Sunrise . . . Sunset . . .

My view out every window at our house on the acreage is incredible! Since I don't have much time for writing, I thought I'd at least give you a glimpse into the world around me.

We call it God's Splendor.

SUNRISE . . .

SUNSET . . .

Since it's December 31, 2006, I thought I'd briefly reflect on the year. One phrase sums it all up: "God is Faithful." This is actually the theme of my life in general, but 2006 has particularly ringed true of this reality.

In January 2006 Wayne was working in Saskatoon at a job we thought was secure. Two days after returning to work after the Christmas break, he was laid-off. We had bills to pay and only his one week of remaining pay plus proceeds from the sale of a litter of puppies to live off of. But within days of searching for a new job, Wayne was offered a welding position at a company located 1.25 hours away from home. With much thought, prayer and deliberation, he took the job. It was the best decision we made as a family, because it led us to our current home.

Our mutual dream of living in the country became a reality in 2006, and it is only by God's grace that we are where we are today. God has brought us through many trials, joys, frustrations, tests and times of uncertainty this year, but we are grateful for the growth we've experienced both personally and spiritually as a result of the bad news Wayne received at the beginning of 2006. One year ago today I didn't think I'd be writing from my large, beautiful home in the country at the end of 2006!

Enough rambling.

Bottom line: God is good. God is gracious. God has blessed us immeasurably! Thank you, God!

I'm Back - But I'm Busy

Hello, everyone! It appears that despite my absence from the blogging world, several of you were still checking out my site. THANKS! I was pleasantly surprised to discover that because of my blog, I've been able to reconnect with some old friends in this new-fashioned way of communicating. Yeah!

So, obviously since the move, life has been super busy. And it appears that it will continue to be this way for quite some time. Please bear with me as I establish my daily routine at our new home, which definitely will include my blogging column. For the next month or so I may not be able to blog every day like I had planned, but in time I will start that again.

Please keep checking for new posts, pictures and information.

I'm dying to share my wealth of opinions with you. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Moving Day - Part One

A Hallway Full of Boxes - No Room to Walk!

More Boxes . . .

