i hate being such an undependable blogger, but rarely do i feel like i have something worth blogging about.

today, it's 90 degrees, and i think my house is at least that. about 5 weeks ago, we cut down the 5 giant cedar trees in our front yard. they were quite the eyesore... but they were also our only source of shade. this is compounded by the fact that all of our windows are, presumably, original construction, and open push-out style. only one set of windows are "new", and despite the double-pane, they radiate heat like crazy. tomorrow, we investigate roll-up solar shades.

so, i'm miserable. matt's miserable. the cats are miserable. here's to a high of only 76 tomorrow...

and, my new favorite kittens...

our friends adopted new kittens saturday - a 10 week old, brother-sister combo - and they were easily the highlight of my weekend. i adore matching sets. no real names yet, but i think they're toying with "dandy" (her) and "lion" (him - because he's fuzzy, and big-boned-ed).

her:

him:

sooooo cute.

sewing madness...

not blogging much, but i've definitely been sewing...

{a new lunch bag for kate...}


{a set of placemats and napkins for my stepsister who will be married next saturday...}


{and some cute little kitty toys for my new favorite kittens (another post in itself)...}

a big day...

nevermind my delinquency - it's a busy, busy season. today marks the last day our church will meet at our rented building in northgate. after church, we will walk to the new campus about 7 miles north and have our first real celebration service (which is more like a practice service for our launch next Sunday). all week - last Sunday through last night, i've been thinking "this is the last time i'll do that" with each task that is specific to our old campus. locking our old kids church room door, delivering the box of sunday "stuff" to the rented campus, setting up for kids church there. in fact, last night i made matt promise he'd never ask me to help with chair crew again. and truly, that is what i'm most relieved about - matt will never have to do chair crew again.

what a day.

giving thanks in ALL things

i left my Bible at church this week, so i've been depending on an old devotional bible for my morning quiet time. this morning, as i read, i came to 1 Thessalonians 5:16, and noticed a side-bar devotion about giving thanks in all things. the author discussed the feelings of the single who desires to be married, or the jobless who desperately wants to work - how are they supposed to be thankful? she lead her reader to the understanding that truly believing scripture - which shows us that God cares deeply about our circumstances - means being able to simply trust that whatever you're going through now is worth being thankful for now.

i pondered this briefly, but went about my day. flash forward - a friend approached me after kids church and said "did you hear what happened?" ... "uh, no?" he continued to tell me that a kid - let's call him "johnny" - snuck into the upper hallway during church, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and sent it sailing down the balcony (while holding the loose end, of course).

my immediate reaction, besides restraining myself from repeatedly slamming my head into the cinder-block wall, was "wait a minute, one of MY kids did this!?" of course, knowing this kid's background, it wasn't impossible - i just was surprised that he'd go to such lengths.

humiliated, i swiftly dealt with the problem, but as i put the pieces together - including, his very late arrival to kids church (which i'd assumed had something to do with the DST time-change last night) - i realized that he hadn't even been in our care when this happened... which means he probably got to church on time, but was fooling around for 45 minutes before coming in.

so on the way home, i was reminded: give thanks in ALL circumstances. ok, Lord - how am i supposed to give thanks in THIS circumstance? ... well, i suppose i can be thankful that i'm not the kind of pastor that would expell a kid from my program, so he will get another chance to come to kids church - because i believe that's what Jesus would do. and i can be thankful that i have a good rapport with his guardians, so i know i can talk to them about this. and i can be thankful that ultimately, i have a chance to make this seemingly unlovable kid feel loved, and maybe - just maybe - i can make an impact on his life.

even more house stuff

so much has happened in the last three weeks, and i haven't really taken time to document it. we worked hard the week between closing and move-in - cleaning, scrubbing, painting, etc - not to mention, removing the sub-floor in our bedroom, replacing it, pulling carpet and staples, scraping adhesive from the wood floors... in fact, we worked so hard we didn't have much time for packing, which left packing day especially hectic... not that we hadn't packed at all, just that we hadn't packed as much as i had wanted.

and so our move help arrived saturday morning, 10am, and i had already had two mini-breakdowns. but we got it all, and in one trip... nevermind the boxes of smorgasbord varieties of possessions.

but we made it. happy valentine's day honey.

monday after was a holiday, spent together, with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law, cleaning the old place. man, am i glad that's behind me, and that's all i have to say.

so for the last two weeks, we've been living in the "office" (read: craft room) while we waited to find the best price on carpeting for the tv/guest room and the master bedroom. finally, carpet was installed mid-last week, and though it took us a few days to get our "stuff" together, we've now moved into our rightful bedroom, and the guestroom is together as well.

but we're far from done. faaar from done. there's still trim to be painted - not to mention my red walls which did not paint as easily as all the other colors (wish the home depot guy had warned me - i would've picked a different color). the office is still in boxes, with furniture strewn haphazardly around. i've purchased most of our curtains, but need to hem them as well, so bedsheets suffice in the rooms where exhibitionism would not be tolerated among neighbors.

