A Little Update

  Good morning! How are you? I wanted to share a little update about my life here in my corner of the world. This morning the sun is shining and the birds are singing and although the sky is grey the day feels promising. We have had a very hard weekend as our sweet kitten disappeared. We have searched high and low for her but she has vanished. We feel quite sure something took her away and that we will not see her again but small parts of us hope this is not true and one morning she will be back again at the door. We have spent a lot of time in tears and a lot of time wandering the neighborhood calling and calling her name.

   In other news homeschool is going full swing. My thirteen year old just finished a chapter in Social Studies on China and for English read the book Gladys Alward who was a missionary in China. Her story is incredible. She was a five foot tall woman who went to China alone during the 1930's and worked with a woman in her seventies to establish an inn in the mountains. She ended up helping ban foot binding and rescuing many orphans during the time Japan attacked China, and doing many other brave and mighty things. She put all her trust in God and although she went through many hard ships He was faithful to carry her through. This is what I love about homeschooling. I love being reminded of the History of the world and the many many amazing individuals who have made their mark on it. My eleven year old and seven year old and I are reading about Famous Canadians and this week we have read about the five women who courageously worked together to get women declared Persons in Canada. They also helped women get the right to vote and be allowed to be in government. Learning about plate tectonics and simple machines and just all the things we are flying through as we get towards the end of the year are great and I am glad that as the grades get higher things get more interesting for me!

 My husband and I are working on buying a property about four hours away from our town. We will find out this week if we can get financing. It is in a very tiny town but close to much bigger ones. It is the property of our dreams for many reasons and we are hopeful that maybe this is the one for us? However nothing is set in stone yet and it could all fall through. We are praying that if this is where we are supposed to be that this will happen and if it is not that things will fall apart and we will not get it. Our dreams are important and we have held onto them for a long time. Dreams of our children living in a more rural setting, of owning animals, and my husband being able to be home a bit more, dreams of community living and connection to animals and nature...however much more than any of those dreams we want to walk in God's will, and so we focus on that as we go forward. If we do buy this property we can't afford to actually live there yet. So there is a lot of faith going into this decision as well. We would have to rent it out first. All these unknowns tend to overwhelm me. What a surprise. Me overwhelmed? Never! Haha. I am waiting and hoping all will be well.

  Something else that happened this week.... This week has been a bit crazy.... I was going to go to bed and decided to take some probiotic pills. I usually take pills by the sink but ended up taking them in a totally different location than I ever had. As I did I realized I smelled smoke! There was smoke coming out of a plug that was located on top of the counter right where I was standing. The wall beside the plug was hot. I didn't know what to do so I woke up my husband. He went and turned off the breaker. So if you ever realize you have an electrical fire...turn off the breakers! He then took the plug out and it was very melted underneath. If I had not gone to take those pills we might have all died. We have no fire alarms upstairs and four of us sleep up here. I have bought fire alarms but they have never been installed! Needless to say I got the fire alarms and set one up right by that plug. Drama drama!

  Last but not least this is my birthday month. I love April and I love my birthday. This is thanks to my mom. She instilled the love of celebrating and being celebrated. My husband did not have that same gift given to him and so he does not relish birthdays in the same way. I am working hard to instill this in my children and they are excited for me and they take all year to plan their own birthdays. My oldest has worked so hard to save up to buy me a gift I mentioned in passing that I wanted last year sometime. I am excited for all the birthdays this month and anniversaries and all the beautiful special reasons to celebrate life!

  What gifts we have in the people around us. No one is perfect but they are ours. It is good to be reminded of that often. We only have this moment with them.

   Back to homeschooling we go. My son and I got a really early start this morning on his work which was great so I have two more children left to go. I hope you have a really wonderful week. Remember to love yourself by staying hydrated, eating life giving food, exercising gently, and getting lots of fresh air. Practicing gratefulness and giving is also soul filling ~

Love Tansy