Monthly post

Here is what seems to be now my monthly post.  I'm not avoiding blogging, my computer and I just haven't really found time to be with one another lately.

The garden is producing lots of stuff at the moment and I've been canning pickles, carrots, black-eyed peas and squash.  Pickled okra is scheduled for canning tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a baby shower given by some wonderful women.  For the most part, I think we are ready for little E to come, just not right now.....he/she needs to grow quite a bit more!  I don't think I've actually posted a picture of me pregnant yet, so here's one....I find it awkward posing for these kinds of pictures. 

Yep, we're officially ready, we've got the Packer outfit!

The house is almost done! That is the exciting news that's happened in the past couple of weeks.  We have lots of re-organizing to do, but that just means we are close to being done.  We were considering some changes to our kitchen, cabinets/counter tops etc., but I think we've now decided that we need to just stop where we are right now and we can do that at another time.  This has been a project and a half, but we are happy we did it and we love the results.

The new addition now actually has furniture and the windows are trimmed out!

Mr. E is an expert door installer now.

New front door, hopefully will keep the scorpions out!

Living room flooring, wood-grain tile.

New kitchen flooring.

Anyway, that's about all I have time for today.  I've been watching my niece today and I think she's waking up from her nap.  I'd better go check. 

Behind

I'm so behind!! I've got lots to do today, but when life is so busy, what better way to get things done than to blog?! :) 

The end of June/early July began with an eleven day road trip up to Montana.  We went through eight different states and put about 3500 miles on our vehicle.  It was a great trip.  We had our problems, which included a flat tire, check engine lights and a hot night of camping, but the fun and great times outweighed them.  Even with the problems we saw God taking tremendous care of us.  Like the flat tire.....we were on some treacherous and lonely roads many times, but the flat tire happened ten minutes outside of a town on a flat stretch of highway with a roadside turnout right there.  (I apologize for all the prepositional phrases in that sentence.)  After four days of camping, we were giving the opportunity to stay in someone's semi-luxurious cabin (the only thing it didn't have was electricity) for the next three days!  It was a blessing to us.  Not that the camping was bad at all, it was nice to have a permanent place to sleep instead of unpacking and packing up everyday.  Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Fishing in Yellowstone NP

Old Faithful about to spew

One of the many animals we saw.

Fishing on a backroads creek.

I fished too, but I also liked to find a place to sit down!

July 4th sunset

One of the places we camped, hard to beat that view from the tent!

The backdrop Mr. E had for fixing the tire......The Grand Tetons.

Us

The view from our semi-luxurious cabin.

While we were gone, we had a contractor working on our house.  He taped, mudded, and textured our new addition and some other things that we changed in the house.  He also laid new tile in our livingroom and hallway.  Oh yeah, on top of doing the addition we also decided to replace all the flooring in our house.  I, the one who likes everything in her house to be neat and tidy and everything in its place, am having to learn lots of patience (and blindness!) with all that is going on.  Currently, my dresser is in my livingroom and most of the livingroom furniture is in the kitchen.  Mr. E is working so hard to get it all done!  The addition was painted last night and the lights were installed.  Here are a couple of updated pictures.

We are currently enjoying some cooler weather (70s), with some rain.  Thank you Lord! We are in desperate need of rain. 

I have more that I could write about, but I need to get moving on with other things. 

Whirlwind

Our lives seem like a whirlwind nowadays.  We spend most of our spare time in the addition, trying to finish it up.  We finally feeling like we are getting somewhere.  The sheet rock is almost done!  It's been one of the most time consuming parts of the build.  Thankfully we had lots of help, we couldn't have done ourselves, as I'm not too much help.  Here are a few more pictures. 

The sheet rock hoist was a back saver!

I'm going to love my 9x6' closet!

All the outside walls are finally up and ready for siding, we now have to climb through the window to get in!

I'm hoping we will be done with this project by the end of July.  Lord willing, that will give me a few months to get this house organized before Little E comes.

Speaking of Little E......the two questions that I've been asked the most frequently are, "How are you doing/feeling?" and "Do you know yet if it is a boy or a girl?"  As to the first question, I'm doing fine.  I've had an "easy" pregnancy so far.  The gender question.....we aren't finding out, we've decided to be surprised when the baby comes.  I know, it's out of the ordinary these days, but we like to be different.

