Saturday, February 28, 2009

going somewhere . . .

Well, we went and saw the house of our dreams today . . . and it wasn't the house of our dreams. :( Beautiful home, great land layout, woods, barns, you name it, it had it. However, you could hear the highway like it was a CD of traffic noise you have playing in a set of amplified headphones, the 115 acres next to it was going to be auctioned off, and WHO KNOWS what would go in right next to it, and the house, even though it was WONDERFUL, would not function for a large family that spends lots of time together in the same place. So it is back to hunting again.

On the school/work front, change is in the air AGAIN. I told my supervisor that I would not be returning to that school next year. I decided that I am willing to stay in the city schools, if there is another opening, but am not returning to the middle school I am working in now. Long story short, the ship is going somewhere that I don't want to go. No hard feelings, no regrets, I am just getting off at the next stop. And the next stop could not come TOO SOON!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

another art site . . .

Recently I have started so many new things. I am feeling a little stretched. Now that my online store at etsy is up and running, I have joined another art site to upload images to make them available. The site is called Imagekind and it is a place where you can buy prints of artwork from artists. My site is located at gfout.imagekind.com and I now have a few images uploaded.

In addition, I have started to teach an online class at Drawspace.com. Not an intense class yet but just getting my feet wet with the forum and the ways that I can disseminate information. As well, this month I have joined an Artist Trading Card swap with 18 people from around the world. We decided on the theme of cats and now are making little minature works of art to send to each other. I chose to do pencil and colored pencil graphic drawing for the first several of them. I still have 10 more to do before the 7th of March. Shouldn't be a problem.

I have finally called some property management companies to help me with renting out my Aldora house. It has sat empty for a year now with me paying the mortgage and it is HIGH TIME to get someone in it to rent.

It is still snowing here and we are finally feeling the effects of living in the North. I asked Ildi today is she had getten enough snow for the year, she just smiled, with the look in her eyes that said "when is spring coming"?

Next week we get to look at that house from the previous post. We all can hardly wait. It is only 10 minutes from this house and we have driven by a few times to check it out from the outside. Lasy week when the previous snow melted and left LAKES in the fields we drove by to see if any of the land floods. Some does, but it is only in the woods. No water stands even near the house at all.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

not getting attached . . .

Today it is 42 degrees. I can feel the hub-bub of SPRING in the air!

And today Ildi brewed some different coffee. I feel like I need to peel myself off the ceiling already (and it is before 8:00 am. :)

Today the boys and I are going to a gun show again. The bug of buying guns has not hot me, but I sure am open to getting another one if I find a good deal today. My main focus in going is to just spend time talking to my neighbor as we meander through all the ammunition.

On the homestead front. We found a house/farm that could quite possibly be THE ONE. Both Ildi and I are trying not to get emotionally involved so early in the game. It is hard not to though, when you see a place that has EVERYTHING you want in a home. For those of you that have been praying for us to find the place, THANK YOU, and continue to ask God to lead us in this potential home/farm/homestead as well. The picture above is the house back when it was built in 1865. Like I said, we are trying to NOT get attached to it yet . . . but I am not sure that is going to happen. :)

Sunday, February 1, 2009

into the drift . . .

Lately it seems that I have been constantly trying to get myself OUT of being stuck. Stuck in mud, in snow in my lane, and then last night in the ditch. What on earth is going on!

It all started a few weeks ago with the whole driving in the grass circle that we were making in the yard close to the house. That story, posted here, was an hour or so worth of work and a whole lot of learned lessons. And then there was the time that we went to the neighbors to visit and have supper. Since they live a half mile away, and it is winter, we drive over. There were some drifts in the lane but I did not think too much about it as I proceeded. About half way up . . . stuck again. Another twenty minutes or so and we finally got out and up to the house. Then Friday comes. Really cold in the morning so the school system decided to delay for a couple of hours. Great for me, I sit a little longer in the morning drinking coffee, working on something, and visiting with the family before I go to school at 10:00. Only this time the wind had blown A LOT OF SNOW in my lane about half way down so I had a decision to make. Do I just drive on it with the chance of getting stuck? Do I shovel it out and still be shoveling at midnight? (the lane is about a tenth of a mile long) Being the brave, and adventurous person I am, I get a running start and BOLT right into the drifts, traveling for about ten yards, and then . . . you're right . . . get STUCK. Little bit of digging, rocking the van back and forth, all to no avail. And the tracks that I made were already being covered by the snow being blown again! I am not writing this in anger about my circumstances. Actually, I am amazed at how many times I can get myself stuck in such a short time frame.

That's not all either. Yesterday we drove down to the southern part of Ohio to purchase another van. Ildi had been wanting a 15 passenger for a long time, so this was the time and place to get it. Without giving you the details of the white, 3500 Chevy Express 15 passenger, we were coming back home really late with our van. It was windy the entire way, and the last hour the winds picked up considerable and even blew a few vehicles off the road into the ditch. When we finally arrive to our own country road, I noticed that the wind had blown A WHOLE BUNCH OF SNOW in the road. Since it was late, the snow plows would not be running until the morning. So what did I do? Well, not learning my lesson from the day before, I bolted right into the drift in the road and then my senses came to me. I looked ahead and saw only more drifts to battle, so I stopped. Ildi, who had been following me this entire time, had stopped back in the road on the clear spot while she watched. What to do? . . . I thought. So I started to back up and then IT happened again. My back right rear slid into the ditch! Stuck AGAIN! Four times in less than a month.