Is that the light?

Hello again to everyone.  Let me take a moment to take a breath here.  It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks.  So much has happened and we are so excited about it all (we can't not be excited because it is just plain old exciting.) 

Taking in the view

We have had so many visitors, it has been so great.  It has been nice to have distractions.  We have been hard at work that it is really great to have people come and hang out.  The first to arrive were our friends Lisa, Scott, Cocoa and Bella.   

Cocoa

They brought their camper, which was great because they were able to stay for a while.   Of course, as many of you will attest, we will conscribe you into slave labor while you are here.  Scott helped Tom pour the pillars for our porch and he helped him to make sure that the posts were level.  We are very grateful for that!  We could have had a very sloping porch, which would have caused us problems since the bathroom is going out there.   Unimaginable!!!!  While they were here my friend Sharon and her family came up for the day.  The kids loved it because they were able to hang out with their friends for a while.  Tasha felt a little homesick after Lauren left.  But nevertheless, it was a wonderful time.  Nadine and Logan played in the car, something they have done for always (it is quite cute) and walked along the ROW.  The older "kids" (can't call them that anymore really) hung out and explored the property a bit.

Next came my in-laws who had just returned from a trip out west.  Finally my friend Sue and her husband came for a visit when they returned from a relaxing weekend at a VT B&B.  It was a real blessing to have them come too, because Jim was not afraid to help Tom get some pretty difficult work done.  The windows on the main floor.  They are large and the floor is high up.  Tom was wondering how he was going to get that done without Sean.  But Jim slung a hammer while Sue and I clung to the window on the inside and prayed that neither would fall down 15 feet.  Everything went as well as it was supposed to.

Now to backtrack:  Ahemmmmm, (this is me taking a breath).  The house (I say house because it sure looks and feels like one) is coming along really great.  It is amazing how things come together.  Tom and I can just look at each other and smile.  It started with the septic system.  Thank you for praying!!  We are drawing up new set of plans, cheaper to install and easier to maintain.  Praise God.  The plans will be submitted and we will get them back in November.  A little close to winter and really cold weather, but God will provide.  Next the doors, which we needed to install to make the house warmer and to close it up for winter. 

Very rustic

Tom built a very nice and rustic door (now the jury is divided on their impression of the door, Sean does not like it.  I love it, Tasha loves it too and so everyone is overruled :)))  It keeps the cold out nicely and the window is wonderful because it lets in some light which we need on the north side of the house.  It is rather rustic and the door knob is a little bit of a problem, but the house is going to be rustic!!  So it will fit.  So, we were praying for God to provide for the septic, well  and windows.  We forgot the little things, which is understandable.  He didn't.  He knew we needed other doors.  So, He once again provided through our friends through the youth gathering.  Not only did they have some doors which fit our opening, they also had won at a raffle a coupon for mound sand and gravel.  They have no need for that, but we sure do.  So we now have doors ready to install.  Then the problem of the windows.  We just didn't like the price (too much) for the windows.  But after long deliberation and prayer, Tom ordered them and the shop gave us a great discount.  It was great.

Good old car

The same weekend we were in Keene to check it out and of course to go to Home Depot.  While there Tom found out that they were having a huge sale on insulation, I mean great prices, and so we loaded up the poor Subaru (I think it was getting a little bored for just being used as a means of transport and wanted to do some real work).  It brought the bundles of insulation safely to the property and then the truck (Sean's little baby) was used to get some more.  While waiting for the windows we started put up the insulation and it has made a huge difference.  We first felt it when we started doing the roof.  Almost immediately we felt the warmth stay in the house a little longer.  We actually sat on the second floor and watched a movie even though we had decided not to do that anymore because we were all getting too cold.  The warmth stayed in the house much longer.  So while Lisa and Scott were here I was at my best slave driving.  Natasha finished the insulation while I talked with my friends.  She did a really good job and stayed at it.  Her job was just to cut the pieces and Tom stapled them in.

living room windows

  Once all the insulation was in place the house was pretty warm.  Now that the windows are in we are nice and snug. As you can see, there is a ton of light coming in.  I is great.  In the morning we can see the sun rise just above the trees and that is just great. 

