another busy one...

 

I got to play with (babysit) Wulf and Tennyson for an hour or so in the afternoon.  Chasing a two year old around the playground is great fun, thankful I can still manage it.  Tennyson is very good about maintaining contact, he'll yell, "Grandma! Grandma!", whenever he can't see me from the climbing tower or whatever, it does sound more like Hamma, and it's adorable.  Wulf can swing all by himself, and told me he was taking a nap on the swing.

We worked on the house for a bit, takes so long to accomplish anything some days.  This is the floor of the little side porch:

I look at that and see the promise, cleaned up and painted a nice light gray...I'd love to do white, but...probably shouldn't.  The outer inner walls of this porch were raw plywood, and one of the windows is broken.  Darius helped Paul get a start on putting up a new wallboard, it will have all new trim, and a new pane of glass in the window.  

The new wallboard looks so much better.

A few weeks ago, Darius helping.  He's an actual carpenter, knows what he's doing.

This door that leads to the porch, we are reabilitating it, saving it, giving it a new lease on life.  I love it, love the old door handle...Paul filled in all the holes, and sanded it down.  We'll spray paint that original handle, and prime and paint the door...oh, and get new glass for it.  There is some satisfaction in seeing the results of hard work, transforming things.  It's not like the tv shows, and our budget is pretty slim.  

We want it neat and clean and livable, we want to give someone a nice home.  It's kind of discouraging though, one of the other places we fixed up so lovingly, and so perfectly, the renter just trashed.  He stopped paying rent, and left a mess behind.  It took us weeks to get it back in order.  We have three rental houses, one is rented, then this one, then one more in which the people have not paid in over a year.  We will probably never break even, due to unseen circumstances, way beyond our control, but we are trying to   at least get our heads above water.  

Life doesn't always go the way we think it should go, but what can you do about that?  We get to decide that part, how to move on, how to deal.  Holding grudges, having bitterness in your heart is a wretched way to live, and it won't be fun on that day of standing before God.  Life here is really such a vapor, but it's also a bountiful gift.  When you lift your head, and live with eternity in view, things aren't so heavy and important anymore, they're just trials...sent by a loving Father, who knows exactly what we need.  Let it go, forgive and forget, move on, bless the others, seek approval from only God, and you'll have such a happy life.