A New Place

We Made It!! In one piece! I am all unpacked in the house. Ron is getting the garage fixed up like he wants it. I started decluttering last January. I am so glad I did. I had five dumpsters hauled off and three trash cans that were filled every week right up until we moved. The last few days before the movers came, we had a man haul off two truck loads of furniture. I am so glad I did that but we still have so much stuff. As I unpacked, I can't remember what I got rid of or what it was. I didn't have a single thing break either so that was good.

This is the great room. I will work on getting better pictures. Its very warm and welcoming I think. I didn't think my couch would fit but after we fooled and moved and all of that we finally got it to look very nice.

I love this piece of furniture. Its so huge. It can store all of my china. I put my antique dished in here. My tea pots too. I haven't got to the fun stuff yet. Like decorating and making it look homey. I can't wait to hang pictures.

I am so glad I have a mantel. I think I have rearranged it every day since I have been here. I can't wait until fall. I am going to have so much fun decorating for fall and for Christmas.

That room to the back is the dining room. I am still trying to figure out the dining room. I love the doorways and the curves.

This is looking the other way you can see the front door, which is a double front door. Then you can just see Ron's office. He said last night its the nicest office he has ever had. Since he works from home now until this junk is over, I am so glad he is here. Once I get my room situated I will show you my lovely sewing/library room. Its just perfect for me but I haven't had the brain power to even think about sewing or hooking yet. Its nice to have all the things I love out of boxes and in places I can get to them.

You will have to look at pictures from my old pictures. There are no flowers here. Just bushes.
Moving was as I think moving-is always is, stressful. The people who bought our house, had sold their house and the people who bought their house closed escrow on Tuesday. Our escrows didn't close until that Thursday. The people who bought our house had to be out of their house on Thursday night. The owners started moving in as the people who bought our house were trying to move out.

We had asked and had it signed and approved. We had three days after escrow to move out. Thursday night, they were calling and asking could they just move their stuff to our house? So they did. They put it out in the pasture because we had moving trucks coming on Friday morning. I was so thankful for Emilie, Peter and Elliot who came and helped us. We made a few loads before the movers got there but then when they got there it was crazy. Like moving always is.

The movers got to this house about 1:00. Ron and the kids went back to the house to get the stuff that we didn't have the movers move. Peter was vacuuming and Emilie was cleaning up where the fridge and washer and dryer had been. I was here telling the movers where to put everything, when the people who bought our house, called and wanted to move in ASAP. Of course we said. Ron reminded them that we had the house until Sunday at 6:00. They said okay, because he still had all of his trees to bring over here. On Saturday, Ron went back with Peter to get his trees. 50 of them. He has gone back a couple of times to help the people find and fix stuff. He is so nice. I am not so much. I think they just need to get over it and figure stuff out. But of course that is me. I feel like I have put up with so much garbage from people, that I am just done.

The evil side of me wonders what they are going to do when they see one of these things jetting across the floor at night or on the patio. We didn't tell them about the skunks or the raccoons or possums, or foxes. Or even the occasional scorpion that comes in sometimes. They will get to live with tumbleweeds by the thousands. I am very glad to be here.

The way I look at it when the walls start  closing in here, I can just get in the car and go over here to see the sky. Though, this house is nice, I can see the sky just fine. Its weird though, I have yet to see any neighbors. Its like living in the middle of nowhere there are houses, just no people. I was so afraid it was going to be like Ma and Pa Kettle go to town, but I don't think anyone has noticed us. 

I haven't got to the point where I can laugh at myself and everything else. Once I do that then I will be back to normal. I am looking forward to living here. To feel like I am at home. I am thankful I should say that. On July 2nd, Ben and Megan were in a terrible wreck. The truck rolled twice. They all walked away. Here I was in California and I couldn't do a single thing. Selling a house. When Kessie went into labor and had the baby, I was selling a stupid house. Then again, I couldn't do a thing. That day we had a inspector there. I called him Charles Manson. Weird guy. So I had Charles Manson junior traipsing though my house, wearing a mask, gloves and booties. It was freaky. The people buying the house were there and  there are times in my life that I describe it as putting my arm in a fire and watching it burn. Selling and buying a house has been like that. Especially, during the age of lock-down. I might be feeling a bit shell shocked. To add to it, we had to put our kitty down on Tuesday. All it shows me is that I can push beyond way beyond anything I thought I could. 

I leave you with this, because I have just lived it. Over and over. "God sometimes asks of us things that look impossible, but they never turn out to be---because God's command is always His enabling."

