Random

This week has been a week when I got excited that I was called because a water heater was leaking in one of our houses. It gave me a chance to get out and actually do some work. Although after putting a replacement water heater down a flight of stairs into a basement and then hauling the old one out, moving it up one step at a time, I did tell Sharon "I don't know that I will be able to do that in 10 years." 

A couple of other small projects this week, but most of my time was spent in my office. I had to keep telling myself, "no, you are not really hungry, you do not need to eat now." If this social distancing goes on much longer I will gain a lot of weight. We need to get a project house bought to fill my time. (We have 2 we are working on purchasing, but are at a dead standstill till covid 19 passes.) Till then I am waiting for the weather to warm up. Then I can paint a house and we have a couple of roofs to shingle.

To show how bored I was at times, I was cleaning and deleting files off my computer. As I was deleting I came across some photos. 

Sharon took pictures of our house after a spring snowfall a couple of years ago. I get a kick out of these pictures because they make it look like we live in a secluded area. This is taken from the back of the house.

This picture was taken from the street in front of the house.

This is taken standing on the north side. All the pictures are taken with a house just out of the frame. We live in town, there is a small creek behind our neighbors and if you frame the photo just right no houses are seen and it looks like we are in the woods.

Now having said that, this picture was taken not far from our house a couple of years back. That is a cougar. Yes a mountain lion. There is a breeding pair that have a territory that stretches from Eddyville Iowa up to New Sharon and they have been seen inside the city limits of Oskaloosa. The male has a white spot on him. Our neighbor Julie saw the male behind her house one day. The picture above is the female. Last year a friend was out checking the deer population from his deer stand in a tree. The female went right under the tree with a cub following. John did not have a gun with  him. He decided it was time to leave as soon as the cougar was out of sight. Cougars can climb trees. Might make an interesting day if you were trying to kick one back down a tree.

Wow do we look young! That was taken the day our oldest son Joshua was baptized in March 1989.

Joshua seemed to gravitate to Sharon's sister Diane. Diane died in a car accident when Joshua was 3 years old. 

This is Micah on my back as I do push-ups. I was in an farm accident when I was 15 years old. It left me with muscle and nerve damage in both arms. After that, I had physical therapy for months and it started a many years long schedule where I did a work out every day (I kinda foolishly let that slide about 4 years ago. I think I need to restart that. Ok, I just tried doing a push-up. My hand with the most damage from years back will not support me. Time to start working on that) Micah figured out he could get a ride up and down. He also figured out he could get a ride on my chest when I did sit-ups. It was like exercising with weights.

This is Matthew in Chicago. There is one million dollar bills in that cube. He wanted his picture taken with one million dollars. 

This is the wedding of my nephew Curt. My dad was the best man at one of his grandsons's weddings. I never thought how unusual that was until dad died, the minister at Dad's church told me, "your dad must have been a special man to have been asked to be best man for his grandson". 

I don't know who took this picture. It is Sharon and I dancing at Joshua and Casey's wedding. Sharon is the light of my life and I treasure this picture.

Sharon and I have had some very difficult times. She has fought cancer for 22 years. We had a financial disaster that left us totally broke 13 years ago. Sharon's sister Diane was taken to eternity at what seems to us a much too young age.

But, I can say without doubt that God is good. Yes we had to sell the home we raised our sons in, the house I had lived in since I was 2 years old, to try to cover financial losses. We have a better home now. There were times we wondered if Sharon was going to survive, but she is still here and the center of my life, because God is gracious. (Maybe God knows what a wreck I would be without her here.) Our sons are grown up and married and now we have daughter in-laws, so our family has doubled in size. Sharon and I can both look back at how our parents raised us and loved us and say God blessed us by putting us in our families.

I know many are suffering and some will even die because of covid 19. I also know that if you put everything in God's hands, He will take care of you. God cares for the sparrows and you are more important to God than sparrows.

Take some time this week to enjoy those God has put in your life!