Living with joy

Natasha hanging out her window. 

Ahh, my friends, aren't you glad for another blog?  Have you missed me?  It has been an appropriate time since my last blog so that you are not totally going crazy.  There is so much to tell.  I don't have many stories to tell on the hombuilding front since I have been sitting in my nice warm living room while Tom and Natasha are up in VT freezing their little butts off.  But they did it joyfully :)


But later on that, I have to keep you in suspense!  First and foremost here is what I was experiencing since last we met.  My last blog, if you remember, was on being joyful.  I read something really great in "My Utmost for His highest" by Oswald Chambers on joy.  We should never mistake joy with happiness.  We are called into a holy and perfect relationship with Jesus Christ first and foremost.  That is our job to pursue and not happiness.  Our joy comes from knowing God's will and being in total and complete rest with Christ.  The only way to do that is to continually be remaining or abiding in Christ.  We can't do that unless we continually surrender our own self will to Him.  Sometimes that is easy and sometimes that can be hard depending on whether we trust Him completely or not.  But that is His will for us.  That's a pretty tall order, if you ask me, and yet it is so simple and beautiful when you are there, there is no other place you want to be.  And in the next moment you are given a choice to stay in that rest, that place where Christ is in you (hence a Christian) or whether you allow the struggles of this word to overcome you and drag you back down.  How many times do we have to tell ourselves not to be dragged back down only to find that we are back where we picked up our mess before.  It is a good thing He is long suffering, perfecting us always.

So this joy thing is definitely not happiness I can guarantee you that.  But it is really great.  After I blogged about the joy, things got pretty though around here.  I know that many of you know that I have had a pretty wonderful little budgie (parakeet if you want) who has shown me many of God's lessons.  He was just the tamest little thing in the world.  Logan and him would run back and forth in the living room, racing.  It was pretty funny to watch.  He always wanted to be with me, wherever I was.  Well, he got very sick.  One morning he didn't tweet at all.  He was just sitting on his perch foaming at the mouth.  Well, I call the vet because, well they are expensive and really don't know what they are doing with birds.  So I kept him with me gave him vitamins and just kept him warm.  I also broke down and called a vet who will do house calls (no car, remember) and specializes in birds but she really didn't help much.  After a few days, he was perking up.  His "complexion" got better and he tried to tweet.  Oh, but he was so cute.  He would sit on me and let us pet and scratch his head for hours.  So pretty much the whole week was spent taking care of the bird.  I slept with him on the couch, he perched on my arm at night.  I really didn't get that much sleep between him and the dog on the couch it was a pretty uncomfortable affair.  Friday night came and we were sitting around when it all of a sudden became clear that he was not going to make it.  I asked the kids to say good bye to the bird and of course that didn't go over too well.  They were very brave, though and wanted to stay with him.  Of course, we were all balling, even Tasha.  We took pictures with him, me holding him in my hands.  It was very sweet.  I sent the kids away when I realized the end was very near.  I am so glad I did.  He didn't want to leave.  He struggled until the end to hold on.  He fought with all his might.  But God's will is stronger than his and in the end God took him home.  I do not wish to go through that again.  It was horrible.  But the joy it gave us was pretty great.  Not happiness, mind you, but joy.  There was no regret, because we all celebrated the week we had to care for him and it was a very special week.  I have not had the privelege of peting many birds but Little Boy wanted us to scratch him and just wanted to be with us.  It was quite beautiful.  Even Logan, after his innitial mourning period, was so glad for that time.  It was a very special time.  We are all thankful that we had that time.  By the way, he was a she but I had been in denial for 4or 5 years.

The north side of the house



A beautiful piece of property



A view from the top!



Yeahhh!  I really don't know what to
say!




Not quite done yet




Those are Tom and Sean on the top there!



That looks like a house!

And now, dear minions, (hhooooooohaaaaaa, just picture it and go with it, please) I am pleased to tell you that I have pictures!!!!  Yes, for my faithful blog family I have gone through great length to procure them.  It has been difficult (not for me) but I was willing to make others do the sacrifice :)) The work is going along really well.  The weather is cooperating, gee I wonder why, and it wasn't too cold.  There were two of them, Tom and Tasha, and together they managed to lift up the ridge beam (30ft long and green hemlock, remember the lesson back a while on hemlock, it is heavy.  That was a quiz question.  Those of you who got it right, fab., you should be very happy with yourself).  Then, with the help of Sean, the slave driver in a really, really good way, they managed to get the rest of the rafters up.  Yup! The roof can be put on, if we want the house to be blow over by the next gust, we can go ahead.  Otherwise we have to frame the outside with plywood first and then we can go and put the roof on.  Here are some of Tom's and Tasha's pictures.  They came out pretty good.   Just a piece of advice: If any of you wish to come and visit this winter, don't come with bad tires on your car.  If you have all wheel drive or 4 wheel drive, you will make it.  Any other cars, there is a pile up of cars at the end of the drive.  Just join them in the ditch :))  Tom actually slid down the ROW while walking and driving too.  He was a wise man and parked at the end of the ROW in the neighbor's driveway.

The view from there is quite nice.  Sean was actually
dizzy while up there, sinuses!







The ridge beam



Don't ask Tasha about the ridge beam.
She will start twitching! :)



To get this in place they used a pulley
system.



She is smiling again, but really all she wants to
do is to stay by the warm fire.