2013 = LESSONS

When I reflect on 2013, the word that keeps coming up over and over again is LESSONS.  I/we learned a lot of lessons last year.

LESSON #1:
I pride myself on being a learner, I am always reading/researching something.  I enjoy teaching myself and others how to do new things so my biggest LESSON this year should not have come as a shock to me, but it totally did.  After much prayer, thought, reading, research we took the leap and decided to homeschool Matthew for kindergarten.  We started in mid-July and it took a few weeks to get traction but we have established a groove and are moving through our curriculum at a steady pace.  I never understood why people homeschooled until I was standing at the precipice of Kindergarten and realizing that the ramifications of my decision were  

So, if you are not friends with any "weird homeschoolers", congratulations, now you are!  To be honest, I think I might have been considered weird WAY BEFORE this designation.

LESSON #2:
Sometimes you need to just DO IT already.  We have talked and read, talked and read about getting chickens and one day, my very spur of the moment husband, while at the feed store no less said hey, let's get chickens.  I looked at him, with my "are you nuts" eyes and he said "come on, we will never be totally ready, just like having kids".  Well, we came home that day with two adorable little furballs that took up residence in my bathtub for a few months.  (Notice the theme.....WEIRD seems to be our modus operandi).  I digress, so we went from a family of 4 humans, 2 canine and 1 feline, to chicken people overnight and yes, we named them CHICKEN and NOODLE.  I will admit, while there was a learning curve we have thoroughly enjoyed the feathered ones.  Willie built them a really cute A-frame coop from 80% recycled material.  I am still amused by their personalities and how they, just like all the other animals, want to be right with us when we are outdoors.  We did lose a bird to a predator right before Thanksgiving and replaced her with three younger hens.  I have a chicken post in the works right now so stay tuned.

LESSON #3:
Sometimes, procrastination pays off, sometimes.  When we bought our current home 5 years ago, we knew the HVAC system needed to be replaced in a bad way.  We just couldn't ever pull the trigger and cough up the funds to replace it while it was working, I use the term working VERY lightly.  In August it finally went kaput, totally kaput.  As it just so happens, my in laws were scheduled to head here a few weeks later, and just happened to be camping 30 minutes or so away from the HVAC company that employed me for 10 years in Texas.  So, because we do NOTHING normal, we imported our new bigger, badder, WAY more efficient HVAC system from Texas.  We spent 3ish weeks without air conditioning and it was well....interesting.  Sitting here today, a few months later with a manageable electric bill and no space heaters chugging out heat all winter I am thankful we had the funds, thankful we had the connections, thankful we had family willing to move a trailer load of equipment and thankful for CONDITIONED AIR!

We hope your year was full of blessings and that you recognize all those lessons as the blessings that they are.