I’m forcing myself to just write. How to start with the words is always the most difficult part, because it sets the tone for what I want to say in this blog post. I’m not sure yet what I want to say, so… maybe I need a format or something.

It’s interesting being an adult. When I was younger things were so much more one dimensional. I was one thing. A business owner, or a wife, these things defined me and defined my message. Now as I grow older I find myself and the things and people around me much more multi-faceted. I want to write about earnings and profits and losses. I want to write about parenting and marriage. I want to write about marketing and sales. I want to write about construction projects and renovating The Farm. I want to write about my daily battle to overcome depression. I want to write about God and what He’s done in my life.

Then too-many-options-paralysis kicks in.

I finally finished my Jon Acuff book, “Start”. It was amazing and I highly recommend taking the time to read it. I’m going to continue taking the advice to JUST DO IT every Monday until I know what I’m doing. So. Here’s our Monday minute for the week.

This week in home improvement, Josh installed the stove top in our island. (Josh hand made us an island!) and that has been amazing. I haven’t shared much of the kitchen renovation because it’s a slow project, but it’s so exciting to have a cook top! We’ve been cooking on an electric skillet type situation or in a different building since we moved in here and that has not been fun. ( I had to make spaghetti by making the noodles and then making the sauce after instead of doing them at the same time. Silly things, but cooking dinner here was so amazing!)

I’ve gone to dollar general more since the lock-down happened than I have in my entire life. I now realize why my mom loves it so much. Everything is 90% off! It’s so small and no people are there! Cute things abound! I got a pig butter dish that I am sure will be a family heirloom because Josh and I just love it so dang much.

Spring cleaning is strong over here. We are using the extra time to do things that have always been on our back burner list. (The kitchen renovation is one of those things. We always said “venue first” but we have the time, so we did a little!) Our friend brought over some hand me downs for K and J. We can take bets on how long they stay on my couch because every time I open the girls drawers to sort them I want to give up before I even begin. Four girls in sizes 4-8 is all kinds of crazy. They all kind of share, but some things are specifically K’s or J’s and it’s a mess. I usually have a pretty good handle on it by keeping our clothes to a minimum (have you read “The gospel according to Larry”?) with 10 of each type of clothes per kid. I also do a load of laundry every single day to completion so that we don’t have baskets of clothes laying around.

I think K’s love language is quality time. She asked me to go for a walk with her Friday, and I needed new photos for the Sparrow Hill blog anyways, so we took a little adventure. It felt good to get outside and just walk the property. We had been checking these dogwood trees since they started blooming and we were so excited to see that they had fully bloomed! These trees, and so many of the original landscaping parts of the farm, are beautiful!

For mothers day, we made a bird house for the birds that are living in the old barn. The girls promised me cookies, and then Josh whisked us away to Erie to eat Chinese takeout in the back of the suburban on the lake. It was really sweet.

We’re still working through schooling at home and distance learning. There was an article yesterday implying that the kids will go back to school in August. I hope that’s the case because I am sure that this is not great for them. Distance learning has been nice for a season, but they miss their friends and all the worksheets are not how the teachers at our school usually teach. We have amazing, hands on teachers. The teachers at our school are honestly the reason that I feel ok to send them to public school when the overall system is so so broken. Our teachers did a great job working us through this trial, but I don’t think we can do this again in August. I don’t want to think about pulling them out and actually homeschooling them. The idea of that is heartbreaking and confusing. We will continue to just wait and see and do our best every day.

To touch on the other points I made in my opening paragraph, Financially we are doing ok. I follow a blogger who publishes her monthly financial statement and talks about what is working and what isn’t. I love that idea of being transparent and also accountable. (maybe I wouldn’t buy another camera holster if I knew everyone would see it!) I just can’t commit more time to it yet. Maybe next year, when 3/4 of the girls are in school. Maybe.

We created something called a “mini wedding” and it has been wildly successful. I do think I’ll blog about that on the Sparrow Hill blog… some time this week. Maybe.

I want to host a weekly bible study at the farm around the fire. Just putting it out there. It’s been on my heart for almost a year to do something like that but I keep not doing it. With churches closed, but being able to have gatherings of 25 of less, I feel like The Farm has something that can really give back to the community. Open space blessed by God that we could gather in. I just don’t know what that looks like. Please please PM me or comment if you’d like to be involved with something like that!

We had a tour Monday, I’m going to look at a house for my cousin today, an engagement session tomorrow and another tour Thursday and Saturday. (We plan to sneak a movie night in there on Friday!) First week back at “work” and I’m excited and also already tired.
I’ll tell you how it went next Monday!