For those of you that have followed my posts, you know that I have been in a remodeling project for some time now.  It is 90% completed, so today is my "show and tell" of it.

For those of you that are new to my posts, I will attempt to tell you the "story" briefly. 

 We live in a 150 year old home.  When we first looked at this home, I fell in love with it.  However, as my husband walked through this home with the realtor, he thought it looked cosmetically nice, but underneath it all, there would be future work.  He was right at course, only, we could have never forseen just how much "work" would be involved.

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This is a picture of my kitchen before the remodeling project. 

 It was very charming.  However, there was this island in the middle of the room that divided the kitchen from the dining area.  I have this huge family (six kids and now two spouces and three grandchildren, and regular guests/nieces/nephew/brother/my mom.)    It was very difficult to all eat together.  I decided if I got rid of the island in the middle of the room, I could have a longer table and therefore fit all of us.  The island was in bad condition anyways. 

So we took out the island.  But then there was another wall of cabinetry that was in bad condition, too, so we took that out, also.  And then we found our surprise.

My husband was curious to what might be behind the drywall, so we took off some. 

First of all, we found that the brick, which had been made 150 years ago, was dissolving.  It was brick most likely made from the sand in the creek beds on the property here, and then sun dried, instead of baked.  As the drywall was peeled off, bricks just fell out onto the floor, and there were large gaps all over the place in the walls from disolvement of the brick. 

We went to the cellar, and underneath the drywall, it too, had brick dissolving and huge gaps in the wall.

Now my husband was really curious.  He had the ceiling taken out next.  Surprise, surprise, as Gomer Pyle would have said.  The support beam was missing.  We called a structural engineer.  He said he'd only seen this one other time in his lifetime.  Our house was being held up by the "force of habit."   Bad news.

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It was then tossed around what we should do.  The structural engineer told my husband that if it was himself, he'd tear the house down and start all over.  It came as advice from every direction that this would be the most inexpensive way to go. 

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Call it unlogical, but I love this place.  I fell in love from the first moment I drove up to see this home nine years ago.  It was as if Cupid had struck an arrow through my heart.  I didn't just like this house, I "loved" this house.  It was everything I'd ever wanted. It was the home of my dreams. It was where I wanted to raise my babies and tenderly care for my children. 

****

For over a year it was tossed back and forth about what we should do.  And a lot of prayers were said that He'd keep us safe until we decided what to do.  "Lord, please don't let our house crumble while we are trying to make up our mind."

 Finally, against everyone's opinion, we plunged into the re-making of this house.  We repaired the brick.  We had a structural beam placed in the ceiling.  We built a wood frame within the room, just in case more brick decided to crumble.  We went to the basement and repaired the brick there, too, and built another frame inside the room. 

 This picture was taken just a few weeks ago.  It was very stressful trying to decide all of these little decisions - lighting, paint color, trim and stain color.  There were carpenters and electricians here all the time.  The endless, loud noise about drove me over the brink.

Meanwhile, all through this ordeal, for the past year we set up a dining area in what used to be our laundry room.  It's a small, cozy space. 

When I decided to re-do this room, too, it really got interesting....

But when we started to paint the family room, tear up the carpet, and install new flooring, it was really nuts.  Oh, and then the guest bathroom, and then one of the bedrooms upstairs......

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The kitchen - well, we set up shop in the "new" laundry room (located in what used to be the garage).  It's a long, narrow room.  We forseen that it might be a while before the new kitchen was back in business, so we installed some cabinetry from a company called, "Plastic Cabinetry", pre-made stuff.  

 It finally all came together, the night before Thanksgiving.  The floor had been installed, the walls painted, and the lighting ready to go.  Even the table arrived after 7:00 p.m. the night before Thanksgiving. 

*****

Here it is!!!! 

                                       "Can you pass the peas?" 

This is one huge table!!! We do have the extension in this picture, but even without, it is really long.  We can seat 18 people.  Not all the chairs or benches arrived, yet. 

As I was taking this picture, my husband and son were joking - they used their cell phones to communicate from one end of the table to the other.  They were pretending that we were having a family meal and using their cell phones to communicate.

