A different kind of normal

My village

Hello everyone.  I am sorry I have been a little negligent on the blogging front.  It has been an exciting couple of weeks since Christmas.  I do want to wish everyone a belated Happy New Year.  Our New Year started with a new baby.  No, no, not me (thankfully).  My sister and bro-in law had their beautiful daughter on New Years day.  How absolutely perfect and I was so excited for them.  Labor went well and the baby is absolutely perfect.  She is soooo cute.  Enough of that.  You see, I have jumped ahead again.  All right, grab an ice pick to pry your fingers off the keyboard if you live here in New England.  If not, have a cup of something warm on me!



Toby and Logan, very cute

My parents made their way up to us in the north before Christmas.  We were able to show the sights around here a little bit.  My mother does not like to travel around much anymore.  They were able to come to church with us through and watched Logan in his yearly debut of one of the shepherds in the nativity story.  It was very cute.




 They also got to hear their daughter's debut as accompaniment to one of the singers.  I just found my old recorder and thought my mother would appreciate if I joined.  So I did.  It was pretty fun. 

Mother and daughter

Where are we on the page?



 

 

We got to spend some nice time with my parents up here in VT and drove to NY to spend Christmas with my sister and her husband.  We were waiting for my sister to go into labor, but it didn't happen.

  We definitely encouraged her (walking stairs, stress, cooking, squatting down to pick things up) but, baby Sydney arrived pretty much on time.  We were probably the last ones to know that Eiki was in labor on New Year's day.  Sydney Christine was born at 3 PM I think.  I was able to go down at the beginning of the month and was so enchanted by the little package.  Boy, she really is cute.  She has both mom and dad wrapped around her little fingers already.  My sister is a great mom.  It was really great to see how she is around the baby and she is a natural.  She takes it all in strides.  I spent a couple of days with them, spending time with my mother as well while my dad was visiting a friend in Tennessee.  It was good to get back home and the first night, my kids entertained me by scaring each other, after we were trying to get to sleep.  Guess who instigated it?  Yup, you guessed correctly (SEAN). 

 

Since then, we have had to adjust to a new kind of normal.  Tom has been able to drive for the school bus company.  There was a problem with trying to hire him, the paperwork wouldn't go through and all that jazz.  Well, he started on a Friday without knowing it.  He just kind of got thrown in the deep end, but he managed not to come home with any extra kids.  We are thankful for that. He has been driving the basketball teams to all their games.  It was nice because he ran into our realestate agent, who sold us the land.  We hadn't seen him since we bought the land.  He is also a Christian.  They got to catch up with each other. 

Tom did not get  his bus stuck!
 

Logan and his game

 So now instead of all of us being home at night, we have to adjust again to a totally crazy schedule of people working at night.  I try to stay busy while Tom works and when both the T's work I try to stay in town.  Some days we watch a movie on Tasha's lap top or I work on something.  So today is another one of those days so Logan and I are staying in town. It is nice to have some Logan and mom time. 




 So the rest of the family is doing really great.  Sean is working a lot.  He is working with another fellow out of NH twice a week and working with his old boss three days.  He is happy for the opportunity to see another farrier work and get acquainted with more people.  His business is doing not too bad.  I think he has about 30 horses.  Not too shabby.  It takes a while to build up a clientele and to get your name out there and we all know how peculiar horse people are.  Oh, you didn't know that?  They are, just I am normal (hello, of course; that goes without saying).  Talking to a friend who is a vet confirms that Sean is indeed in the right business.  He is getting a reputation of being really good with difficult horses or not so difficult horses.  Gee, not patting myself on the back, but where did he get that from?

At a wedding taken by Katy
Charlton (via facebook)

 Natasha is a continual blessing to both Tom and I.  Her wisdom and love is great for us to see.  She is pursuing a new job, which is more up her alley than working in a pizza place (which she loves!).  Our dear friend Kathy suggested she check out a possible opening at the co-op.  She dropped off her resume, felt really good about it, and is waiting to see.  Prayers would be appreciated for wisdom and guidance.

That brings me to the last but most important part of my blog.  ME!  I had a chance to talk to my  sister-in-law Nichole yesterday and the question came up how I was doing spiritually.  I was not so sure what to answer.  In fact this is the first blog where I really didn't have anything to share with y'all spiritually.  So thanks Nichole.  I now got something!  Hold on to your seats!!!!!!  Here it comes:  You can't "escape" God!  That is it. Have a good day. 

Christmas eve

What!!!!  Don't leave us hanging here (this is what you are thinking all right, so go with it just to humor me and make it more interesting).  All right, I will humor you.  A couple of days ago we were at a friend's house playing Romey Cube, which is a blast. ( Mami you should try it.)  As we were sitting there I just felt a little sad.  I now was responsible to building up a new friendship and to be transparent with my new friends.  Argh, that is so much work and all I want to do is have someone whom I'm familiar with and just to be comfortable with them.  So, basically I miss you guys in CT a lot!  That is not to say that I am not meeting and having blessings with new friends here in VT, and to my new friends I have to say, hold on to your seats.  You are in for the ride of your life.  This went into this thinking on my part.  God put us here, I have no doubt whatsoever.  But I have also brought my luggage with me from CT.  Just because I am living without much worldly things, I still have things that date back to CT that God has to reveal in me or that I have to come to Him with.  Believe you me He is working overtime on me.  I love that. 

But I am rambling on.  Sorry, told you this was not going to be my normal, organized straight to the point blog (Here you look at yourself in the monitor and shake your head, saying she has lost it.  The cold is getting to her brain).  So just because I live in the sticks in VT doesn't mean I didn't bring my stuff with me.  And the "closets" of my heart were kind of full of junk.  God has cleaned out so much of that junk and He can now see the floor.  I like that a lot.  The point I am so eloquently trying to make is if you are trying to hide from God, ha!  Sorry, I meant HA!  Oops, no that is not loving.  Emmm, hehehehe?  Are we getting the picture of who this God really is?  I just plugged into a wonderful study on the fundamentals of Christianity.  Very nice so far and I am enjoying meeting with wonderful people (getting out there again).  He is here, there and everywhere from before the beginning to beyond the end of time.  He will not stop existing!  He existed before time!  He knows you before you were even a tiny speck in your mother's womb.  He knows what is in your heart.  He already sees you at the end of your life.  To Him life is like a blade of grass.  And He loves you, me and myself!  He took His right arm and send Him to be Emanuel, God with us!  God with us!  That should give us pause as to how much we curse the driver in front of us, because "big brother is watching".  But this big brother wants us to come to Him so He can sooth our wounds, our fears and worries, if we let Him. 

To recap, I am finding that no matter where I go, God is with me!  I am so glad about that!  Could you imagine me going off to VT or to make new friends by myself?  Yikes, I have made some messes of that in the past!  But God is with me when I step out of my very comfortable circle of me, myself, and I to reach out to others.  God is with me when I am having a bad day because our pipes are frozen (got you, we don't got no pipes hehehehe).  God soothes me when I just can't deal with having to do dishes again or when the school day just drags on.  He dries off my tears when my day is really bad.  As long as I allow Him open access to me, no matter what is up. 

"I need a friend to lean on"
Katy Charlton and from facebook

I think I have said it all.  I hope this is not just thought provoking but also convicting.  We have but one life to give. 

Hope the weather where you are is cooperating.  The kids and I are off to NY next week.  I haven't seen my niece in a month and my brother in law is going out of town.  So I thought I would keep my sister company (she has running water!).



Have a wonderful remaining day.  I went outside today (it is a balmy 27 degrees outside) and heard more and more bird callings.  Spring is on its way!  Yehaa, bring it on!