Our Life Lately

 After not blogging for a while it is always challenging for me know how to jump in a get started again. So much has gone on and I have been thinking about so many things that I would love to write about but there is only so much time....

 Anyway I thought I would give you some brief updates of what has been going on in our life lately. Hopefully I will be able to give more details on some of the subjects soon.

  My sister's wedding (last Saturday) was the cause of many of the things that filled our days. What fun days they were. Here are some of the things that happened because of the wedding:

• We spent a lot of time with family and friends. We had guests at our house and also spent time over at my parents house to have more time with our family members from out-of-town. Today I had a niece and nephew at my house (meanwhile Megan was at my parents playing with other nieces) enjoying some final cousin time before they head out of town tomorrow.
• I sewed a new dress for the wedding. I shopped and shopped both online and in stores but could not find one the color I like plus the style and modesty that I felt necessary and some that could have been okay (not perfect, but okay) were too expensive. So I sewed instead. I was able to use stuff I had so I didn't spend anything on the dress.
• I did a lot of extra practicing on the cello as when Keren had asked me to play for the wedding I suggested cello instead of violin (we didn't think piano was on option as the plan was to have it outside) as we had other friends that could play violin and guitar really nicely and I thought the cello would sound good with it. However cello is not my best instrument by any means and I really needed to put some practice in. 

•  Then of course there was decorating and flowers to do. I had such fun with that!

Wedding season has truly begun! I have weddings every weekend this month and seem to be getting phone calls about flowers all the time. I am grateful to have something that I love to do that I can get paid at as well. 

  Work on our land continues. The excavators who will be putting in the driveway, taking out stumps and preparing a place for the garage right now and due to come in the next day or so. We have been stacking wood and clearing more brush to prepare for that. This weekend Ken hopes to get up the garden fence and build the chicken coop/garden shed (it will have a divider in it). The plan sounds pretty ambitious especially since my Saturday is mostly taken up with wedding stuff. It will be fun to get it done though.

 Monday afternoon and evening we went out and worked and my sister and her kids came and joined us. We had fun working, playing, cooking over a fire and then eating.

 The garden continues to beckon as I work to finish up the planting. We are really late this year but I think it will still do fine. Whether we are here to reap everything or not remains to be seen. Lord willing we won't be but I know that God knows best. Soon I will be planting a few things over at the other place. I have seedlings set aside for that purpose.

  We have been trying to eat foods that we gather (either from the wild or the garden) just as much as we can. Fresh food is very yummy!

  I recently read a book about some people that got lost in the wilderness (they did eventually get found but it was pretty trying). As we like adventures in the wild that book really sort of hit home to me and I feel more strongly than ever that I want my family to be prepared to deal with the need to survive in the wild. So we have various fun ideas to help us to become more knowledgeable and practice some skills that we might need. I am now reading a good book on wilderness survival - It is quite fun.

  Well, I had better get to bed - sleep is pretty sweet and needed right now. :-)