 

Because we had Tyvek paper and plastic up on the windows before hand, the light really didn't have a chance to come through.  But now, amazing.  It reminds me of our spiritual life.  Before we get rid of the self in our heart we know that there is something beyond our view.  We can feel some of the light and heat.  We can smell the things on the other side, and we are aware that there is another "world" out there.  We just can't see it.  We know there are trees, birds and leaves etc.  Once we got those windows, I was amazed and just couldn't get over the similarities.  The picture of all of us was taken with the Tyvek and plastic.  The difference is just astounding.  I love that Christ will give us that beauty once we are ready for it.  Amazing, but it is only once we are willing to get rid of that old self.  The self righteousness, the self pity and all the selfs we cling on to.  And it will hurt to get rid of them, but then again, Christ bled for us too.  It only hurts for a little bit, but then, sunrise and fall foliage!

Enjoy these pictures Tasha took.

Zee Piano must go in

Hello from the cozy loft

Hello again from beautiful Vermont.  Yes we are still having fun. The leaves have indeed started to change but we will not discuss that in the present company, please.  The nights are also getting cooler (no comment on that either, please) and the days are shorter (again no comments needed here).  No, there has thankfully been no sighting of snow.  I want to bring you up to date on what we are doing, what's a happening in our crazy life.

Notice the title of today's blog?  It is very important.  Now, those of you with younger children or involved with children may or may not know which famous and academy award winning show/movie it is from and also which word has been changed.  I don't know if you knew that we had a piano.  It is an old one, which is out of tune because it can't be tuned anymore.  It has been Natasha's faithful companion through many tearful practices of songs she disliked and also many more hours of pleasure and joy on her part.  Logan had also begun to play it and have some lessons on it.  When we were getting ready to move the question was to bring it or not.  Finally we left it, that if we had room in the U-Haul it would come.  It did come.  It took a lot of people to move the thing from where it was in out living/dining room to the door.  6 of us heaved and hawed and sweated during that humid day.  To get it onto the truck was a little easier, since we had Sean bring his truck up to the steps (it took a couple of tries to get the truck just right) and roll it over to the U-Haul.

The piano

Once we were on the property, we had a dilemma.  There were only 4 of us left and we had to move it into the basement of the house.  After about 2 hours of deliberation and trying this and that, we finally were able to move it onto a skid Tom had built out of 8 by 8 and other pieces of wood.  After we secured it with rope, tarp and wrapped it up tightly and covered it with a metal roof there it rested.  Tasha gave some out door concerts and the wildlife was very happy with her.  This was August.  It is now September and the weather is going to change (not that I will admit to any change in weather mind you) and Tom decided that the poor piano could not stay outside forever.  But how to move it from its temporary spot to the inside of the basement, some 20 feet away, without totally destroying it.  This is a very, very scientific method so please take notes in case you ever find yourself in this kind of situation.
 Materials:
Prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer

The Subaru, white

 1 Subaru Outback, white 

The look out after a long day

2 Very helpful assistants and a look out (age no younger than 10)
Did I mention prayer
Lots of rope
1 piece of plywood
Lots of assorted pieces of wood

How to get it in

Outside the basement door

 I do not have to tell you that there was more prayer involved that in any of the other projects.  Tom came up with these ingenious contraptions with which we moved the piano, like on a sledge, from where it was to outside the basement door.  It took about 4 hours to get it that far.  We had to put the plywood under this contraption and the Subaru pulled the whole thing along, very, very slowly.  By the time we got the whole thing to the door, it was about 4 PM (we had started at about 11).  We had to debate how we were going to twist the piano so it could get into the door.  The Subaru was moved again and slowly we pulled only the back end of the piano around.  It actually worked.  It took about an hour to do this part.  Now to get it into the house. 

Sean came home
to save the day!

 The Subaru was moved up to the ROW and we tried to pull it into the basement.  It didn't want to go.  And then, after Tom prayed yet another time, who should show up to save the day?  Sean!  We had that thing in the basement within 15 minutes.  Then he asked what we had been doing all day.  He is recovering well.