and of course, there are lots of little things to accomplish. sometimes it feels like we'll be living in boxes forever. who am i kidding... it always feels that way. we know we got ourselves into a "project" house, and there are plenty of things involved in making this house what we want it to be, so i really need to lower my expectations... but i sure wish we could get these boxes outta here.

christmas comes early to the kids ministry...

the next six weeks or so will bring a pretty steady delivery schedule of all the miscellaneous fun things we're buying for the kids ministry wing at the new campus. amused by the variety and randomness of it all, i think i'll keep track here.

yesterday brought the delivery of:
*one VBS "paul and the underground church" starter kit, a free gift because of our membership to a new background screening service.
*five wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispensers
*an eight-pack of refills for the above dispensers
*five first-aid kits

today, we received:
*four handheld 2-way radios, complete with charging bases, etc for our security team.

i'm just waiting for the eight ladies dancing and the partridge in the pear tree.

more house stuff

stuff is happening so often and so fast, i feel like i can't blog it fast enough to stay on top.

friday, we got our keys and began cleaning right away. matt began a few little odd jobs to get us ready for painting and some other misc tasks that needed to be done. late in the evening, we made a home depot trip to beat all home depot trips - $377 on "small stuff" (and a crapload of paint).

saturday, a ton of our very-good-sport friends and family showed to help with various painting tasks. accomplished much, but not all, as i'd expected. yeah, i was ambitious. and nobody told me you had to prime with grey or pink before painting with red. i will never paint with red again. went home feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and quite teary.

sunday, knowing how much needed to done, michael, lani, allie and sam took our house key and left church right after service to get started. what amazing friends we have. they started with pulling carpet, having removed carpet and pad from the living room by the time we got home - and they were well on their way to removing all the staples and tack strips. we also figured out why the previous owners had laid the carpet: a big patch of water or burn damage on the living room floor that had been sloppily covered with the same paint they'd used on the walls. matt needed some stress relief, so he pulled the rest of the carpet and pad from the hall and other rooms. mike & lani ended up staying late into the evening, as did matt's mom - bless their hearts. we finished painting the kitchen, and made progress on other various tasks. part of pulling up the carpet was the revealing of the suspicious corner of our bedroom, which had a bubble under the wood flooring, and a big square patch where there was no wood flooring - just an extra layer of plywood. lameness. note to selves: bring home carpenter buddy to have a look.

monday, clarice came over and focused on painting the edges in the kitchen. so glad i didn't have to do it. added knobs and outlet covers/switchplates in the kitchen. feeling like it's looking sharp.

tuesday, today, matt brought our friend don home after church for a look at the floors. suspecting rot, they begin pulling up the floor to reveal the subfloor having rotted through. don uses the words "the worst i've ever seen". he tests the edges of the house and finds rot in the other bedrooms as well, though to a much lesser degree. we're upset, but i'm taking it surprisingly well. matt's beside himself and in serious buyer's remorse. contacted our inspector, who is coming to have a look tomorrow, and feeling terrible about the situation, because he wasn't able to navigate our crawlspace due to snow run-off that had caused standing water in the crawlspace at the time of the inspection. i keep telling myself "it is what it is", and as i pray nearly the whole way home in the car, i find myself just wanting matt's heart to be soothed, because when he is confident, i can be confident too.

the key handoff

the key hand-off was messy. a call right around 5pm on thursday told us that our file had been flagged by the county clerk, because the sale looked suspicious - like someone was trying to get out of paying excise tax. apparently, we were getting too good of a deal. the county expected that the house should sell at $76,000 higher than we paid for it... which left me asking - are they even watching the market??

so, after some tears, matt and i decided to go ahead with the dedication, which we'd planned to do right after we got our keys. i messaged everyone and told them to dress warm and bring an umbrella. as we stood in the driveway, chatting before we began the dedication, i noticed that bob disappeared... and then the garage opened. he always was a rule-breaker. he'd found entry via the door that had been kicked in the week prior.

after some back and forth, we decided that the house was as good as ours, so we walked the perimeter, then gathered undercover (a cover which i'm now blowing) in the living room to pray.

our friend mel led the prayer, and did a beautiful job. we were very thankful for his spiritual maturity and the beauty of his words. most of all, there was an air of excitement. maybe it was from (almost) getting our new house... maybe it was from the rule-breaking.

friday, after a little waiting, megan called us and told us we had the keys. we met up with her at the church, collected our key and i headed off to start cleaning... and the rest of the story comes later.

almost there...

signed papers yesterday. heard from agent today - sellers have signed too. now we wait for the lender to give it all a once-over and release funds, then the whole thing goes to the courthouse and we get our keys. tomorrow, in theory.

hooray!