I'm back...and buried in boxes!.

I apologize for my complete lapse in blogging this summer!  I thought I would have time inbetween all of the craziness to post pictures and give updates, but it just didn't happen.  So, over the next few weeks I will try to give little summaries of the main events of our crazy, but grace-filled summer.

First, however, I 'll give you a quick update on our housing situation.  While the kids and I were spending the summer in South Dakota with my parents, Paul worked diligently to move us out of our home that we sold and put everything into a storage unit until we found a house to buy or a rental.  I am so proud of my husband for all the work he did; hopefully he got rid of some purgatory time with all of his hard work and sacrifice!  :)  Unfortunately, we still have not found a house that we like, or any land that we would like to build a house on, but thankfully God has blessed us with a rental house in the meantime.

We just got back to Helena last weekend.  It was very strange coming "home" to a rental that does not feel at all like home.  We are buried in boxes, and it is a challenge to decide which boxes to unpack since we don't know if we will be in this rental for a month or a year or (please no!) even longer.  The rental is a 4-bedroom, so there is adequate space for our family, but we do not love the location and there have been struggles that I did not expect--like the amount of cleaning that needed to be done (a bachelor had been living here and left it "as is"...use your imagination), and also the joy of learning how to take care of chickens.  Yes, that's right...we are now taking care of 20 chickens that the rental owner has.  I am learning that I am NOT a farm girl like my mother was!  At first I was kind of excited about the idea of having fresh eggs every morning, until the first day that I attempted to make a bunch of scrambled eggs for lunch...  I cracked a few eggs into the bowl, and then the next egg had a baby chicken in it!  I threw that batch out and started over...and the same thing happened again!  We had cold meat sandwiches instead.  My mom tells me that won't happen again if we make sure to gather the eggs daily.  The eggs I was using that day were ones that the rental owner had in the fridge, and apparently he had not been gathering them regularly.

Anyway, this has been a huge learning experience and God has been stretching me in ways I did not expect! :)  These past few days I have been feeling like Bilbo Baggins..."like butter scraped too thinly over a piece of bread."  I'm tired of being scraped and stretched, but I'm sure my soul needs it.   Please pray for me, as I am feeling more than slightly overwhelmed this week and have already shed quite a few tears.  I am trying to have the attitude that this is an exciting adventure, but it is a struggle at times.  Please pray for peace and joy for our family during this adventure, and that the Lord directs us to the perfect home for our family (soon!)  :)

God's will be done!
Jesus I trust in You!
Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!