I watched this house being built in the days before we moved to Grandview. We were getting to know the people at the Mennonite church, and as we drove I-35 to visit different families, I would see the men of the church building this house. It would soon be the home of Wesley and Maria Weaver, a young newly married couple. They lived in a travel trailer in the front yard, and Maria actually had her first baby in that trailer. I always thought they were such a blessed couple to be building such a cute house when they had barely gotten married. I never dreamed I would soon own it.
I even ate Sunday lunches here a few times while it still belonged to Wesley and Maria. Then, less than a year after our family moved to Grandview, the church formed an outreach, and several families moved to California to start a new church. Wesley and Maria were one of the families who would be moving, and the house was soon for sale. By the time they left, the house was ours.
We have lived here for eight years now. That's longer than I have ever lived in a house in my whole 37 years of married life. Everything feels settled here, and I can't imagine ever moving again.
But my kids, the older ones anyway, are always after me to move. They want a nice, fancy house with a small well kept yard.
Well, that would never happen with this family, I'm afraid. We might move into a nice fancy house with a well kept yard, but once we had lived there a month or two, it wouldn't be that way anymore. They might as well admit it...
So, it's a battle..."Move mom!"
"No way, kids!"
When they look at our house, this is what they see:
Okay, I admit it's a bit overgrown, but I LOVE vines. I plant them everywhere, and if I'm really lucky, they might actually grow. If not, I replant again the next spring.
And here is something else they see:
Toys all over the drive way, and a messy flower bed.
When I walk outside and have to step over the toys, and I see the weedy flower bed I don't have time to tend, this is what it represents to me:
I'm not put out to pasture yet. I'm still needed. I still have work to do. And it's just what I've always wanted.
At least one of the things I've always wanted. Being a mom was the first thing, the second thing I always wanted was a farm. And now I have twelve acres and a house I love, plus big and little children still under my wings, and on top of that, I have the animals.
I fixed up this rabbit cage all by myself, and I have cuts all over my hands to prove it, including one bad one that is right in the exact spot that my crochet hook lays in. But I'm healthy, and it will heal.
I even have a few goats, which no one in my whole house can fathom the reason for. They are the bane of my husbands life, because I'm not strong enough to build the cages for them, and he is. But they get out and climb up the stairs to his office, and potty while they are at it. But every farm HAS to have goats, doesn't it? And I only have three. And okay, I just told Rose tonight I would buy hers, but I think I'll just sneak it out into the pasture and not tell anyone...
And of course, I have my chickens. There are two things I hope to never be without in my lifetime, and that's small children and chickens:
I have two things at my house that are really nice things - I think - and I got them totally free. The first one is the big purple castle sitting right smack in the middle of my front yard. My children says it's the biggest eyesore on the face of the earth. Gage says it looks like Bowsers castle from the old Mario Brothers video games. We got it free from CASA a few years back. A lady won it in a CASA raffle, and donated it back to a foster family. We got picked:
And this beautiful piano I got from Freecycle, which, once the moving part was over, my children actually think might be the one thing I have here worth keeping:
So these are the things I love about my house. These things are why I am very content to just stay home and never leave. There's not much that will drag me away from home often...
...Except when my dad gets sick and gets put into the hospital and then a rehab. When that happens, I will drive the hour drive into Bedford several times a week to see him. He has given us quite a scare, but he seemed better today:
We just need to get him strong enough to walk again. Then maybe everything will be alright.
So, this last two weeks, I've been out of my house a lot. And my children and even I have taken advantage of that a little. I've taken Angel-Leah out to a nice restraurant, just me and her. She says that has never happened before, and she might be right. We went to pick up son Max up from spending the night with my dad one afternoon, and after visiting with dad for a while, we went shopping at Penny's. Since Max wasn't interested in shopping, he took the little kids to Arby's while we were there. So for probably the first time in the past five years, I got to shop a bit ALL BY MYSELF - well, Mary Susannah and Beau were with me, but they were off in their own departments. I gathered up lots of tops and skirts, having so much fun, and finally went into a dressing room - where I discovered even if I get to shop alone, I'm still just an old lady with lots of gray hair that really shows up under those lights...but I still found some things to buy!
Today, we visited dad, then went to Central Market, where I bought the kids gelato, which is a fancy ice cream, and bought myself bath salts, fancy hair conditioner, and lemon curd.
Then I came home. Fed the kids the chili Gage made for us over the weekend. Got a call from Anna asking me to watch her son Caleb, and I said yes, and he came over for a few hours. Took a wonderful bath in my new bath salts. Got a visit from friend Rose at nearly ten o'clock, who is scared to go home, I think, and she is spending the night in the guest house, which just happened to be empty, since Max is off at fire fight school.
Did I say how much I love my house? Life is never boring here!!
Love your home :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing the photos :)
Blessings,Renee