Yay Updates!

Hello!  I cannot believe how fast time flies.  I have a few updates for you.

1. After the winter off (looking for work but not finding any), Darryl got a job working for West Fraser Lumber Mill.  He’s been doing that for close to 3 months and he actually enjoys it!  He’s being trained on other equipment besides the entry level jobs, which he was expecting to have to work at for the first year like everyone else, but there are 5 guys under him already and he’s moving around to different areas.  I never thought it would work, but graveyard shifts are the best fit for us right now, and though he’s still technically on-call, they’ve been giving him full time graveyards.  They work because he only has to work 6 out of 8 hours and gets paid a teeny bit more, he’s home to see us in the morning before he goes to sleep, and up again around 4:30, so we see him more.  I also get the car during the day.  You know, if I really want to go to town or something.  Usually I just go around the lake to the library.

2. Sadie is finished homeschooling Kindergarten.  Except for Math.  We can do that slowly over the summer.  I still love using Sonlight.  I’m using some of my government funding to get a new laptop.  A MacBook Pro with retina display, to be more exact.  I’m so excited for that!

3. I got a new phone.  We both got new phones.  Mostly because our contracts were up and our 3 year old phones were getting a leeetle beet slow.  Darryl got the Samsung S6 and I got the HTC One M9.  Darryl’s is really slippery.  Mine has a 20MP camera.

4. Darryl bought me a present.  It starts with S and rhymes with “eel”.  It’s orange and white.  Give up?  It’s a Stihl!!  The weed whacker model (brand spanking new!).  I’ve needed one of these babies for like ever.  I trimmed all the 2 foot tall grass around the deck and posts and stairs, then started hacking a path down to the lake through grass as tall as me.  I made it halfway before I ran out of string and had to quit for the day.  Maybe I’ll get down to the lake tonight.  Then I can exhume the canoe from all the grass and weeds and go canoeing again.

5. We LOVE living here.  Our house is a perfect size for us, it has a built in milking parlour and chicken coop, lots of places outside to sit (if I had more outdoor furniture, that is), a killer 180 view of the lake, more grass than my animals can possibly keep up with, more yard than I can possibly mow (with the old electric mower that came with the place…I need a ride on now!), awesome storms that you can watch coming for hours, an amazing community with great people, and the best librarian on the planet.

6. A bear killed our dog.  A couple months ago he must have heard a bear trying to cross our property down by the lake and went to tell him where to go.  The bear didn’t like what he said and got outta there, as soon as the threat (our dog) was incapacitated.  Kai died valiantly doing his job.

7. We got new dogs.  I found them on kijiji and they were brought down here for us to try out for a weekend.  They did something horrible every day so we asked for more time and tried them out for 2 weeks.  After a week they learned a few of the rules and settled down better, so we kept them.  They’re 2 year old Australian Shepherds, a male and female from different litters.  They’ve had one litter of puppies before we got them, so we’re hoping they will have more this summer.  The male is a very handsome red and white dog whose grandpa was a show dog.  His name is Jake.  The female is not quite so well bred but she makes up for it in sweetness.  Her name is Junie.  We didn’t name them.  Sorry for the horrible picture, but these two aren’t trained and don’t yet know how to stay.

8. I got chicks the other day.  We do plan to get more layers this year too but I really wanted some prettier chickens that will raise their own babies.  I got 3 black orpingtons and 3 buff orpingtons.  They’re 2 weeks old already so I have even less time to build a pen for them until they’re big enough to join the 5 current laying hens.

9. The kids are doing great.  Sadie turned 6 and got a bike for her birthday, so she’s been busy riding that around.  She also likes to build forts outside, draw at least 8 pictures an hour, “read” books, and pick wildflowers for me.  Chad is 4 and plays with his cars for days and days and days.  Or he goes outside and plays with his cars.  Tirzah is walking finally.  She likes to push a plastic kids chair back and forth across the house, and she likes to go outside, but I have to carry her in the mornings.  In the afternoon she’s ok if I put her down.  She eats more bananas than a monkey.  Her eczema is mostly cleared up with a few itchy spots on her legs and some days her cheeks are a teensy bit red.

10. I can’t stop at 9 things so I’ll write a poem here for you.

Moola was a nice jersey cow

Who liked grass as tall as her lips

She ate so much that her head had to bow

But the grass still went straight to her hips

Well that’s enough fun for now.  If you’re still following me, I’d love to hear from you!  Leave a comment telling me what you would name a baby (girl) calf if her mom’s name was Moola.