Switching gears.  I'm working through a study this summer on thoughts that we have.  When I first said I would help with this class, I didn't really expect that it would pertain that much to me.  Ha!  God has such a sense of humor.  I'm really good at having a running conversation in my head with myself throughout the day.  When I sat back and thought through what I think about, it isn't always uplifting.  I tend to be a pessimist and I'm good at it!  I'm also really hard on myself, expecting perfection at all times.  The author of the book challenged us at the end of week one with
Philippians 4:8:

If it is true, I will meditate on it.
If it is honorable, I will think about it today.
If it is right, I will dwell on it today.
If it is pure, I will fix my  thoughts on it.
If it is lovely, I will give it shelf space in my thought closet.
If it is of good repute, I will meditate on it today.
If it is excellent, I will let it be the sound track in my thought closet.
If it is worthy of praise, I will deliberate on it today.

I've still had my pessimistic moments, but trying to focus on this verse has really helped me not to get bogged down, especially with all that is going on in our lives.  My focus should be on God and what He is actually doing in my life, not making up "what if" scenarios in my head that most of the time aren't true, right, lovely, excellent, etc.

Happy Monday everyone, hope you have a great week!

Confession

I mentioned a few months ago that God decided to change some of the plans we had.   Those changes caused somewhat of a domino effect in our lives, changing the direction of our plans for the future.  I guess it is time to confess what the main change is.  We are not only are we putting an addition on our house, we are also adding an addition to our family.   Mr. E and I are excited to meet the new little "E" sometime in the fall. 

Early in January,  I felt like God was telling me to pray for a child, so I did.  He brought the verse, I Samuel 1:27, "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him." to my mind.  I don't know why, it isn't a verse that I had memorized, but I had seen it several times.  He also put it on Mr. E's heart as well, although neither one of us mentioned it to the other one for a week or so.  The Lord didn't take long to answer our prayers and those prayers continue as the baby grows.  I sometimes wonder why God has chosen to give us a child (it's scary to think of me as a mom, there are far more qualified people!), but we are extremely blessed that He did!  It is one of the best changes of plans that I've ever had! :)

Mother's Day

I have the best mom.  I know I wrote a post a few months ago about my family and mentioned how great my mom is, but it is definitely worth talking about again.  I call her all the time, asking all kinds of questions because I think she knows something about everything.  I still have yet to figure out how she does everything that she does.  She is a great wife, mom, teacher, author, quilter, gardener, household manager (that's a broad category!) and a bunch of other things, the list could go on and on.  She loves all of us kids very much and although we aren't perfect and can be aggravating :), she still loves us anyway.  Her attitude through the adversity in her life is amazing, leaning on the Lord through things that I don't know that I would be able to handle as well as she does. I would consider my mom the best mentor in my life, spiritually and in the everything else.  She is a great example to me and I hope that I will be just like her.  However, she does set the bar high as a mom.

This post doesn't do her justice, but hopefully it gives her a little credit for all she has done for me. I'm so thankful that God gave her to me as my mom.

Addition in Pictures

Mr. E and friends have been working so hard on this addition! I'm impressed with all that they have accomplished.  Here are pictures of the progress over the past month or so. 

4 years ago

I just looked through my past May blog posts and I never have blogged about this day.  I mentioned it once but didn't really expound.  This was the day in 2009 that I married Jared.  It is hard to believe that it has been four years.  These kinds of days are still very much etched in my brain.  I can still remember vivid details about this day.  I've heard that a lot of people don't remember their wedding day and refer to it all as blur, but that isn't the case for me.  However, the one thing that has changed in past four years is that I don't dread these days.  I first remembered that this day was approaching this past Saturday.  I was on a mini road trip by myself and one of Carrie Underwood's songs, "Just a Dream" began to play on my iTunes, the chorus always takes me back to those early days after Jared went to heaven....

Baby why'd you leave me
Why'd you have to go?
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
I can't even breathe
It's like I'm looking from a distance
Standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream

Sometimes it does seem like it was all a dream, but I know it wasn't.  There are too many memories and "scars" (that isn't the right word, but it is all I can come up with tonight) for it to have been a dream. I have very conflicting thoughts when it comes to days like today.  I am so blessed and happy in my life now and I wouldn't change anything about it.  However, it is hard not to think about my other life on days like today.  Someone told me about a lady who recently lost her high school aged teenage son.  She said something along the lines of....

His days were numbered before he was born. 
God never planned for him to graduate from high school.
She was never going to see him get married.
He was never going to have children.
and God knew all of these things before he was born.

I can say things that are similar.  My life as Jared's wife was only going to be 10 weeks.  That was all God ordained for us.  We would never have children together.  We would never grow old together.  I think you get the point.  However, I still am thankful that I have this day to remember.  I wouldn't have wanted to have the alternative of never knowing Jared.  Also, God has been so good to me and I've learned so much about Him that I wouldn't ever trade it all.

I am also incredibly thankful that God allowed me get married again and Lord willing, we will have long life together, creating our own memories that we will be able to look back on............together.