It’s been mild again, weather wise, and it looks to hold out through the end of the year, as well as the first week of the new year. Very odd, very nice though.

Highs in the 60′s, lows in the 40′s … great weather for me! I’d love it to be like this most of the time, but alas, it’s not. It gets hot in the late spring, and then nicer again in the late autumn, with some times better than others during the summer-like months. It’s a rare treat though to get this lovely spring-like weather off and on late autumn and early winter. I mean, the last few days of the year being for yard work, no sweaters, and so on … It’s that we usually have cold now, and the fact is we have not had to use any heating for days, and won’t need to if weather stays as is said to be the next week+ … that’s up to Jan 6 being nice, nice, nice.

No chilly bathroom to use the electric heater in to take the “edge” off. No fireplace fire to take care of, to roast in front of to relieve the chill of the main floor. I like fires, mind you. I love taking care of them. Just the novelty of having some very cold days, and fires roaring, and thinking of Spring-Time, and then “here it comes!”.

So this year was our first FULL year without Central AC/Heating. This is our second “winter” without it. All is well. It’s been tough some times, but the worsed is definatly “SUMMER”. When temps get over 70 F. my body knows it. It gets very hard to stay sane. So the higher it goes, the worse it gets for me. Imagine any temp that YOU know is the passing point of comfort. Now understand that for many it’s much higher than my own is. Imagine that yours was in the range that meant most “normal” temps are too hot for you to function well under. I’m like photo’s, negatives, paper, books. I stay good in cooler dry places. 72 is the most, as long as it’s dry.

I don’t mind colder to a degree, it must be in the 50′s or 60′s for ultimate comfort. But there is a combo-with other conditions that makes or breaks that working well. If my internal is cold, I need warmer than warm, for a while. That’s why fireplaces are great. And hot baths. Just stay in or near long enough to get warm internally and than scat! I’m a reptile, I guess too.

People’s Thermostat is at the back of the neck. To fool mine I must, in heat, have ice on it. That’s really hard to make happen in the house at 85 F. But that’s something I am just thinking of since talking of Spring, and thinking over the last year. I feel like “hot times” are close at hand, but really they aren’t. We have more Winter to deal with, no doubt.

So then, our Hens. They have been a trial this year, in that they just went into eating and not producing too much. It’s time to end the Leghorns. They were born in Oct before we got them in Feb of 2003. They are two years old. Have gone through Spring 2003-Autumn 2003 as their first Laying Season. Then Spring 2004- August 2004, and nothing since then, just MOLT MOLT MOLT. No fun. We just are chicken to do anything with them. A few have died, we have 7 now, 10 to start with, has the same first 10 with no deaths the first year. Amazing, so I understand from others.

We have two GLW (Golden-Lace Wyandotts) hens, and they were born Spring 2003 and started laying mid-Summer 2003 and layed into December, I think, but that was three of them then. They laid a bit in 2004, but stopped in August, as the leghorns did. They began molting too. So they’ve had two seasons of laying, but not FULL season as the Leghorns. I’m more forgiving of these GLW. Anyway, one of them died suddenly for who-knows-why just this past month, and so we are down to two of them, and they are LOOKING like they might be close to laying again. But one of them has a chunk of tail feathers missing now, so she has to grow them back before … laying.

We have one that lays green eggs. She looks GLW but doesn’t. At any rate that’s “Hawklady” and she laid more than the GLW’s this year. She’s a good one, but then again, not since she ALSO started molting and hasn’t given up much since Sept. 2004.

We got five black Australorps Spring 2004. They hatched early 2004 Spring. They started laying late and didn’t do a whole lot (but did for the times that they were laying). They have not had a full laying season, but started molting and did that for a couple of months, then laid again for about a month then quit again, which was just a few weeks ago. Sigh. We lost one of the Australorps during laying time, just a day after a HUGE egg had been laid. We figure that was her.

So we have had less eggs this year. I’ve bought too many store eggs. We JUST found a source not too far away for fresh eggs. As well as they being the distributors for organic layer feed. The only ones around So we have our first of that we’ll be using, and getting our birds onto that will be nice.

We got the A-frame hen pen finished recently, and the Australorps are happily content there, but not laying still. I just today got the three odd-balls out of the pen of leghorns, so Hawklady, Pointsettia, and Trinity are in the dog carrier today, sitting by the Australorps, for them to all get used to each other and that tonight or tomorrow night they can go in together.

I am tring to get a light out there for them, to supplement daylight and “fool” them into laying now, especially since they all haven’t done good enough all year from Spring to Autumn

Frank has started doing more work on his own, having some thing change this past year with his work. Too much confusing for ME to talk about it here, as if I have any idea … it’s just his thing. But it’s going better. We have a large hole to climb out of, and with The Lord’s help we are doing it and will continue to do so.

The Children each had birthdays this year. Russell turned 8 the end of April. He’s reading well. Asa turned 4 mid-September. He’s growing up, but still a young boy! Victoria turned 6 the end of November. She’s turning into quite a young lady, but has years to go, of course!

I also, of course, lost our 4th baby at 10 weeks gestation the end of March. It was a hard event, and still stikes horrible emotions in me to this day any time something strikes me that way. It’s hard to know when I’ll be that sensitive, when I won’t. It’s not a mystery, it’s just that sometimes baby stuff bugs me so much, all I can do is cry and run away.

Why? It’s just the horror of losing something living, that you longed to hold and love and see grow, but losing it before being able to feel it even. But knowing it was alive and it was there. Seeing it, but not in the way that one would wish to see their child.

Why else? This was our fourth child, not our first. We know what happens when a baby is growning and is born and grows up to crawl, walk, run, laugh, smile, talk, and so on.

This child was our last, maybe we will have another, but at this point it’s our last. We are older. It’s not impossible to have more children, but being older, I’m 38, Frank is 39, we have no surety of anything, but never did in the first place about children. God opens and closes the womb. It just hurts my soul to see things about babies. It’s nearly sufficating for me sometimes if I see a baby the last few months, or end up too near the baby section in a store, or read something that just sends me down the pathway of what is horrid.

My babe is with God. My babe is safe in His Arms. But my arms long to hold him/her. My arms ache at the emtyness of this season when the babe would be small and perfect, sweet to smell, cuddly to hold close. Warm, gentle, young. Youngness invading the household.

Instead it’s older-ness. Our youngest living is 4. That’s far from being a baby. He’s been out of diapers since turning 2 for the most part. So part of having a new babe is the delight of going through my diaper stock and getting them ready, I love cloth diapering! But for me it’s now sufficating to think upon almost. This is hard enough to write.

Through this past year I’ve stopped getting email-lists, each one just too much to bear the references and different attitudes that weren’t meant to cause pain for anyone, but definitely have done so for me. I understand ALL too well how just bragging or complaining about anything, seemingly innocently can cause others much pain.

I already know it about people bragging about their riches and all that comes with that attitude. I grew up in a poor family, always lower-mid class, or trying to be. Things in our marriage have been mid-class, but worse than that in many respects over the years, with the last three taking the cake.

But we have so much. It’s just that the lack of somethings or the loss of some things, causes pain when others pooh pooh about the good things they have, the things we don’t or have lost. It’s really no fun having money troubles. It’s no fun not being able to have a baby. I know both those. We struggled getting pregnant for the first time. I had two full years of anguish that nothing had happened already. That was after the anguish of the first many months of waiting to see if something would happen, as every young couple is promised “it’ll be soon”. But God did bless us with our first child eventually. The pain I had ceased, but the understanding of others going through that has continued. I know the pain of having no children and wanting them and waiting on God for Womb Opening. I understand the joy of motherhood. The joy of birthing children, and the joy of homebirthing, clothdiapering, the joy of natural approach to children’s health. I have had to add to my sorrow of understanding others though, and fill the niche of having children, but losing one early, and just feeling loss heavily. My first three children were 2 years apart. My last baby would have been more than four years junior to Asa. This was a special baby.

So I cry a lot still. I know it will ease with time passing. This is the first tough year, of it happening, baby should have been born about now dates, baby would have been this old dates. Baby’s miscarriage 1-year-ago date is still in the future, not that far away, but that date should have, if nothing had happened bad, been the baby being a cutie time. 3 to 4 months of age.

Baby right now would be newborn stage still. So sweet. So darling. So heartmelty. My heart is partially invisible now.

I’m A-OK otherwise. Yes, I know, sounds weird.

That’s the quirkiness of it all. I’m alright with it, it happened, it’s alright, baby is with God. But I’m paralyzed by it, but yet not. It’s the way of it:

One day planning for babies arrival.
Next day mouring loss
Next day must put on happy face and pretend life just goes on as last year. As if nothing ever happened.

It’s the pain of silence. A suffering alone, comforted only by God, and the people He sends to comfort, true empathizers. No one else offers much comfort. And it’s the quizical ignore/don’t ignore condudrum of don’t do either . Don’t ignore the baby loss, don’t talk to me about the baby loss. Both apply.

So on to cats.
This past year we lost Samantha, my dear pet of 12 years. It was a hard loss, having lost as well a puppy from a dog attack, and some hens as well. I mean, couple that with my MIL dying in February, puppy dying while DH at funeral, me losing baby about a month later … it hasn’t been so good.

So recently we got two new kittens. They are on my lap right now. They love to cuddle on me as I surf the ‘net or type on the computer. They are gray blue kittens, brother and sister. So sweet. They’ve had colds though, twice since getting them. They are recovering now. But it’s so sad to see precious fluffies miserable.

