Decisions Made

I swear the month of February is the longest month of the year! Cabin fever has set in and the girls are tired of the board games and have finished reading all of the books they received for Christmas. Baby goats won't start coming for another three weeks, the bees won't be here until late March, and it's too cold to ride the horses.

Yesterday we deep-cleaned parts of the house: laundry room, school room, and the playroom. The girls made decisions about what to keep and what to give away. A few board games are going to friends with younger children, some books are heading to the town library book sale, while some "nearly-new" stuffed animals are going to the 4-H collection for Haiti's children. (It's being held Friday Feb 12 at 7PM at the Norwich Extension Center, during the Public Speaking competition, if anyone wants to donate!)

We have decided that we will be homeschooling Rachel and Samantha in the fall. This is something that for months both Sam and I have been praying about and discussing back and forth while we walk the aisles at Lowes. (What else do you do on Date Night when you have no money?) This isn't a decision we made lightly, and certainly is not made because we think the public school is doing a bad job. We believe it is what is best for our family at this time. Now I get to make decisions about curriculum!

Sam has also left his paid position at 4-H. From December 6th to December 31, he worked over 100 hours of overtime at the firehouse. This made him unavailable to the kids at the subase much of the time. We had thought that after the holidays the overtime would diminish; it has not. So, he made the hard decision to leave and allow for someone with more free time to take over. He will miss "his kids" on the base, but is glad for more time with our girls.

One decision was made for us: the house next door. It had been abandoned by the owners and went on the market for $79,200. We had gone over our financial situation and knew we couldn't pay more than $90,000 for it. We were excited that the asking price was under our amount and given the wrecked condition of the house (at best it needs to be completely gutted; at worst it needs to be bulldozed) assumed no one would be interested. Boy, were we wrong! Within twenty-four hours of it going on the market, it had been shown over twenty times. Several offers were on the table in excess of $95,000! Thirty-six hours and another twenty showings later, it was sold!

God is in control of all these things, from the seemingly small decisions about curriculum to the big ones about finances. We have seen in these few weeks, that all those things are intricately linked in a plan knit together for our good.