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 The cabinetry are really bookcases that I bought from a furniture store over a year ago, when it was undecided if the house would still stand or not.  I wanted a kitchen that didn't really look like a kitchen.  

*****

Were going to re-group from the massive major remodeling of the house and hopefully, in the spring, perhaps start installing kitchen stuff.  So for now, it is a dining room only.   My kitchen in the laundry room has been working very nicely (I will post pictures some time), so now, we will be dining with plenty of room!

Drywall...

Does my kitchen leave you speechless?

 It didn't always look like this. 

Once upon a time, it was kind of nice. 

But then, I got this really  big idea...

 "Let's take the island out of the kitchen," I suggested.  The doors had fallen off the island from babies hanging on them, and the cooktop had the on/off buttons missing.   And omitting the island would give more room for a long table in the kitchen to accomodate my entire family.

Then I thought it might be a good idea to take out one wall of cabinetry that didn't look so swell, either.

We discovered that underneath the wall the brick of the house was dissolving.  We have a 150 year old house, and the brick had been made (most likely) here on the property, and then sun-dried.  As we looked under more drywall, we seen that we had a major brick-dissolving problem. 

The brick wasn't the only problem.  When we took out the ceiling, we found that the supporting beam was missing.  A structural engineer told us that our house was "being held up by the force of habit,"  were his exact words.

 The kitchen has looked like this for over a year.

 We weren't sure what to do.  The brick walls were dissolving even in the foundation of the house.  We were told by many that our best option, and cheapest, might be to tear the house down and start over.

A year ago when we first unlayered this room - the walls, the floors (many layers of wood flooring), we made our laundry room into a kitchen.  It was a large laundry room (in what used to be the garage) that had an extra refrig and two freezers in it.  We added some cabinetry and it has worked nicely for us for this past year.

We've repaired the brick and had a huge steel beam put into the kitchen to support the house.  Now, only the cosmetics to go - drywall, flooring, and a ceiling.

But now, I am getting anxious.  We ordered a big table to go in this room for Thanksgiving, and the goal is that this room will be marvelous by then.  Stay tuned...

This  morning  I write to you  from the comfort of my bed.  I can’t tell you how good this feels to just lay in the quietness, feeling a deliciously cool breeze gently flowing through my window screens.  My bedroom is one of my favorite rooms of this old house.  It is the attic and there are a dozen or so stairs that  twist and turn to come up here.  One of the walls of the stairway has the original 150 year old sun-dried-brick exposed.  My bed is situated against the wall that is almost wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor windows.  The view is spectacular from up here as I look out over the walnut tree forest directly bordering our home.   When I wake in the morning, I can see straight ahead through  another window, this one being in an angled nook that faces the horse pastures.  I love it when I can see my horses grazing when I wake. 

My bedroom is so serene.  It is painted with a soft sage green and the angled walls a soft white.  I have a wicker desk and chair, an old fashioned vanity table, a canopy bed, a lighted curio cabinet, a very small dresser, a crib, and a double rocking chair all made from the same painted yellow-white color .  There is white carpet (and with stains!) and an old antique wooden chest.  This room is more pretty than it is practical.  The closet is miniature size, as well as my clothes dresser.  I have to be diligent about always paring through my clothes to see what I don’t need.  I collect pretty boxes to keep my intimate clothing items.  I use plastic boxes under my bed and crib as additional drawer space for my p.j.’s, jeans, t-shirts, shorts and bathing suits.

I love the pictures on my wall.  One of my pictures is of three young girls from the Victorian age. They have chubby cheeks, curly hair, and ever-so-pretty dresses, colored a soft blue, light  pink, and white with a rose colored ribbon running through the sleeves and top.  One girl is holding a rabbit, the other a small soldier doll. There is a large white hydrangea bush and lilac wisteria tree in the muted background.   I have never ceased to enjoy looking at this picture.  Another picture is of a young girl also from the Victorian era, chubby cheeks and curly hair, holding a beautiful rose.  My only other picture is of a painted rendering of a Victorian white farm home with a wrap around porch that looks very similar to the one that I live in. It has red brick pavers that lead up to the home, bordered with flowers.  I copied this painting when we chose pavers for our sidewalk.