What Do We Do All Day?

This winter has been unique, not just because we moved to a new house in the middle of Nowhere BC.  We have other unique circumstances this season.  Darryl was laid off his construction job at the end of November and we’ve been living off EI since then.  He’s applied at the mine and the mills in town and had a couple of interviews and medical tests by one of the mills, but they may not tell him if he gets the job for up to several months!  Despite that, our winter has been awesome!  We love having Darryl home with us, and we’ve grown so much closer as a family.  God had been teaching us things that used to be such a mystery to us, and He’s opening our eyes to what we’ve been missing.  We are so grateful for His Word and for His amazing provision for us!

This new lifestyle agrees with us so much more than when we lived in the big city.  Our neighbours are becoming friends, we have TIME to do the things we love doing, and those things don’t usually require a lot of money.  We only need one vehicle at this point, and though we think a truck would still suit us better for getting hay and firewood, how else would we get to know the neighbours?

I find myself having a fuller social life than I did living in the city.  I play badminton at the hall across the lake once a week, attend a mom’s group at church, a home group at a friend’s house, and now started attending a ladies bible study just down the street.  There’s also a kids play group at the hall once a week, but I don’t usually go to that.  Those are just the regular functions.  I go riding with neighbours once in a while, and chat with the librarian when I return my books.

When I’m not out socializing, I can be found sitting by the fire…

…improving my domestic skillz…

…drinking earl grey (caffeinated or decaffeinated, depending on the time of day.  I’m not addicted to caffeine)…

…playing with the kids…

…reading to the kids (a major part of Sadie’s schooling)…

…curating the art wall…

…honing my craft…

…taking goofy shots of the kids…

…and self portraits (see the reflection in the eye.  No, I don’t think I look like a horse)…

…and of course, making food…

…and cleaning.

Yep, that’s about it!  I wouldn’t change a thing.

Except the cooking and cleaning part.

We Moved 3 Times In 6 Months

So it went kinda like this.

Move #1

Left the mobile home and moved to the log home in March.  Spent 5.5 wonderful months there.

Move #2

Left log home and moved to a camper (thanks to some new friends!) in mid-August (cause that’s when we had to be out of the log home).  Put all our stuff in the barn at our new place and camped in the yard for 2 weeks until the landlady moved out.  Then camped an extra week to begin painting inside.  A blessing, really.  We haven’t been able to camp in the 2 years since we got a cow (Also a blessing to paint since she had 7 cats and 3 dogs).

Move #3

Left camper and moved into the house!  We brought our stuff over from the barn bit by bit using a dolly and the kids’ wagon.  We’re still moving stuff over.

I’m done with moving for a while now.  We have way too much stuff, yet I don’t know what I can get rid of.  The bulky things are tools and tool boxes, a wood stove, saddles, canning and food processing equipment, a kids carseat, a canoe and a dismantled plastic shed, to name a few.  When you add farm equipment to household goods, it adds at least 25% to the bulk.

Due to the unique characteristics of this house, we’ve moved a few things around already that didn’t work for us they way we thought they would.  I’ll get into some of that another time though.  The house is constantly changing before our eyes (and our hands, since we’re doing all the work), and it’s usually in a state of chaos with dishes piling up, toys scattered across the floor and painting supplies on every surface.  But it’s slowly coming into focus and we’re getting projects crossed off the list.  Darryl had 2 weeks off work cause his boss wanted a vacation, so we’ve been tackling as many projects as we can stand and we’ve made significant progress.

I’m excited to show you what we’ve done!  SOON!  There’s only a couple rooms that we can call done, even though I’m not done decorating them yet. I’m not unpacking any decor until the painting is done and the furniture arrangements are working for us.  So I have no pictures on the walls yet, except for a couple of mirrors and a stuffed pheasant.

And in case you’re wondering, we’re renting this place for at least a year and 8 months (hopefully more), and our landlady bought us all the paint and supplies we needed (except the dining room paint) and reduced our rent to help compensate us for painting her entire house.  She let us paint whatever colours we wanted and she’s going to let us build a wall upstairs when we decide we want another project (or more privacy in our bedroom–whichever comes first).

 

Our campsite.  The kids slept in the tent the whole time and loved it!

 

More about the house next time.

