Glimpses of our Life in Ghana

 The past weeks, my life has revolved around two things. Dirt and clutter! Brent has been such a good helper this week! He emptied a tote (one that will go with us to Africa) in order to use it to get to the coffee pot.    If you want true motivation to clean and organize, sell your house! Knowing strangers are going to walk through my house examining every corner, closet, and cupboard was intimidating to me. I wanted to leave them with an excellent impression. And so we house cleaned, we cleaned out, reorganized, and tidied every closet, drawer, and shelf. We eliminated things to make rooms appear larger and brighter. The weeks leading up to open house felt like a repeat of the one before. We moved from room to room, closet to closet. And did the same process with each item we laid our hands on. Store? Sell? Take to Africa? At the first open house I felt like we made it! But just barely. There was a closet or two I hoped people wouldn't feel the urge to look in. The next wee

Just a few snapshots from the past several weeks. We are slowly but surely getting things done! And we better be! In less then a month we fly for Ghana! Austin and I sorted nails and screws.  Brent sorted lots of things, lots of ways! The pile for the sale just starting to grow. My mother-in-law washed the shop windows. A huge load off my mind! A friend and children helped clean the garage. Austin helped with everything! The truck left! A bittersweet day for the whole family. It's really happening! (Excuse the fact that Brent is in his nightie in the middle of the day!) What would I do without this man! He has done so much house work and lightened my load. Boys in bathrooms is not a good idea! One less roll of toilet paper.

  I had a plaque made like this for Kenny for Christmas last year. Never dreaming what the year ahead would hold. This is our little golden valley, on a beautiful fall morning.   Many hands make light work. Most of us have likely heard the saying since we were little children. I don't know that I have ever experienced it as I have the past weeks. What a blessing family, friends and church family have been.    Life has been crazy, we decided (the end of November) to have public auction on January 4. We will sell some house hold items, a bunch of shop stuff, miscellaneous bigger items (from the swing set to the John Deeres) and then the property. It was a hard decision but we do feel at peace about it. We both know we will miss this place. We love our little peaceful valley. My dream kitchen, Kenny's big shop, the deer that I have a love-hate relationship with (I love seeing them in the early morning or golden twilight but hate when they eat my strawberry plants to th