Progress and Dust

The Great Kitchen Re-do continues and we are making progress! The walls are sheetrocked and ready for primer/paint, and the awful plastic barrier has been taken down. You can see how open the new space will be, with the wall between the old kitchen and the front room having been taken down (for good).

I should probably also take a picture of the demolition/construction dust that lays thickly over everything in the house now! I spent nearly all day yesterday trying to clean the second floor, but that dust is going to take some special elbow grease to get rid of once and for all. It's in every nook and cranny imaginable.

While the kitchen is being constructed, Tim is also working on one of the basement bedrooms, preparing for a new egress window and, eventually, new carpet and paint. His efforts yesterday somehow resulted in great clouds of dust billowing merrily out of the heat ducts -- we're still not sure how that happened! Needless to say, I was less than thrilled at the sight.

The cabinets and countertops are due to be installed early next week, and then we're on the home stretch. Stay tuned!

Winter into Spring

Spring is definitely trying, but winter keeps coming back and biting us. It reminds me of some unfinished business in my own life – some unforgiveness that I know needs to be resolved so that spring can arrive, but, like winter right now, keeps coming back to bite me.

Scripture is very clear that as we forgive others, so will our Father forgive us. Bearing that important truth in mind, it is still incredibly hard to get around the very human emotions engendered when someone deliberately sets out to hurt you. The shock, the hurt at being betrayed by someone you thought you could trust to deal reasonably with what is, admittedly, a sticky situation. Can’t we all just act like adults? Well, it seems that we can’t. And I need superhuman powers to get to the point of forgiveness – something I most decidedly lack right now.

Where is God when you’re trying but not getting anywhere? Is He just sitting up there laughing at vain effort? Not at all! Jesus tells us that our God knows every hair on our heads; He knows every emotion we go through.

Then why the continuation of this particular winter season of my soul? I pray for spring (forgiveness) to come. I know His mercies are sure. I just have to believe – and, really, I already do know -- that this cold and dead season will eventually give way to spring’s more pleasant climate and the renewal, birth, and growth that come with it.

April 2008

The Great Kitchen Re-do

We are in the midst of The Great Kitchen Re-do at our house in Pocatello. Seriously not fun, but the results will be well worth it in the end.