We Moved! Part 5

Sadie found a best friend less than a week after the move. She’s 3 and very articulate and energetic. Her parents are very nice and go to Luke and Steph’s church too. Chad is turning 3 on April 7^th. We invited anyone with children to come out to the playground with us to celebrate. Four families showed up bearing gifts for a little boy they barely knew. It was windy and fairly cold, yet the playground was well populated with children. Only the die-hard people of our old city would dare to venture out in that sort of weather.

Five weeks after moving, the winter is finally giving up. Now that the acres of dirt outnumber the acres of snow, I am thoroughly convinced there was close to three feet of snow when we moved here. I’m so used to snow melting into water and running off whatever hill it’s on, turning driveways to mud and creating temporary ponds, it’s strange that the snow can literally disappear before my eyes without a trace. No runoff creating gullies and gathering in any low spot it can find. Snow that I swear was there this morning is gone this afternoon. I think it’s the wind. The ice sublimates and blows away with the wind, skipping the liquid stage altogether. Not completely though. There’s a little pond by the lagoon that will probably disappear once it truly warms up. Two ducks stopped there this morning.

All these moving posts were sent from the library because our house isn’t in cell range, and we haven’t gotten internet yet.  We’re limited to dialup or satellite, so we’ll probably get satellite next month.  Weekends are for catching up on emails when we come into town.  But I think the internet fast has been good for us.  I didn’t realize how much time I wasted online and how much useless information gets posted on facebook.  I’m almost cured of that major time waster.

We Moved! Part 4

There was only one thing I lost in the move, that I know of anyway. Sadie’s basket of socks and underwear and tights mysteriously disappeared and 3 pairs of her dress shoes were gone. We bought her another pair of dress shoes and some socks and undies after she had to wear her runners with her dress to church. Then last week, while organizing the linen closet a bit more, I found them! I don’t know how I missed them before. They were right in the book where I recorded all the box numbers and contents, but I must have kept skipping over that one. It was perfect timing too because her bathing suit was also in there and we took the kids swimming on the weekend.

Everything else was pretty easy to find using my system. I have a book where I record box numbers and a quick rundown of what’s in each one and what room it goes in. I wrote numbers on the top and all 4 sides of the boxes, then used coloured dot stickers on the top. I taped up matching, large coloured paper dots in the entry with the room names written on them so our wonderful helpers could see what room each box went in. It worked great! About 95% of the boxes ended up where they should. I had 131 boxes numbered in the book. Darryl numbered his tool and auto parts boxes starting at 500 so we knew they were his, but he didn’t record what was in his boxes. He didn’t have too many though.

Since we’re anticipating another move at the end of the summer, we kept the collapsed empty boxes (since this house is sooo much bigger and we have the space!) Soon (maybe today!) I will go through the book and cross off all the numbers of the empty boxes so I know what has been unpacked. The empty boxes need to be stacked nicely anyway. 🙂

Speaking of moving again, we have a lead on a house with acreage and a barn that will be available to rent when we move out of here. Hmmm…coincidence? I think not. We haven’t seen it yet and don’t know much more about it except that it’s about halfway back towards town. We’d still prefer to stay out here because this area is GORGEOUS, so we’re going to try getting in touch with the owner of the piece of land we would love to buy just down the street from us with 3 mobile homes on it and a caretaker living in one of them. That would be an easy move. I could ride my horse over in 10 minutes. That place is 320 acres of mostly open hay fields, all fenced and cross-fenced, with a big shop, barns, corrals, sheds, etc. It was on the market last winter and my family considered buying it together. It looks even better in person, in the winter! Two people we talked to in the first week after we moved here said it’s a beautiful property. We can’t afford it on our own right now, though it is a great price, but we’ll see what happens.

We Moved! Part 3

For the most part, our move was pretty stress free. The most agonizing part was arranging transportation for the horse and cow. My brother Luke was a huge help and arranged for a truck and a trailer that he drove down and back, but securing those came down to the wire. As in, the morning they were leaving to drive down to help us, they had to find and borrow another truck. Aside from that, there were only minor things to deal with, like driving to another town an hour away to get our moving truck, and not having room for our canoe or BBQ. Two things we rarely use anyway. We’ll get them another time.

The animals loaded great. We put the cow in the front of the 3 horse stock trailer, and Banner in next, then the chickens and some hay. I think Banner loaded so well cause he watched his buddy load into a trailer two days before and was hoping to join him. The chickens were in the dog kennel, and Kai was in the back of Luke’s truck, which had a canopy.