He told me over and over that nothing was impossible and that He would do it. He did. I just didn't know how hot the fires would be. So today, I am here, a little singed, but better for it. 

Thanks for following along on this journey. One, I never dreamed in a million years, I would take. So as I close the door on one place, I open the door in a completely different and new place, excited for this next chapter God has led us to and into a new place of dreams. I am still Farmgirl though. I am already planning my next gardens. 

~Kim~

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

(Langston Hughes)

Good-Bye to My Field of Dreams

Good Morning. I just wanted to write this last post, from My Field of Dreams. I will keep blogging, and it will be maybe Field of Backyard or something. But we are packing, the movers will be here at 10:30. The new owners have already have moved stuff in because they had to be out of their house last night. Lots of juggling.

I will give you a tour soon. Its all good.

Thank you for following me through all of the ups and downs of life. Thank you for following me on this next chapter of our lives.

Blessings to you all,
Kim

Moving doesn't change who you are.
It only changes the view outside your window.
Rachel Hollis

Home From Tucson

Good Morning! How are you on this fine day in June? We are back from Tucson. As you can see our trip was cut short by the fires that were there. Sad thing to notice, but even with fires burning in the Catalina Mountains, every day since June 5th when lighting started these fires, the sky is bluer than going through L.A.

I can't tell you how I felt knowing that I was going to be staying in a house that was at the base of the mountains. We went to visit our newest grand daughter.

She wanted to come a week early before we even got there. Mom and baby are doing great.
We have eleven grands right now. Number 12 is due in August. Number 13 is due in December. On Father's Day we found out that number 13 will be a boy. As of right now, the count is 7 boys and 5 girls. Megan and Ben are waiting the old fashioned way. My heart and cup over flows.

Would you like to see a few pictures of the new house?

Here are just a few.

I have always wanted a fire place like this. I love the mantel.

This was almost the deal breaker. Ron doesn't like chicken wire in cupboards.
He liked this one though.

We went through the house with the inspector. Its a nice kitchen. I have always wanted a kitchen like that too. This was the day after the baby was born, and I felt like a deer in the headlights, so that was all of the pictures I took. It will be a nice house for two people. 

This is my little cactus. He just makes me laugh. He looks so funny with his blooms and his sunglasses. Moving is coming along very fast now. We could be closing on the house and moving very soon. I have been packing and packing. How in the world can I have this much stuff? 

I was thinking the other day. Moving is always stressful. Our girls having babies is stressful. Having strangers traipsing through your house is stressful. Then the whole crazy stuff going on in the world is beyond stressful. Trying to hang onto peace and the strength to find good in the world is harder than ever before. 

We brought a rental car back from Tucson. We had a slow leak in a front tire, so we kept having to find a place to put air in the tire. It costs 1:50 every time you need to use air. I didn't have quarters. I went into stores to get change. Every single time I went in, the sweetest people worked in the stores. But my favorite was this one. 

I walked into this kind of scary looking grocery store to get change. When I walked in I had a mask in my purse, but I didn't have it on. As I walked in behind the counter was the biggest, scariest looking man you ever saw. In front was a man, buying lottery tickets. The man buying lottery tickets, immediately stepped back.  I looked at the big man behind the counter and apologized profusely. " Did I need a mask?" " No! both men said." I motioned for the man who had given me his place, to go back and he did. I looked up at the tall man and said, " Could I have five ones for the air machine?" He looked at me and said, " No, I turn it on for you." I said, " Excuse me, you can just turn it on?" He again said, "I turn it on for you." I said thank you and went out side in sort of a daze.

So my take away from this is just this. I am a victim of the lamesteam media. I have focused on the evil and bad people who are trying to cause me to be afraid. I have looked at people differently since this all started. I need to pull my focus back and stay off of the news, which has always sold fear. I know this. To focus on the negative, I will always get what I expect. But if I expect to find good, then its just as easy to find that too. I think this sums up what kind of attitude I want for these crazy times. John Wesley said this:

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

As always it must start with me and of course my attitude. I just wanted to share a tiny bit. So much huge things have happened in my life lately. I really need to sit down and do a post. 

I will wait. I just wanted to stop in and wish you blessing upon blessing today. 

~Kim~

It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.     

Maud Hart Lovelace

A Lovely June Morning

 

Good Morning! How are you? Its a beautiful morning today.  Here in California, you can get a mixed bag for June. Sometimes its hot and smells toasty, then there are mornings like this when the air is sweet and the ocean breezes are coming in and its almost to cold to have breakfast on the porch. It will be nice though to open the house and listen to the birds and the sound of the breeze through the wind chimes.