Our Moving Equipment

Our Little Helpers

More Help

Assessing the Situation . . .
~~~

December 15 - "Moving Weekend" officially begins. Wayne, my dad, and our friend Paul move everything out of our double-detached garage, sans white truck (my nemesis!). Mom and I pack up the kitchen. It never seems to end! Mom brings lunch (thanks, Mom!) and Julie brings supper (thanks, Jules!). Wayne and teenage friend Joel, as well as my dad, make a trip out to the acreage to "deliver" the goods to the machine shop. Terrible weather. Return home safely and all is well. Get rest. Big day tomorrow.

December 16 - "The Big Move". HORRIBLE, stormy weather. Basement garage, plus ALL boxes are loaded into the trailer. My nemesis (the white truck) is towed away to the acreage. Hooray! In-between this, we consume yummy Vern's Pizza for lunch. Five men and one 7-year old are are presently unloading the basement garage plus all the boxes at the acreage. Me, my parents and Ty stay back to recuperate/make supper/clean/BLOG! We await the safe arrival back of our moving crew (a.k.a. great friends and family) so that they can eat supper, load up the rest of our earthly possessions (mostly furniture left now), and make another trip out to the acreage. Estimate Time of Completion: Midnight.

We are in the midst of a severe winter storm. The roads are not great and visibility is poor. Obviously we picked the worst day of winter 2006 to move! But who knew? Last weekend we had great weather. . . it just didn't stay long enough for us to benefit. But I'd actually have this rather than -30 or -40, so I think we'll just look on the bright side and be happy that the temperature is reasonable at least.

This weekend move has not been as stressful as I had imagined. But there are a lot of people to thank for that, namely: Mom & Dad, Wayne, Mitchell & Tyrone, Aaron & Norma, Greg & Erin, Paul & Julie, Joel, Henry, Will, Harold, Derek and Josh. I hope I didn't forget anyone else who's given us help with this move in one way, shape or form. We wouldn't have been able to do it without you!

So tomorrow the clean-up at our current home continues (I know, it's Sunday, but we're not able to take a break just yet) . . . I've got to go get supper finished for my moving crew. I'll post more in Moving Day - Part Two sometime in the future.

I Must Take a Break

So, as much as I love to blog, I'm finding that I need to take a break from writing for a couple of weeks. In order to succeed at actually moving from our current home to the acreage, I am basically banning myself from the computer completely, with the exception of checking e-mails and occasionally checking my own blog for comments and traffic reports.

We are doing the BIG MOVE this Saturday, December 16th, and there is still so much to be done here as far as last-minute packing and cleaning. I know that if I don't ban myself from the computer, I'll never get my work done. Like, if I decide to take a 10-minute break and check out the blogging world, that 10 minutes often turns into 40 or 50 minutes. Not good. So therefore, I'm making myself do this so that I can get my work done.

Our Internet access at the acreage will have to wait until after Christmas, so I'm not sure when my next post will be. But I've already been thinking of topics and titles to write about. Here's a sneak peak at what's ahead: "FOG - Following Our God"; "Sentimental Bathroom"; "Sisterhood" and probably one entitled "Moving Day", or something about our move in general. I look forward to writing on these topics soon! Please keep checking, though. You never know when I may sneak something in!

Au revoir, and Merry Christmas!

P.S. Have I mentioned that this whole "owning our own acreage" is a surreal experience? We went out on Saturday to show my parents the place, and I just kept thinking to myself, "This actually belongs to us. We're the owners!" Hard to believe, but true. After an extensive tour of the house and yard, my dad said to me, "Kim, I'll trade you my place for yours." I responded, "No, thanks, dad. I think I'll keep my place." I guess he really liked it!

Snow Angel

On Friday afternoon before Wayne left for the day, he backed into our sloped driveway and loaded up the car with boxes to drop off at our acreage on his way to work. Unfortunately, when he tried to leave, the car got stuck, and it seemed like the more he tried to get out, the worse things became. He's gotten himself out of some serious jams in the past, so I didn't go out immediately to help him. But after several minutes of his trying, and the car "burning rubber", I went to help. I "drove" and he pushed, but after a few minutes of doing this, we were no further ahead than when it all began.

I was thinking to myself, "I wonder where our neighbors are?" We have awesome neighbors here, and had any of them realized what was going on, they would have immediately come out to give Wayne a hand. But I guess no one was home. Or they didn't hear the car straining to move.

As we kept on trying to get out of the icy rut, "someone" appeared, almost out of nowhere, to give Wayne a hand. He didn't say much, just something like, "It looks like you've almost got it." He helped us push the car out, we thanked him, and he ran off.

I asked Wayne if he knew the guy and he said "No." I asked him if he'd ever seen the guy before and he said, "No." I asked him if he saw which house he'd come running from and Wayne said, "No." I quit asking questions and sent a silent prayer up to God, thanking him that this person had come to help us.

Several hours later I began to play the whole "getting stuck" scenario over in my head again, and started to consider that the "person" who came to help us, was possibly an angel. (I realize I'm going out on a "theological limb" here, but I'm still going to share my thoughts on this because I find this sort of thing fascinating.)

Perhaps you don't believe in angels who appear to mortal man in human form, but I've heard many stories in my lifetime about unexplainable experiences involving "mini miracles" by the way of these "angels" providing assistance at just the right time and place when believers are in a crisis. I've named our angel "Snow Angel" because he came to help us get out of the snow when we were in a crisis.

