The bank sent us the Mortgage loan commitment today! Yay!

Brenda and I signed it and sent it back!Yay!

So the Vicarage project has taken another step forward.

Friday we are meeting with the whole design team including…

Plumber

Electrician

Siding installer and vendor rep

Painter

Mason

Finish Carpenter

We’ve been asked to make some choices on styles of kitchen that will match the new footprint. I like this one.

We’ve also been asked to think about siding or painting. A lot depends on price but if we side I think I want something like this.

Or this…

Do you like shake siding or straight siding?

Today two things happened to me in prayer. As I sat for my afternoon devotions on the porch (which generally last at least an hour) I was listening to my meditation music, and around the corner of the steps came a gopher.

He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

“Hello!” I said….and he was off like a shot.

It makes me happy that nature lives at my front door.

The second event happened around 6:30 P.M. as I was having my evening devotions. I was listening to the book of 1 Corinthians on my phone. The birds and the squirrels were gathered at the feeder eating supper.

Eight or ten doves and several squirrels and a chipmunk were happily munching at the birdseed. Then, they were off like a shot. The rodents…

It feels like I have used this title before…maybe I have but if so its worth repeating. I live my life by inches not by miles.

The older I get the more I realize that life, to be truly tasted and enjoyed needs to be taken in small bites.

There is a temptation to lose the beauty of the single flower because I am trying to conquer the whole forest.

When I give into that temptation, and start to think about the miles I have to go before I sleep for the night, instead of the inch I have left to walk before I can rest for a minute, I find myself getting filled with stress and striving. In that negative mindspace I find myself constantly disappointed by my own inability to meet my self imposed demands and by the world which falls so short…