The whole drive, which normally takes 5.5-6 hours, took us 8.5. We stopped for fuel on the Westside for Luke’s truck and a Starbucks run, then stopped at the Canadian Tire gas station in town for fuel for the moving truck, then stopped almost at the next town cause the foot on the horse trailer was barely clearing the pavement and dragging over the smallest bump. The guys went on to the next Canadian Tire store, and I met them there after feeding Tirzah. Darryl bought a new receiver and that fixed the problem. The next stop was in the next, and last, major town for a bathroom break, and then it was on to the boring part of the trip with only two more stops in tiny blips on the map for fuel or baby feeding. The moving van set the pace at a leisurely 80 kms/hr, which I’m guessing is why it took so long. Steph rode with me for the last leg of the journey and we stopped for chicken feed at the feed store. The guy at the counter was really friendly. I asked when they closed and he said 5:30. It was 5:37. “And we’re still here!” The debit machine was really slow and he said they had dialup and that the debit machine at the McDonald’s was so fast! My introduction to our small town. After the feed store, I dropped Steph off at a friend’s house (she was stopping at her mom’s for a pot of chili and driving out with her friend) and continued on by myself. The guys had already gone ahead to get there hopefully before dark. I knew the route fairly well just from looking at Google maps, but Steph drew a map for me anyway. It was dusk when I arrived. The driveway was blocked by a couple of trucks, including the landlord’s, who said hi as he left. He would have helped, but wasn’t feeling well. While the guys were outside doing who knows what, I sat on the hearth and fed Tirzah again, while Sadie and Chad ran around the big open living room in the partial darkness (no lamps yet). Then with a little direction from me, our helpers (all friends of Luke and Steph) began unloading the moving truck. Some details are a little blurry, but I think it took about 2 hours to unload everything. With the front door open the whole time, it got really cold in the house, and by the time everyone was gone, Darryl and I collapsed on the couches downstairs by the wood stove for a few minutes. I had to take a hot shower to warm up completely. The wood stove wasn’t warming the house up fast enough so we turned on the propane furnace for the night and we’ve been sweating in here every night since then. Except the few times we remembered to open the bedroom window for a while before going to bed.

That first week the temperature dropped down to minus 20 with snow blowing in sideways. Moola was hiding out beside the house instead of eating her hay, and she got a touch of mastitis from the stress of moving, so we put a horse blanket on her and she was much happier. By Sunday, the weather warmed up to plus 10 or something. Nice enough that I went riding for the first time in 9 months. The roads were bare, and there were people out walking on this remote road 25 minutes from a small town. One lady said she’d lived here for 35 years. Another couple have been here 30 years and said this winter was abnormal with a lot more snow and colder temperatures. There was over 2 feet of snow in our yard when we got here. One month later, we’ve had many more days of snow blowing in sideways and few days of sunshine, but the snow is only a foot deep now, and the driveway and road is bare. There’s a ring of dirt around every tree and stumps are showing up we never knew were there. Last week me and the kids went for a walk around the property, exploring the aspen grove below the house. I could walk on top of the crusted snow up until the end of our walk, when I started falling through in a few places. The snow was up to my knees. I guess it doesn’t get much sun in the trees down there.

Mastitis Update

Today I’ve been encouraged that what we’re doing to help Moola is working.

After doing more research, I’m pretty sure I can rule out poop being the cause of her mastitis.  Not that there isn’t a lot of poop in her pen, but there’s something else that can cause mastitis besides that.  Like an abrupt change in feed.

Oops.

We’ve been feeding her a grass/alfalfa mix hay because it’s nigh impossible to find pure alfalfa in this city, especially with all the hunter/jumper horses around.  They don’t eat straight alfalfa or they’d be uncontrollable.  The nearest source for alfalfa is usually a couple hours away, so we opted to switch her to grass/alfalfa mix shortly after she calved due to lack of time and gas money.  She’s been doing well on it.  But our goal was to switch her back to pure alfalfa as soon as we could find a decent source.

We bought a round bale of alfalfa a couple days ago and started feeding it to her the night before she got mastitis.  Half her old hay and half straight alfalfa.  I think that’s what happened.  She wasn’t used to that much protein.

Live and learn.

So I’m pretty sure it’s not a staph or e.coli infection.  Yay!  She hasn’t been that dirty lately either.

