Living in a neighborhood has ups and downs.
I miss my five acres more than I can express without sobbing.
I don’t miss the yard work and the hours John had to devote to keeping it up.
Johanna and Katriel have discovered the joy of neighbors.
Today a handful of new friends came in for a game.
The best part of no school is FRIENDS!
Katriel was given a kazoo at Sunday School.
Not sure what we did to deserve that.
(She called it a bazooka. It’s almost the same thing.)
John and Tab headed to NY for the weekend to visit Ba and Poppy and to get her braces visit in.
I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well this week. There has just been a lot to do, nothing bad. But today, my tired self knew the Enemy was messing with me a little bit more than I felt strong enough for.
The kitchen was a huge mess and I had to run Nigel to work before heading to Anderson, SC for a gathering I’d been invited to.
I just felt the condemnation in my head. I don’t deserve to go. My house is a mess. Christmas is coming. There is so much to do. I remembered John and Marie both encouraging me the other day when they heard about the invitation. “But I want to go,” I told myself. So I went.
I uncharacteristically left the messy kitchen behind (gasp), left the little girls with lots of Christmas puzzles and let myself be blessed.
I got to meet many of Shannon’s friends and neighbors, and we shared words of encouragement and reminded each other of why we were here and how God had made a way.
Before I left Shannon’s, I looked at my phone and saw an invitation for the little girls to join a neighbor to decorate cookies this afternoon!! I joyfully joyfully accepted and called Johanna and Katriel and encouraged them to get lunch and make sure they didn’t look homeless (their normal Saturday couture). They were so happy.
We went down to Anna and Rebecca’s at 2PM. My house was still a nightmare. The pulled pork in the crock pot was spilling out juice onto the counter, but I just turned it off and left.
They had a blast being offered unrestrained access to their decorating whims. I was encouraged to hear the other mom could only make circles because she couldn’t find her cookie cutters – that was my plight yesterday, myself.
And then, I dropped Marie off at a birthday party. A fun thing for her, too.
At 5PM, I finally got around to pulling the pork, and faced the hard truth – I had NO rolls and NOTHING to serve with it. “Here’s some meat, kids.” So I went to Food Lion and bought wee packages of store-bought salads (eww? yum? you decide) and some mystery rolls. We finally ate. No one complained.
Honestly, moving has been SO HARD. 100% healthy. But truly hard.
Shannon and Anna both have done it and it was so great to hear them each share how God had provided for them.
God provided BIG TIME for me today.
I love that God cares for tired old me.
There is this weird little room/closet off the kitchen. We needed to remove a weird, shallow cabinet and now we are going to work on making it into some nice storage space/freezer room…
Ceilings are just high enough here to make painting a little difficult.
We are hoping to work on the powder room, but keep running into supply chain issues for the vanity.
One good thing that came out of this mess is I was compelled to start donating blood back in March 2020. Along the way the American Red Cross started testing for antibodies, and sure enough, those started to pop up after an upper respiratory infection last December.
Since moving to SC, the Red Cross hasn’t been an option, but I’ve been able to give via The Blood Connection. They have been testing for antibodies, but will stop doing so in the new year.
It’s cool that they are still showing up 12 months later.
Johanna has had the same frames* since 2016.
We went a few weeks ago to get her some new specs. She went for a beautiful blue with tortoise shell arms. I love that Johanna totally relies on comfort of the glasses to make her choice. She doesn’t mess around with it.
9/21/16 she got her first pair. ◄ That link is worth clicking!
*Technically – she did not wear the exact same pair for 5+ years – in 2018 I lost her glasses at a beach in California. When we got home, however, we were able to replace them with the exact frames even though stock was almost gone.
The first photo is a daytime photo of our church. The decorations are so lovely.
Katriel had to be at church by 4 for rehearsals. The children’s choir she joined on a whim turned out to be an amazing opportunity for her to offer her gifts and talents to our Christmas celebrations.
Many a Butler child has offered musical gifts, but this year, it is Katriel alone who graced the stage.
My heart was full. She kept herself smiling all the time.
As we arrived home we got to see the beautiful candles that lined the whole track. Marie and Stewart went to get ours this afternoon. It is an HOA thing. People walked the neighborhood to visit and have treats together. We missed it because of the concert, but we were very blessed by the concert. You sometimes just can’t do everything!
I have exactly one photo.
I was a driver for the Youth Group progressive dinner.
The kids started at church at 4:30 PM for wild games. (They were amazing.)
Then we drove to one house for appetizers, one house for the main course, and a third house for dessert and gift exchange.
There were 36 participants.
The night ended after 10PM.
Thankfully, the last house was 5 doors down from mine. Phew.
Dayspring Disciples 