Sorry about yet another delay!!! Fall time is always crazy, but this fall has been crazier than normal. I unexpectedly had to work at our store on both Monday and Tuesday, and therefore, have been playing "catch up" all week long....
Our winner, drawn the old fashioned way "out of a hat with my eyes closed" is......
Denise's entry #4: "I liked Thomason Fine Art Group"!!!
Congratulations Denise!
You can message me via facebook and we will ship out a copy of the St Martha painting to you next week!
If you didn't already see that Mark and Nicole have combined their facebook pages to just one as The Pilgrimage then go check it out and "Like it" so you can keep updated on all their artistic adventures!
Life update: We have encountered road block after road block with trying to put in the pre-manufactured house for Jason's mom and grandmother. We have also gone through 6 employees in 6 weeks which is a new record for our store. We thankfully still have one employee that is coming up on her one year anniversary at the store and two new ones hired. The new employees have now last three weeks without quitting so it is looking promising that everyone will be trained up in time for the Christmas shipping season. Needless to say Jason has been working 50-70 hour weeks at the store besides putting in the septic system and digging some trenches for electrical wire for the pre-manufactured house. We are now waiting to hear back from some electricians to see if they can put in the converter equipment to change some of the appliances from natural gas to propane. Then the electrical company can come and connect wires to the house and we can have a final inspection so his mom and grandmother can move in. Please pray that this all happens quickly-so that they can be moved in BEFORE Thanksgiving!!! Otherwise it won't happen until after New Years and we will have to readjust our business plan for Christmas. (Normally I work 3-4 days/week at Christmas time because I don't have to pay myself as the co-owner. The money our store makes at Christmas has to last until people start shipping in large numbers again which is normally around Easter time.) Needless to say my husband and I are like ships passing each other most days.
All is well with the kids. Joey and Jessie both just got picked to play on the All-Star team for soccer in two weeks. Joey just put on two scout ranks this past Monday. Jessie has started guitar lessons with a college student this fall. Both kids are taking lessons on how to drive our miniature horse with a cart. Katie and Anna are definitely all toddler....there is no telling what they are up to at any given moment. Just today while I was helping Jessie finish some animal chores, Katie climbed up on some stuff and managed to find a sunscreen stick which she proceeded to apply all over her body-she even took off her pajama pants to make sure she got it all over! She informed me that she was ready to go swimming-but it was a little too cold for that today. Libby is getting big way too fast!!! She is actually putting on weight faster than Anna and Katie did so I think I actually may have to go and buy winter clothes once again! It's frustrating when the "hand-me-downs" don't fit because they are the wrong size/season.
We've had many changes on the farm and I will try to update soon. We do have two different sets of company coming for the last two weekends of October. I am also way behind on Creighton Model FC paperwork, but it's more fun to blog...so I will try to update soon!:)
As for my health, I have "adjusted" and am pursuing different options. Some days are more painful than others both physically and emotionally with the uterus prolapse. I have begun some internal physical therapy, which seems to be helping a lot. We are hoping to have a "pelvic floor lift" surgery completed in January, which will hopefully help to avoid a hysterectomy. It means another winter of bedrest/limited activities because I can't lift anything for two months and then will have limited lifting for another four, but the goal of being able to avoid synthetic hormones and not having constant/chronic pain is a good one to shoot for....I am also trying to come to terms with the possibility of not having anymore children. I am slowly getting to the place where emotionally I can say that I will be okay if I don't have any more children naturally. While I don't understand God's master plan at work here at all, I just keep trying my best to plod along...to see all the blessings that I am receiving while trying to offer up "the good, the bad and the ugly" of each day....(and lately there seems to be more bad and ugly than good).....To thank God for the sunshine in between the rain....the beauty of the falling leaves....the fact that my husband has been able to take the skills he learned while building roads for the Army in Kuwait and use it to put in a septic system and trenches for electrical wires....that he can watch things on youtube and make it work for our house.....that my husband gets up each day at 6am and then keeps moving non-stop until between 10pm-12pm each night.....and like the energizer bunny he has been doing that over and over again for the past 2 1/2 months....that he is setting a lifelong example of what hard work and "taking care of your family" truly means for our children....and that he has done it cheerfully without complaint....that yesterday when I was about to cry about how far behind I was on my "to do" list, he just looked at me and calmly said, "We have a plan and we will get through this week....then we'll get through next week...." I wish that I had Jason's calmness when life gets rough.....I am so thankful that God has given me this quiet strong "rock" to cleave to through this stormy fall!!!!
Wishing all of you the sweetful beauty of fall!
Always,
Stephanie
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