Happy Birthday Mom

My Mom's birthday is today - I hope she has a blessed day and we all send her our love and gratitude!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Are we crazy???

We had found a homestead we really liked but found out from our realtor that one of the owners really doesn't want to sell (the dad) so in light of that we started looking yet again. I asked our realtor to check on a farm that we have had our eyes on for over a year but the price has been prohibitive and a year ago when we checked on it, they werent very motivated to lower the price much. We knew it was a long shot but we are also running out of possible options here. Apparently a year makes a difference because now the owners (older folks) do want to retire and are willing to be very negotiable. We went there yesterday and the farmer who owns it gave us a grand tour. The farm itself is pristine, right now he makes hay and raises cows on most of it - he used to raise yaks. He has 35 acres of water rights and all the irrigating equipment will be included in the sale. He is also willing to include all of his haymaking tractors/equipment. Most of the land (105 acres) is in alfalfa and oats. There are extensive, albeit old, outbuildings. It has a large seasonal pond and the water for the house and land is spring fed. The farm used to be a dairy up until the 1950's and still has all the old cow stanchion spots and milk cooling room in an awesome old barn. In addition, this farmer leases 450 acres of state land for dirt cheap that he said we can take over (he has 5 years remaining on the lease). The downside is the farm house is very old and small and needs completely redone. We did something similar in NC but this will take more work. It has great bones and is very charming however. We are having a gentleman go out this afternoon to give us an estimate on adding on to the house. The location is prime for the type of business we want to run so we have to decide - buy something that wont take as much work to overhaul but is farther away and wont be as successful for a business or take on something that will be painful for a few years but could be exactly what we want long term....we will see what God has in store.

Til next time-

Meet Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner...

Fourth with friends

We had a nice time with friends for the 4th of July yesterday. I elected to bring my little ones home and not attend the fireworks because they started so late but my older kids decided to drive back down and enjoyed celebrating the anniversary of the founding of our nation.

I was frustrated coming home, however. I hope that someday our youth (I know some adults are this way too) wont spend so much time speaking about movies and personal entertainment. I wish we could get back to speaking about what God has done and is doing for us, the work we hope to achieve, Lord willing, how much our families and friends have blessed us, getting help for problems we may be struggling with and in turn helping others with what they are struggling with. Perhaps we can talk about how to better the culture through God honoring movies as the San Antonio Christian Film Festival strives to do. I would hope fellowship could be a time of support for leading a set-apart life (simple, separate and deliberate as the folks at the Highland Study Center would say) not a comparison of how much we continue to be like the culture around us, partaking in music and movies that I don't believe God would find glorifying to Him or "pure, noble and lovely".

Off my soap box for now - more on Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner tomorrow...

Psalm One and Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Blessed is the man [1]
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law [2] of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Had a sad talk with one of our adult children who has returned to live with her biological family and it is not going well. She admitted to substance abusing and being completely miserable and greatly missing everyone but because her cousins have told her she "doesnt fit in"culturally with their partying crowd she feels unacceptable and she thinks its much more important to be culturally relevant, drugged and miserable than at odds with the culture, walking a different path, but safe, content and joyful.

On another note, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner came yesterday....more on that to come...:-)

Happy 4th of July - may we get back to the founders intent for this country - a country where we as individuals are self-governing, choose to do what is right and help our fellow man because the Bible says to do it, not expecting the government to take care of us all.

Good news

We had an inspection done on the property that is at the top of our list and it came back pretty good. Our realtor was a little nervous about some of the unfinished projects but based on some of the houses we have taken on in the past, this one seems easy. We would have to put up siding and would probably but up "e-log" -(they have an internet site) on the outside and possibly some on the interior as well as we both really like the look of log. I am already planning out decorating schemes - pulled out some Thomas Kinkade farm borders I have had for awhile and also looking at red toiles and burgundy, cream, gold and forest green floral papers. Since this will hopefully we our home for awhile, (more than the 3-4 years of all of our married lives) I plan to have fun and not worry about it having a neutral color scheme for resale. I also want to do some decoupage on the kitchen cabinets (www.durwinrice.com) and on some more furniture (I did several pieces when we lived in NC and had a blast). In order to rest my back a bit yesterday, during quiet time Emma and I sat down and watched a "Sewing with Nancy" on embroidery tips, a "Martha Pullen's Sewing Room" and a "Quilt In A Day" about Pigs in the Blanket quilt blocks. Emma loves these shows and since I only watch about 10 a year it was fun for her to snuggle with Mom and dream about creating. Not much is worth watching on TV but I do enjoy these shows.

Packing up the upstairs bathroom today and cooking for tomorow. Lord willing we will put an offer in on our future home on Monday!

Real Estate and Packing

Lots of real estate issues going on right now. We are having to shop around for mortgage lenders because they all seem to have different standards and rules. We are praying that a gentleman who wants to lease to own our Alabama home follows through at the beginning of next week which will ease some of the financial strain we are under and make banks more willing to work with us, despite our excellent credit rating. The house we hope to buy is being inspected on Friday, we are praying good news comes from that as well.

I have been busy packing and my back is starting to feel the strain. The books inside the house are all packed now, today I move on to quilt and sewing items. Gina is organizing and packing up the workshop with some help from the kids. We are still short of book boxes, hopefully we can pick some more up on Friday.

Weather has turned cooler here - almost like Fall but it is supposed to warm up again, warming up being relative of course to this area, which means 80 degrees (compared to over 100 in Alabama).

We have been told the cooler temperatures are keeping strawberries from maturing this year and tomatoes are struggling. If God blesses us with buying the place we would like, I hope to plant a bunch of things in their big green house to atleast reap some harvest this year.

We will be spending the 4th of July with some local friends and then are back to the moving insanity...:-)