The good and the bad

I feel like I utter the sentence, "It's been a crazy couple of weeks" a lot. Sometimes I remind myself that these are the busy years, and one day, I'll have all the time in the world to sit on my front porch and reflect on them. For now, though, I'll just hang on tight and do my best to keep up.

We've had three major events in the past few weeks: VBS, a mountain lion attack and a move (sort-of).

First, VBS. Our church is a teeny-tiny country church in a town most people have never heard of, but we're serious about our VBS. Kids come out of the woodwork for this thing, and we have as many attendees as we have members of the church. It's amazing, it's fun, and it's exhausting. This was the second year my family has participated. I'm in charge of crafts and my husband teaches the kindergarten class. It's a whirlwind week that always leaves me happy and tired. This year, six children accepted Jesus into their lives during the week. I can't begin to describe what an amazing feeling that is because I know He'll never leave them or forsake them. Making that choice is the best thing that could possibly happen in and for their lives.

Two, the rogue mountain lion. While we were at our last night of VBS, my Kali-girl got her shoulder torn up when a mountain lion attacked.

Kali, our Anatolian Shepard mix

We're keeping Kali in the house while her wounds heal. She woke me up at 4 a.m. the other morning because the cat was back. When I opened the back door to see what she was making such a racket about, she took off after it. A fight ensued and my dogs managed to chase the cat off a second time, this time with no injuries.

Apparently there have been multiple sightings of a big cat throughout our area. Each instance shows the cat or cats getting pretty bold and fearlessly approaching humans - something that makes me a bit nervous as a mom and farmer.

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The third major event happening around our place is that, after hitting constant roadblocks in our quest to build on our land, we were able to acquire our neighbor's house and surrounding acre. It's a small farmhouse that originally went with our land before the property was divided years ago. (Actually, the original house is now gone but the foundation remains.) Not only is the house exactly what I've dreamed of for years, it comes with amazing gardens and an orchard with cherry, apple and peach trees. It hasn't been cared for in quite a while, so we've spent a lot of time cleaning and reclaiming, with a lot more time to go, but we're happy as clams to be settled in what I hope will be our forever home. (Well, this side of heaven anyway!)

Throw in a few animal and child-centered antics and you pretty much have a recap of the past two weeks of my life. I'm sincerely hoping the next two weeks include some reading. My TBR list is getting a bit out of hand, and I now have a front porch that is beckoning me to laze away an afternoon on it.