Housebuilding: Week 10

A perfect 10;  that is how impressed I am with the building for this new house.  Yes, there have been surprises.  The costs have been higher than I would like, but the quality of the work is fantastic.  I couldn't be happier with how our new house is coming along.  The chimney is practically finished, the trusses are on and ready for the roofing, and best of all, it doesn't look like a pencil!

So let's ignore the slightly higher cost, and the fact that I keep seeing it as too much house for our little family, and focus on how the Lord has blessed this project.  I can only pray that he continues to carry us through this very long stressful process as I put my concerns in His arms. 

Of Crumbs & Slumber

all these victims stand in line for

crumbs that fall from the table

just enough to get by

all the while your invitation

wake on up from your slumber

open up your eyes

This new NeedtoBreathe song led me to Matthew 15: 21 -28 where we read about the faith of a Greek woman.

For those of you who aren't going to run to your bibles to read the story. This is a quick exchange between Jesus and a Greek lady in which the lady is begging Jesus to remove a demon from her daughter.  Jesus ignores her at first, because he refuses to give her the children's bread.  She then asks for the crumbs.

Jesus states" O woman, your faith is great."

If you read the passage you can see the obvious faith that this lady has.  She trusted and knew that the Lord could help her daughter.  Unlike so many of the Jews present, she didn't implore the Lord to come, lay hands on her daughter, and she didn't bring her daughter to Him.  She knew that he could send out the demon without needing to be present.

The largest evidence of her faith, and to me the hardest to grasp, is that she knew that the crumbs from Jesus would be enough.  Most of us would turn sadly and leave when Jesus said that the bread was for someone else, but she didn't.  Somehow she knew that what she was asking of the Lord was a crumb issue.  

This one gets me.  How many Jews came to Jesus only for the healing that he offered?  How many settled for the crumbs when they could have what is on the table?

Does this story not make you ask:  If the cast off crumbs can do this, what can the bread that Christ offers us do?  Why aren't we asking for the bread instead of the crumbs?  They are available to us, all we need to do is wake up from our Slumber and receive the full meal that God has prepared.

Housebuilding: week 9

The last couple of times I have started my weekly updates I get caught up in the title.  I am torn between thoughts of "have we really been building the house for this many weeks already?" and " How many more weeks is this going to take?"  Obviously, building a house is a large project and will take many weeks to finally be finished.  We are even anticipating moving in before the house is completely finished, but then, as most homeowners know, a house is never finished!

This week has ben one of preparation.  Preparing for a chimney, and trusses is hard work.  The trusses alone require at least two men and a crane!  Can you believe that we had a crane at our house and I missed it?  

Here is the finished product as of the end of our preparation week.  Tune in next week to see the completed chimney, sheathing, and maybe even some roofing. 

Housebuilding: Week 8

Our great group of volunteers raising the exterior walls for the second floor of the house! 

The Interior walls are going up fast.  It must be the sunshine!

The back of the house. 

The view of the backyard from the second floor windows.  Obviously, our brush needs to be cut down, but the view is still a welcome sight for us.

Next Week:  Trusses!

Housebuilding : Week 6 & 7

I do so apologize for my lack of posting in regards to the house building process this past week, and to make it up to you I have combined week 6 and 7 together for you today.

Weeks 6 & 7 were full of anything and everything.  We have never had so many people working at the house at once.  We had crews of friends, family, and builders working, almost around the clock, to get the beams and tongue and groove flooring in for the second floor.  Because these items are exposed, and will remain to be, getting them in tight, and quick was a high priority.  We simply could not install half the beams only to have it rain for three days.  Timing was everything, and the procedure to install the blocks and floor boards was slow.

But, alas, thanks to a great many people and the Lord for holding back the rain, after a week and a half the second floor decking is completely finished and incredibly beautiful.  Every time I started to get frustrated with the time and money that this project cost us I would just look at the ceiling for my kitchen and smile.  I absolutely love it! 

Look at that Grass!!

A Look Back

My focus has been set on the house; building, designing, and purchasing for.  This leaves room for little else, and thankfully I knew that would be the case. With this reality Tyler and I have tried, and continue to try, to plan at least one fun non-house related event per month.  June was an utter failure, but May was a complete and wonderful success.  Because we had not yet broken ground we planned on a weekend voyage to the beautiful and warm Connecticut.  We have cousins in Connecticut who offered to let the boys and I stay and visit while Tyler worked, and then we spent our Saturday going to Sturbridge village and coming home.  

 Overall, the trip was perfect.  I was able to get to know my cousins a little better and see how their large family operates. They are a wonderful family with many great children whom the boys had a blast playing with.  This was at a time when Maine weather was cold, wet, and muddy so spending a couple of days playing outside in a warm, sunny part of New England was a real treat.  

If you know me well enough I am sure you have images in your head of me following everyone around with my camera to capture our time with family, but alas you are wrong.  I didn't want my cousins to think that I was some sort of camera freak so I steered clear of it.  Although I did plan to take a few pics. I had nothing to worry about though, as soon as my cousin got home from work he took out his camera and took lots of pictures.  Apparently, we are fairly similar in that regard.  

I did, however, insist on getting some pics at Sturbridge village.  Mostly so that I could have a good reference to look at while attempting to design and build a historically accurate 1700's New England Colonial.  We had such a wonderful time visiting, learning, and just playing together while not being interrupted by house building demands.  Now all I have to do is come up with another great day trip to relieve us from the building in July. 

Naming Choices

Again, I am baffled by naming choices for this baby.  I thought maybe a poll would help, but alas, I think I was wrong.  Obviously, Gabriel won with 10 votes, but I am not sure if that name fits.  I, personally, like Gideon (the second winner) and Zebedee (the loser).  Tyler mentioned redoing the poll with the top choices and having everyone vote for just one name.  So I think that we may just do that.

On a side note, I thought the other day that if I had gone with historic Northern names that fit our family's background of seafaring warriors (Vikings) then naming my boys would have been easier.  I could have a Lief, Meric, Gavin, Otar, and Sven. Couldn't you see my little warriors?

Anyway, last time I had you pick 2, now that we have narrowed the name list down, please pick only your favorite.

Thank you for helping me with this ever difficult and important decision!

Je Suis Désolée

I am going to start teaching the boys Spanish this fall so foreign languages are on my mind.  Obviously, the title is French, not Spanish.  Because, although I could probably navigate a French city like Quebec; I would be utterly hopeless in a Spanish one.  I guess that means I will be learning Spanish this fall as well.

Enough about the title. For it is only there to say:

I know I didn't post about the house progress yesterday;  I am incredibly overwhelmed and do not want to talk about the building process.  For that, I apologize and share with you that maybe, just maybe this weekend I will be up to downloading my pics from the past week and posting about them.  Although, I have my doubts.

On a side note:  The polling has closed for name choices of Smith boy #5.  I will post about the results at some point before the baby is born.