On my white wicker desk I keep favorite novelty and pleasure reading books.  I collect stationary sets and postcards and I keep these here for when I write those few very special friends that get the privilege of old-fashioned pen, ink, real paper, and my best handwriting (to which I was never very good at, but I always try to improve.)

There is a frame that free-stands on my closet’s wood-work trim piece.  I love the verse inscripted on it.  “Create in Me a Pure Heart and Renew a Steadfast Spirit Within Me.”  (Psalms 51:10)

In the angled wall nook with the window, I keep my daughter’s American Dolls and some of their furniture pieces.  I also keep my own Muffy Bears and furniture pieces for the little girl that still resides within me.

Within just the past few years I started collecting various perfumes and colognes, in an effort  to find that magic one. You know, the kind of fragrance that everyone asks, “Wow! What perfume are you wearing?!”  Or , “You smell so good! What fragrance is that?”  It hasn’t happened yet, so I keep collecting.  Meanwhile, my pretty glass and tin bottles of fragrances look so charming sitting on my old-fashioned vanity with a full length mirror.

In my lighted curio cabinet, I keep many special mementoes and cards that my husband has bought me over the years.  Some of these were given to me the day my last son was born, with his name, Jacob, inscripted on it.  They are a sweet memory of a sweet  time in my life,  and the thoughtfulness of my husband to have brought these gifts to me while laying in bed with my newborn baby. 

On one glass shelf I have a hundred year old jewelry box that on the top lid has the face of a precious Victorian chubby cheeked little girl, adorned with a big rose-colored bonnet. The sides of the box are a faded green floral print.  This was a gift from a very old lady that lived in a home for the elderly, given to me when I was a child.  My Baptist minister father would often have Sunday dinner there with our family and we would chat and visit with the elderly all afternoon.    

Inside this beautiful jewelry box is not precious jewels, but rather, precious antique pictures that were given to me by my grandmother.  I was named after both of my grandmothers, Ruth and Antoinette.  Some of these pictures are on tin.  They are all of family relations a hundred years back.  I have always enjoyed the pictures of my grandmother as a young girl.  She was remarkably beautiful, although stricken with polio while still a young child.

Even our double rocking chair is a precious memory to me.  My husband and I mutually chose it together at a time we were rapidly multiplying our family.  The idea was that I could be rocking a baby with two other children sitting on each side of me.  The fabric is most unusual.  It has the print of a garden setting!  There is a table that is set for an afternoon lunch adorned with a pretty table cloth. Beside it is a big wicker chair with big comfortable pillows and a sun bonnet sitting on the arm rest.  There is a rose-colored umbrella, and a trellis in the background, adorned by vine-growing flowers.   A simple blue wooden chair sits by a trio of potted flowers, with flowers laid gently in a small wicker basket setting on the chair.  Another  weaved sun-hat rests on  the back of the chair lats.  This fabric is a most beautiful piece of art-work, as much as the pictures on my wall.

Although the crib is not in use, it matches my bedroom set with it’s painted yellow white color.  There is a bouquet of flowers softly  hand painted on the ends of it.  A blue ribbon completely encircles the bouquet with painted bows at each corner.   This crib also is full of precious memories of those years I hold dear in my heart.

This is the room I come to sleep at night, or to take a nap on those days I can’t make it without one.  It is my husbands and I little get-away, with the twisting and turned stair steps that separate us from little ears.  It is a place that I can be, like right now, and sit on my bed, enjoying a good book or writing a letter to a friend.  It is a place I can enjoy the quietness and just  think and meditate,  enjoying the cross-breeze on windy days.   It is my sanctuary.

My bedroom had been driving me nuts. During the holiday season, presents that were bought but not wrapped, were immediately shipped up to our bedroom. Over the course of the month, between the stuff that got put there and the busy schedule,  if there wasn't enough time to clean ALL the rooms, it was my room that got bumped.  This started really bugging me because I feel that our bedroom should be our own private sanctuary. It should ooze with serenity. Romance doesn't thrive in a chaotic mess.

