Life as a Yowler

I’ve really been slacking in my blogging lately. It’s not that I don’t have time or thoughts. I’ve never had more of both those things. It’s honestly pure laziness and while I’m being honest….I’ve also been slightly hesitant. Things have been crazy. I’m not just talking about the world. I’m talking about people. Everyone(or at least most) has an opinion. I’ve never been one who has a problem disagreeing with people quietly. I rarely even share my opinion. There are MANY others who do not live by this standard. 🤣 I’ll just leave it at that. I usually avoid controversial topics and subjects. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion. It’s definitely not that I don’t care. I just tend to keep my opinion quiet and share it with those I’m closest to. Also, side note…..I have some sort of hold up with sharing photos on my blog lately. I know there’s a reason and it probably requires high tech brains, which I lack. Until Brandon can help me figure it out, I will have to leave pictures out.

Life has been both stressful at times and also restful at times. Honestly, the lack of traveling has been refreshing in a lot of ways. We have missed out on basically the last two Summers at home. That has been really tough as far as feeling disconnected from friends. I always feel like I’m missing out, when I see others hanging and doing Summery things together. I also really miss people. I’m looking forward to spending more time around this Summer and hanging out with friends. Our new favorite family activity is having bonfires together. It’s become a quarantine normal. We chopped down over 40 trees, so we have tons of wood to burn.

The reason we chopped down 40+ trees is we are preparing for a house remodel. We cleared area for the addition and also a yard. We’ve decided to add a living room on to the house along with a garage. The living room will be really big and will give us tons more living space. The current living room will become kitchen and dining room. Those of you that know my kids often question how I contain them in our current small space. Let me tell you…..I lose my cool daily. I know space won’t solve all of my problems, but it will sure help. The kids will have more space to move. I’ll have a much bigger kitchen for feeding hungry people. Plus we will be able to entertain friends again, which we really miss.

We are just about finished with the girls’ playhouse. It will have two stories, along with electricity. Brandon gets a little out of control. What he started turned into a much bigger project than he could handle. We’ve all been pitching in and painting and a builder is finishing up the final touches. I can’t wait until it’s completed.

We made a somewhat terrifying discovery last week. Our bathroom that’s right off the living room has had a horrendous smell the last 6ish months. I had been blaming my boys’ terrible aim. Well, the smell was just awful last week and Brandon decided to investigate. He went down to the crawl space. He noticed the base floor was totally black and rotten. I didn’t even have time to mentally prepare or get stressed or pull hair out. We went to town and ripped apart our bathroom that very day. We had to cut the bathtub in half to remove it. The timing worked out because Brandon’s mom was here from Ohio to watch kids. We had an Amish guy build our cabin. Great craftsman…..terrible toilet installer. The toilet has slowly been leaking since we built the cabin 6 years ago. We are just thankful none of us went busting through the floor while sitting on the throne. 🤣

I had an ER visit this week. Not for me, but for Caed. I noticed a huge red area on Caed’s back with a black looking bug in the middle. I really wish I could post a pic. I assumed it was a tick. I couldn’t remove it. I probably did everything in the world wrong. Have I mentioned that I’m the absolute worst in emergencies? I ended up calling a friend over. She agreed it looked like a tick, but we were unsure. Whatever it was, it was definitely infected. So I took him to the ER. My kids play in the woods almost constantly this time of year, and I’ve been really fearing bug bites. Luckily, they didn’t think it was a tick. They think it was an infected spider bite. After 3 days of medicine, the redness is almost totally gone.

Today, the Thumb of Michigan got some really bad wind storms, possibly even mini tornados. We’ve been without power for 6 hours now. Luckily, we have a generator that powers our whole house. It’s just a matter of hooking the generator up. I did this for the first time today by myself. Brandon usually always takes care of this, but he was unable to today. In the words of Joah “wow, mom, I had no idea you were even capable of doing this.” I didn’t really either buddy. 😊 Hopefully our power comes back on soon, and we don’t have to keep filling it with fuel every few hours. I really have no room to complain though. Other than a few fallen branches, we had no damage done to our place.

Our Fall traveling schedule is still up in the air. We do plan to travel again. We are waiting for things to totally open back up. We are also waiting on some business things to come through. Overall, business is doing very well which is a huge blessing. With losing Art Van, then the corona virus following shortly after, I don’t think I’ve ever been under so much stress. Brandon and I felt an actually physical chest pain almost daily. The whole experience has been very humbling. I have surrendered daily. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling with things being totally outside your control. I’m glad I serve a God who is in control. I consider it a huge victory and blessing to be able to come through this year even stronger. There are still definitely some unknowns, but I don’t doubt God’s provision.