Writer's Conference!

A week ago tonight I was in the vehicle heading home from beautiful Michigan, and an amazing writer's conference. I had a wonderful time there, meeting friends in real life for the first time who have meant a lot to me over the years in their own different ways. There wasn't nearly enough time to squeeze in all the visiting I wanted to do!

I learned a lot about the different available avenues of getting written work out there to be read, including the publishing process and social media. I learned some of the mechanics of writing and editing. I heard a LOT of inspiring speakers, reminding us that our measure of success is being obedient to God's voice, not in the number of books with our name on the front cover, or how many hits a blog post gets. We are writing for His glory.

I traveled with a dear, dear friend, and our time together was gloriously sweet and refreshing... what both of us needed, I believe! I was so encouraged and blessed spending time with this woman who has such a passionate heart for God, and for God's daughters. (If you need contact info for a motivational speaker, let me know!)

What does the aftermath of this conference mean for me? It means a lot of soul searching, facing up to a schedule overload, and the movement to a bigger and better (hopefully!) blog platform. It might be quiet around here for awhile until I can get some things organized and set up, as I only have so much time in my day and the kids get most of it. So, keep on the lookout for further updates and the announcement of the new blog, coming soon!

Water, Water, Everywhere

After my last post was a bit heavy, thought I'd lighten things up with what we've been doing lately! Most of all, just listening to it rain. It's been SO wet here, everything is soggy and muddy. I am so grateful we finally have some decent grass, so at least the mud isn't quite as close to the house. The poor horses and cows, though... October in Wisconsin is kind of miserable!


We've been working off and on at putting a front porch on our house, which included refinishing my grandma's old picnic table. I'm thrilled! I think I might actually eventually learn to like this house after all. (Just in case you're wondering, no, I haven't liked our house. I like the location and the property, but not the house. I think mostly because I was burned out from remodeling our previous house and not ready to face another huge project, and this one has been a whopper.) The most delightful part of our new porch is that we are putting a small second story balcony above part of it, which will be accessed from the master bedroom. I'm dreaming of being able to do my writing with a big westward view next summer!

The last two days have been very humid and warm, resulting in the yearly plague of Asian beetles and Boxelder bugs. Just stepping outside the door can feel like an aerobic exercise trying to keep them from going into the house and out of all convenient crevices on one's person. Thankfully it usually only lasts a short time, and we'll soon be back to normal exits and entrances.

The baby of the family finally moved out of her toddler bed into her own room and big girl bed. Not quite sure how ready I was for this progress (I won't confess how long I've been putting it off!), but she is thrilled. So thrilled, in fact, that she runs to put her jammies on as soon as supper is over, then comes to kiss us all goodnight before snuggling in... for about 10 minutes, until the sounds of the rest of us going about our evening are too enticing and she has to get up to check out what's up. The toddler bed and changing table/dresser have been sold, and all the clothes she's outgrown have found new homes. Sigh. But I'm super duper glad to be done with potty training and, for the most part, interrupted nights.

Overall, we've stayed pretty healthy and happy lately! Way too busy for our own good, I think, but that comes with the season as we frantically try to get everything we need to buttoned up before winter shows up... racing between raindrops.

A 2 year break... and I'm BACK!

So it's been about 2 years since I've update our little blog. Two years ago Sunday that we closed on our new house and moved our family onto a farm. What an epic 2 years it's been! Since I can't catch you up on everything that has transpired in the last two years, I'll hit some of the highlights.

The kids. Jaron just finished 5th grade. I can't believe I have a 6th grader coming up! He's 11, and growing so much in so many ways. He gave his heart to the Lord a couple of months ago, and we are so grateful. His current dreams are to be a well-drilling missionary doctor. I've told him that may be a bit much to handle... but I'm not going to discourage him from all God has for him! It helps him have a reason to dig into his school work and learn all he can now, and to save up for college some day. He attended 2 soccer camps last summer, which was an enjoyable new experience for him, though he has other things he wants to do with his summer this year, like helping me train the pony so he can ride Chief without a lead rope. His dearest dream is being able to chase cows on his spunky little friend!

Eliott finished 2nd grade in May. He is a huge help, and pretty much took over the mowing of our large yard. He loves machines, engines, and moving things. He's our self-proclaimed mechanic, taking apart everything we allow him to get his hands on. Every time we drive by someone mowing, he watches them as long as he can, dreaming of starting his own lawn care business as soon as we'll let him. He's been working with Jere a fair amount this summer, begging to go along to work to earn a little spending money... which he wisely spends on tools or puts in his savings account, mostly. He's been taking guitar lessons, and loving it!

Leanna is 2/3's of her way through 1st grade. I'm ok with that, as that means she's 2/3's of a year ahead! We're working at her pace, and she's excelling with the flexibility. Once summer break started, she decided she wanted to read the Little House books, so she's been working hard at that, and doing an amazing job reading far above "grade level". Whatever that's supposed to mean. Her greatest delight this summer is every 3 weeks she gets to plan a whole week's worth of supper meals, and help me make them.

