed Warmer is working at the hospital tonight, I have to run the heater fan on my blankets to get them warmed up before I sleep. Grrr.

Moved In

We’re in! We’ve been in the new house for a week already. Wow, now that I say that, I can’t believe that it’s been a week and it still seems rather foreign. But we're loving it.

We moved in well before every last detail was finished, but it’s working well for us. This way we can all be together even if Kendall and I are working on little projects. Saturday night Kendall stayed up late putting on the cabinet pulls. I unpack a few more boxes every day. Little by little.

I’m actually mostly done with the unpacking, but it doesn’t feel like it because our spare room is FILLED with boxes and stuff. That’s because it’s waiting on the basement storage area to be ready for it. And I’m not sure when that will happen.
Also, our office closet is FILLED with boxes and stuff. It’s waiting for a desk and shelving. And I’m not sure when that will happen.

Also, our living room is FILLED with too many chairs and the keyboard, but it’s waiting for the spare room to be emptied so we can put a TV, keyboard and chair in there. And I’m not sure when that will happen.

Also, the basement of our old apartment is still FILLED with our junk because it’s waiting on our new basement to be ready to handle all of the junk. And I’m not sure when that will happen.

Do you see a theme here? Oh well. I can close the doors on all of these places except the living room and it’s not actually that bad. And each place is fairly organized in spite of being FILLED. So the chaos is controlled and I’m mostly okay with it.

Let’s go back to Night 1, since I have been remiss in my blogging. (We just got internet hooked up yesterday, so I’ll let that be my excuse.)

We had been hoping to move in on Saturday night after Kendall’s parents and aunt and uncle left. But Friday night we changed our minds. It would have been possible, but it would have been pure chaos and stress. Kendall had to work a 12-hour shift on Monday, so we decided to move in all the way on Tuesday.

Tuesday was stressful. The inspector was coming in the afternoon to do final inspection and give us our occupancy permit. Then he was leaving town for 10 days. So it was now or never. Actually, Kendall told me to go ahead and pack up and move all our essentials- I think the little rebel was planning to sleep there that night no matter what the inspector said. Well, once again, Kendall passed with flying colors.

Back at the apartment, I had boxes and boxes ready to go. I had been moving lots of things van load by van load over the last week, but my goal on Tuesday was to get pretty-well everything out of the main part of the apartment. So we took the trailer over Tuesday evening and loaded everything up. I was so tired and dreaded the loading and unloading of all that stuff. But my Hero saved the day. He ended up doing all the loading while I ran around inside the apartment doing odds and ends. Then we brought the trailer to the new house and he offered to unload while I made sandwiches. He got it all done by the time supper was ready! Yay! And thank you!

A friend stopped by while we were eating our chili and grilled cheese sandwiches. He documented our first sit-down meal in our new home. (By the way, don’t you love our lovely windows? We special-ordered them and have received the missing window twice. The first time, it was exactly like the other one- not a mirror image like it should be. So we sent it back. The second time it was a triangle. Oh well, it’s up high enough that I barely even notice it.)

The first night of sleep was a lot like sleeping in a hotel. First of all, our old bed is AWESOME! I knew I missed it, but now I know why. So it felt like we were sleeping in a luxury bed in a hotel. It was also like sleeping in hotel because we woke up often. Our heating system here is forced air. (The apartment heat was water running through pipes in the baseboard. It was amazingly loud and often we felt like we were surrounded by bubbling brooks or raging rivers. It may sound soothing, but it wasn’t.) Anyway, so it was just different noises. We heard the furnace starting and stopping all night. But it was okay, because we were in a luxury bed!

In the morning, this was my view.
You know how they say that during labor you should have a focal point? Just focus on this one thing to help you get through the labor and soon enough the baby will be here? This was my focal point. So many times during the labor of construction, I would picture sitting by this window in the morning with my coffee. And Wednesday morning I got to do it!

Here’s Evers on my lap. (That wasn’t usually included in my focal point vision, but this was nice too.)

And here the boys enjoy my seat.

So now things are feeling much more relaxed and enjoyable. I finished cleaning the apartment on Thursday and that felt like a huge load off my shoulders. In fact, it’s been days since I’ve had a headache. They were pretty-well constant in the days leading up to the actual move.

Sunday night we had our first company. Our small group came over and we ate supper together. Then they prayed through our house with us. It’s good to have community.

As a parting shot, here's our kitchen. It's not completely organized yet, but well on its way.

More Progress

We were once again blessed with family to work with us on this never-ending project called "our house."

My mom worked overtime in our Goshen basement to get all our stuff ready to move. She was a mover, counselor and coordinator as she helped talk me down from my long-distance freaking-outness and helped to make plans to get our stuff up here. Oh yeah, and that started with a full day's work the day after they got back from Red Lake.

The U-haul changed hands several times to get to us 1000 miles from it's starting point. Thursday night my parents, my uncle Rich and our friends, Jon and Conway loaded all our stuff onto the U-haul. (And Julie prayed through the whole week. Thank you, by the way.) We found out last minute that Kendall's cousin and her family were traveling from Ohio to Iowa on Friday. Kendall's parents were heading up here on Sunday. We were so thankful when Dave and Amy agreed to meet my parents in Indianapolis and take the truck to Kalona.

