A day late...and more than a dollar short.

Soooo, next time I want to take pictures of the yard looking all nice and in full bloom, I should get right on it.  Two days after my last post, the trees in the front yard did a little redecorating for me.

Nice huh???  Sigh...We are so blessed.  We weren't home when it happened, we were definitely under His watchful eye.  After nearly 2wks of estimates and continued damages from settling...we're at nearly 40 THOUSAND dollars of damage.  Yikes!  The main damages are to the roof/attic structure and the porch.  It will have to be completely reroofed (lots of rafters, the main ridgeline, etc) and the porch completely redone.  Looks like the majority of the inside work is cosmetic.  Lots of superficial cracking to be patched or replaced in walls and ceilings in many rooms and in Shelby's room, the entire front wall and ceiling have to be redone.  It's quite a mess in there.  Teaches me to get right on it with pictures though!  I'm going to try to document the process of reconstruction and blog it...When we start the inside work, I'll get to redecorate a bit since quite a bit of the trim/crown has to be replaced and at least 3 rooms need to be repainted after the cracking is repaired.  We also will have a new look to the front porch since we're going to replace the round columns with square posts.  I think while they're removing the shutters for repair, I'll have them remove them all and get on that painting I noted we wanted to do anyways.  That will keep me busy and out of the contractor's hair ;)  Stay tuned...

Some Spring Spruce-Ups and Romans 7...

      This past weekend we were busy trying to get a few things done in the yard and make the house a bit less WHITE...I appreciate the classic/neutrality of white, but I think the white shutters, door, trim, mailbox, and post may have been carrying it a bit too far!  Anyways.  We got the idea for a kelly green door from pinterest ...much better right?

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After:

     I'll have to take some updated pictures of the front of the house to show what it looks like in bloom and with the green door :)  The plants (mostly azaleas) are gorgeous right now!

     We also spruced up the mailbox a bit.  The old one had lived a long life I'm sure, but between the dirt, chipping paint, and yucky reflective numbers, it was time for retirement!  We painted the post a black satin (Lowe's Valspar spray paints!) and then bought a new white mailbox at Lowes.  I also picked out a cap to cover the top of the bare post that bugged me that has solar lights in it...who knew they made those?  I was intending to just buy a wooden finial/fence post cap or something but saw this cute lighted cap and had to have it!  It was @ $10 at Lowes.  Looks so much more classy!  PS...Excuse the moving day photo with the overloaded trailer!  It didn't all fit in the overloaded uHaul!!!

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After:

     This week I finished up One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and a passage in there was also in one of my morning devotional that same day so I felt compelled to pay extra attention to it.  In Romans 7  Paul describes our sinful human nature and how without God and his grace and love we are nothing...I felt like he was speaking directly to me.  I need that reminder that "every good and perfect gift is from above" and that I can't rely on myself or other people to do what is right, we need to strive for it, but rely on him.  Kinda went along with our lesson in bible class Sunday morning on pride as well...need to especially remember and be eucharisteo (live thankfulness, not just be thankful) that he deserves all the glory for it all. <3