There’s a Hole in My Bucket Hodgepodge

1. Three things on your spring bucket list? If you don’t have an actual list that’s fine, pretend you do.

Sell our home 2. Buy a new home 3. Be moved into our new home by the time Spring is over. This is my reality bucket list. Any other time in life it would be filled with things like travel here and travel there…

2. Where do you find rest? What restores your soul? When was the last time you did whatever it was you answered here?

Going to church on Sunday restores my soul, especially communion Sundays. I also need a day in between very busy days to have no agenda. All this moving crunch has messed with my soul restoration time but…it is well with my soul nevertheless.

3. April is National Celery Month. Who knew? Do you like celery? What’s your favorite dish made with celery? On a veggie and dip platter which would you reach for first-carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumbers or cherry tomatoes?

Celery is okay especially with peanut butter spread on it. A Bloody Mary with a celery stalk in it is good, too. My first go to on a veggie tray would be cucumbers. Mirepoix (celery, carrots and onions) is a great base for lots of dishes.

4. I read here eight things to do before 8 am to make your day less hectic-Start one load of laundry, drink water, empty the dishwasher, read your Bible, know what you’re having for dinner, get dressed, brain dump (two lists-one what you’re thankful for and one what’s weighing on your mind), and after the brain dump make your to-list for the day

How many of these are you currently doing? Which one do you think would help the most if you added it to your early morning routine?

I like this list of things to do but for a retired person this doesn’t have to be done by 8. I think if I do this list by 9 or 10 am it would be sweet! And because we are retired some of the things on the list aren’t critical like starting a load of laundry.

5. Describe the view from your window.

This is the view from my laptop spot on my family room couch.

Patio covers up and my patio furniture all set out with my privacy fence in the background. Leaves beginning to appear on the huge maple that looms above my patio covers. Sweet bleeding hearts blooming in a container just outside our “french doors” that exit to our deck.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I’m apologizing ahead of time for not visiting other hodgepodge posts in a timely fashion. Today is our outdoor work day to get the house ready for open houses before we hightail it out of here to Eastern Washington on Thursday. I mow, Dear weed wacks. So far we only have one house to look at in Colville on this trip. We are hoping for more houses to come on the market that we look forward to seeing. Time will tell. What’s great is that we get to see and enjoy our eastern Washington kids including dear little Addy May while we are in Colville. It’s been a while…

Spring is finally blooming here in our yard and in western Washington in general. How’s Spring doing in your corner?

Linking up to Hodgepodge Wednesday with Jo at From This Side of the Pond. She asks the questions and we answer them.

Staging This Old House

On Friday last our real estate agents staged our home for listing photos and upcoming open houses. It was a full day of staging and then the photographer arrived.

Living room.

The antique mirror is ours and the curtains and the matching wood and metal pieces on the entry wall.

Family/TV room. The couch is ours.

One of our spare rooms, the green room. The bed, bedding, lamp and nightstands are ours.

The second spare room, the blue room. Everything in this room is ours except for the tray on the bed and the orchid and lantern.

The master room with sitting area and master bath. I need to add some photos of the bathroom with the shower, etc. The love seat in the sitting area, sheepskin rug, side table, large mirror and table and flowers in vase next to it are not ours.

The basement bedroom. The interesting trick with this bedroom is that the bed is a blow up bed with the headboard added behind it. Pretty cool set up. This whole set up is not ours.

I will take some more photos of the staged kitchen, too, showing the eating area. The Farmer’s Market sign and the apples in the tiered basket are not ours. The tree canisters are not ours either. The staging photos were all taken on Friday for our listing and since then we’ve messed some things up and will get it back to staging mode by Thursday when the initial open house will take place. This selling and moving and buying is exhausting. It was fun to see these changes and the effect they made on the rooms in our home. We still do not know the home we’ll be moving to. Trusting God for our future home. In the meantime we are tweaking a few more things at this old house. We have been happy with our results with the Offer Up app. We’ve been able to sell a lot of things we were just hanging onto for no good reason. Making a little cash on the side has been great.

The sun broke through today after rain rain and more rain. Hope all of you are well.

The Resurrection and the Life ~ Hymn

The Resurrection And The Life

I Am, saith Christ our glorious head,
(May we attention give)
The resurrection of the dead,
The life of all that live.

By faith in me, the soul receives
New life, though dead before;
And he that in my name believes,
Shall live, to die no more.

The sinner, sleeping in his grave,
Shall at my voice awake;
And when I once begin to save,
My work I ne’er forsake.

Fulfill thy promise, gracious Lord,
On us assembled here,
Put forth thy Spirit with the word,
And cause the dead to hear.

Preserve the pow’r of faith alive,
In those who love thy name;
For sin and Satan daily strive
To quench the sacred flame.

Thy pow’r and mercy first prevailed
From death to set us free;
And often since our life had failed,
If not renewed by thee.

To thee we look, to thee we bow;
To thee, for help, we call;
Our life and resurrection thou,
Our hope, our joy, our all.