Snow Angel did not look familiar to me. And I know the neighborhood folk . . . not all by name, but I certainly recognize them as people who live on our street. No one new has moved in here for at least a year, and I've met, or at least seen all the new people. Also, he just seemed to "appear" out of nowhere, and if I'd had any notion at the time that he was possibly an angel, I would've paid closer attention to where he went after he took off from our place.

Although Snow Angel appeared human, wearing jeans and a plaid lumber jacket, he looked peaceful and serene. He was in his mid-twenties, not very tall or big, about average in size. He had blond hair, blue eyes and a warm smile. (His appearance was actually that of what I anticipate my youngest son, Ty, to look like when he reaches adulthood). As he was leaving, he turned to smile and wave to us. He barely spoke (just the words I mentioned earlier), but he was gracious and helpful.

In our last days of living on this street, I'm going to keep my eyes open for our Snow Angel. But I don't expect to see him, because I think God sent him to help with the car, just at the right moment. And if he's not Snow Angel, then I will give him the name "Good Samaritan."

Forgotten Christmas

I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of year. Because Christmas is held in winter, winter is my favorite season (plus I love snow and hoar frost). I love the true meaning behind Christmas and I never tire of hearing the Christmas story, or telling the Christmas story to my kids. I love the spirit of the season, and all the activities surrounding this time of year.

But this year is different. Our impending move has taken precedence over all other facets of life right now, and that bothers me. I went to the post office today to buy stamps for my Christmas card mail-out (yes, I did manage to actually send out Christmas cards), and while I was there, I filled out my change of address information so that for the ridiculous sum of $35.00, Canada Post will divert any mail that is destined for our current address and forward it to our new address. During the process of completing the paperwork, the Canada Post Employee made the following statement to me: "What an awful time to decide to move." That's all she said. I was thinking that for starters, what business is it of hers when I move, and why would she even say something like that to someone she doesn't even know? I left there feeling worse than I did before, because I think what she was getting at is because our move is happening so close to Christmas, we must be insane to be doing this right now!

Well, maybe so, but there are reasons behind our decision that I don't expect a Canada Post Employee to understand. And I'm too tired right now to justify our reasons for moving right before Christmas, to the many others in our little world who are thinking the same thing but have decided to keep their mouths shut.

I do feel badly about "missing out" on a normal Christmas this year. But I think it will still be a memorable one. Although I haven't been able to decorate our house where we live now (and I don't plan on decorating the new house either), I know that our time spent at my parent's place will make me forget that I've "missed out" on all the Christmas preparation, and dare I say, stress that can accompany such preparation.

My parents have had their Christmas tree up since mid-November, and "home" is where I've always spent Christmas. As long as there's a tree, good food, a round or two of Balderdash or Scattergories, and most importantly, other FAMILY members to celebrate Christmas with me, I'm happy. And I will be happy, because I already know that the above expectations will be met. Unfortunately, not all of my family (siblings and their spouses and kids) will be able to be "home" for Christmas. When you come from a family with 6 kids who live in various parts of the world, it's hard to get together at the same time. I'll miss everyone who can't be there, though. Hopefully we'll all be together again soon.

For me, Christmas shopping hasn't even really hit the radar screen yet, and we had to inform our boys that they may have to wait for some of their gifts until after we receive the proceeds from the sale of our house, which probably won't be until after Christmas. They actually took the news quite well. It's not like they won't get anything on Christmas day, just not exactly all that Wayne and I had originally planned on. I already know what I'm getting . . . a new residence . . . a lot of painting projects . . . a lot of redecorating . . . a lot of yard work . . . I'm a happy girl.

Signed, Sealed & Delivered

We signed our lives away today. Just kidding.

What we actually did was sign all of the legal documents pertaining to the purchase of the acreage and the sale of our house. We were able to sign all the paperwork at one appointment, which means we don't have to return to a lawyer again for many years (we hope).

We met our lawyer for the first time today, and he was actually nice (not like the lawyers I worked for in the past). And apparently his firm is one of the less expensive ones as far as real estate transactions are concerned, so we were happy about that.

As of 12 noon, December 8th, 2006, we own 25% of the acreage and the Royal Bank of Canada owns the other 75% of it. In 20.25 years, we'll own it completely. Now there's a great thought. I wonder what life will be like in 20.25 years from now? Let's see . . . I'll be 54.50 years old . . . Wayne will be 58.25 years old. Our boys will be 36, 27 and 25. I guess it's possible we may have some daughter-in-laws or even some grandchildren by then. Wow, scary.

I think I'll just remain in the present for now and enjoy our new purchase.

Can We Handle the Change?

Yesterday morning was a whirlwind of phone calls and activity. My phone started ringing as soon as I got back from taking Mitchell to school, and as a result of one phone call, I was thrown into an unexpected series of more phone calls, faxes, e-mails and frustration. Our deal for the acreage is supposed to close this Friday. However, the deal on our current house doesn't close until the 20th of December. The real estate company acting on our behalf has been taking their sweet time providing information to our lawyer.