But here is the thing with the title.  It was in one of the Vegitales movies and all day long we were saying, "Zee piano must go in".  Now, we did change the last word.  Who got it right?  It was up instead of in.  It had been a long, hard day with a lot of thinking, listening to God, and maneuvering.

The next day was a Tyveking day.  It took a good long time to get the whole house Tyveked.  There was a lot of prepwork to be done.  We had some parts of the walls that needed to be closed up better and that took about 2 days. The eves were very difficult to put up but I am glad to tell you that since last Wednesday, all the eves are covered.  The windows are covered for now and we have plastic up until we have windows.  We just got a good quote from a local place so I think we are going with it.  The next hurdle to overcome is the septic system.  Tom is not happy with the one we are suppose to put in.  It is too complicated and too many things can go wrong.  It needs too much maintenance and the company which sells it just sold it to another place.  They are not very forth coming with their answers.  So, please pray that we will get a good system in there.  We are talking to septic builders and here too God gave us an answer because they all mentioned another system which is a lot easier to install and to maintain.  So we are hoping to get that system in.

We are all doing really quite well.  I got sick twice so far, once a real doozer.  I had the fever and all that.  It was not fun.  But we are so thankful that we can be here.  We just had the neighbors stopping by.  They are an older couple and they live across town.  Very nice couple, who built their own house too, and have a wealth of info for us, the greenhorns.  I have come to understand Vermonters a little better, perhaps.  They are incredibly independent.  They don't want anyone in their business.  They will not give a hand easily but if there is a need to be met then they are all over that one.   

This is how Tasha sleeps

He is so cute

For now we are snug as a bug in the little CABIN (I have upgraded our shed, it is more dignified).  Tom and I have moved up to the loft and the kids are all sharing the space downstairs.  Sean sleeps with the dog, who starts out at his feet under the blanket and ends up making his way up to his hips by the end of the night.  It is like a den of children down there.  I had to get up in the middle of the night and after stepping off the ladder, I first stepped on the dog (it was still early in the night) then on Logan and then I stepped on Sean again.  It is so cozy down there.  But the most important thing for me is that we are pretty content and happy.  At night we will be messing around and the kids will be joking with each other, picking on the person who entertained us in our sleep the night before.  That person is usually Sean, who really has a lot to say in his sleep.

 The whole family is pulling together, working as one unit, with God at the head and us following what He is giving us.  There are moments when all this becomes very daunting.  I was driving down the road to get another quote for windows.  The road was winding and quite beautiful and I was struck that sometimes I can only trust God as far as I can see on the road.  He is stretching me to continue to make me trust Him beyond the corner.  The road doesn't stop just because we can't see what is around the corner.  It is still there.  God is telling me that even though I don't know what the condition of the road is, He does, and He will provide a way for me to travel on that road.  It might be a little bumpy (believe me, the road I'm driving on is a dirt road with ruts and bumps) but in the end I will still be safe, and I will get to my destination.  

I hope you are all doing well.  Enjoy the days that God has given us all.

Moving

Moving day

Hello my dear friends.  I have missed talking to you.  A lot has happened, as usual.  We are now in VT.  Our house in CT closed and we have relocated to the Green Mountain State, as VT is called.  It has been a real challenge for me in the beginning.  We got here the first day and the reality of it hit me a little bit.  We had just spent a whirlwind two weeks without a house.  At first we stayed with my brother in law Doug and his family, which was just wonderful.  We got to watch the Olympics with them and that was a hoot.  Boy, staying up until midnight every night was challenging.  One night we were all getting a little silly and judged me as I made my way out of the recliner.  I stuck my landing!!!

Do you see the recliner? I got a 10

We spent the next week house sitting for a co-worker of Nichole's in Simburry (who had a nice pool).  We were really blessed with this because I had committed to helping with Faith Quest, a VBS program that all my kids have helped with or attended the last 5 years.  That went really well and we were really glad to be participating in it.  That weekend we left CT for good to take up our quest of the pioneers here in VT.

