Month: June 2012 (Page 2 of 2)

It is June and summer is officially here as far as I’m concerned. The traffic in Chetek is once again awful and will remain so until Labor Day is here and gone. But I kind of like being in a place that other people think is cool enough to take their vacations here. It is really beautiful around here if I take the time to notice!

Play practice both days this weekend, so that took up a lot of my time. I did a good cleaning agian, because the dust was creeping in again, so my hives were a bit worse. It is nice to know what to do to help, even if it is clean, which isn’t my favorite thing to do. We did have a curtain where you come in and out of the “clean” part of the house, but I felt like it was a repository of dust that I got all over me any time I pushed it aside to get through. So Dad put in a door for me today, which was very nice of him. He also got the water hooked up again at 126 so I could do the laundry. I’ve been only wearing things once, since I want to make sure they have no dust on them, so there was a LOT of laundry and I was very frustrated that the water was shut off over there. There used to be a laundromat in New Auburn, but not any more, so I would have had to drive to Chetek to do laundry and I really didn’t want to.

I experimented with being upstairs for a while to watch a movie on the computer and I guess I shouldn’t do that, either, because I did have more hives today after doing that last night, even though I showered afterward. So I’m not going upstairs at all unless absolutely necessary. I want to clean up there, but I know that would make the hives much worse, so I don’t. But eventually I will just have to put on a mask and gloves and just do it, because it sure won’t clean itself.

As you know, our long range plan is to build on our property in the country by New Auburn, but I keep having second thoughts, partly because of the distance from work and church and everything now that Dad doesn’t work in Chippewa, but also because of our age and all the work involved, plus the expense for things like the driveway and the well and the barns that are necessary in addition to the house.

So, as I’ve been riding my scooter on the backroads each day, I pass this farm that is obviously not occupied. After a while I started noticing what a pretty location it is in, then what it has to offer as far as layout, age of the house, etc. It finally occurred to me that it has everything we want and is only about 3 1/2 miles from Chetek, so would save about 5 miles each direction off our drives to Chetek, Cameron and Rice Lake, yet still not be that much further when a person is driving in from the Cities.

Anyway, I went on line and researched it and it was owned by an older woman who died a couple years ago. I got the phone number of her son and just got off the phone with him. He lives over in Somerset and is a teacher and seemed really nice. The property is in probate yet, but he thinks that will be done by later this summer. So I told him we might be interested in renting it and maybe eventually buying it.

You know how some things just seem like God has pointed you in that direction? Well I feel that way about this place. The house is a nice sized ranch style – not my favorite style, but the most sensible as we age. There would be ample room for goats and chicken and possible even some beef cattle. There is a huge old barn, plus a nice-looking poleshed for all Dad’s stuff. There are mature trees (another thing we notice the lack of on our property) and a nice sized yard to play with grandkids in. Place for a garden, etc. etc. It is on a quiet road and has terrific view of the surrounding countryside, without hardly any other houses in sight. It is on 20 acres, rolling hills with some trees and some open land. The value is listed is about $129,000, which is right in our range.

So, please pray that God would clearly lead in this, because we don’t want to get ahead of Him on this, especially since we are planning not to take out another large mortgage. I have a tendency to get too excited about things, so I am also praying that God keeps me from “falling in love” with this place before it is time.

…if you haven’t already. It was published in 2010, so maybe you already have. It is Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo. Absolutely amazing. The most encouraging book I’ve read in a long time – maybe ever. Only took two hours to read it, because I couldn’t put it down once I started it, plus it isn’t terribly long (obviously). It’s about this four year old who goes to heaven for a short time when he almost dies and his accounts of what he saw – accounts that couldn’t be explained in any other way than that he actually saw it, but that align perfectly with Scripture. Just amazing.