It’s only the second day and the first quarter that showed signs of mastitis is feeling almost back to normal.  The other side is a bit harder but I’m confident it will show signs of improvement soon.  It’s almost more like clogged milk ducts than mastitis.

Her front quarters are being milked 4 times a day, and after I massage the udder I’m alternating rubbing on castor oil and coconut oil with peppermint oil.

Darryl does the morning milking, so I milked again around 10am.  She gave me more milk from her front quarters than yesterday, so that’s another good sign.

The back quarters are still fine to drink since they’re not infected.  They’re producing the normal amount.  We milk them separately so we can keep the milk.  The milk from the front quarters goes to the chickens right now.

She sure loves all the extra attention.  I’ve been working on getting her cleaned up some more.  I trimmed her tail and brushed her legs.  She stood quietly the whole time and chewed her cud.

I showed Sadie how to milk today and she got a few squirts out.  Maybe when she’s 4 she can take over milking.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Today is a beautiful, lovely day and I’m typing this on my laptop outside in the sun.  The chickens are pecking at random specks in the dirt and the kids are playing nice in the sandpit.

And my house is a mess.

Today is a good day.

The Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For

I know some of you have been dying to see my table.

Maybe not DYING, but hoping to see it.

So here it is.

I found it online maybe a day after I sold my couch set for $180.  This table was $100.

I’ve been looking for a table that expanded to seat 10 for at least a year, and didn’t always have the money when I did find one we both liked (which never happened).  But he liked this one too.

It came with 4 chairs like the one on the end, which I’m not crazy about and look like they don’t even fit with the table.  It also came with a bench made by the previous owners to accommodate their 6 kids.  It fits under the long side perfectly.  The chair seats are pretty scratched up from said kids, and because I like mismatched chairs, I only use the 2 nicest ones for now.

The table also came with 2 big leaves, expanding the table to seat 12 comfortably!  Yay!  We’ve used it quite a bit already.  It also works great for laying out patterns with plenty of room for the sewing machine.

It’s not in perfect shape.  But that’s what I wanted.

It’s got scratches all over it and dings along the edges.

It’s a veneer top with solid wood legs.

Lovely, carved legs.

When you look at it up close you can tell it’s not a fine piece of furniture, but that’s ok.

I wanted one I wouldn’t be afraid to paint one day.

I’ll give you a minute to rant and rave at me.

Done?

Ok.

It’s not a priceless antique and it’s pretty beat up.  I can paint it if I want to.

I was reading through a library book the other day about prairie style decor (not the Frank Lloyd Wright kind, the romantic, country, shabby chic kind) and I found a table almost identical to mine.

Painted white.

I like it.  And he likes it.

Now I just have to get around to painting it.

I’ll wait till it’s warmer out.  It’s trying to snow a bit today.

Healthy Ice Cream!

I do love owning a cow.

There are so many perks.

Even on the cold, dark, evening milking shift, when she flings poop in my face with her tail or kicks the bucket over, I can trudge inside and chow down on the best fresh ANYTHING milk-related.  Take that, COW!

Just kidding.

But seriously, it makes the not-that-bad, 15 minute chore of milking seem like the best thing in the world when you have the best fresh milk, butter, sour cream, yogurt, and ICE CREAM that you can’t buy in the store, anytime you want it!

Makes me think I have it better than the most well-to-do people anywhere.  I’ll bet 99.9% of them don’t eat food this good.  I don’t even think the president gets his milk fresh from the cow or dairy products that aren’t full of chemicals his government approved of (but that’s a whole other topic).

All I’m saying is, I am blessed to have a cow.

And to eat the most amazing, HEALTHY ice cream whenever I want to!

Now, I realize most of you don’t have access to raw milk or cream, but I have to share this recipe because if you ever do get it, you will need this recipe!

No, it’s not mine.  I got it from the Paths Of Wrighteousness blog here.

But I’m going to show you how I made some yesterday.

You may recall Darryl and I bought an ice cream maker for our Christmas present.  It’s a Cuisinart 1.5 quart model.  I would have preferred one with more capacity but this one was highly recommended and on sale for less than a third the price of the bigger ones.  I think we paid about $60.

You don’t have to have an ice cream maker, but it helps a lot.  I have an older, manual, non-electric one I will sell you cheap.  Clean and works great.

So here it is.

4 ingredients.  3 1/2 cups raw cream, 1/2 cup raw honey, 3 egg yolks (from pastured hens), 1 tsp vanilla.

