The Man with the Mill

As I hinted in the last post…we bought 5 acres of land that we plan on building a home on. Jacob has already cleared the trees where the driveway and house will be going and we are almost ready to have it graded. Some of the trees that he cut down were these hugemongous cedar trees. They were such nice trees that we couldn’t bear to waste them so Jacob hired a man with a portable saw mill to come out and mill the trees. We ended up with a good big of wood that we can use to line some of our closets (especially the ones with Jacob’s smelly shoes). It was a pretty cool and fairly inexpensive process. If you take a deep breath…you might even get a whiff of the wonderful cedar smell.

And while I’m rambling…here’s a little info about our property:

It’s 5 acres of rolling/wooded land on Cayce Rd in Byhalia, MS (that’s about as southern sounding as it gets).
It has a pond.
Our neighbor, Mr. Lee (a little Korean man) has 200+ acres with all sorts of animals…cows, sheep, horses, etc.
It’s a 30 minute drive to Jacob’s work.
It’s a 15 minute drive to my new job.
There are some REALLY old oak trees that line the entrance to the property and are just BEAUTIFUL.
Byhalia’s violent crime rate is .08% compared to Memphis’ 2%.
The mayor of Byhalia’s name is Scooter (thought that would make you laugh).

I hope to get some good pictures of it one day and I’ll post them on here. Enjoy the wood pictures for now.

A Rambling or Two

So…

Looks like I owe you guys a rambling or two. First of all, I apologize for being so slack. Between the job loss/no internet/Christmas/vacation/new job/etc. I have put blogging on the back burner. If it weren’t for Jacob, you wouldn’t have gotten any pictures…so you can thank him for the posts that were put. Let’s see if I can do a quick run down of what’s been going on over the past several months since my last actual rambling…I think I’ll pick up in November.

November
Mid November Jacob and I went to SC to see Oliver, our nephew, dedicated to the Lord. That was a fun time with family and since I was unemployed I was able to stay a little longer. Dakota and Oliver had pictures taken together to give to Sally for Christmas. She loved them. I even made them coordinating outfits. A dress for Dakota and a jumper for Oliver. They turned out great and hopefully I can put a few of the pictures up one day (one thing at a time).

End of November we went on our annual trip to PA to visit my family. Jacob hiked for several days while I spent time with family. We had great food and a great time. Dakota got her first hair cut by my aunt Bonnie. She didn’t really need one but because Bonnie gave me my first haircut, I wanted her to give Dakota hers…and I knew by the time Thanksgiving came around again her mullet would be even worse. So she had a little trim off the back. Dakota had a blast playing with cousin Harlie.

December
I spent a lot of December making things. I was very productive. Let’s see what all I made…a tree skirt, 4 scarves, 5 hats, 1 fleece jacket, 4 heating pillows, 2 dresses, closet hangy tags and an ad for our church for the newspaper. Some of that might have been in November, but needless to say, there were a lot of home-made gifts this year.

By mid-December I had a new job which deserves a post of its own. God certainly is good and I love seeing how He works things out in my life. I worked 1 week before heading to Greenville for Christmas.

We spent a week in Greenville enjoying time with family. We got some great gifts and had a wonderful 2nd Christmas with Dakota. She got a big girl chair, a wagon, some other toys, books, puzzles, snacks, etc. I got a Wii!! Jacob got some gift cards, a new fleece, etc.

We then left for Hawaii which was a blast. We were able to get the highest point in HI (#41!!) even though there was snow! The Hawaiians drive to the top of Mauna Kea just to fill the bed of their trucks with snow and take it back down. We went to a luau one night and Dakota danced and ate crab legs. Jacob and I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary while there. He took me on a date to a romantic restaurant right on the water. The waves crashed right into the base of the building we were sitting at (that was actually January but same trip).

January
I started my job for real and have been working ever since. Not much has been going on other than work. Oh…except Jacob has been working hard on our property (yea, we bought 5 acres of land…that also deserves its own post) clearing the trees, having bonfires and getting ready for us to build a home. If only I could find time to finish the plans. We’ve also been working on getting the current house ready to sell. Recently we hung crown moulding and painted the trim and walls in the living room.

So…I think that catches us up and I’ll try to do much better now that I have internet access daily.

P.S. I'm not going to edit this so I apologize for any typos/spelling errors.