John Newton

ht: Olney Hymns

John 11:25-26 (ESV)²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Boxed In…

It’s called Simple Box but there is nothing simple about loading a box container. There are sections of the box designated for medium, heavy, light and very light weight. The boxes will be lifted at a tilt to load and unload off a truck so the weight and the tie downs are crucial for a successful journey and delivery.

We weighed every box and item that went into this moving container. In the middle shot Andrew is weighing the box spring that would be the last item put in the container in the very light section.

Monday was our only forecast this week of a full sunny day so we called all hands on deck and worked from morning to night to get all 6100 pounds in and secured.

We all had very sore muscles and tired legs and arms but were thankful for a job completed well and with love remaining amongst the workers! We couldn’t have done it without our helpers. Tuesday was a light day of work for me as my body needed recovery time. Friday is staging day here. It will be interesting to see the results of that.

Hope all is well with all of you.

Tea and Tulips

We had a great escape on Saturday running away from the storms and catching some blue skies. There was lots of wind that whipped our hair around. I’ll fill in the blanks about our tea and tulip time gradually this week. Lots to do around here and my brain is too tired for too many words. The men folk got a lot accomplished while we played. God bless them. Tomorrow is another big day in the packing world. Hope all of you are doing well.

Before the Throne of God Above ~ Hymn

Before the Throne of God Above

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on His hands
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there the risen Lamb
My perfect spotless righteousness
The great unchangeable I am
The King of glory and of grace
One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God!
With Christ my Savior and my God!

One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God!
With Christ my Savior and my God!’

Words: Charitie Lees Smith (1841–1923)

Before and After…

So now all of our appliances in our kitchen are matchy matchy. Our real estate agent was happy.

We had our first container dropped off to fill and wouldn’t you know we are now going to have a weather event on Saturday so we will have to delay filling it. Lots of rain and wind is in the forecast for Saturday. The containers are water tight but if the doors are open while there is a lot of moisture, that moisture will get trapped inside. Oye. We’ve been selling items we can’t use anymore on Offer Up and have had some good results. I’m happy to put a little cash in my pocket instead of just dropping everything off at Goodwill. We’ve been working from morning to night packing and I am having little free time to blog or visit blogs.

Tomorrow while the guys work hard my daughter, DIL and sister are heading north for tea at a Camomile Farm. Looking forward to getting away from boxes for a few hours.

How is Spring shaping up in your corner of the world?

One for the Books!

A couple weeks before Addy’s first birthday party we had a little photo shoot. Turns out it was a good idea since Addy was busy with her guests, presents and cake on her party day.

We had a nice sunshiny day for our photos.

This is Addy’s Great Uncle Scott’s chair from when he was a little guy.

Fast forward to the party day and of course our little 1 year old must have sensed the excitement of the day and refused to take a nap on her own so we had to work out some sleep time creatively.

The guests arrived and kept Addy entertained.

She opened her presents with flair.

She enjoyed the Happy Birthday song and mooshed her cupcake covered with yogurt frosting.

Oops, a fair amount was rubbed into her hair. I didn’t take photos of the Baked Potato bar which had many yummy toppings. We were asked to bring a t-shirt or something like it to tie-dye for a party favor. I didn’t take photos of the tie dying, either, but the results were great and something fun to remember Addy’s 1st birthday with.

Meanwhile back at this old house we continue with the selling, packing and staging. Our first shipping container arrives on Thursday. Yikes! We’re finding some things that are bringing back some great memories. If you don’t hear anything new from me you will know I’m knee deep in boxes.

Easter Monday Update

Saturday was a multitasking day at this old house. The girls prepared Russian Easter Bread, our sweet cheese spread, packed boxes, took photos and paintings off the walls. Dear gathered up items we wanted to sell and Josh took over my phone and managed the photos and listings for us and responded to the inquiries and we sold several items, cha ching! We were exhausted at the end of the day but were satisfied with the successful results of working together.

On Easter morning we were texted this collage of Addy’s first experience with bubbles.

We celebrated our risen savior at the 8 am service and it was glorious!

Our peeps gathered at 11:00 am for our Easter meal together. Yummy.

Our phones alerted us to a text coming in and we saw our little Easter bunny from across the mountains who was zonked out after attending Easter service with her parents.

We missed these three at our celebration but are always happy to get photos via text!

Hope you all had a joyful Easter weekend.

Christ is Risen ~ Happy Easter 2018

Christ Is Risen!

Truly He is Risen!

Khristos voskrese! Voistinu voskrese!

Blessings to all on this Glorious Easter Day!

One of my favorite Easter hymns growing up was Low in the Grave He lay. You just have to hear it sung in a church full of Russian Baptists! (In Russian of course) This song is sung with emotion and joy that can’t be missed.

Low in the Grave He Lay

Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior,
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Refrain

Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!

Refrain

Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Words & Music: Robert Lowry, 1874.

We are going to an early Easter service celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and then having an early Easter lunch here at this old house. The last Easter supper here. 🙂

Happy Easter everyone!

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage