Hibernation

…*stre-e-etch*…

…*ya-a-awn*…blink-blink…

…*sigh*… “ah, that’s better.”

I feel like I just woke up from a long winter’s nap…only it was summer! Okay, so I didn’t really sleep all summer (gee, wouldn’t that be interesting?), but I did take a much needed break from a number of commitments. Some good, some not-so-good. School, home, health, the list goes on. Why? Well, let’s just say it was part of some pruning God was doing in my life, only I didn’t necessarily know it at the time!

School

Our homeschool endeavor was pluggin’ along last spring, looking like we’d wrap it up “on time” at the end of May. Of course, I didn’t take into account how much we ♥ our history curriculum OR how much progress my children were making in their math program. When we finished both the 1st week of May, we decided to call it quits early (reward? yes!) since we always school year-round. I knew I could never get them started in the next books if we couldn’t keep going. So, there you have it~ Early Summer!

what I learned:

Never say never…or always.

We did not school year-round this year. In fact, Plan B was to just skip our “summer school” and start our new school year the beginning of August. That would have been great, if we weren’t packing to move…

HOME

Oh, didn’t I mention that we sold our house??
After much prayer and multiple attempts to refinance or modify our loan every which way imaginable, we strongly felt God leading us to sell our home. Huge leap of faith here, since we have so many friends here locally, trying to do the same thing, and they’re still sitting in their homes…waiting…over a year (or two!) later. We were also in the process of trying to adopt, which could/would also be a lengthy process. Knowing all of that, we chose to trust God, and in April we listed our home.

One month later, we got an offer with a request to close escrow the end of August.

Back and forth, the negotiations went between our banks and realtors, and then…silence.

No word for over a month. It was July and we didn’t know whether to pack or start looking for a new place to live. Then August came…We finally got the thumbs up! The banks accepted the offer and we were going to *gasp!* close on time! The rush to pack and find a house left our family in a whirlwind of chaos.

What I learned:

God ONLY has a perfect plan and it is EXACTLY what you need. TRUST!

Wouldn’t you know it? God had it all perfectly planned out. He had the perfect home just waiting for us. (More on that another day!)

HEALTH

Normally, our summers consist of planting, tending, and harvesting a vegetable garden. We did plant one this spring, expecting that we would still be in our house in the fall (silly us!) to harvest it. We did get some early cukes and berries, but I was a bit sad to abandon my tomatoes and squash! Oh well, at least they’ll be blessing the next guy’s table!

We were SO busy and eventually our good, wholesome, nutrient-dense diet went down the drain. (It’s called really called “laziness”, but I’m working on forgiving myself and being nice!)

What I learned:

Healthy food makes for healthy bodies. No exceptions. Eat well, Thank God!

Now that we are settled into our new place, we are working to remedy that! What a blessing to discover a friend from church was planning to kiss-her-garden-goodbye since she’d be gone for 3 weeks. This is only half of what my boys and I picked last week!  Praise the Lord for His Perfect Provision…again!

 

So, as you can see, I wasn’t really hibernating. Quite the opposite actually! (Hibernation’s sounding pretty good right about now!) I’ve missed sharing my Blessed Season with y’all, but a break was absolutely necessary.

Dare I say, “Welcome Back”? ☺