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Every week it was on my 'to do' list to get to my room: declutter, organize, dust, and vacuum.  Every week I'd do a little bit here, a little bit there, but it just never all came together.

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Finally, this past week, on Monday morning, I decided that not another day would pass until this job got done. If we didn't accomplish much in school, well, so be it. My room was going to get cleaned. I stayed hid out in my room, working relentlessly. Sometimes when things get so disorganized, you just don't know where to start or where to put everything, and it takes a lot of concentration and dedicated effort.  We did accomplish Bible class, history class, and geography class, (all our group classes), but no individual one on one classes.

When I finished the room to my satisfaction, it was around 5:00 p.m. It looked terrific. I took a lot of clutter off my dressers, rearranged other areas, and threw out a lot of stuff.   I  put everything I didn't know what to do with at the time, in a big brown bag, and put that in the Crumbling Kitchen, to be dealt with at another time.

So, I'm going to have to post a picture, now! It's sooo pretty. I love my bedroom when it looks like it does now.  I have the prettiest curio cabinet that I keep sentimental things in, like special cards and gifts that my husband has given me over the years. It has soft lighting in the cabinet, and sometimes, when I turn off all the lights in the room, I'll light a  scented candle and turn on the light in the curio cabinet. It gives the room just a certain softness to it and it seems so serene.

In my bedroom, I   have an old fashioned antique looking dresser that has a big 3-mirror on it, the kind that you see pictures of Victorian women sitting at combing their hair in the reflection of the mirror.

I have a white wicker desk that I just love. It's rather petite and it fits the room size just right. I keep all of my stationary and cards on this desk.

The walls and ceiling have angles that add to it's charm. Our bed is a 4-poster canopy that at various times I have draped with lace, but when we moved the bed to this room I didn't want anything to obstruct any view of the room, so I purposely left off any peripheal coverings of it and left the 4-posters and frame naked.  Often when I wake in the morning, it is hard to get up...from my pillows I can look through a window across the room and see the great big oak tree framing the window, and beyond that, I can see my horses in our pasture.  In this area of the room, right in front of this cubby hole where the window sets, I have a little play area for the girls. Here, we keep our American Girl collection, the pieces of furniture we've collected for it (Samantha) and my Muffy Teddy Bear collection.  At special times, the girls are allowed to come up and play and they can sit in this cubbyhole area, overlooking through the window the great oak trees and pastures, and play with their dolls without the inturruptions of the boys.

There is a crib in our bedroom that matches our own queen size bed. It's a painted pine with very subtle painted flowers on it.  It's a very special piece of furniture to me, for it has been the bed of 4 of my six babies. I don't think it will ever move from our room.

There is a rocking chair in our room, and this too, holds very special sentiments. It matches the crib of  painted pine, and it is oversized to hold not just one person, but three.  My husband and I bought it while in the midst of our rapidly growing family.  I could rock one baby and have two of my other little ones on each side of me.  It has fabric on it that has a garden scene on it. It's very unique and I believe will be a family heirloom.

There are large windows behind our canopy bed. They span almost the entire width of the wall, and go from the bottom of the floor to the ceiling. The view is to die for as you are three stories high, and in the midst of a Walnut Tree Forest. There are giant hawks that nest in close by trees, and a variety of birds of all other kinds.  Our back yard, to which these large windows give view, have four-rail white fencing bordering the perimeter of our yard. Directly beyond the fence, the ground begins to gently slope, Walnut
Trees everywhere, and at the bottom of the slope, is a winding creek.

The closet is ever so cute, yet, it certainly doesn't hold much. It gives me determination to keep my wardrobe simple and to purge often.  How contrary to the home previous of our present 150 year old historical relic, it was a new constuction 6,000 sq. ft. home. It wasn't only brand spankin' new, it was incredibly roomy. The master bedroom had a  closet that was the size of the bedroom I now describe.