The boy has longer fur. He’s messy looking a lot of the time. He looks so big because of it. But he’s just got longer fur. His sister looks a lot like him, but her fur isn’t so long. It’s the easiest way to tell them apart. Their eyes are the same color and shape. Her pupils look different at times though, much smaller than his. That’s another tell-apartism.

These kittens are a joy to have to fill empty spots left by all the things in the last year. But they don’t ease all pain. They just help a lot.

Ok then, the house. The house is clutter-flutter needs de-cluttering and organization, which is a major chore of way-too-much for me alone with three little tornadoes living here with two organizationally challenge adults. Lack of money is very apparent in this venture, as money aides organizationally challenged individuals, buys them gadgets that work, drawers, shelves, furniture, boxes, baskets, do-dads galore. We sometimes are able to waste money in that direction, but being organizationally challenged makes for bad choices sometimes, but not so much that but that it’s not enough to help … KWIM?

We have a house that needs painted inside and out. Outside really needs it. Inside parts of it really need it. We live on sub-flooring having taken out the carpet due to ickyness, and allergies and wanting to install wood flooring, so just living on this until we can get wood flooring installed. It’s not bad at all. Just transitional. I have much decorating I’d love to do, but shabby chic is too expensive to do even.

We just have stuff that needs to be tossed, but the energy to sort that out of the good stuff, and what to do with this and that … and clean daily, well, stuff goes undone, and things like Christmas just add to the load. It’s sad how much poor people can accumulate!

I’m not complaining about being poor. Just talking about the challenges it presents to “organizationally challenged” individuals. I like the thought of living minimallistically. It’s just hard to implement. One needs to be on HGTV’s “Mission Organization” and have someone gift you the funds to do what the expert tells you to do. I actually have plenty of ideas, plenty of brain power, just not enough physical resources or physical power to implement. It’s just that my creative way or organizing is one that needs raw materials or materials to re-transform, and in a house with no ageing attic full of stuff, we have no materials of worth to work with. So our visual-spatial gadget happy family just accumulates stuff that needs to go places but have no where to be put. It’s a curse. Have thing, it’s sure to be something with no home spot to live in.

Have thing with a home spot to live in, something else will take up residence in it. Or maybe it’ll just be a space that dissapears into thin air … and the thing will be homeless and that leaves less space in the house.

Rule Number One. Stacking is important. If one sees an empty flat surface, immediately fill that with whatever is in your hands, or what one can get their hands on soonly thereafter. And be sure and repeat often on top of that. Stacking on flat surface is number one.

Second Rule stack on non-flat surface for balancing games and fun. Same as above, only more challenging.

Oh, just imagine the fun. No need to go on. We are stackers. We are absolutely classic Visual people with all the classic symptoms of Messy/Organizationally Challenged People.

One must understand it’s not fun, it’s just the way it is. To be organized and stick with it day in and day out is stifling. What so tough about it is that it’s like living in Boot Camp when I try to get it happening here. It’s not worth the stress. The stress of mess is easier, softer stress, if that makes any sense.

So there are rules I have printed out and posted on the wall, more than one place in the house. Rules that everyone must follow. They are largely ignored.

So this is it. I will be devoting time and energy to de-cluttering as I can, but largley doing a Lite Boot Camp and instituting executive decisions about stuff left, stuff not cared for, junk dropped on the floor, clothing not cared for, etc. Lose it, must do something to get it back. Not take care of something, won’t get new something until care for old somethings. And so on.

It’s something that we are trying to do, is get better bookcases to fill up with books and papers and supplies. Frank got me a new one today, on sale at Target. It’s not solid wood, but better than the bookcases we used to have, that found their way into the garage to be filled up with stuff that NEEDS to be organized

So eventually it’s my desire that we’ll have enough tools to build out own stuff cheaper and better, or just better. We now have a circular saw, and a jigsaw. Big improvements to add to our cordless drill and screwdrivers and manual saw. We need a few more things, saw horses, work table, miter box at least, etc.

I’d love a Dremel tool set too. It’s just my size for doing lots of projects. So that’s a dream gadget of mine.

We have much to do in the coming new year. Rooms to get fixed up, painted decorated. Rooms to organize and make nice and shabby chic in a french or italian country way. I also like some Japanese elements to furnishings. What an ecectic mix, and throw in the perfectess of Victorian decorating as well. :veryshocked:

We are so thankful for the Life God has given us. For the marriage God has given us. For the Children God has entrusted us with. We are thankful for all He has taught us and the things He will teach us. We seek to follow His paths. We are grateful for His Complete Choosing of Us, for the sacrifice of His Son, Christ Jesus, and all He did on the cross and rising from the dead to conquer death so that we may Live Eternally in His prescence.

Thanks be to Him for this Visual Messy Life. It’s ours and we love it. It’s from Him, we know that. It’s for our perfecting to live and try to gain more, but it’s not that gaining that earns us salvation. Salvation is through Christ Alone.

Happy New Year Y’all!