A Better Late than Never Birthday Sweater
Harriet’s second birthday was in March and, per usual, my knitting project took extra long. I am very much still learning so I have to stop often to look up techniques or tear out a section I did wrong…but I am getting more and more proficient on every project I attempt, and knitting keeps my hands busy and is a form of “mother culture” for me at the end of a long day.
Blocking the sweater
So here it is, the sweetest little pointelle, summer sweater in a wool/cotton blended yarn; knit for a two year old who asked twenty times if it was ready to wear and then did not want to put it on when it was finally finished. Sound familiar, parents of sweet two year olds? ;).
Pattern is Rigmore’s Summer Blouse from Petite Knits and yarn is wool/cotton blend from Brown Sheep Company in color buttercream . (Pattern and wool suggestion came from my friend, Hannah - IG: @springhillhomestead).
What’s next you ask?
Now that this is finally finished, I am diving right into my next ambitious knitting adventure: three colorwork sweaters for the children’s “what to wear” for Christmas. They will all have the same base wool color, with individually chosen feature colors for the Colorwork. Wool for this project (pictured above) is from one of my favorites so far: Quince and Co.
Oliver’s colors
Juniper’s colors
Harriet’s colors
And now, I am off to knit, because that is what I will be doing every night from now until December. It is going to be tight time-wise, but sometimes some good pressure produces great results.
I covet your prayers for fast fingers and a faithful heart of completion. Faithfully completing whatever I begin is one of this year’s largest efforts. the Lord will be my constant strength for:
Walking through the Doors of Our Midwest Ranch Home
Our home in the evening in b/w
I had attempted to write this blog post several months ago and it was accidentally deleted. At the time I was extremely frustrated at the mishap, but now, after the sudden loss of a new neighbor, strangely intertwined with the joy of the uncovering of a never-seen-in-spring yard, I realized that I was not yet ready to fully understand the timing, and the gift, that this home was for us. He works in mysterious ways.
In early July 2020, we quickly sold our first home. Incredibly sad to let it go, but confident in our decision to remove our family from a neighborhood that seemed to be increasing in crime, we had already been striking out on the new home front in the crazy pandemic hot market of 2020. You could barely see a home before it would be snatched up, over market value, with peeling plaster on the walls and ceilings and more! We didn’t know at the time of our first outbidding, that we would go on to see and be disappointed many more times over the next 6 months.
Our children playing in what we call the Living Room.
We are not strangers to waiting on God. We’ve waited through half a decade of infertility, a year and a half on unemployment, etc, but it never gets easier. We still have the same eagerness to see something happen right now. Not tomorrow, or next week, or in six months. But often, God says wait. Sometimes that wait is for our protection, sometimes for an increased longing & dependence; always though, it is working things out for God’s glory and alleluia also for our good.
Close to the end of the 6 month wait, we found a house that seemed to checked most of our (ok, maybe my) foolish boxes. I wanted an older home with character, with at least a half acre, and I absolutely wanted a pretty staircase; none of that ranch home nonsense (read on for the irony in that). This home was in a location we were interested in, had enough land, was pretty to look at (on the outside) and was even painted colors I have loved on homes for years. Though, lacking in the number of bedrooms we had wanted, we thought, “This is the one.” Offer accepted, we moved onto inspection, which expecting a substantial amount of cosmetic work, were hit with a shocking amount of serious underlying repairs that needed to be fixed prior to even being suitable for living. Alright, we were up for the challenge for the right house, but we needed a reduction in asking price to make this happen. Unfortunately, at the time, now seen as fortunate, the seller would not budge.