There is a winding staircase that leads up to our bedroom. There is an interesting story about this room that the previous owners shared with us when we bought the house. They told us that they were remodeling the second floor and tearing down a plaster wall. As they tore down the wall, they discovered that there were stairs hidden behind this wall. They began to ascend the stairs, as it twists and turns going up to what seemed to be a secret room. One of the walls of the stair case proudly displays the original brick of the house (and is in good condition).  While exploring this Secret Room, they discovered one hundred year old newspapers, magazines, and old glass medicine bottles.  Their remodeling project expanded to putting beautiful windows in to allow tremendous amounts of light to cascade in.

Now it's our Secret Room. It's the place I go to rejuvinate after a stressful day, to find a certain amount of serenity and peace. I have always called it our Private Penthouse, a place where my husband and I can go and talk and not every word and sound will be eavesdropped that easily.  It oozes with beauty, serenity, and romance. It was one of the many reasons this home stole my heart when I first seen it.  It's too special of a room to let get sloppy!

Our house is over 150 years old, it pre-dates the civil war.  The property here is legally recorded as having been once owned by Gerber family (think: baby food).  The 400 some acres they used to own has now been parceled out, but our own home resides on 40 acres of the original property. There is still apple orchards here, now growing wild,  and in my own home I have an oil painting of the 8,000 square feet, three story barn that once stood proudly  here.  Our home and the barn that once was here has been recorded in a historical record book for the county, and while the barn still stood, was featured in the paper, to which we have a copy of.  It was a grand old barn, it would have stood another century, but the previous owners had it torn down, basically because of bad advice from the real estate broker that was helping them sell the farm.  It was torn down just a few years before I found this home.  I cried when they told me of the barn and showed me the pictures. It literally felt as if an arrow had pierced my heart.  I love barns, and this one was such a historical, huge, grand one at that.  As I looked through the pictures that were featured in the paper, it showed that it was constructed with wooden arched beams.

When they tore down the 200 year old barn, there was found tunnels that led back to our house.  These tunnels were carefully constructed with brick and morter. There were round circles where people could huddle at different intervals from the barn leading up to the house.  It has been theorized that this was part of the underground railroad.  The previous owners, when they tore down the barn, also covered the entrance to this tunnel. 

My oldest son, upon moving here, couldn't wait to try to discover where this underground tunnel was.  He took large boulders and threw them down on the ground trying to listen to hear where it would  echo. He was succesful.  We owned an excavation company at the time and my husband had that spot dug. My son had found one of the openings  where you could climb in this tunnel, but it did not lead back to the house. We still are to discover, some day hopefully, the other tunnel openings. 

The house itself was made before insulation was invented, and they would build two brick walls with an air pocket in between in order to insulate it.  This has had it's problems because squirrels and chipmunks can get in there and have taken residence.  They don't come inside the house, but they have lived among us inside the perimeters of the walls you could hear them scurrying and eating their nuts. 

It's raining outside and it is just a cozy day to stay inside with the children. I love days like this.  My house is looking 'spectacular', well, at least the first floor is.  After the last 2 weeks of the kitchen demolition project, the first floor has finally come out of the junk yard abyss. 

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I ordered the cabinetry for my new kitchenette yesterday, and I am so excited about this! I never thought for a moment, when we started this project, that I was going to end up with 2 kitchens!  My dh wasn't sure how long and extensive this project would actually be - #1 the house is 150 years old so who knows what we will find underneath all the layers (we've already found dissolving brick); and #2, he uses his construction guys to come here to work on the kitchen between jobs.  So...he moved the stove into my laundry room that already had a refrig and 2 freezers and pantry shelving, to help us through the transition period. But, then he came up with the idea to  have permanent cabinetry put in so I'd have more storage area.  He does business regularly with a non-custom cabinetry company (Plastic Line) that does all the kitchenettes for his offices. The next thing I know, I have this gorgeous little kitchen being planned!  I'm floating!!!

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Got my hair done yesterday - feel good about that, too. And then, a phone call from an Amish guy we have bought a horse from in the past, calls me and tells me that the horse that we were interested in during the summer, but wasn't for sale, he's willing to sell now. He wanted way way way too much for it.. Yet, he told me to make an offer (we did), and now, we just wait and see. I figure, if God wants me to have a third horse, and this is the right horse for me, it's going to happen.

