Thursday, February 14, 2019

I’m Back, Our House is a Work in Progress, and A Christmas Surprise




I’M BACK

Well, it would appear that I did exactly
 three posts last year.
 And I got my “real” camera out only a few more times than that.   
2018 goes down in the books
as the craziest year of my life.

 Not a bad crazy. 

Just a “how did we do that?” kind of crazy.
 And a “very good” crazy.
And an “I’m loving this” crazy.

 I’m pretty sure we’ll always remember 2018 as simply,
The Year We Built the House.
  Because, really, not a whole lot of other things happened.

The craziness begins. 


Changes happening!

painting, painting, painting
  
I’m adjusting back to my normal roles; mother, teacher, wife. 
Although I do still randomly find a teacher’s pencil
 stuck in my hair or behind my ear, carpenter style.
  Muscle memory I guess you’d call it.  Ha!

that random teacher's pencil


A WORK IN PROGRESS

For those of you who would love to see pictures of the house,
 I really am planning to share some… sometime!
 Right now, we’re finding our new normal after our move in November. 
And there’s still a list of “house things” to finish up.
 Time doesn’t stand still.
 We haven’t hung a single picture on the walls.
(Unless you count the old aerial photo poster
 that’s stuck to the upstairs wall with sticky-tac.)
 There are still boxes to unpack and organize.

But even though there’s some chaos,
there’s a whole lot of happiness and contentment.
  We’re so grateful for what God’s given us.
 We have a home!

  Here are a few random pictures I found on my phone
 that show a few rooms.

The living room.

Also the living room.  (at Christmastime)

Adding shelves in the kitchen.

Here you can see the kitchen.
You can also see raw meat from Kadence's buck.
So sorry about that if it bothers  you.

The school room on a cleaned up day.
Actually, you can't see the stuff I threw out of the picture behind me.



A CHRISTMAS SURPRISE

Do you know what a praying mantis ootheca looks like?
 (That’s that foamy brown egg sack – I had to look up
 that word again, ‘cause I can never remember it.)
 For your own benefit please take note: 
if you EVER  find some such thing
on a branch of your Christmas tree,
do yourself and the mini-manitises a favor.
  Cut that branch off and move it right outside
 to the temperature nature intends it to be in December!  
Warm weather is what causes the babies to hatch.
 We had quite a surprise a few days after Christmas
when our school room was crawling with
a hundred or more teeny tiny baby praying mantises!

discovering the Mantis mayhem.
  If you happen to know us well,
you know some of the people in our family care about bugs. 

Especially praying mantises.


 So what is a mamma to do?!
 We collected a great number of them
and left the rest to parish away.  
Sob. 

But what do you feed fifty insect eating infants
 that are less than a half an inch long?
 There are no insects/food to be found outside in December.
 I tried hamburger and chicken breast. 
No luck.
 I looked into buying fruit flies for pets.
 Too expensive. (I’m cheap.)

 I read that mantises become cannibalistic if there’s no food source.
 So we left them to survive as best they could.
 Shudder!

 Their numbers dwindled and then…
I started seeing fruit flies in my kitchen.
 Never thought I’d be glad for that day.
  The last seven mantises began to have meals. 
And I began to do my best to propagate fruit fly larvae!
My husband says anyone who’s cultivating fruit flies
 could be considered crazy. 
I don’t argue.




Mantis home.


supper on a skewer.
  Three baby mantises made it to their first molt,
 but one didn’t survive that process, and another fell by the way.






hunting.

uumm.... I think you missed.

Gottcha!

Chowing down.
 Today finds us with ONE praying mantis. 
He’s growing and looking very smart.
 He knows that when the skewer with the fly comes close
 that means food. 

We’re hoping he makes it until spring. 

 And I will be scouring every single branch of next year’s tree.




“Unless the Lord builds the house,

    those who build it labor in vain.”
Psalm 127:1





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