Finally its Autumn!

 I will just have to share fall pictures of the other house, until I get something from around here. Its going to be hard though with palm trees. About the only thing I saw yesterday on my walk was orange dates hanging from a date palm. 

I missed the first day of fall yesterday. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't turned my calendar until last night so all day yesterday I thought it was the 20th. We have blue skies again, but its still pretty warm. So it doesn't feel like fall quite yet. 

In the above quote by Wendell Berry, I loved so much and I would say, is the cry of my heart. Even though I am pretty much in town, in a neighborhood. I think that quote still says how I want to live. 

It had got so loud and noisy at the other house, it was becoming more and more tiring to try and find peace and quiet. I lived most of the time with head phones in my ears. The plus of living here is that its quiet, very quiet. Its dark at night, we can see the stars again. I will get planter boxes and  I will grow food again. My fireplace is beautiful and it has a mantel. I have wanted a mantel for 40 years and I am constantly redoing this mantel over and over. When we work outside, we actually finish. We have laughed over that so many times in the past week. We get finished. We never got finished the list of things to be done just got longer and longer. 

I wanted to share something that happened to us when we were finishing selling our house. I share it in hopes that if you sell your house or land you might pay very close attention to the paper work. We still don't know why this happened and the title company is completely mum on the subject. 

Ron's job is all about numbers. All day, every day. Making sure that numbers are correct and things are working the way the programs are supposed to be working. In the industry he works in if those numbers are wrong, people could get hurt or killed. He is very careful about anything to do with numbers. 

He knew down to the penny what we would get back on the sale of our house. The final closing papers came in and down at the bottom, out of the blue, was a charge to us for Forty-one thousand dollars.  We stared and stared at it. It had nothing to do with the our transaction. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. Ron knew it wasn't right, and he called the title company and in our 40 years of being married, I have never heard Ron's voice like that. I was glad it wasn't me on the other end of the phone. They couldn't tell him what it was for or why. 

They said they would resend it and that charge was gone and we were back to what was going to be the real amount. Ron asked and asked and no one would give him a straight answer as to why that charge was there. So of course, he then went over those charges with a fine tooth comb and he found other charges that we had already paid out of pocket that they had charged us for. He got that changed too. I am sure that day, they regretted ever making that mistake in their favor. 

But then, we asked ourselves, how often does that happen. You or we did, we expected the figures from the title company to be correct. What happens to people who don't question or check those figures and just trust the title company to be honest. Do people just get fleeced and taken advantage of? So all of this to be aware of this sort of thing. Things have changed so much out there and we were shocked at the level of just dishonesty we experienced selling our house. There were other things that were just as shocking but I will leave it for another day. I might need something else to write about. 

Its going to be a nice day today. I hope its a nice day where you live. Haylen and Makenzie are doing okay. Thank you for your prayers. We as a family appreciate it so much. 

I hope your day is filled with the smell of fall. The phantom smell of wood smoke, the crisp tang to the air. The promise that in the end, life is pretty good and dreams do come true, they just might look different from what as in my case, what the original dream looked like. This dream is better when seen in real life. Haylen is 26 weeks old today. On Tuesdays, I celebrate to myself his new week of life. Its teaching me that every day should be like that. Every day should be a celebration of all of the good things we are given. Because as we know, we only have today. 

Blessing to you, from my heart.

~Kim~

September in its Glory

 Hello, Don't you love September. I think its just fall is almost here and what a gift I think fall is to us after a hot summer. My computer died and thank goodness, Ron knows how to fix this stuff. He finally got it up and running last night. My power supply died. 

This is going to be a long post. I think I will show you what I have been working on first. 

My Cape Ann first. That is a big rug. I just had no idea how big it really was. The more I work on it the more I am loving it. 

I worked all day on that second flower. I mean all day. My hand wouldn't work by the time I finished. I know I will be ordering more wool. 

I have been working on this a little bit too. Its nice to have something when its not hot to work on and this is fun. 

Now for the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say. 

On September 8th We received a text from our son William saying that Haylen Dean was born. Ron and I were both stunned and couldn't figure out what that meant as we had seen Makenzie on Saturday night and she was only 24 weeks pregnant. I called William who I believe was at the hospital. Things are fuzzy to me now. Earlier in the day, Makenzie was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and upon arriving once they figured out she had no heart beat or blood pressure, they realize she was bleeding out. They rushed her to surgery and as they were running down the hall, the doctor told Makenzie that the baby might have to be born to save her life. She had to have 6 1/2 pints of blood. They put her in a coma and delivered the baby. He was 1 pound 8 ounces. He is 12 1/4 inches long. William was with him in NICU but he didn't get to see Makenzie. He went home. We went over and of course I have cried now for a week. William cleaned out the refrigerator while he talked. Looking back, its like walking in a dream. 

During that night, Makenzie in a drug induced coma fought it and kept asking for Halen and William. 

When you have a tiny baby like that they tell you, its the first hour, the first two hours then the first night. He made it through the night and Makenzie was taken off the breathing tube.  

She had been on the brink of death. William told us, he could have lost both his wife and baby that day.

