When life is unsettled...just dance

I was reading a missionary friend's blog today and she talked about the struggles of life in another culture, speaking another language, far from friends and loved ones.  Another talked of loss and grief and yet another, of transition. 

The Crosby family is now heading into month two of officially being "normal people" and 15 months of life on US soil.  Even so, we are not settled and in a way, I can't remember ever feeling "settled" in my adult life.  Changing dorms, changing roommates, jobs, ministries, majors and finally getting married only to realize that the life we had chosen was one of constant transition and change. 

Leaving missions behind hasn't changed that.  I crave being "settled" more now but know that until we make it to our final destination with Jesus, we won't feel totally "settled".  So today I prayed for our friends overseas and friends here (who I realize often feel just as unsettled as I did while in other countries and cultures).  In doing so I realized that part of embracing the life God has called us to is embracing the messy unsettled-ness of it all. 

I chose the above picture because it represented the sweet, crazy chaos of life right now.  We are about to find out if we are buying a house this week, or starting over again in the hunt.  Part-time work starts again for me, but there are fires raging nearby (literally).  All the while there are so many things going on...happy things like new babies, sad things like broken families and just plain hard things that make up everyday life.

Living a life of faith today amidst chaos means casting aside the uncertainty of tomorrow while trusting in the "lifter of heads" to give us the joy to dance again today. For today, I will.

Free Lamp Re-do and Chair Upholstery Fabric

This is the giant cement lamp that you never thought you'd own. And friends, this piece of work is SO heavy that it took me two tries with some major "from the quads" lifting to get this thing in the back of dad's truck. It is heavy. And UGLY. Or it was.

Here she is after a coat of paint (primer & poly too)...give a new lease on life. The part I finished today was doing something with the stained lampshade. Buying a new one defeated the purpose of getting a free lamp. But I got the crazy idea to cover the shade with "Make it Stone" textured paint in a cream color and it turned out!

It looks a little weird in this picture (below) but I think it looks cooler in person.

Here is on of the chalky painted chairs (one of the four matching). I bought the fabric to cover the seats of the other two chairs that have removable seats.  What do you think?  It has some of the red and green tones of the couch that will be in the adjoining room. 

That's my progress...what are you working on?

Table Re-do (free!) Part ONE

Because I have nothing better to do (insert light sarcasm here), I thought I would re-do some furniture this summer for our new house. Okay, maybe rather because I want a cute house, but am cheap (er... thrifty?) and have a rather frugal budget to work with:). I am learning as I go, making copious mistakes and leaning heavily on the wisdom gleaned from cher Google and my parents. So far, it has been more fun than I thought, and some things have turned out rather nicely to boot!

Here is the dining room table we picked up off Craigslist for free. After lots of sanding, varnish and poly, we are looking more and more like an "after". I still have a run to Hobby Lobby (not my favorite place) to make to get more chalk paint for the chairs, and then we'll be in business. In the mean time, here is the progress:

One sander later (sorry dad!), I have a lovely, smooth-ish table top.

Here are the legs, well half of them.  This is before the sanding and varnish

Legs, after varnish...lookin' hot ladies!

Freshly varnished and poly-ed table top, waiting to meet its long lost legs

Creamy-colored chalky painted chair.  Still needs a wax coat and I need to pick out fabric to re-do the seat.  I have two of these chairs and four totally different ones that match each other. 

So there you have it...my progress toward a cute, rustic table for almost free (I paid $5 for the two matching chairs and another $20 in supplies so far).

We're from the country...and we like it that way!

The kids were invited to "help" with the wheat harvest in Waterville.  They had a blast riding the combine and running through the fields. 

It's beautiful country up there...love those blue skies and rolling fields. 

Cute clothes from G & G Crosby!

 Grandma Karen made these adorable summer dresses for the girls and they fit perfectly!  Louis got a cool t-shirt from one of their biking trips. 

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Crosby!  We love you!

Garden firstfruits and freezer cleanout challenge

Louis is holding our real first fruits from our garden (besides the random leaf of lettuce and sweet pea here and there).  We "think" the white thing is a spagetti squash and of course the green is zucchini.  Our zucchini isn't doing very well...this may well be our only zucchini!  The spagetti squash is a volunteer plant...we had a ton take over our garden.  This has been a learning year for me...next year I'll have my own garden and I'll get to make even more mistakes!

Since we may very well be moving into our own place in 2 months or so (depending on how things go with the short sale offer) we are working on using up our freezer.  This was also motivated by seeing that I over half of Daniel's monthly paycheck at Costco last month...yikes!  Something obviously needs to change long term in my grocery spending, but for now I'm doing a no-spend challenge for the month of July!  That means using up the contents of the freezers and cupboards and buying nothing but the absolute minimum including Dairy, eggs, and produce.  Hopefully our garden will produce a little more so the produce bill won't be huge!  We'll be doing some U-picking too, which will go into the freezer so it will be nice to have the space! 

Anyone else clearing out the freezer this summer?  

We got to "touch a truck!"