 

I was thinking this morning as I was getting ready to write this post. I think I have to change my word for 2020 to Adaptability. Being able to land on my feet and keep going is how I feel. The changes we have experienced is unreal and yet take your breath away crazy. I am talking about my own life and not political or cultural.

On July 7th 2019 we made that decision to get the house ready to put on the market. That was such a hard gut wrenching thing to say we would do. The verse I claimed for myself was, " “For the Lord GOD will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed" Isa. 50:7
You have no idea how many times I would shut my eyes and reach my hand out to the Lord, put my head down and pray. I have cried and lots of times I have just felt stripped to the bone. I would get up and continue on knowing I had set my face like a flint.

 

  Our boys moved out on March 14th. We put the house on the market April 1st. Do you know what kind of idiots we felt like, with that whole Covid thing going on and here again we were trying to sell a house? The last time we sold a house 911 happened. But, we kept going on with our plan and hanging on to God for dear life. There were people who came through and I do think showing a house is one of the most stressful things in the world to do. Some days there would be 3 showings a day.

On May 14th, these wonderful people came to see our house. The real estate agent that was to meet them, was late. The people were early, so we met them, we showed them the house. We loved them. I had been praying for a family, one that my brother and sister-in-law would love. The lady told me right off the bat, she was a homesteader and she wanted more land because she was trying to homestead in her suburban lot in her neighborhood. She asked me about my bookcases upstairs, and I told her, " If you buy my house, I will leave them for you." Never dreaming that she would be the one who would buy our house. The real estate agent finally arrived, and apologized, because she had hit two detours. I personally think it was a God appointment.

On June 1st we accepted the offer on this house and we have sold the tractor, gave the chickens away. Our offer hinged that we find a house. Now when we started looking at houses in March. We were in the middle of the Covid thing. People had removed house listings, and what houses stayed on the market were few and the ones we liked were snapped up. This week, we had to find a house. We went to a couple on Thursday. I was just sick when I came home. I still can't figure out for the life of me why would you list a house for sale and then not clean it or do anything to it. Out of desperation we had our real estate agent make appointments for Friday. Did I add that because its a sellers market, in our area, houses are selling in one day? There aren't enough houses for sale here in this area.

 

  The first house we looked at I liked and I could live there. I guess I should tell you, I am not looking at houses because I like them. I am looking at houses just so we can be out of our house for the buyers. I did not have in my mind any plan of liking a house. I mean I have spent 20 years in the perfect house, why did I think I would ever find one I liked?

So there was the second house. I had showed to to Ron a few times. He always said, " No Way!! Not happening!" But we are out of options at this point. This house had sold but had just came back on the market again. Its a further out of town than I was thinking I would live. In fact, when I was a teenager, my best friend lived out here and this had been her Dad's hay field. We pulled up to this very pretty house. It was so pretty and it was brick. I have always wanted to live in a brick house. It had a very lovely entry, with double front door. Also a favorite of mine. Walking in I knew this would not be Ron's favorite or so I thought. We opened the front door, and between Ron and the real estate lady oohing and saying " Kim!!! Come look at this," and Ron laughing. We were just in awe. Our real estate lady, said" Oh, I want this house!!" She whips out her camera and starts taking pictures. As we walk from room to room, Ron is already saying where his office is going to be and I just felt stunned. He loved it. It also was clean!!! We weren't going to have to fix or work on it to bring it up to livable conditions.

We told the real estate lady, to make a offer right then. She told us that there is a offer on it and we have to act fast. The is 10:00 A.M.  We signed the offer papers at noon, and the people accepted our offer by 3:00 and opened escrow. So now the race is on. They think escrow could close on July 1st.

Here is the best part. In 2020 God is giving us three grand babies!! The first is due in June. The second is due in August and the third is due in December. When I said this year is about adaptability. that is what I mean. By December 31st, we will have 13 grand babies.  So do I feel out of breath. Yes!! Does the news scare me to death? Yes, just like it does you too. But, I think better days will return. Because I have read the end of the Book and we win!

I don't know if I will have to change the name of my blog, because I am moving to an old hay field, after all. Some years it was cotton. Its not as big as my field of dreams is here. But it will be a nice place to dream new dreams and to be able to spend more time doing the things I love. I have a list of rugs I want to hook a mile long when this is over and the boxes are finally unpacked.

Sorry this is so long, but a lot has been happening and I wanted you to know.
Blessings to you all!
~Kim~

There are moments, above all on June evenings, when the lakes that hold our moons are sucked into the earth, and nothing is left but wine and the touch of a hand.    

Charles Morgan