On Thursday, I concentrated on the Toy Room.  The plan was for this to now become the "Dining Room," where we would eat our meals.  I cleared everything out first. This meant, I just took all the toys and shoved them into the living room, worrying about there they would go next, for later. 

There are some wall cabinets in this room that I had already taken the existing contents out of, and put in a lot of food stuff as a pantry type of storage. I had already moved the GIANT doll house into the den.  I went to Home Depot and bought a plastic folding table that was 6 ft long, and after mopping this room I set it up with folding chairs and an old beat up bench I had stored in a barn.

Now we have an official place to eat and this also lifted my spirits.  Previous to this we sat on the floor Chinese style, or sat at a small coffee table, using a basketball to sit on for a chair. 

Were in the midst of remodeling our kitchen. We live in a 150 year old home, and this is a major job.  We had a ton of people in and out of our home this week. Electricians, plumbers, and carpenter, all disconnecting the present electricity, plumbing, and taking out the cabinetry.  Everything is being taken apart, even the drywall, the floor, and the ceilings.  We also had a new furnace put in this week.

With the kitchen being taken apart, I had to figure out where we would put everything temporary.  All the food, the dishes, the spices, and the pots and pans.  Big job!  We made our laundry room into a kitchenette, moving our stove and dishwasher in the room, and installing a kitchen sink.  This room already had 2 freezers, a refrigerator, and pantry shelving.  Now, it's wall to wall with appliances and cabinetry.  We made our first dinner tonight in there. It was kind of fun cooking tacos with the kids in our laundry room! Very cozy!!!

Because our kitchenette just came together today, and the house was full of workers each and every day this week, my husband stayed home in the mornings from work and took us all out for breakfast. This was great because there was no good place to sit and eat; the house was a disastrous mess with all the "stuff" from the kitchen sitting in boxes and bags in the den and the living room; it avoided sitting around trying to eat a bowl of cereal with a dozen men walking through the house drilling, sawing, and hammering.    We ate at Cracker Barrel and Bob Evans all week for breakfast.  It felt as if we were on vacation.  Around noon each day my husband would go into work and we would go on errands picking up needed things at the hardware store and looking for new temporary shelving.  

   This week, I didn't try to balance school with a major house remodeling job.  I knew that would be a recipe for mom to lose her sanity and her temper (experience tells me so). I have always been intrigued with those that "unschool". Perhaps that is what you might call this past week for the kids.  Unschooling.

July 13th, 2006   Thursday

Got up around 6:00, helped my husband to get off to work as he had an early appointment.  We often spend time together each morning until around 9:00 a.m., but this morning he had a different schedule.  . 

My house was buzzing this morning.  I have my husband's brother, his wife, and two children with us this week.  They are here to attend a Teen Conference in Hammond, Indiana this week.  So they were up getting ready this morning at the same time my husband was going out the door.

I visited just a short while with my sister-in-law, then disappeared to my room to have my devotions.  When they left, I came downstairs to sit on the couch where I usually sit while studying and reading the Bible. It is my comfortable place with good lighting. I read in Deut. 11 as I am doing a word study on the word 'teach'.  

Things I need to do this morning:

Write out the hours of farm help from last week and email to my husband at work

x      practice the piano for church Sunday

       (Did practice, about 30 minutes)

Make up my bed, put away various things

Exercise for the day:  Horseback riding at 9:00 a.m.

get all my bills in one place, pay

Interesting thing that happened this past weekend:

We were sitting out on our paved sidewalk, Rachel, Jennifer, Ruthie, and I when a car pulled up that we didn't recognize.  We have a very long driveway, so cars pulling up that we don't recognize rarely happens.  I thought maybe it was just a curious drive-through, sometimes people just turn in our drive way to find out just what is back here.  But the car didn't drive through.  It pulled up to the old crib-barn and sat there a while.  I was really enjoying myself, sitting out under the sun, drinking lime soda pop, reading a wonderful book, enjoying the chatter and play of my children.  It had been such a busy week, almost every day I had been on the run, and sitting here under the sunshine was something I just didn't want to end.  So I didn't get up to find out who was in the car.  After a while, they pulled up behind our huge pine tree and parked there. Now I was sure they would probably be getting out and coming up to my door.  Who is this, I wondered?  A long lost frient that I haven't seen in a decade?  Possibilities of who this might be began to run through my head. I watched as I seen the door of the silver convertible Sebring open, and out stepped a blonde woman and a male companion.  I had never seen these two people before.  As I seen them walk under our arbor, through the picket fence gates, and step onto our red brick pavers, she began to speak and to introduce herself.  She explained to us that she had lived in this very same home, some 21 years ago.  She was raised there and asked if we wouldn't but mind if she walked the property and showed her companion where she grew up. 

