A Gain and a Loss

As I sit in the midst of a messy house, I feel the need to write. Not clean the house or do laundry. Not do the dishes, even though ALL those things and more must be done. But... I need to get some things off my chest.

I've been mostly silent about many things in my life lately, mainly because I've been wanting to see how they would turn out. Oh, I've been wanting to share, but ... let's just say that, in light of all the oversharing that can sometimes happen with Facebook and blogs, I think it's okay to be a bit mysterious most of the time. Life is more exciting that way, isn't it? Besides, I'm sure your lives are all plenty interesting without waiting with bated breath for my next blog post or facebook status! :-)

Anyway, for the Gain.

We bought a house. Again. Yes, I know what you're thinking. "Are you crazy? Don't you already have other houses...?!" Yes and yes. Just so you're all up to snuff, we do still own our Mankato house. We will be selling it in a year or two, depending upon our renters. The Wannaska house is under a contract for deed (with someone reputable, after having a not-so-reputable family stay there) so we are receiving monthly payments for that. We are currently renting a small old farmhouse that is really too small for us. We moved here with the intention of buying some place bigger within a year or so of moving here. So. Here we are, 16 months after moving down here. Time to move again, right?!

It was a foreclosure home, and needed some fixing up. We closed April 11, and started demolition mode immediately. There are a few things that need to be done, I won't go into details now, because I could go on and on. But I will say that I'm excited about the remodeling going on! The only pinch is that we want to get the upstairs done enough to be able to move in the week before Father's Day as our current landlords will be leaving for Alaska then, so we wanted to get everything taken care of by then. So every spare minute is spent working on the house.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, it's only about 3 miles or so from the church. :-)

It doesn't look very warm and inviting because of the snow, but this picture was taken back in February. The back side of the house.

And for the Loss. I think we were due the end of November/beginning of December.

I'll just repost my facebook status:

Though He giveth, or He taketh,
God His children ne'er forsaketh,
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy. ELH 174, vs. 4

In God's infinite wisdom, he has allowed me to carry a new life for a while, but then to also lose the baby. His ways are not our ways, but we trust that it is all for our good. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I will end with some cute boys. I can't believe it was 80+ degrees today after having so much chilliness and rain! The well-digger came today (yes we needed to dig our own well...) and so Enoch was a little distracted in the first picture. But when I changed angles in the 2nd picture, then Andrew had had enough. You can't win 'em all, eh?