Blessed Scriptures + a House!

Today’s subject is:

Scriptures that have been a special blessing this year.

1. Hebrews 13:5b—“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
2. Isaiah 41:13—“For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”
3. Philippians 4:13—“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
4. Deuteronomy 31:6—“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
5. Psalm 46:10—“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
6. Psalm 28:7—“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”
7. Joel 2:21—“Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things.”
   

I could probably go on from there, but I’m content with leaving this list as-is.

Writing did not go very well today. I was too preoccupied with thoughts of the house we went to see this morning. I did get 1,592 written, but not as many as I would have liked. Oh, well. I guess I am ahead of schedule, and I just need to work on getting out as many words as I can in the time I have. Even when my mind is buzzing with thoughts of moving. :)

I had Elijah read over the first three pages of what I’ve written so far, and it looks like he might make a half-decent editor for me—he’s already picked out one word that was missing! :) He also said that the first part makes him want to read more. I hope he’s right. :) I know that first part was lots of fun to write. (Well…actually, the whole thing has been fun to write. I’m kind-of mean to my characters. Good thing they aren’t real people…I think they’d rebel if they were.)

We went to look at a house to rent today. It’s the one out in the country. The calendar in the kitchen dated back to 1997—the year Dad and Mum got married! I don’t think anyone has lived there since then. It has a lot of outdoor sheds, and we’d be able to get a fairly big paddock to use, besides the roadsides. In one of the sheds—what looked like a possible old carport—a calendar was there from 1953 (that was pretty neat to find! :)).

We explored the house. It’s fairly old and tattered, but with some cleaning up it will be very good for our family. The wallpaper is mostly okay, although in one room there are cracks all around it. The house has two bedrooms. I’ll get one and Dad and Mum will get the other, and we’ll have to find a caravan or something like that for the boys to sleep in.

In the room I’ll get there are cluster flies about a centimetre (1/2 in.) deep in places on the floor. There will be some repainting that needs done there, and maybe some re-papering.

The kitchen is fairly big, with lots of cupboard space. Hardly any counter/bench space, though, so we’ll be putting several tables in there. That will probably congest the space quite a bit, but that’s what we’ll have to do. Mum’s excited about the wood range in the kitchen—she says she’s always dreamed of having one to use! One nice thing is that the wood range is/has a wetback, and so when we have that running our water will be heated—therefore, less electricity used! We’ll probably also have another electric stove, too.

The living room is bigger than the one we have here. It’s the whole width of the house, and Craig (the owner) said that it was originally two rooms. It looks like it will be lovely to have something that big for whenever we have a lot of visitors! :) It also has a nice wood burner in it, exactly like what we’ve always wished for here in this house.

The outside is a complete mess—after all, it hasn’t been lived in for sixteen years! There’s barely any yard—it’s all taken over by knee-length, mangy grass. The front yard—or what’s supposed to be the front yard—is all taken over by trees. They block out the light going to the house, so they’ll be all pulled out. Not to mention the fact that to get to the house you have to duck under a lot of branches!

There’s no driveway at all. Well, not yet, anyway. There’s a cattle stop (cattle guard) at the end of the drive (or what used to be the drive), and there’s a fairly big plum tree in the middle of it! The boys said it was about 15 cm. (6 in.) across the base. Mum and I found the driveway, and walked up it a little way, dodging the tree branches. But after a little we came across a tree that had grown completely across the drive, and we couldn’t go through. There were some beautiful Birch trees there, and it would be nice if we could just heavily trim them back, but Craig said that they’re right in the way of the power lines so they’ll have to go.

Otherwise outside there are about three tanks to hold rain water from the roof, a tank for the house water, and a well. Craig hadn’t opened up the well yet (they’re just in the process of buying the place from his sister), so hopefully it will work to use that for the gardens (which are so far non-existent).

The place has a lot of outbuildings. And when I say a lot I mean a lot. Like six or twelve, or something. It’s impressive, anyway. We won’t be using all of them, because they want to store things there, but we’ll have a good number. Dad’s planning to use a couple of the sheds to store the van and ute (truck) in.

We’ll also get a big (3 acre, according to Google) paddock to go with the place. Plus all the roadsides we want in front of the house and out to the road. In the paddock a creek winds its way, and the boys were pretty excited to go exploring all over while Dad and the others worked out a few things. Craig said that they can go exploring the hill behind the house as well, once we go there. So they’re excited about that. :)

There are quite a few things that need to be done to the house before we move in. One is electricity. As far as I can tell, the place is still hooked up, but it just all needs to be tested and we’ll need more outlets put in because there are hardly any where we’d need them! The water would also need to be worked out. And phone lines. Thankfully, we won’t have to worry about rodents—they’ve put out bait before, and it was never touched.

Over all, we’re very excited about the possibilities of this place, even though we’ll most likely be there only a few years. I’m looking forward to seeing the place get all cleaned up, and become a home for us. :)

Here’s a comparison of our house and the house we’re thinking about moving to. In the new place, you can see the creek winding its way through the north part of the paddock. :) You can see down in the corners the size of the place. And if you click on the pictures, you can see them bigger hopefully. :)

New house:

 

Our current house:(I found the place to measure the area here.)

Currently, the boys are discussing how to trap the hare they saw at the new place today. Trying to decide what kind of trap would work best. :)

Oh, and a laugh from today. We were sitting at the table tonight, eating cherry fluff (basically, cheesecake without the crust), and Simon and James had this discussion:

James: “I’m a Kiwi—I’m eating dessert with a fork¹!”

Simon: “But Kiwis eat puddings with their spoons.”

James: “Well, then. I’m a better Kiwi than they are!”

~Esther

¹We’ve noticed that a lot of Kiwis use forks to eat. Therefore, you’re a Kiwi if you eat with a fork—in my brother’s opinions.