It's been a dreary, lazy sort of day around here today. The rain is just starting to move in, but it has been dreary looking all day. I thank the Lord for the rain, though. We certainly need it. We haven't had a drop in weeks! It still makes for a lazy day though. I love the sound and smell of the rain. It is truly one of the blessings in life. AND there aren't many sounds that are as soothing as rain falling on a tin roof! Here's how it looks at our house right now.

I hope to get the next part in our house story posted soon. I'm having trouble locating the pictures that go with the next part and I really wanted to include pictures.

Blessings,
~Amy

The Building of Our Home ~ Part 1

I’ve had some requests to share our story about building our home. It is a long story, so I will do it in parts. The only place I know to start a story is at the beginning…

We have wanted to build our own house for many years; actually it has been our dream since the day we married, almost 22 years ago. About four and a half years ago, God began to lead us in the direction of fulfilling that lifelong dream. He also gave us a perfect object lesson in trust & patience. Our hearts were to NOT go in debt to build this new home. We wanted, with all our hearts, for this home to be paid for when it was finished. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any possible way that could happen…but…God’s ways are never our ways, and He had plans that we could not have envisioned.

Rewind with me for a moment, back to August 29, 2005. If you live anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico, then you know, without hesitation, what happened on that fateful day….Hurricane Katrina hit with catastrophic force. Undoubtedly it was one of the worst, if not THE worst force of nature I have ever experienced. The aftermath was like nothing I could have ever imagined. It was as if we were immediately transported to a third world country. All of our modern conveniences were gone, in an instant. BUT, you’ve all heard the stories of Katrina’s aftermath and that’s not what this story is about anyway. But that is part of the beginning our story.

Within a week after Katrina hit, my daddy had the thought that it was a shame for all these trees to go to waste…and boy were there LOTS of trees down. So he decided to purchase a sawmill and start milling some of the trees into lumber. Thanks Dad! ;) Well, that created within my dear husband a vision. He began to envision all of us working together as a family to build our dream. Of course, now I understand that it was all the workings of our Holy Spirit, leading and guiding us in His ways. He began to show us, unfold parts of His plan, if you will. And so began our labor of love, and of faith and patience.

Stacy approached me about it first with the warning that what he was about to suggest would NOT be easy, nor would it be quick. It would take LOTS of hard work and about five years to see it through to completion. I have to admit, I didn’t mind the hard work part, but I wasn’t too keen on waiting five years! I’m an instant gratification kind of girl, especially where this was concerned. We had been dreaming about this new home for sooo long AND we were quickly running out of room in our current 1200 square foot mobile home. With three growing boys, all of whom are homeschooled, space was severely limited. However, we were thankful for what we had.

So, his plan was that we would cut all the trees we could get our hands on,

load them on a trailer,

haul them to my daddy’s sawmill, which is about ten miles away,

mill them into lumber

and when we had enough, we would start our dream home. Now, at the time, our boys were 13, 9 1/2, and almost 5. By now we are near the end of 2005. In the meantime, we would need to save as much money as we could to put towards parts of the house that we couldn’t mill ourselves, such as a concrete foundation and a metal roof. We approached our boys with our plan and they were full of excitement at the thought of a new, bigger house. We assured them though, that it was going to take lots of sacrifice to save money, on everyone’s part, and also lots of hard work from each of us. They assured us with all the excitement they could muster that they were fully on board with the plan. They are real troopers!

In January 2006 we officially started to work on the trees and milling the lumber. That was a long process, but then, most every step along the way has been a long process. Once we got all the lumber that we would need, it would need to dry for at least 6 months before we could use it.

Blessings,

~Amy

Hot Boiled Crawfish...Mmmmmmm GOOD

Guess what we had for lunch today? Some young men we know and love have been trying their hand at catching crawfish. Today we had the blessing of sharing in their small harvest. This is about half of their catch.

Zac is giving the thumbs up because he (and the rest of us too!) are ready to dig in!

They sure were delicious! Wish I could have shared them with you all!

A Question For Homeschool Moms Who Have Been in the Midst of Moving

If you know us, then you know that we moved into our new house last Friday. We have been building this thing for 4 years now, so it was a HUGE blessing to finally move in! This journey has been filled with lots of blessings & challenges along the way. I'll post more about that later, when I have more time, along with some pictures.

For now I have a question for all you homeschool moms out there who have ever been in the midst of a move while homeschooling. How do you balance it all... the moving, the unpacking, the regular everyday household chores, etc. AND still find time to school? It has been a huge challenge for me. How do you fit it all in AND keep your sanity? I know that "this too shall pass" but know that we really need to be doing more school work. So any advice you ladies have would be SOO very appreciated!

Blessings,
~Amy

Finally Able to Write

I set up this blog a while back and then my computer died...literally! It actually died immediately after I got the blog set up. I apologize if you have found this blog somehow and came here expecting to read something, only to be disappointed. Now that I have the computer back and fixed, I plan to write more here, so check back again soon.

~Amy