Right off the bat, I will tell you the version I made is not QUITE healthy.  I used Costco honey and I don’t think it’s the best kind.  It’s not local and I’ve read they add cheap syrups sometimes and don’t have to label it.  One day I will have bees.  Until then, we buy this cause it’s cheap.  I could buy local honey, but I put that money towards grass fed meat instead, since we can get so much better nutrition from it and eat it more often.

But at least it’s unpasteurized!  And from somewhere in Canada.

Ok, another cardinal sin…

I used mexican vanilla.  It has corn syrup in it, of all things.  But I was all out of vodka so I couldn’t make another batch of vanilla and had to settle for this.  Don’t be like me.

Now that that’s taken care of, we can start.

With this ice cream maker, you need to get all your ingredients ready ahead of time because the bowl is frozen and once you take it out of the freezer, it starts to thaw.  You do have time to make one (possibly 2) batches before it gets too warm though.

Turn it on and add all your ingredients.  After I dumped in the eggs, I realized I forgot to beat them first.  Again, don’t be like me.

The honey.

I did poke a spatula in there and found the egg yolks to break them up a bit.  There’s a few yellow flecks.  No biggie.

This ice cream maker turns the bowl, while the paddles and cover are stationary.  Notice the level of the ice cream inside.

When it’s done, it fills the bowl to the top!

When I was researching ice cream makers, I watched a little TV show clip about them, and they said the best ice cream was about 25% air.  I think this model makes it pretty close to that.

Then you have to scrape all the ice cream into a separate container for the freezer (or into your bowl).

It’s SUPPOSED to chill for an hour or 2, but that’s really hard to do.

I don’t know why anyone would want to.  It’s so good the way it is!

Right Chad?

Yeah, I did put most of it in the freezer.  I have to stock up for a party.

This recipe isn’t like most ice cream recipes that get you to heat it up first and make a custard.  This one’s all raw.  And so easy.  And so udderly delicious I don’t think I would bother with the other recipes.

This is one I can feel good about giving to my kids!

PS. I’m guessing you could use store-bought cream for this and it would work fine, you just wouldn’t have the benefit of the enzymes and nutrients and healthy fat in raw cream.  Oh, and if you’re lactose intolerant, please stick with raw cream.

PSS. Check out my Dairy Board on Pinterest for more recipes using raw milk or cream.

PSSS. On the same blog as the ice cream recipe, in case you didn’t actually read it, there’s another recipe for healthy chocolate syrup you can use to make chocolate milk, or to pour over ice cream.  It’s delicious too.

Is Blogging A Talent?

Hello again!

I know it’s been a while since I wrote last, but I’m not sorry.  I must have needed the break.  We didn’t have any disasters and there has been plenty going on.  I just didn’t feel like blogging.

I am always amazed when I read other blogs that post EVERY DAY.  Yeah, most of them make money at it and it’s like their job, but I think I would hate doing it if I had to come up with great content every single day to keep my readers reading.  They must do more than one post some days and schedule them to pop up on another day so they can have a day off.  Yeah, that must be it.

Anyway, I’m blaming my lack of inspiration on the personal growth that’s been stretching me for the last few weeks.  Exhausting and messy sometimes, but always with a light at the end of the tunnel.  I haven’t arrived yet because it’s a process, but things are looking brighter.

I realized the other day that I hide my talents from people.  I don’t tell people what I can do, especially if there’s someone else there with a similar talent.  Maybe because I don’t want to diminish their talent or make them feel bad because I can do it too.  I don’t want to one-up everyone around me or make everything into a competition.

But talents are gifts to be given.  If we’re not developing these gifts, we may lose them.  If we’re not giving these gifts, we’re keeping others from enjoying and benefiting from them too.

So, I’m going to stop hiding the gifts God gave me, develop my gifts more, and show people what I can do!  Not just on this blog.  I think this blog has been one of the few places I do show many of the things I can do.  I mean elsewhere, to other people.

No matter how scary it is.

I won’t be catapulting into everything at once, because there are times for everything and I don’t want to burn out, but I’m planning to tiptoe into the water a little at a time, in one area at a time, as my time and energy allow.

So that’s why I’m back.  To share my gifts with you.

And also my screw-ups.  And my weaknesses.  And my poor grammar.

So thanks for hanging in there…and for coming back!

 

PS. My next post is scheduled to pop up tomorrow at 9am.  You don’t want to miss this one!