Hello dear friends.  Thanks for sticking with this poor old blog.  Writing has been on the bottom of the list just now. 

  It’s been an encouraging few weeks, despite the pessimistic title of this post.  Work on the house has progressed steadily if slowly.  Our glorious white drywall is beginning to bloom with painted color and every weekend more and more work is being done on the long suffering windows.  

It’s a little eerie, wandering through the cold, echoing, empty spaces of that house.  Large sheets of plastic shroud the holes in the walls where the windows should be and they seem to whisper “just wait a little longer- just a little longer.”

I am willing to wait, but the wait has been cold- very cold.  After an abnormally warm December, January’s frosts hit us hard and I won’t lie to you- it’s been a little tough. The trailer was not built to weather the cold and the interior of the house has no defense against it. Seeing as we are hooked up to a hose for our water supply, there have been several days when the water has been kept a frozen prisoner in the spigot. 

“We can do this!” I have been telling myself. “Think of the pioneers! Or better yet, think of the Walmart down the street that sells water!”

  But when the toilet in the house froze solid, I began to lose my nerve a bit.  It’s kinda hard to watch your kiddos huddled in blankets over their schoolbooks and after all that, running to your sister’s house everyone someone ‘has to go’ can be a litttle wearing.  

I talked to the hubby. We talked to God and we asked him if he could help us find a way to get tolerably through the frigid month of February or at least help us avoid becoming victims of cabin fever induced insanity. 

The next evening we received an offer of a temporary house- a house sitting gig that would extend (you guessed it) through the month of February.  

I debated the question for a while.  After all, I don’t like to back down and we have stuck it out this long, I kinda hated to give up.  Fears of the work grinding to a halt or people breaking in to steal more of our stuff have also plagued me, but the offer seemed like a pretty clear sign.  And then there were my kids to think of.  

So starting Monday, we will say farewell to the trailer for a while.  At least the kids and I.  The hubby will be dividing his time between the two places to make sure things stay secure and so the work can go forward.   

There are definitely mixed feelings of relief and uncertainty floating around in my head, but I am choosing to look at it as simply a vacation.  Y’all can pray that I will use it as such and that come Spring, we will return to the work with renewed vigor and (God willing) an end in sight.