My Ebenezer

 Not much text here, just the before and after on our skylight project, which is now complete! Praise the Lord.

 We are in the process of adding a skylight to our dining room. When we moved in, a skylight in our dark dining room was one of my wishlist items, but it just wasn't practical at the time. Now, 14 years later, it was time to replace the roof, and Josh suggested finally adding that skylight. He didn't have to ask me twice! I do not enjoy having to turn on "artificial" light during the middle of the day, and as we spend quite a bit of our time in the dining room every day, it will be so nice to have natural light! Here is a picture of the "before" and you'll see what I'm talking about. This pic was taken in the middle of a sunny-ish day:  (We leave those string lights up around the fireplace to help it not be so dark and dreary.) I don't have a proper "after" pic yet because this project is stretching out into w e e k s! We still need to sand the skylight one more time before we paint it and can put the furniture back in, so the best I ca...

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 excl...

There have been a lot of things that have happened in the last several months that I have either not had time to write about, or that I didn't want to write about for whatever reason. I figured I'd cover a few of those in this post. It may be long and rather disjointed, kind of like the 7 o'clock news where you may hear--in no particular order--about anything from an elephant escaping from the zoo, to a political faux pas, to a major catastrophe. Thankfully, I don't have any of those to report about. This year has been interesting health-wise. (I dislike the word "interesting", probably because my 11th grade Creative Writing teacher frowned upon it so heavily.) At the beginning of the year, Josh and I were concerned that something might seriously be wrong with me. I was exhausted all the time, was experiencing daily abdominal pain/bloating/indigestion, and some other things as well. After multiple visits to the doctor, a colonoscopy in May (all clear, pra...

When we moved into this house in May 2010, there were certain projects we had left undone with the intention of completing upon move-in. But then there were all those boxes to be unpacked, and life to be lived, and here we are four and a half years later, with many of those projects yet undone.  I'm sure none of you can relate to that. :) Josh and I decided that we needed A List (oh, goodie, I love those!); a list of projects still needing to be done, and that on Saturdays we could pick one or two and knock them out.  This week's project was Installing a Windowsill and Trim Around the Kitchen Window.  For four and a half years, my tomatoes and windowsill knick-knacks (who doesn't have those?) have been sunning themselves on bare wood.  Today, they have a beautiful marble sill to sit on!  Thank you, Josh, for taking the time to complete this!

Week 35 out of 52 already!  Praising the Lord for another week of His grace!  Here's how it went: It began with the discovery that Seth can open the door to the garage! *gulp*  Due to the doorknob being placed about 3" too low (which dates way back to our renovations on this house and was unavoidable and regrettable all at the same time), I now have to have eyes in the back of my head.  Other moms out there, where do I get those again? Muffins!  Baked in my new reusable muffin liners, which were a gift from Jen.  Aren't they super cute? :) Noah, reading from Chocolate Fever, by Robert Kimmel Smith.  Stay tuned for a video of this! Noah caught a crab in our back yard. And, it is time to bid farewell to our old jetskis.  They have become more and more unreliable over the last few months, so we sold two of them and are debating what to do with the third.  We do plan to replace them with a newer, more reliable model a...

 He's a'comin' after me!  Always, always this child is coming after me.  Somehow he has turned into quite the mama's boy.  More on that perhaps in another post. Practicing his skills for the upcoming soccer season, which starts next month. Our church had a ton of help this week from a church in Rock Hill, SC. We put on Cola Wars for teens, and invited teens from the community to come.  We had a few attend, which was encouraging.  I tried to get a clear picture of the games, and this was the best I could do.  Those were some kids on-the-move! Every Saturday we go out for supper.  The location varies by the week, but it's nice for me to know that one time a week I don't have to cook.  I'm thankful to the Lord for the resources to do this!  This week's destination? Five Guys Burgers and Fries.  Any guesses who chose that restaurant? Our weekend project: improve the upper area of the garage, and turn it in...

I'm a little late posting this week, but I did manage to get some photos.  Here they are! I love me some baby bottoms--especially when they have a duck sewn on them! :) This swing was a blessing to find at a yard sale.  I had been wanting one for our backyard, and Josh told me if I could find one at a yard sale, he'd put it up for me.  That very week, I found this one in great shape for $2 with all the straps and ropes included.  God is so good! We had a ladies' tea fellowship at a tea room in town.  Loved this! True story:  I was in the kitchen when I heard Seth begin screaming in what sounded like sheer terror.  I walked into the office, where I found him parked in his walker, arms flailing, and a look of horror on his face...right in front of this aloe plant.  And when I got down eye-to-eye with the plant, I had to admit it looked a little scary in a creepy, spidery kind of way. With greater mobility comes a great...

I've noticed that once you move into a house, all those little projects that were left unfinished....stay unfinished. Or at least it takes a very very very long time to get around to doing them. Very. Who can blame you? Unpacking and making things look like home is challenge enough, without adding extra projects on top of it all. Not to mention that life has to keep going. Laundry, work, cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, shopping, etc etc etc. Who has time to spackle? I still have high hopes for our patio room, which at present houses our Christmas decorations, various odd construction materials, and some pretty depressing wall studs. High hopes, yes, but not for tomorrow. For "sometime." And now, I have more hope that "sometime" will actually come! Over the past few weeks, we've been trying to tackle the remaining last few things that needed to be done, and it feels so good to have accomplished them! Take the under-the-microwave area for example. When w...