Then Leonard and Twila and Kendall's great aunt and uncle, Cal and Shirley, brought the beast up here.


They got here Monday around 6 pm and by 7:30 we had lots of people out at the house unloading all our stuff. I have to say, it was rather embarassing for me. But once again, we were so grateful for the help.


The boys, of course, loved having family here again.

Evan got to be in on the work on the 2 days he didn't have school. Here he opted to eat his cinnamon roll from Rita in his new room.

Eli relaxes in the living room.

Twila and Shirley helped me with lots of cleaning and random gross jobs. Here they show their horror at what they discovered behind our bookshelf. I just about died of embarassment when they started cleaning under the couch cushions. They came up with lots of popcorn. I tried to tell them that not everything they found was from us, but then Shirley found a shaker of popcorn salt under the couch and without thinking I said, "Oh! I was missing that!" She didn't let me forget that.

Our bedroom is coming right along! It was such an accomplishment to make the bed! Can't wait to sleep in it!

And the boys can't wait to sleep in their beds!

Oh dear...We have so much work to do...

This photo was taken several days ago, but it shows a bit of how the addition looks.

We weren't able to unpack the kitchen things because the dishwasher wasn't hooked up. I didn't want to put everything away until it was washed. After all, it's been sitting in boxes for years! Tonight I started washing things and putting them away. So fun!

I don't have photos, but Leonard and Cal got lots and lots of work done! The house has really come a long way in the last 5 days!

We were hoping to sleep there by tonight, but last night we decided not to push it. There are still so many odds and ends to be done. We could stay there, but it would probably be more chaos than we want. So we'll hold off a few days. Right now we're hoping for Tuesday night. We'll see...

An Embarassing Photo

So. I called the home insurance guy when our stuff was ready to come up here. It was time to switch our insurance from "contruction" to "occupancy." He said okay and asked me to e-mail him 2 photos of the outside of our house. He said it was to have on file to show that the house was ready to be lived in.


But before I show you the photo I am sending him, let me give a little disclaimer: "It's cold and we're in Red Lake." First of all, it's cold. We will be doing the siding in the spring. Secondly, we are not the only house in town without siding. Thirdly, we're busy on the inside.

Okay....Here goes nothing...



Whew. That was embarassing. Kendall suggested that I also e-mail a photo of the inside to the insurance company. What?! Doesn't this house look ready to be lived in?!

So thankful for friends to help us today. Jenni and Debbie helped us clean. We got so much done! It's amazing what a little extra womanpower and emotional support can do!

Joel also came and put up a bunch of lights. Manpower is good too.

We're so close!

Psalm 91:11-12

"For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone."

We experienced this today. Evan fell through a hole in the living room floor to the basement below. If the possibilities weren't so horrible, it would almost be funny.

There is a 12" x 14" hole cut in the living room floor. It's above the woodstove to let up heat and is waiting on a grate to cover the opening. Evan was cleaning with Debbie and all of the sudden he was gone. She didn't even know the hole was there- she just saw he disappeared. There were 7 of us in the room at the time and I don't remember hearing Evan yell or anything. Eli was right beside him and looked down and saw him lying on a pile of wood for the stove. It took a bit to sink in what had happened, then we flew down the stairs. I remember hearing someone say, "He's walking around," as they looked down the hole.

He was okay! Kendall got to him first and found him just sort of walking around the basement crying. I'm sure he was completely bewildered as to why he was down there. As soon as I heard him crying, I could tell he wasn't hurt too badly. He said he landed on his butt, but didn't seem to be in much pain. Under the hole was concrete floor, a metal bucket full of wood and the hot wood stove. It could have been so bad. We helped him assess his injuries and it turned out that the worst injuries are 2 scratched fingers. I think the adults in the house were as shook up as Evan, only it lasted much longer for us because we knew what could have happened!

We can't figure out how he fell. Evan first said that he landed on the floor. Later he said that he landed on the stove, then bounced to the bucket of wood. That doesn't seem possible to us. Eli saw him on the wood. And it makes no sense that he wasn't hurt worse. The only thing we can figure out is that Jesus put an angel there to catch Evan and hold him up so that he wouldn't get hurt.

We're thankful.

Evan adds, "Did you know it hurt less than a fly biting you?" "And then, I was going to go to Dad, but instead, he got to me first."

Taa daa! Last night I took all our games to the new house and cleaned the 'game closet.' So this is the first part of our home that looks like home.

Tonight Eli and Kendall put all the outlets together. Eli was excited to help.

I've been feeling overwhelmed by the work to come. So I finally decided it's time to call some friends. I'm blessed to have 2 friends joining me at the new house tomorrow to clean. I think that will be the emotional boost I need. (Not to mention all the work we can get done!)

Leonard and Twila are coming Monday. They are bringing Leonard's uncle and aunt with them. I know lots of help is on the way, so I'm trying to keep all of that in mind. I'm excited to be in the new house, I just get buried in the work that's ahead. But today I realized that it's crazy right now, but in just 2 weeks the craziness will have passed. Reminds me of finals in college... Except I get a new house out of the deal!