Seven Quick Takes Vol. 14

1.  I posted about Angelboy and my husband putting together a frame for a raised garden here.  Well here is a picture of the garden with the dirt in it just waiting for the plants to come and live there.  Hmm...I guess it depends on how fond of gardening you are as to whether or not you find this picture very interesting.

2.  There is a woman I know who just had her 9th child at the age of 42 and she had her first child at around the age of 30.  Isn't that amazing!  I love it when older women are able to have large families.  It's unorthodox to have nine chlidren in todays society, but it is even more unorthodox to do so beginning in your thirties and continuing on into your forties.  I can appreciate this as I had my second and third child at the ages of 37 and 39 and am hoping God gives me the strength I need to accept more if it be his will.

3.  I had a really bad attitude last week.  Then I saw the above mentioned woman with all her nine children and her new baby and my attitude changed.  If she can have her 9th baby at the age of forty-two with the oldest child being 12 how can I claim to be stressed out as a housewife with two little ones who gets mostly plenty of time to herself and has plenty of help.  (O.k...I don't have nine, but it is still hard to get it all done sometimes.)

4.  Speaking of older women having children...I had an ultrasound done of my ovaries on Tuesday.  It was kind of depressing as the ultrasound technician told me my ovaries were small.  She then said that this was good in that it is normal for your ovaries to get smaller as you get older, and then added, "unless you want more children."  Ugh. 

5.   We finally got an offer on our condo and the closing is scheduled for May 25.  I pray that it goes off without a hitch... or at least minimal hitches, anyway.  I dream of the day when we will be paying only one mortgage.

6.  We got a Brill reel lawn mower today (Those are the push lawn mowers without motors).  Our power lawnmower died and we had been thinking for a long time about getting a reel lawnmower.  Our grass hadn't been mowed yet this season so our grass was pretty long and we had even longer gone-to-seed Dandelions  sticking out of the grass.  The mower did great with the grass but it didn't mow the dandelions so we have a yard full of dandelion stems sticking up.  Very ugly.  We may have to power mow these some way and then start over again by mowing them with the reel lawnmower before they get very long again.  I guess you have to mow your grass pretty regularly as the manual lawn mower doesn't do as well with tall grass as the power lawnmower.  We'll give it a chance.

7.  Tomorrow is May 1st and the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.  Wow!  Goodbye April.

Thanks for reading!  You can read more qt's at conversiondiary.com.  Have a good weekend!

Lord Help Us Sell the Condo

"Lord, we have planted the seed, tended the shoots and watered the leaves. Now it is up to you to grant us the yield of our labors." --Living Prayer: Daily Catholic Devotions July August September 2009

This is the line from a prayer I found in the back of the cited devotional booklet yesterday. It made me think of the work we are doing on our condo in order to sell it. Our realtor tells us that now is the time to be aggressive. So we are "tweaking" and making improvements that we were putting off until a possible offer was made. After we've done all we can do it is really up to God to bring us the right person to buy this place.

This quote shows that it is up to us to do all we can before we expect God to take over. We have our part and God has his. It is at the same time wonderful and terrifying that God gives allows us part of the responsibility for the outcome of our own lives. I guess this is what is called free will.

Moving On

Today is a rainy spring day in Iowa. Son is away on a day long youth retreat at our church that is being led by the Brothers of St. John from Peoria, Illinois.

Husband, baby and I went to do some work on cleaning up our condo that we will finally be putting on the market again. Although we were originally intending to sell it, we had rented it out to some relatives as they had three small children and the place where they were living wasn't fit due to landlord negligence and exploitation. We gave them more than a fair deal but unfortunately the place ended up getting trashed so here we are again spending thousands to clean it up and put it back on the market.

It feels like we have had to work hard (and are still working) to get our lives and our finances back together. Husband was unemployed about two years ago for a few months which was what really put us in the hole. We are also gradually getting out of a traumatic situation (of which the condo situation is only part of the story )where we were able to help some of our family during a difficult time but now are looking to move on as we have continued to take less and less responsibility for these peoples' lives.

I know these particular family members really did need our help, but we also had a tendency to take on more responsiblity for them than we should have. It is time to let go as we have been and let them take responsiblity for their own lives. We have done what we could for them and now it is God's hands and theirs.