Friday, August 9

Today I am grateful for:

A good riding lesson on River this past Wednesday. There is fresh hay now, finally, and it doesn't seem to bother his breathing. This also means that he is back in a normal pen with the other geldings, and not in the horrible pen full of mud that he was in because he had to be separated to be fed hay cubes.

The progress made in emptying the trailer this past few days. I have been moving things out slowly over the past couple of weeks, moving whatever I could move by myself, a few boxes here, a few trips to the new house there. Now my husband is back from visiting his family, and his parents are here, so things have sped up a lot. Now I can move a few items over to the door, and just tell them where it's going, and three people take things away, instead of just me moving one thing at a time.

My sweetie and his Dad are starting to move bigger furniture out now, and my sweetie's Mom cleaned out the kitchen cupboards so that we can move dishes and food over soon.

My sweetie's Uncle and his partner brought their RV (camper trailer) to our place so that my sweetie's parents have a place to sleep (nothing is ready in the new house for guests, and the trailer is going to be empty and torn down), and to give me some space (I need at least some privacy right now).

I am doing okay with the stress of packing everything, and the new speed of moving, and having people here.

That my knee is doing better. I fell with a load of stuff two days ago, right onto the knee that I fell on this winter, slipping on the ice. I was having a lot of pain, and still having to go up and down the stairs with stuff, and my OTHER knee was kind of sore too just from all the moving, and I was really worried that I was not going to be able to keep up. Today I was feeling a lot better, and I am SO GLAD. I need to be able to keep going right now.

That our dog, Roxy is such a laid back character. She isn't concerned about all the moving and commotion and new people and so on. She seems to have faith that we know what we are doing, and as long as she gets fed and petted and so on, she's okay. The cats aren't doing too badly, considering. They are excited about all the new spaces opening up for exploration, though they aren't too happy with being kept in the bedroom (for safety) while we move things.

There were a few things my sweetie's Mom admired, so I gave them to her. I wasn't particularly attached to them, and she seemed far more enamored of them than I truly was, so it seemed like an appropriate way to thank her for her help.

That my sweetie took his parents to town in the morning, to give me a chance to sleep in.

That all of us have the physical strength to do this kind of work. I do not take this for granted. My sweetie's parents aren't young, and to be able to help us is a gift. That WE can do this is a gift.

Having electricity, running water and sewer, modern appliances, and tools. All of these things make it easier to do something like this.

Saturday, August 9

Today I am grateful for:

Decent weather.

Really moving a lot of stuff out of the house now. Down to the nitty gritty. The craft room and junk room are totally empty now, and they were our "storage" rooms, and packed to the rafters. The hardest rooms to empty. The spare room is empty too, and that one had a ton of clothes in it.

My sweetie's Mom did a great job of moving over all the spices from the kitchen, and she washed all the containers (they get oily from the stove), and took down the spice racks and put them through the dishwasher.

Then, we all worked to move the canned and boxed food out of the pantry in the trailer to the pantry in the farm house. The new pantry is nicely set up, and the shelves are shallower and taller, meaning it will be easier to see everything, and WAY easier to get to them. I won't lose things at the back of the shelves and forget about them so much now.

We even began some starter deconstruction in the trailer, pulling up the still nice carpet out of the spare bedroom to be given away to whoever wants it, and the linoleum out of the junk room (in good shape, not glued down) that we will likely re-use. My sweetie already took the door and frame out of the craft room too.

I'm so tired of going up and down stairs, but I'm not in pain and I think I'm developing some lower body strength now. It takes a lot of effort to repeatedly go up a set of stairs carrying 10-20 pounds each time.

A nice supper. I'm glad that my sweetie's parents are okay with eating mostly vegetarian meals while they are here. It's very respectful of them.

Finding lots of lovely peas (edible pods) in the garden, and some new beets for supper. We've been eating a lot of beet tops too, and really enjoying it all.