She had a very interesting story.  She told us what the house looked like 21 years ago (a lot has been done to restore this 150 year old farm house).  She lived here until she was 18 years old, and then she left to join the air force.  She never came back and this was the first time in 21 years she had seen the place she had grown up in.  She was weeping most of the time that she was talking.  At 3:00 p.m. she had an appointment to see her father, who also she had not seen in 21 years. 

 I gave her a tour through our house. She reminisced as she walked into her old bedroom and through the kitchen, the living room, her parents bedroom, and the basement.  As she stood at the front screen door, overlooking the pond and willow trees, the slowly draping hills, the barns, and alfalfa fields, she turned to my kids, with tears in her eyes, and said, "Kids, appreciate this.  Your never going to forget living here.  When I was growing up, I thought the kids at Lake of Four Seasons (an upperclass subdivision) had everything. They had the pools, the nice cars, etc...  and all I had, was this."  At that, she made a giant sweeping wave of her hands, "ALL OF THIS," she said, now, with a different tone of voice, "I had ALL of this. I never understood the value, and oh, I do now.  If only I had appreciated what I had." Tears were dripping down her face.

It was  special  to me to meet someone who had grown up in this home. As I walked with her to show her what had been done to the old crib barn, I shared with her our vision for this place.  We are planning for a children's camp, for a place of church ministry.  I told her what we had named it.  "Shekinah Farms - Shekinah means the Physical Presence of the Almighty God".  At that, she stopped weeping.  Her companion and herself seemed to be in awe.  I told her how we had horses, as she once had, for children. We had purchased haflingers on purpose, because they are known for their docile and friendly nature.  She asked if we would be  doing any equestrian therapy for handicapped children and I told her that I had thought about that a lot and it was a desire to see that as part of the overall plan for this farm. 

  She walked into the crib barn and began to climb up the rafters as she had as a child.  After spending time in there with my children on the upper lofts, her companion commented when they came out that she had stopped crying. She said that ever since she heard what we planned for this place, it had stopped her tears. God was in this, both her and her companion conceded together.    I asked if she had time to walk in our gym and she said that she did.

Here is where the vision begins to unfold, I love to walk people through this building.  My father was a pastor for some 5 decades in the same church.  Before his passing away, the church had shrunk to a small level, and even further as the years passed.  We had only 4 families left, including ours, and we decided to purchase this land (together, with my family).  After moving here, we expanded the vision and had a multi-purpose building erected.  We weren't sure just what God was going to do, but we were sure that He was going to do something great here.  A giant size pole barn building, complete with a basketball court, a pass-through kitchen area (huge sized), plumbing underneath the ground enough for both a boy and a girl showers/toilets/sinks room.  The future laundry room, the office or apartment for camp director, and a huge loft that overlooks the gymnasium, for an overflow room, or meeting/game room.  We had a giant overhead door installed in case there would be music/drama that would need to bring equipment in. 

She had stopped crying after I had told her our purpose for this land, but now, as I walked with them through the pole-barn, unfolding the vision we had for the future here, they both became excited and filled with enthusiasm. God is here, and has a special purpose for this, they both had said. 

Although we have used this building for teen meetings, our church is now just 2 families, we are in a kind of a Noah's Ark waiting period, waiting for God to show us what He will do.   It was special to me to be able to share this vision with someone that had grown up here and appreciated it's beauty as I do.  It was special to me that someone that loves this piece of land as I do, was excited with me and seeing this future vision also.  The two of them had so much enthusiasm as we talked together about the plans. It was an experience I am guessing that I will never forget.