 This is my favorite picture of her. They had moved her to a labor and delivery room. Its about 9:00 or 10:00 that night of the day after her almost dying and as soon as she is able she goes to the baby. She is cut vertical from her breast bone to her pelvis. They had to use staple to stitch her up because she is so allergic to tape. She is so amazing and she hasn't missed a day with Haylen. She came home on Saturday. 

He holds her hand and today he squeezed it three times. Yesterday he was 25 weeks. What a year this has been we have 13 grand babies now. Haylen breaks the tie. The boys are ahead again. Its been good and its been hard but it has never been anything that I am not thankful for. We only have today. It has reminded me each morning that today is a new day. Today is a new beginning. Every morning my first thought is for the babies God has given us and the blessings we get to experience. I know that God has got this. It puts life into perspective and narrows my vision. 

What I have learned this week. Dreams come in all sizes. Wishes take a lot of work. But all in all, life is a gift and I am thankful to be here. Right now. I don't think I would have said that last week at that time. I was having trouble even catching my breath. But today, its all good. 

I just thought I would let you know what is going on and if you think about it, could you pray that Haylen grows up to be a big strong man and that his Mommy and Daddy have the strength to go through all of this. 

Thank you,

~Kim~

Happy September

How are you? Are you glad we have made it to September? My mind wants to do Fall things but the heat outside reminds me that Summer isn't going to give up easily. We have a huge heat wave coming this weekend. I have sat down to write a post almost every day since the last post I wrote, but I sit here and can't figure out what to say. I mean what do I do all day? Our fridge sprung a leak, and got the wood floor all wet. Now we have a issue with the wood floor. We might have the  fridge thing fixed next week. The hot tub ( first world problem) is broken. We finally decided to fill it with water and see if it worked. It doesn't. Ron watched You Tube videos and now feels pretty confident he can fix it this weekend.

I showed this picture to Ron and said, "Hey lets turn the back yard into this." I was joking sort of.
He stared at it a long time and said, " That might be a good idea." After going through a period of no garden and no plants, I think I could take out all of the grass with no problem. I don't know though if I would want gravel. One of the things that is new for me is not wearing shoes. At the other house I was forever jumping up and going outside and I would put on my shoes in the morning and not take them off until I was going to bed at night. Here, I stay barefoot. There is no stickers or spiders or even flies really. Not that I am complaining, its just different.

I have a few baby pictures. Would you like to see them? Ben and Megan had a little girl too. So this summer we have two baby girls. Which brings the grand kid count to Six girls and Six boys. I love double sixes. Makenzie has the tie breaker coming in December.

If you don't watch Ben and Megan's vlog. You won't know this little one was in such a hurry to get here that Ben ended up being the catcher. So like the last two years of their life," they did it by self"
One of our grand daughters when she was little always would say, " No grandpa,"  Do it by self."

When one of our sons was in college and in the class the teacher had each of the students come up with a motto for their family. Our son said ours was, " Be polite don't fight." I always really like that. But now, I think our family motto has changed to " Do it by Self." As I have watched all of our kids and how they have begun to take on life, that is the one thing I notice the most. They are very self reliant. Is it good? I don't know.
 I know as a young woman and I was being interviewed for a leader position in a Bible Study group I wanted so badly to be a part of, the lady interviewing me said, As she pulled off her glasses, " I see a young woman before me very self confident woman. But what I want to see is a very God confident woman instead."

I am so thankful though, that they are able to all do a great job at every single thing they have been called to do and of all of the things Ben amazes me at what he can do, now even catching a baby still blows my mind.

Here is our sweet baby who lives in Arizona. I never posted pictures of her. I am so remiss. We were moving and I just didn't say to much about her either. She was another fast baby. She came almost as soon and her Mom and Dad got to the hospital. I sit and ponder all of the directions our kids have been called to do and go and I am so very proud of them. I am just over the moon at the sweet girls and their lovely choices to be Moms.  One of my favorite quotes when I was having children was, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." I think its still true, for good or bad as we see played out each and every day. 

 

 I wrote that two days ago. Now I hope to finish this blog and get it published. I asked our oldest daughter if brag posts bothered her and she said, "heck no Mom, brag away."  So forgive me for my bragging.

 

Its September. This morning as I sat outside, as the sky began to turn its rosy color from the sun. The neighbor cat who lives  behind us, sat on the roof and watched us as we watched him. He tucked his arms under himself and settled in to watch the sun come up. Then silently as it got light, he slipped away over the roof and down to the ground. I wondered if perhaps he had escaped from his owners and spent a Friday night out on the town. I have only seen him one other time. He is a big cat. As big as a dog and he is a stripey guy. He is the only cat I have seen in the neighborhood.  In a normal September I have goals a mile long. What is hard after the move, is trying to come up with any goals at all. Its scary to me in my mind. My mind, when I try to think of them, shies away like a horse from a blowing paper bag. My mind just refuses to go there. At least I am not chopping tumbleweeds this weekend.

 I hope you have a incredible weekend, this Labor Day weekend. I wish you the best.

~Kim~

"Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul... but I must confess that I love you only because you are a prelude to my beloved October".  (Peggy Tony Horton)