Good Friday 2014

Once again I find myself trying to catch up. I do believe I am in a permanent state of doing that, never being done with any job long enough to move on to the next. It seems to be my cross to bear for the rest of my days. I try not to worry myself sick over it, but it remains a frustration, always on my mind that I am just not fast enough to ever stay ahead of the game, always lagging behind. So is my constant being, often upset with myself because being overwhelmed is not a good thing. It causes stress daily and at night it follows me to bed, and waits for me in the morning when I wake. It causes tossing and turning and restless clock-watching at night. I know many of you have the same problem and those of you who don't please tell me how you deal with it (or how you don't).

During these past weeks there have been several high points among the low. One was the Christmas cactus. I have 4 of them, all different colors, the one pictured is the largest of them all. During the winter months it sat dormant while the other 3 bloomed. Then a few weeks ago it surprised me and looked like this. And slowly it became this......

It was almost like the 3 smaller ones were blooming during the season of birth of our Lord Jesus, and now on Good Friday God has graced me with something beautiful to help remind me of a death and Resurrection. To show me there is beauty and joy even in times of sorrow. It also reminds me that all comes from and belongs to God. I do believe even though we are not suppose to put our treasures of things here on this earth, that God shows us he loves beautiful things just as much as we do. We are all beautiful in His sight, how could we not be, He created us.

Now, if any of you have been wondering what I have been dealing with these past few weeks, stick around and I will show and tell. They (the dumpster people) delivered the dumpster and the lumber company delivered shingles, lumber, siding and all the other supplies that were going to give my 2 out buildings their face lifts. Much to my dismay the crew started their work bright and early on a Sunday morning, 3 Sundays ago. They started out like gang busters, removing all the old shingles from the roofs.

I didn't document on which days what happened, but there were several days when the weather did not cooperate and the guys worked here, like on nasty weather days. What bugged me was they started another job (inside job) somewhere else and on some of the sunny nice days they didn't work here but were at the other place. I was annoyed, mainly because with the nasty wet weather came the MUD.

I don't mean to be mean about it, but some of the sunny days they could have been right here working and they were off doing a bathroom, then on rainy days they were here working in the rain which leds me to the conclusion that men are like turkeys, they have no sense to know when to come out of the rain.

Yeah, that is snow to the left in the above picture. Here in Northwest Ohio we woke up with 2 inches of snow. The day before it was 70 degrees. Much to my dismay all their equipment was covered with the white stuff. I was mumbling under my breath about how they could have had this job done if they would have spent those nice days here instead of somewhere else.

What upset me most was the ground was a muddy mess and once they got the new roof on the above building, they tracked the new shingles with mud. They tracked it everywhere, inside the building where they decided it was cool to store some of their tools, all over the little front porch, the deck in back of the house and the back porch where they put more of their tools and on my driveway that I just had resealed last summer. Now I know that they had to put their tools someplace and it was okay that they did, but it was the MUD tracked everywhere that got to me. There was 5 guys tracking MUD....I think you all get the picture.

 

 

The above pic is the completed wood shop. I think had my husband lived he would have been happy with what I had done with it. I had the new roof put on with shingles that have a 40 year guarantee and the vinyl siding so I don't have to ever worry about ladders and painting. They had to special order the siding because of the color. I wanted the old barn red similar to the color of paint that we picked out back when my husband built it. The shop sits on a bit of a slope and Rog had lattice work down all around the bottom. You can't see it here, but might be seen in older pics. The stuff was becoming an eye sore and after so many years it was falling apart. Animals like rabbits, ground hogs, and stray cats had also done their damage. Trimming close around it with the push mower didn't help it either. We came to a solution of closing up the bottom with treated lumber and adding air vents for some ventilation. I have a whole slew of hostas that I planted years ago on this side of the building. I see no sight of them coming up. When the guys worked on the siding they dug a trench all around to get the treated lumber down in the ground and when finishing up with the siding they trampled the wet ground so much it is now packed hard like concrete. I am sure if they were weeds there would be no doubt to their ability to spring out of of the packed earth. We will see.......

The little out building is all done too. They got the latch on the inside top of right door to help hold it in place so both doors are stable when they are closed. I am so glad these buildings are done, one less headache to worry about. I started on this project a year ago, trying to find someone willing to come do this. Now I can cross this off the "To Do" list.

In the evenings, in my spare time I did make a some things for the Guardian Grandmas Project found here. You can find out more by going to Debi's blog and searching in her right-hand column for the link to the sight. The first blanket and matching hat I wrote about in my Saturday, March 29th, 2014 posting. This second set is also a free and easy pattern that I found on the wrapper of Lion Brand Pound of Love Yarn. You do have to go to the website LionBrand.com for the instructions. The number of the pattern is #90425. The instructions are for the blanket only, there are none for a hat. I just improvised and made one up, using the pattern stitch and sheer hope that I could pull it off. I sent both blankets and hats to Debi who made a video about them when they arrived. I am working on 2 more projects, one knitted and one crochet. My knitting is my portable project and of course I switch back and forth when I get tired of one then I work on the other.

I am ending this post on a sad note. On Saturday our family lost another good soul, my sister-in-law Dot. A lot of people called her "Dottie" although her name was Dorothy. I just called her Dot. I don't know if there was anyone who enjoyed life as much as she did. She knew how to have fun, she always warmed up a room with her presence and I can honestly say she loved everyone. She never took a bad picture, always photogenic. She loved to sing and play the guitar. One of her favorite songs was Amazing Grace, but she could belt out Proud Mary with the best of them. She turned 80 in October and in December she found out she had leukemia. The last 5 months of her life were so very hard on her and her husband (my husband's oldest living brother). We are averaging about 1 death per year in this family. God knows what He is doing even if we don't.

Rest in peace my dear sweet sister-in-law. I know you loved Jesus. You can sing for Him now in heaven. I love and miss you ♥