Our lawyer's assistant called yesterday, very frustrated over the fact that despite her many attempts to obtain information from the realtor's office (stuff that she requires by Friday), things were not progressing as planned. I've contacted my real estate agent twice about this last week, and he advised all was well, so I never gave it another thought until yesterday. I knew we'd be signing papers this week, but apparently there are many documents the lawyer still requires in order to proceed with this transaction. Confirmation of insurance was another thing which the lawyer hadn't received. So, I proceeded to e-mail our insurance company requesting that they forward the appropriate paperwork to the lawyer. And our bank had not yet confirmed our interim financing, which we were told was already done. So, I can certainly understand why the lawyer's assistant was frazzled, and I was oblivious to the lack of action of the part of the three aforesaid parties. According to the lawyer's assistant, my reminding these companies and organizations to forward information to the lawyer was not my responsibility. They should have automatically forwarded the necessary documents to the lawyer without question or prompting.

We're meeting with our lawyer to sign "the documents" tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. I haven't heard anything from our lawyer's assistant since yesterday afternoon, so obviously she now has everything she needs in order for us to move forward with this transaction.

Talk about stress! This is one of the reasons I never proceeded to heavily pursue my career as a "legal" secretary . . . . the lawyer gets all the money and his assistant gets all the hassles. No, thanks. I did enjoy the course, though. And I did work for lawyers for 2 months and then realized I didn't really want to be employed by a company that was defending known criminals. I guess you could say that because of my personal beliefs/convictions, I was not able to continue working for the lawyers that employed me. Since my "Law Firm Experience", I've held other secretarial positions which I've enjoyed more than working at the law firm.

So, back to my day . . . After I had taken care of the logistical issues surrounding our real estate transaction, I was finally able to have my shower and get ready for the rest of the day. Next on my agenda was taking the boys to their new school, just to get a tour and meet their teachers. My boys will be transferring from an elementary school, K - Gr. 8 with about 330 kids, to a school K - Gr. 12 with 112 kids. This is a big change for them, but nothing new for me. Where I grew up we had a school almost exactly the same size as far as student enrolment goes. But the school where they will be attending is physically bigger (and nicer) than the school I attended. It felt like I was back "at home" when I stepped into the boys' new school yesterday. It was a good feeling. I was impressed with the teachers and I think the boys will do well. When we entered the Kindergarten classroom, Ty had some anxiety issues at first, but by the time we left he was doing much better. With some time and a lot of prayer, I think he'll be okay.

Since we'll be living in the country, the boys will be taking the bus, which is something new for them. I just found out yesterday that they'll be getting on the bus at 8:25 a.m. and they get dropped off after school around 3:15 p.m. I think we hit the jackpot with this arrangement! Where we live now (in town), we leave the house at 8:30 a.m. when we walk (which is almost all the time) and school only gets out at 3:15 p.m. so we rarely make it home by 3:30 p.m. The boys will get home earlier living in the country than when they lived in town. And for me a plus about the school bus is that I know the boys will be safe and sound going to and from school.

When we got home I was exhausted and wasn't able to accomplish too much last night with regards to packing. But today's been better and I cleaned out my fridge (this was long overdue) and have done some (more!) laundry.

I can't believe that in only two more sleeps mine and Wayne's dream is finally going to be a reality . . . owning an acreage! Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! God has blessed us so much!

The New Prince of Grammar?

The following is a conversation I overheard my son having with one of his "girl" friends over the weekend:

Sally: "Look, Mitchell, he gots a fly in his hand!"
Mitchell: "He has a fly in his hand."
Sally: "What?"
Mitchell: "You're supposed to say, 'He has' not 'He gots'".
Sally: "Oh".

Mitchell is 7 years old. Sally is 7 years old. When I overheard this conversation, I laughed to myself. Mitchell has always had a thing for language (he spoke in complete sentences by the time he was 20 months old), and successfully uses "big" words that he hears me use, in the correct context. His verbal ability has always amazed me. And I'm proud of him for noticing that his friend wasn't using the English language properly.

This is why my world was momentarily shattered when his report card recently indicated a "D" (Needs to Improve) in the subject "Written Language; Mechanics of Writing Skills (complete sentences, punctuation, capitalization)." In my opinion, for his age, his "mechanics of writing" are pretty much where they should be at right now. I'm not sure how other parents of elementary students feel about this, but it seems like the expectations of children in schools these days is one grade level beyond what it was when I was in school. What I mean by this is, in Kindergarten they are doing Grade 1 work, in Grade 1 they are doing Grade 2 work, and so on and so on. Maybe it's just our school. Last year they didn't work on "creating" their own sentences very much. And good grief . . . it was only November when the report cards came out. If he still gets a "D" in this area in June, I'll be concerned. But right now I think this "Needs to Improve" is just that, even though I think the letter "D" for "Needs to Improve" is a bit harsh.

Do I sound like an upset mom? I guess I sort of am. I've had a couple of weeks to cool off from this news that my son got a "D" in an area that I always got "A"s in . . . maybe it's me with the unrealistic expectations and disappointment over the fact that one of my kids brought home at "D". I don't know. But I think the true test on my theory that his current school is "pushing" the expectations higher than normal will be revealed when he starts in his new school after Christmas. I'm going to wait to see what his new teacher has to say about his "Mechanics of Writing Skills".

