An eventful week

We've had one of those weeks where things have happened, both big and small.

With Older Daughter now living in her new apartment, I decided it was time to deep-clean the refrigerator. She's the gourmet cook in the family, so when she left, she took all her sauces and specialty spices with her. As a result, the fridge is now comically empty.

In cleaning out the refrigerator's freezer, I came across a bunch of random cuts of beef taking up space. I ended up throwing them all in the slow cooker and turning it into "zesty orange beef." With just the two of us, we've been eating off this for days now.

By the way, Older Daughter stinkin' loves her new apartment. After a few days, Frumpkin (her cat) also settled in and has adopted one particular chair as his very own.

Older Daughter is so pleased with this apartment, in fact, that she hopes to stay there for the next four years, the duration of her schooling to become a nurse.

Last Saturday, our church had its annual deep-clean work party. Don's job was to build a child-proof gate and barrier across a dangerous four-foot drop to a tiny basement area where the church's heater is located. This drop-off is right off the fellowship hall, which is in constant use. Our church building is about 125 years old, so it has its quirks. Our pastor's son is now a bit over two years old, plus we have some other young kids, so this was an overdue safety concern.

(By the way, you might remember our pastor's love story – see here and here and here and here – and I'm pleased to announce they're expecting their second child in late October, another boy! Mr. and Mrs. Pastor have proven themselves to be excellent parents, and their first child has become something of a church mascot, much beloved by everyone.)

We spent the week arranging for a new (used) vehicle for Older Daughter. Her other car has a major transmission issue, which makes fixing it more expensive than it's worth, so she'll sell it either for parts or to someone who wants to repair and flip-sell it. Meanwhile, we asked our mechanic if he had any knowledge of an inexpensive-but-reliable vehicle available, and by golly he did. Having a mechanic you can trust is such a blessing! 

I've also been spending a lot of time in the garden, weeding out beds, layering them with compost, and planting seeds. We've had some crazy temperature swings (hey, spring) so I'm refraining from planting some of the more sensitive veggies until things stabilize.

We had a neighbor come up with his small track hoe to dig a trench behind the barn so we could lay in a drain to divert water from the barn door. Don lined the trench with weed cloth and laid down a perforated pipe, then covered it with gravel. This was a task we'd hoped to accomplish last fall, but the weather caught up with us before we had a chance to accomplish this step.

Older Daughter came in late last week to pick up her new (used) car and return ours, which she had been borrowing. We had a busy day helping her pack more of her things and fit them into her car, which has the advantage of having more room than her previous car.

This left one of her previous rooms empty. It needs some patching and trim, but above all it needs a paint job. (As a brief history, we had to move Older Daughter in rather hastily four years ago when her apartment lease ran out about the same time Don had some minor surgery, so cosmetic changes weren't high on our list.) The family from whom we purchased our house were absolutely lovely people, but their choice in paint colors was ... unique. I kid you not, the color is that bright.

Don started the prep work necessary to paint, which we hope to do this upcoming week. We'd like to get it finished in time to convert it into a guest bedroom, since Younger Daughter will be visiting in late June before moving west to start her new civilian job.

Meanwhile, through all of this, I finished up several magazine articles and sent them off, and began blasting through my next Love Inspired proposal which I hope to submit within a week or so.

And to top it off, we're having a new roof installed! This is something for which we've been saving for at least two years. We would have had it done last year, but we couldn't manage it financially after I was laid off from my online job in February 2025. It took us an extra year to save up for it.

Our current roof is asphalt shingles, and it was getting quite ragged. We were delighted to learn installing a metal roof was actually more economical than installing a new shingle roof. (We became huge fans of metal roofs after experiencing the benefits in our last home.) We chose a nice solid brown as a roof color.

The contractor is a young and highly respected Mennonite roofer whose work has high ratings. At the moment one-third of the roof is newly covered, but then work had to pause for some rainstorms. The rest of the roof should be completed next week.

We chose the roof color to complement the house color we chose for an upcoming paint job. Our current house color is a rather drab "greige."

This summer, Don and I will paint it a nice green. (The color chips shown below have a distinctly blue tinge to them, but I assure you they're green.)

We're also sorting through a lot of shelves, cupboards, and closets for items to sell at a yard sale we plan to hold this summer.

So yeah, that's been our week. Lots of stuff going on!