Simply Renovated: House Reno

Moving into week two of our house renovations and let.me.tell.you...it is wearing...

Our check list...yeah nothing got done. Let me be raw and honest with you (which I tend to do on this blog) and give you my 100% emotions and feelings.

I was angry at my husband all week long. I was mad that we moved there and that things were going the way they were. He said he was going to measure everything he needed to so that the lumber could be ordered right when we moved in. He never did. We just dropped off the prints today and will get a quote tomorrow or wednesday and then all of the special order pieces will get ordered to do our addition. We stayed an entire week in the house without a working drain field before we got quotes and before we had a committed date as to when it would get fixed. THE TIME IS TICKING! I grew bitterness and resentment because I thought that he wasn't pursuing the things I thought he should at the rate I thought he should. I was impatient in every.single.area of my life. Let me tell you...God taught me huge this week...and all in a week! During the week I decided I was going to go live with my grandma back in Sparta until the drain field was fixed. I figured it would be easier to do this than to pack up every other day to find somewhere to do laundry and take showers. I sent out prayer requests to my friends, begging them for prayer over our marriage. We are still strong but we were at a point honestly I didn't like at all. We acted like we didn't like each other...like we were just living together or even worse forced to live together and fix up an old house. I spent the next few days still unhappy...searching for joy in the small things but feeling alone and feeling like nothing is getting started.

I asked Brian what made this house a "home" for him. I asked him this because he kept saying, "I'm home!" and then would ask me why I didn't feel like I was home and I couldn't really give him a good answer.

Why this home is a home for Brian:

1. He doesn't feel like a stranger. He feels like this is where he's supposed to be.

2. The land and the river is his dream

3. He's excited for all of the renovations because it feels home ;)

What would make this house feel like a home to me:

1. memories

2. making it my own

3. pictures (which I can't hang because I can't find and I want to paint)

4. Being settled (which seems so.far.off)

I woke up Saturday morning with an overwhelming sense of the Holy Spirit telling me to just stay put. So I went to Brian and told him I was going to my moms that day to do laundry, can peaches and tomatoes, give the boys showers and myself one but that I would be coming home that night. He sighed a big sigh of relief, hugged me so incredibly tight and thanked me. Let me tell you...that small act of obedience to God has rewarded me so incredibly much. Yes...our marriage is still tense. I've heard someone say that if you can survive a house renovation...your marriage will survive anything ;). But by that small act of obedience...a smile had returned to Brians face and I felt relief. I felt lighter. Here is what I learned...

Sometimes you get low in life (I realize that everyone has different lows). But sometimes you get to a point where you throw your hands up and say, "God I listened to you! You wanted me here! But it doesn't seem like you want me here! Nothing is going right! I feel frustrated and fed up! What is is you want me to learn???" and just then it comes to me that that is exactly what God wants me to learn. To.let.go! To throw my hands up in the air and just give it to God. How often I forget that God is in the details! God is in the moment right now...no matter where you are in life...He is there. God is in all the blurs of life - even the hurts of life. And when you come to realize that you learn to give thanks in all circumstances! And "as long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible!". When I stop giving thanks and seeing God in the small and the big, I lose all opportunity for Joy to reign in my life. And a thankless life is really the biggest fall of mankind. Ingratitude.

So here is me working and learning to find joy by giving thanks!

For finding routine again....

For finding my love for fall again....

and for finding small joys in making this house a home....

As for the bathroom...we are getting everything picked out and ready to renovate. I cannot tell you HOW MUCH I HATE sitting on someone else's toilet....I squat ;) but cannot wait until I can replace it ;)

As far as the sink last week I asked for your vote on which sink display you liked best. I decided after thinking long and hard on this that I am going to go with the two dressers. This is what I've always wanted and I don't really want to compromise permanent things like this if I don't have to. So I am on the look out for two dressers...not necessarily matching but they need to be older, smaller and not super wide ;) something like this....