And last but not least, is the firecracker of the family! Candice is 2, and keeps us well entertained with her pithy use of words too long for her little tongue. She is our youngest to stay dry all night without a diaper, and while summer has caused a relapse in the potty training department since she doesn't like to have to leave her play to potty, she's pretty much fully potty trained and I'm SO happy to be mostly done with that stage! Candi is by far the most active, energetic, and intense little person we've had. Some days she's a struggle for this introverted mama, and some days she's a great delight. She's standing next to me right now, as usual, cradling a baby doll in her arms, her horse baseball cap on, purse hanging from her shoulder, and the hem of her dress soaking from some water she just came in from playing with outside. She loves babies of all kinds, all of our animals, and all the people she meets.

The house we bought 2 years ago was in pretty sorry shape, as it was a foreclosure of a group home for mentally unstable adults. Fully furnished, including food in the cupboards, and not lived in for 3 years. It was an incredibly daunting task to think of taking on another such intense remodeling project so soon after just completing our last house, but for the price and with the acreage, it just seemed like it was right. It has consumed our "free" time, and most of our energy, just trying to get things livable. I'll make a separate post for descriptions of what we've been doing in that regard. In a snapshot, it's gone from a jungle to a working farm.

And on the farm end of things... as of this morning we have 13 cattle, including 4 calves just born in the last couple of weeks, with one more on the way. Tomorrow our steer goes to the locker, and soon we'll be enjoying some wonderful grass fed beef again! (If you want some, let us know. We have half still available for sale.) We just raised our 8th litter of Alaskan Malamute puppies, and said goodbye to the last one on Saturday. We acquired a second female last spring, so might have 2 litters next summer! Last fall we also adopted a little black mutt, who I hope will become my running partner. "Dixie" is thoroughly enjoyed by the children, while she grows up a bit before she can actually come running with me! Since last August we've added horses to the farm--an addition I couldn't be more excited about! We have a pony for the kids to enjoy, two adult females that were rescues, and a new little baby born 3 weeks ago who is the cutest thing EVER. So far we haven't been able to ride any except the pony, but I've been working with their training and hope to soon be riding the one who didn't have a baby. It's been a very sweet and demanding journey for me getting back into horses again after so many years, and the ones I have are quite challenging from a trainer's standpoint, being "older" horses who were either neglected or abused. But they have been also very therapeutic for me, in many ways.

Mama and baby

The last two years have been incredibly difficult ones for us. Underneath all the exhaustion of raising a family, remodeling our home, working the farm, and work, there has been a lot of things going on in our hearts. Difficult things, yet they have been good as well, as they have produced good fruit. Over the past number of years, we've come to an increased realization that we were missing the heart of God. He said to love... I chose to worry what people looked like and whether they were following the unwritten rules that spoke of being a "true" Christian (that were no where to be found in the Word of God). It would take a whole series of blog posts to even begin to touch the surface of where all we've grown in our spiritual lives, how our lives have changed so much for the better, and the healing Jesus has brought to the deep, dark, painful secrets and memories that used to haunt me. We've not "arrived", there are still hard days and hard situations, but the depression I've struggled with for years is gone. Beauty has meaning again. The colorlessness of life has burst into spring time. I am so grateful. So grateful for freedom... freedom from fear, freedom to love, freedom to revel in God creating me just how He wanted me, and He loves me.

GRATEFUL. THANKFUL. BLESSED.

New House, New Challenges

I have been SO, so busy. Since the middle of May we've moved into a camper, then bought 49 acres with another fixer upper house, fixed up enough that we can sleep in the house... and then my Dad, Mom, and youngest brother and sister moved into our camper. Never a dull moment! My family is here to help us out with our enormous project, and we're providing them a place to live while they're waiting for their next rental to become available.

So, what have we done to our new project house so far? Well, the biggest thing has been to have the house jacked up and put a full basement under it. With the extremely wet summer we've had, that has been a challenge.

The basement was finally fully enclosed just Tuesday, just in time for the heavy rains that caused a lot of flooding in our county. It's so nice to feel like everything is nice and tight again... minus the windows that don't have decent screens but we still need to have open!

Upstairs all we've done is take out the disgusting old carpet and put down all new laminate flooring, and added ceiling lights to all the bedrooms since they didn't have any. We'll paint later, when other things aren't so pressing. On the main floor we're tearing out walls and changing doorways and adding a stairs to the basement, gutting and completely redoing both the kitchen and the bathroom, putting down new flooring, and will be repainting everything. It's going to be amazing when it's done, but meanwhile.., we have 10 people living out of a camper kitchen and shower. Fun stuff, and making lots of memories!

We are into our second week of school now. Jaron is in Fourth grade, Eliott in First, and Leanna is doing Kindergarten. Candice's specialty is keeping us all hopping with her busy little self into everything and then some. Tundra presented us with a surprise litter of 11 little fluffballs, so that has a way of helping keep us busy too...

Candice and a puppy checking each other out.

But Mom, it's MUDDY!!!

Before and After

Before I get all excited about pictures of the new place we're buying, I'd better take the time to do as promised and post before and after pictures of the house we just sold! It turned out SO nice, I loved it once it was all done!

