My Ebenezer

Back in December our family had the opportunity to drive our camper down to the Florida Keys for a little vacation. If you got our Christmas card in 2019 you would have seen us pictured at our campsite in Curry Hammock State Park, which is halfway between Key Largo and Key West. We loved the Keys. It's a great place to escape from winter if that's your thing.  (Right now in August it is blistering hot outside with high humidity.)  Naturally curious about all things real estate, Josh looked into land and home values and found it to be Very Expensive in the Keys. Also very hard to build anything new (you have to tear something existing down to be allowed to build something new). One thing you have to know about Josh: he loves a challenge! Hearing someone say that something can't be done is synonymous with throwing down the gauntlet to him.  You might as well double-dog dare him! So when he heard that owning property there is expensive and restrictive and generally very exclus

  I never imagined that this hummingbird would reawaken my desire to be an artist, but it did. I drew this hummingbird in June and posted it to my Instagram account, and a friend from high school (hi, Natasha!) messaged me and asked if I'd ever consider selling my art, because she was interested in this one.   I read her message, turned off my phone, and thought about it. I closed my eyes and had an actual flashback to that dismal day in college my sophomore year when, as they did for all aspiring Studio Art majors, the art department voted on my portfolio and decided that I was welcome to "change directions and pursue a degree in Art Education, but [I] lacked the determination necessary to make it as a studio artist." That verdict became a self-fulfilling prophecy; totally squashing all my desire to be an artist. I closeted my art supplies and didn't draw another thing until my mid-twenties. Then the Lord so graciously answered my prayers for children, and I had them

 Since I just love the process of transferring photos to the blog so much *rolls eyes*, I thought I'd just get it over with and compile a few random photos here with captions, paragraphs, or stories as the case may be. This is probably one of my favorite photos I'll put here! My siblings and I were all able to come celebrate my mom's 87th birthday on July 17. These are the kinds of pictures I know I will treasure for years to come. I'm so thankful for each one pictured here--they are dear to my heart! Our cat Willow had 2 kittens at the end of June. I don't know about you, but I think kittens are my favorite baby animal (although bunnies are sweet too!). The white one is a female and the gray tiger one is a male. We plan to sell them when they are 8+ weeks old, but my kids are going to be sad! Me too, if I'm honest, but we don't want to turn into the cat people.   Speaking of pets, Eden has been begging for a dog. She loves dogs of all kinds, and wants to to

 It's getting to that point where I haven't been blogging, life has been happening, and now I feel grossly incompetent to funnel all of my life events down and encapsulate them in a single blog post. It is times like these when I begin to flirt with quitting the blog altogether because, really, who reads this thing anymore?  And it's so much work to sit down at the end of the day or the week and write down what happened or who said what. Let alone the uploading of photos. (Which I just have to comment that I must be missing something because in this advanced age I cannot figure out how to do this any easier than emailing the photo from my phone to my email account, then saving the photo to my computer, then uploading it to the blog. Really? In 2020 that's the easiest way? Somebody please correct me!)   But then one of the kids asks what they were like when they were younger. And I don't remember. Can you imagine that? I don't remember. I, who have been knee deep