The weather has been great and I think that us all being up here has really caused us to relax and our stress levels have gone down a little.  That is not to say that we all have not had our moments of challenge.  For me it came the first couple of days when we came up here before we had Faith Quest.  I was bothered by everything.  But our Lord was so wonderful that he sent us not just one, but a pair of hawks who made their home right in the trees next to our driveway.  They were talking back and forth all weekend long and stayed when my parents in law came for a visit.  Talk about being thankful.  I love birds and especially birds of prey so this was definitely special to me.  I felt God once again was assuring me that He was with us and that I would be all right, no matter what.

One of the cute little birds

Sean on the roof

Since we have been here, as I said the whole family seems to be taking a big breath.  Sean was having a lot of trouble just adjusting to his new boss and the way he was working.  Sean is used to order.  He works well with a plan and such things.  Things have to make sense.  The farrier he is working with is not that way.  He has been doing it for a long time (40 years) and so he is not going to be listening to a young upstart who has been doing this for 3 years.  The farrier he was working with in CT was a wonderful teacher and he had a reason for everything he was doing.  It went well with Sean's personality.  So when we got here and before, he was very upset and just didn't like the way things were going.  Since then he has become just very relaxed and he seems to be adjusting well.  Logan of course is doing great.  He loves it here especially when he now has his Legos with him again.  Natasha had issues when she joined us the first few days.  I had arranged it for her to visit Grandma and Grandpa so that she could stay in "civilization" for a little longer and take her showers (about 45 min long).  When she joined us the house was not done!!!!  We didn't have the roof up or anything and it just hit her like a ton of bricks that this was reality and there was no escaping it.

More cement!!!!

The rear of the house

She did have a melt down which was understandable and we just helped her through it.  Today we were talking and she agreed that it was really nice to not have to live in two locations.  She is adjusting.  That week was really hard for her since she found a ground nest of hornets and got stung 5 or 6 times.  Then as were were fixing the walls on the septic side, the ladder slipped and hit her on the head and back.  That hurt and she was out of commission for the rest of the day.

The driveway side

Since then things have calmed down considerably.  We even have a phone, but it is a little tricky.  We don't get really good reception (actually we have to hike the mountain or go into town) so Natasha can't talk to her friend Esther for hours and hours.  But we will get it right.  We ordered the roofing, which is metal roofing, and had to wait for it to come in.  That gave us time to go explore and get other things done around the house.  We now have the beginning of a winter supply of chopped and stacked wood, which is very nice.  The walls are all screwed in on the outside and that was actually a big job because it gets really hot out there and the ground is really uneven.  So once the roofing came in, on Saturday, we got to town.  As you can see it is quite a way up there and so how were we going to get the roof up there.  But Tom figured all that out, no problem.  We worked 4 days straight in the heat and got the roof done.  Last night, Logan, Tom and myself had dinner in the house on the bedroom level up top and watched "The Incredibles", a movie we had not watched in 2 years. Tom got my school boxes out and I was happy to see that I had the right books for what I planned to teach Logan this year.  That was great.  Natasha is going to continue to take classes on line through the library.  She is taking a poetry class right now and loves it. 

When our things were delivered by Home Depot on Saturday everyone got busy.  Tom and Sean took turns on the roof and Tasha, Sean and myself were hauling the sheets of roofing up.  It was high tension and high activity time.

Over all this has been a great month.  We are actually going to CT this weekend for a birthday party so that will be nice.  Enjoy the pictures.  They were not taken by Natasha, as the quality will prove.

A visit is always welcome

Chet loves it!!

Have hoist, will lift!

Tom, superman.

Can you see my bulging muscles?

Heave ho!!!

Too much for me!

Batter up!!

Living room

Logan's room

This is just fine for now

Time for a break

LEGOS

Hoist it up already!

It is done!!!!

What is next you ask?  The walls need to be finished, then tivec has to go on the outside.  Next the windows, and then the rest!  It will be done in no time!  Have a great holiday weekend.