I have always loved the story of Ruth in the Bible and have admired her for her commitment to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth's husband passes away and yet she stays with Naomi. She commits to staying with Naomi instead of going back to her own family no matter what. But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." Ruth 1:16 When I saw this sign on Rashall's Facebook page, I knew I had to have it.
So I asked Rashall (again) to create something that would bring these words to mind. And she did. I had originally put it in the living room, but I just don't feel like that's where it will end up. I think I'll display it with some pictures of all my favorite farmers in the hallway. Or maybe not. We'll see. I'll let you know when I decide!
Church friends. Elementary school friends. Work friends. College friends.
Build a tribe of supporters that can walk through this crazy life with you. Find your tribe and love them hard. Thanks again, Rashall. Be sure to check out Rashall's work right here!
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You might remember the first night we slept in the farmhouse, we unrolled and unveiled our mattress-in-a-box that we purchased on Amazon.
We also purchased a foundation on Amazon...spending just $417 total for the whole set. As of last night, we have slept on the bed for a full two weeks, not counting the nights we spent at the lake. I think we have had it long enough to say with confidence that we could not be more happy. On our old mattress (that was 34 years old, mind you), we both had back problems. We hurt often and didn't always wake up feeling refreshed. The first few nights of sleeping on a 12-inch memory foam mattress, I wasn't too sure. It was quite a bit firmer than I expected and I woke up feeling a little sore on the first two mornings. However, I also slept all night on both of those nights. That hardly ever happened with our old mattress. This week at the lake, I was up every single night for hours...tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position in which to sleep. We came home last night and Ilanded in bed not feeling well fairly early. I have to tell you...I slept all night (minus the 10 minutes at 3:30 a.m. that Mattie woke up and needed me to help her find her blankie). I still don't feel great this morning, but this mattress provided the restful night I needed. So as an update to the mattress-in-a-box post a few weeks ago. We highly recommend it. ❤️?❤️ Three days ago, we took early occupancy of the farmhouse. It's official. We almost have a new address. The farmhouse almost belongs to us. We will officially close at the end of next week. Our seller allowed us to come on in and start painting and prepping for the big move. It's almost time to pack up the last little bit of our belongings from the home we've known for the last eleven years and move them to our new home.
I can't wait until the painter's tape is pulled off and we see the finished product!
Very, very soon, we will sleep for the very first time in Farmhouse 654.
As I shared a while back, the thought of leaving our current home is bittersweet. We have so many memories in this home. It's strange to think of passing the keys over to someone else and moving on with our lives in a new home. We are excited and sad and overjoyed and even mourning a little bit. As we walked the property yesterday, Matthew and I visited about all the things we could do to the outside of the house. We were planning on new siding and windows right away, but due to the fact that we are wanting to add a second bathroom upstairs and still keeping on the straight and narrow with Dave Ramsey, we might have to put that off for a year or two. After we discussed the changes we needed to make on the outside of the house, we took his parents through the inside of the house. This was the first time we had walked through the house since the owners moved out. It was a blank canvas. Empty rooms. Empty cabinets. Empty closets. Empty. Mr. Farmhouse and my dear teaching partner worked to bring the very first load of our belongings in. We had been filling up an enclosed trailer with stuff ever since we thought we would be closing and moving on June 16th. While they delivered tubs and boxes, the girls and I worked to scrub the main rooms down.
The men left to go get another load and the kids and I started sorting the tubs into the rooms they will be going into. Mr. Farmhouse, along with a few of his friends, brought in the Craigslist farmhouse table I had been waiting for and brought a load of outside items. Our friends left and the five of us shared our first meal at the new table. Casey's Pizza. It was spectacular. Harlee prayed for our new journey in the house and for the pizza and for the appraisal results we are still waiting on. We stayed until 12:30 this morning, working and painting and enjoying each other. And when the girls get up, we're gonna go do it all again. After 11 years in one house, it's kind of difficult to think about filling a different house with everything you own. Difficult and exciting and fun. It's a blank canvas and we are already working to make it our masterpiece. During the process of searching for a home, finding a home, and planning to move into a different home, I have been thinking about several projects that I would like to do at the farmhouse. A few of these could be completed here at our current home, while we wait to get moved in! I started today with a project for the top of the stairwell. When you walk down the stairs, there is a big wall at the farmhouse that you will see. I thought about doing a gallery wall there, but decided instead to do one big canvas print. Canvas images are expensive, in case you didn't know...so I decided to create my own! I decided I wanted the girls to have a reminder of the house they have spent the last several years in as they walked down the stairs every morning. So one night, I had them put on some matchy-match clothes and run out to the corral to try and snap a photo...with my iPhone. I should really use my big, fancy camera more often when photographing my own children, but the phone is just so convenient. With Mr. Farmhouse's help, we got a photograph of the girls all three looking at me, with our cows in the background. I only had to do a little Photoshop work because in the original picture, Mattie's arm was at a really unnatural angle. I just grabbed her arm from another photo and put it on her body. Here is the image we ended up with from the hundreds we took that night.
And then...I put the gift-wrapping skills that I learned from Grandma Stephens when I was little to good use. I stapled the two sides up over the frame to start and then did the top and bottom, pulling it tight as I put in each staple. Admittedly, the iPhone picture was a tiny bit pixelated as a 36" x 48" print (which is to be expected, I suppose). However, a photo wall-hanging for $37.50, as opposed to the $150-200 that could easily be spent on large canvas wall art is okay with me!   We'll be closing on the new house in a few short weeks.
We are looking forward to the memories to be made at the farmhouse, but also excited for the couple who will be purchasing our current home. Our stories line up pretty perfectly. We've known these "kids" for several years and we've always joked with them about how their relationship has really mirrored ours. They were high school sweethearts. They got married young. We share a lot of the same hobbies and our tastes in decor are very similar. So when they contacted us with aspirations to purchase our house, we felt very "at peace" about the whole situation. We decided to pray about it and look at the budget, as we discussed all the possibilities of where we might end up. One possibility was my parents' house, staying in their basement. With three kids. And three dogs. And cows. And chickens. We also talked about buying some land and building a house, but there was the issue of going from a house with three nice big established outbuildings to a property with none. For most of the land we were looking at, we would have to fork out about as much as we will be spending on the farmhouse for the land alone. And we would still have the expense of a house and shop added on top of that. Plus, we have really loved taking this old house we live in now and loving on it to make it our own. The thought of starting with something brand new just didn't really feel like "us" at this point in our lives. We both love the character of older homes, so we were trying to build that character into our house plans which can get pretty costly. So when I was sitting at Claire's softball practice one night and my sister-in-law mentioned her neighbors getting ready to put their house on the market, my heart leapt and a smile began to form on the corners of my lips. After practice, the girls and I drove out there and we fell in love. That's when the dreaming began. The "Bungalow" Pinterest board was created. I started sketching ideas of how to divide up the pasture and yard. I emailed the realtor and set up a showing. I began praying that if this was the house for us, that God would work it out. And He did. In a big way. But that's a story for another day. ❤️ |
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