And then the world seemed to end...

When the call came in the middle of the night...

Your daddy passed away...

It is never something you are prepared for.  It is not something that I was expecting to hear so very soon.

Life shattering.

Having to break the hearts of your children.

Overwhelming sadness.  Unbearable grief.

But then the reminder comes.

In the midst of the waves that keep knocking you back.

There is hope. 

There is an easing in the ache.

Because...Jesus.

When I thought I would never look at the month of April the same again.

Jesus.

In every sunset. Every cardinal perched on my butterfly bush. Every single dragonfly.

Light, love, hope. 

Because I know I will see him again.

My daddy, waiting for me with Jesus.

Until then, I will be here.

Watching for those reminders.

Sharing memories of my daddy.

Sharing the love of my Jesus.

Always wanting that hippopotamus for Christmas.

Me

Remodeling should be a dirty word!

The constant projects.  The endless trips to Home Depot. The choices that have to be made. 


UGH!


But it will all look amazing when it is all done. Right? Hopefully.  It will get done. Eventually...


The kids' bathroom is finally making progress.  The floor joists are in and the plywood is next.

Almost half of the living room is painted.

I have rough framing in my office doorway and one more piece of sheetrock to go up. 

Now, if we could get all that done and get everything where it needs to go, we would have really accomplished something.

And then only 7 more rooms to paint.  Having a house full of kids is hard work!

I am so excited about these changes happening.  I feel like I am actually on top of the laundry monster! The termites have realized that I am determined to make them keep their rooms clean.  And finally they are doing things without complaint because they see how serious I am.  They are each old enough to pick up their space. Responsibility makes for good work ethic and I am going to instill this in them no matter what.

 (there, I said it out loud, sort of, and now I can stick to it without caving or anyone potentially not surviving til they go away to college. Namely me!!  Lol!)

This round of remodeling is why he and I will never be able to build a house together.  We don't have time to work on his "he'll do it when he gets to it schedule" and I don't have the patience for him to tell me to pick out what I went and then  proceed to tell me why I can't have what I picked.  If we ever have another house, it will have to be done and perfect when we pick it.  And someone else will have already built it!

So for now, we work on what we have and we survive. 

Just me, him and a bunch of them.