A little bit of this and that

It's cold. Other people have cozy wood stoves, but we do not--yet. Lord willing, with some remodeling done this coming spring and summer, we will have a wood stove for next year. Our plans also include a closed-in front porch for taking off boots and hanging up winter gear. If code allows, we will feed the stove pipe out through the porch and up through the porch roof so there can be a tiny bit of heat out there. It will also be a good place to store wood, but maybe we'll work something else out for that.

We have had snow upon snow upon snow, with more snow coming over the weekend. I like the snow, but since we went to two vehicles, I'm driving in it more. It isn't always the most pleasant experience!

I have been posting a lot of old school books on ebay canada. Out of 40 items, there has been only one bid. If anybody knows a better place to sell home school materials, let me know. I still have about 30 items to put on.

We got a "new" refrigerator/freezer from friends who went Mennonite and are getting rid of most of their electrical appliances. We put our old fridge/freezer in the cellar for extra storage, and put the upright freezer in the Penny Grader for sale. At some point, I'd like to get a small chest freezer, but for now I think we are okay with what we have.

They also gave us their front-loading washer and a dryer. We are keeping our old washer and dryer to help us get laundry done faster. Maybe now we won't have to wash clothes every day. I'd like very much to go back to twice a week washings. And if we can get the wood stove in next year, I'll be able to set up racks to dry clothes overnight. If we do that, I will do one big load every evening or so, hang it to dry overnight, and fold it in the morning.

All this means that from yesterday afternoon till now, the kitchen has been a maze of appliances, with removed room doors lying in the girls' room and the cellar access torn up to make room for the stuff that went down there. Mostly we're back to normal, with just the big freezer to move out to the deck for now. There is more space in the kitchen with only one big appliance instead of two.

Has anybody ever tried to put eleven people in a two-bedroom, one-bath house? It's fun, cozy, crowded, noisy, cluttered, sometimes messy, and full. Putting the two oldest out in the garage this summer freed up some space. Still, there are four boys in what is supposed to be a family room, three girls in the larger bedroom, and Tom and me in the smaller bedroom. Where will the new baby go? Well, we asked ourselves that before Timothy was born, and found room for him. I'm sure Baby will fit himself in just fine.

We have decided to go ahead with our original plans to remodel this place for sale, and use the profits to buy a place with a bit more land. We will get a prefab as unfinished as possible, do as much of the work as we can ourselves, and gradually work toward having a small farm. I had actually given up on the farm idea, thinking that was not God's plan for us. But recently Tom, a confirmed city boy, has had different ideas. He wants us to grow more of our own food, including milk and meat, so as to have as natural a diet as possible, with as little food processing as possible.

Only the Lord knows what is ahead for us in the next few years. We are taking one day at a time, but with a goal in mind now that was not so solidified previously. There is more that can be said, but I don't have the words for it right now. Something to do with peace, contentment, trust, submission, and other similar words. I'll mull that over in my mind and see if I can verbalize it in a later post.