Outside--before it was moved onto our property.

After!

Living room before.

And after.

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Mudroom before

Mudroom after.

Laundry before...

...and after.

Main floor bathroom before.

After.

Office before.

Office after.

School room before.

School room after.

Girl's room before.

Girl's room after.

Boys' room before.

Boys' room after.

Master bedroom before.

Master bedroom after.

Upstairs bathroom (this is already after we tore out the tub, which was in the middle of the room).

Upstairs bathroom after.

So there's a sampling of what we've done. I decided to use empty pictures from after we moved out to showcase the work we actually did and not just our stuff and decorating skill (or lack thereof). We sure loved it while we had it, but we're really looking forward to new adventures too!

House for sale!

Yes, it finally officially up for sale! Not officially finished, as there are still a spot or two that need a touch of paint and a pane of glass to be replaced on a warm day, but our purposes it's done enough to be for sale. It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. One of these days I hope to compile all the before and after photos to one post so you can see how far we've come. Meanwhile, it's time to finish cleaning... and trying to keep things clean in an already muddy "spring" with 4 little children who vacillate between the great outdoors and the comfy indoors. Well, all except the littlest, but she is already learning how to keep Mama busy!

Speaking of Candice, she is growing and is maturing at an incredible speed. She lost a little time at the beginning of January when she was dealing with teething and an ear infection at the same time, but now she is trying valiantly to make up for it all she can. She has SEVEN teeth in already! After spending a good portion of the day eating to make up for lost time, she spends her time crawling around the floors and pulling up on anything she can get a handle on, which is leading to trouble already. Mostly yet having to watch that what she's pulling up on won't land on her head as did a wooden stool and a laundry basket yesterday, but it won't be long and we'll be having to rescue things from her little grip! At only 6 months old, we think she's pretty impressive.

The last of our litter of puppies went to his new home yesterday, but we replaced the puppies with a brood of new chicks who will become our laying hens. Never a dull moment around here. Ever. The laying hens we do have are starting to pick up their laying again now that things are warming up around here, which we're very glad for! And it's almost time to wean last summer's calves so the mamas can fatten up for their new babies this spring. And for other news around the farm, I have also started some seedlings in preparation for the garden this spring. We'll see how fast the house sells as to if I ever actually get to enjoy the fruit of my labors, but it's worth a try at least!

Back in late summer we purchased 2 wrecked vehicles and had Jere's brother fix them for us, intending to sell one and use the funds from that to pay off the other. Well, after driving them both some through the winter we decided they weren't for us (or maybe I should say I didn't care for them at all) and have been working at selling them both. We finally sold the one last week, and so are beginning to keep our eyes open for our next family vehicle. I'm looking forward to settling down in to one vehicle again!

So it seems life has a way of keeping us hopping! If anyone would like to volunteer to come help me clean house I'm taking applications...

6 months old! And wintertime stories...

I can't hardly believe our baby is 6 months old already. And what a big bundle of joy she is! Though I must admit the last month has had its challenges. Starting out the month with a cold wasn't fun, but then about the time she got over the cold she started crying at night. A LOT. I attributed it to teeth, of which she had 2 and three more on the way in. But one morning she woke up with ear drainage, so we took her to the clinic and here she'd had an ear infection, complete with a ruptured ear drum! No signs at all--no fever, no pulling at her ear, only the very explainable crying at night. She's been doing better since then, despite poking two more teeth though and one more start swelling. For a total of 4 teeth in and two almost. Yes, she is ahead of schedule! As is usual for her. The official report from the clinic, a week before she turned 6 months, was she weighed in at 20 pounds, and was 26 inches long.

Over the past month Candice's physical abilities have been blooming as well. She is ever so close to crawling, easily crawling backwards with reciprocal motion, and has gone forward just a bit a time or two. She rolls both ways, and pushed up to sitting. Using all these modes of movement, she travels quite a bit! And gets herself stuck. Thankfully she has big brothers who love to help her out!

Our winter is a real Wisconsin winter. Which is different than a real northern MN winter, which makes it hard for me when people are fussing about the "blizzard" we had recently. I didn't see any blizzard, just for the record. (Nevermind we probably couldn't get out the driveway right now even with the truck due to blowing snow...) But anyway, I'm happy with the winter we are having! We have enough snow to make it fun to have an all wheel drive vehicle, and it's not super cold, barely getting below zero. The children all have been thoroughly enjoying sledding, skating, and making a snowman. I'm so grateful it's warm enough for them to enjoy the snow, AND that they're all big enough to pretty much bundle themselves up!

We have been busily getting our house finished. Almost there, and it's such a joy to see final details being nailed in place. To see pictures of the rooms as they're getting finished you can check out my photo album here. I put new pictures in it as we get each room done. Hopefully we'll have a few more to add by the end of the week!

Another project we have going at the moment is another adorable litter of Alaskan Malamute puppies. We have 7, and they are all sold. Two more weeks and they should be gone! We enjoy them, but it will be nice to have our chores cut down on again.