Morning books in our family room
We still believed this was supposed to be our home… I am talking driving around the block in our car, banging pots and pans, walls of Jericho are coming down, type of belief. That home contract did eventually end. It was a painfully long cancellation process, much of which we felt like we were being strung along in hopefulness, but it was just another piece of preparation & coordination on God’s part. {In retrospect, we will never regret that type of faith and earnest prayer with our children. It was more earnest and hopeful than we have ever been as a family and the type of belief I hope our children will always see in us.}
Sitting on our front deck after dark
The day our contract officially ended, restless & discouraged, I perused Redfin listings again. I just needed to see something else, I thought. I had seen this ranch home before, but had brushed it off because, you know, it was A RANCH {go ahead, insert eye roll over my silliness, I deserve it}. It had also gone contingent for some time, which further discouraged me from looking, but it was now back on and I was seeing it again with new, humbled eyes. It was just a smidge above our budget range, but it ticked most of the other practical boxes: more yard space for our kids to play in, more bedrooms for our growing family, more bathrooms (we had just one before and that was definitely a little tricky with multiple children who wait until the last minute to go potty. You know what I mean there!). We asked our realtor (necessary shout out here for Jon Tuck of Realty works, who faithfully led us through what felt like one million homes, and supported us emotionally as our friend when things went sour on multiple occasions. You are the best!), if we could see it that night.
The same day our previous home contract ended, we pulled up at dusk to an unassuming home set up a bit on a little hill. We both gave an “eh” and shoulder shrug at the outward appearance initially, but we walked through the front door and were pleasantly surprised at the large space we encountered inside. From there, it was all generally smooth sailing. The kind of door opening after door opening smoothness that gives you great comfort that God is going before you. We learned during our process that the home had been under contract three times before in the last year. Each time, it had fallen through because of the buyer losing financing. We really believe that God was holding, preparing, and even waiting for my foolish heart to be open enough to look at, this home He was preparing for us.
“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes His path”
unexpected flowering tree blooms in our yard
A modest appearing home on the outside, inside boasts a large, open main kitchen/living space, 5 bedrooms, and three bathrooms (more of each of those than we even wanted/needed). Outside, Spring has greeted us with mornings on the front deck, flowering trees and flowers, turtles from the pond across the way, many friendly birds & hawks, and easily accessible nature walks. We will be doing some renovations as the home was built in the 60’s and needs some updates, but we are soaking in the glorious gift even just as it is.
As usual, the waiting produced endurance, and gratefulness, and revealed a greater plan, and a greater gift, than we had expected. So now we welcome you friends, to our midwest ranch home on the little hill. Come on over and see and sit and chat. You might even get a chance to pet a turtle, oh joy! No promises there, but we do promise to provide good conversation & good coffee! :)
(I have included a few more photos below of the inside main area for you to see that I took before we moved in. More to come as we make updates).
Weathering February with Summer Memories | The Lodge on Film | August 2020 | Petoskey, MI
At the end of December, before the dark days of winter began to set in, I opened an email with my first film scans from our summer trip to truly one of my favorite places on Earth: The Lodge, nestled on the outskirts of downtown Petsokey, MI, has been an anticipated temporary summer dwelling place for as long as I can remember.
Especially needed in 2020 were it’s morning coffees on the porch, breeze of the lake on your face and hair, splashing of children in the water, and quiet treks onto the dock at night for a look at the stars. The same glimpse of glory on Earth it brings swiftly brought comfort to me when I opened these film scans on December 28th. I hope they pass even a small smattering of that experience to you during these winter months.
In truth and love,
Bethany
Film stock: Portra 400
Lab: The Find Lab
Strawberry Picking
The hot sun beat down on our skin as we entered the fields for our first strawberry picking excursion.
The hot sun beat down on our skin as we entered the fields for our first strawberry picking excursion.
One determined to “pick his entire basket worth himself”, one hobbling around with a broken leg, and one smallest gal moving from section to section and living her dream of eating as much dirt & fruit as she can fit into her small, yet willing body. The 90 degree, full sun weather might have been a brave choice for our first trek to the strawberry fields, seeing as the children tried to sit and call it quits with the bucket half full. We couldn’t pass up an invitation from some friends & the sweet, sweet call of FRUIT in season. It took a little bit of prodding, some “rah rah, we can do it…and also a bit of we’re not leaving until the bucket is full” from this momma to get the Thomas troops back on mission.
We left with full hearts, sticky hands, red-flushed cheeks, and a bucket full of fresh from the vine strawberries that I aim to turn into ice cream and a galette.