Daniel took the kids to the "Touch a Truck" event in Wenatchee a few weeks ago. They had so much fun. It was a bit of "sensory overload" with all the horns honking etc. for one of the kiddos, but overall, it was a hit. There were tons of different types of vehicles to see, touch and get into.

Cameo in the background by our neighbor, Al.

We got scooped!  Help us!

We had fun! (Thanks to their awesome daddy for taking them!)

First hike of Spring near Leavenworth!

Daniel took advantage of get into parks free day and took the kids on a 5 mile hike! They made it to the top after lots of encouragement from passer-byers and (after the suggestion of a stranger) promises of icecream if they made it all the way. The cool thing about this is that all three kids are big enough to do "real" hikes with the hike lover in our family AND that one of our little people would have whined/tantrummed about 5 minutes into any walk a couple years ago and has slowly been getting better. Now this little one made it FIVE miles with barely a whine! So cool! Lots of hard won progress here. The hike was beautiful and everyone is exhausted. Here are some pictures from their adventure:

New Resolution, S.S. Curriculum and fun at church

A few pictures my parents took this week...not the most flattering picture, but I am loving reading "Farmer Boy" from the Little House series with the kids. My one new year's "resolution" was to read chapter books every weekday to the kids this year. We just hit 100 pages so we are making better progress than I thought (and enjoying it too!).

We started a new Sunday School curriculum this year too...called "Jesus, What a Savior" from Desiring God's kids' department. It's been a significant amount of work compared to our previous curriculum, but so worth it. I love how packed it is with activities and lesson with truth and the kids are responding really well to the extra structure and material/expectations.

One of the fun activities we did here in this picture was filling a bowl to overflowing with balloons with the attributes of God written on them.

Louis is having no trouble making friends at the church...here he is with Mr. John at the mens' breakfast this past week, getting a lift:).

That, plus once a week swim lessons, Liv's OT appointments, work (this month and next are busy for me (Rachael) at work so I'll be going at least every other week if not each week) are keeping us busy:).

Highlights from 2014 (part 1, Senegal)

We had a pretty big year this year.  From finishing up our first term overseas (including almost a year in Senegal, W. Africa) to driving literally across and around the U.S., it was a busy year with a lot of transition.  The theme was definitely that God is faithful...no matter what. 

Ups and downs characterized this year in a major way, with wondering why we had been through so many changes and disappointments with our path to missions.  And although our time in Senegal was rocky and challenging at times, it was marked with a distinct sense of PEACE.  We felt God's hand in our being there and overall didn't struggle with major cultural shock in a the way many people do when transitioning to life in Africa for the first time.

However, that didn't mean we didn't experience stress...cultural, marriage and familial.  And many issues we had just pushed to the side during our time in France had cropped up again and again.  In His faithfulness God provided a godly woman right across the hall in our apartment who also happened to be a counselor who helped us with many parenting strategies and just listened.  Not only that but Daniel and I both were able to meet on a regular basis for counsel and prayer with our Wycliffe friends (who also happened to close...right across the street!).  We were also blessed with friends...both Senegalese friends we were sharing with and expats as well.

During these first few months of 2014 Daniel worked at the Wycliffe/SIL center in Dakar repairing motorcycles and other vehicles.  He enjoyed the work for the most part and learned a lot.  Including....that everything takes SO much more time to get done in Africa!  A wise missionary friend told us that if you get one thing accomplished each day, you should choose to feel good about your day and we try to remind ourselves of that often:)

 One of the major highlights of our first term in Senegal was a visit from the Daniel's parents, George and Karen!  It was so encouraging and fun to introduce them to our life in Africa...plus they blessed us by bringing many care package type gifts from the US from our partners...thank you!

Another fun trip was a family trip up to Beersheba (farming God's way...an SIL project in a nearby town)....we avoided the pythons that live near the lake and met some fun people.  We even got to see a pig escape out of her pen and saw firsthand how to re-capture a pig!  Just today Marianna was asking when we could go back there. 

After a while we started to dream about possibilities outside of Dakar so Daniel spent almost 3 weeks traveling first to the southern part of the Senegal, then the north.

 Daniel with Pastor/teacher Augustine

Later our whole family took a short trip up north, to Richard Toll.  That was a lot of fun and we could definitely see ourselves living up there someday.  We'll see what the future holds!

 Visiting Richard Toll, a village, and celebrating Olivia's 5th birthday (in 110 + heat...but thankfully it was dry heat!)  We loved the area and the people up there though. 

 Louis with new friends and PUPPIES!

The next month we made the trip back to the USA for our first furlough.  Our travels went smoothly (thanks to a lot of prayer!) and we spent a month adjusting in WA state before starting two months of cross country travels to visit friends, family and partners.  It was an exhausting, but worth it, trip.

This fall we starting homeschooling, celebrated my (Rachael's) dad's 60th birthday, attended School Psychology and expositional preaching conferences, Daniel completed a welding course and completed half a dozen home improvement projects (pictures and details to come next post).

Although I am exhausted thinking about this past year, I (and our family) are thankful for the many ways God has provided for us and for the ways difficult things have caused growth and drawn us closer to Him!