On a brighter note, he received "A"'s (Excellent Progress) in all areas of math. For anyone who knows me from the past, math wasn't my best subject. My Grade 12 Algebra teacher wrote the following in my report card after the first term: "Keep plugging away at the Alg, Kim!" "Plugging away"!?! Oh, I did just that, and all that did was bring down my final average for grade 12. I should have taken "Math 30" by correspondence instead of torturing myself (and the teacher) for a whole year!

De-Stressed and Re-Stressed

These are the pictures taken of the two rooms in our house that are being used for "boxes packed" storage. As you can see, we have definitely made some progress this weekend! Yeah! Packing all of these boxes, while stressful in itself, has helped to de-stress me in general. I don't feel as overwhelmed anymore.

My massage on Saturday morning also de-stressed me; however, the massage therapist strongly suggested that I return again before Christmas . . . she asked me if I was experiencing a lot of stress in my life right now (I guess she suspected something due to the seemingly endless amount of tension and tightness in my neck and lower back muscles). Apparently the stress of life is playing itself out in my body. Surprise, surprise. Because of the deep massage she gave me, I've been in quite a bit of pain since about 2 hours after the massage was over. I'm looking forward to returning in a couple of weeks for another massage, even though I know it may be a painful process to get my muscles back into a state of normalcy again.

I've been re-stressed as a result of our one-and-only operational vehicle. Wayne went to warm up the car this morning before we left for church, only to find out that the battery was dead. Absolutely no power. So a charger/booster mechanism has been on it all day. We hope and pray that it's just the battery that needed to be re-charged, and not something more serious like the alternator. We just put a brand new battery not that long ago, so it seems rather odd that the battery would be completely useless already. We're praying that God will sustain us with this car at least until we move. Then we can look into the possibility of getting a different vehicle. Wayne just went to check on it a few minutes ago and all seems fine now. But it's still a bit unnerving to have a car that may or may not start when you need to get somewhere.

Okay, so I'm leaving this in God's hands and I honestly am too tired and in too much pain to try to begin to solve this car problem in any way, shape or form. I think I've almost done a 360 turnaround with the whole trust and faith issues I was suffering from not so long ago (see previous posts). Notice I said almost. I'm not sure if I'll ever do the complete 360. But I'm trying . . .

Why I Do This

When I first started blogging this past October, I didn't realize how refreshing this whole experience would be for me. I had been "checking out" the blogs of other people for a few months, but didn't consider that I'd have anything that important to say. I still don't think I've got earth-shattering information for anyone . . . I'm just enjoying the opportunity to write.

When I was in school, creative writing (a.k.a. "English" class) was one of my favorite subjects. I actually did quite well at it, even though I was scared spitless of the teacher. He was a middle-aged British authority figure, as well as the principal of the school and I don't know of a single kid who WASN'T scared of this man. By scared, I mean intimidated. He was very smart but not very approachable. He never won the "Teacher of the Year" award once as far as I know, and he taught at our school for at least 25 years. That being said, he was a very good teacher. He knew the English language inside and out, as well as the French language inside and out. I actually learned a lot from him.

In high school, when we were doing novel studies or engrossing ourselves in one of Shakespeare's plays, we didn't always have time to "write creatively", so I took it upon myself to write my own "stories" in my spare time and share them with my friends. One piece of my writing that I particularly remember is a story entitled, "Gone Fishing" (Carol, do you remember it??). I won't go into the gory details, but it was my perspective on why I was having "trouble" in the "fishing for boys" department. That's all I'm going to reveal. Reading it back to myself now (I still have it), this story has turned out to be quite the comedy. But at the time, it wasn't a comedy. It was my very real life, with all the earth-shattering madness that surrounds the world of a teenage girl trying to get a boy to notice her. Enough said.

I've come to the realization that one of my main reasons for blogging now, 17 years after high school, is to engage myself in my own "Creative Writing" class, with my personal assignment to produce posts that must be written, edited and re-written, scrutinized and analyzed before they are published in cyberspace. Now, I'm not saying that I'm the perfect writer. I'm not. But I do enjoy exercising the part of my brain which allows me to put my thoughts on paper (or in this case, let my fingers do the talking on the keyboard), with "stories" (so-to-speak) about my daily life.

When days go by that I don't blog, I just can't wait to get to my computer so that I relieve my creative writing fetish!

Good (Laundry)!

Today I can report that yesterday I had a Good day in comparison the previous 13 days. Quite a bit was accomplished as far as packing goes, and I'm beginning to see a very faint light at the end of this tunnel.

The boys don't have school today, which means I won't have as much time to focus on packing, but they both want to "help" so we'll see how that goes.

Laundry is also on the agenda. I actually like doing laundry . . . there's something about putting dirty clothes in, with the final result being clean, soft, warm and great-smelling clothes. The only thing I don't like about doing laundry is when I fold it and then leave it in "piles" on the couch before it makes it to the dressers or closets. However, that would be my fault. I have a tendency to let the clothes pile up before they make it to their final destination.

Now, having just read that last paragraph back to myself, I must be crazy. The stay-at-home-mom is really who I am. But right now, I wouldn't trade it for anything!