Praise the Lord - we have framers! I thought I had some lined up only to get the run around of them being too backed up, or charging much more than we thought was fair, or some even just ghosting me when I went to meet them at the property for an estimate. It's been a struggle. But the guy we bought the windows from told Dad about a crew to contact. They were already pretty busy, squeezed us into their schedule and they are good and equally as important, they are fast. Within a couple of days they had the porch built, then the bathroom dormer built not long after that. This is the first week I've seen a bit of a spark in Dad's eye, like there's hope for this project yet, and that makes me happy too.

What a difference! The porch makes the whole place look bigger.

The look of the house has changed so much over these two weeks. The porch makes the front look amazing! The upstairs walls are being moved around a little, the ceiling has been raised, and it really opened up the space so much. The layout downstairs has been adjusted and framed in. And the other great news - this crew is going to do our roof for us too. I'm tucking their number in my back pocket, as they will be the first I call next time I flip. If there is a next time. I'm really hoping there is. But, I think this project has confirmed for my Dad that he's ready to retire. So any flip I do in the future will need to be completely on my own, or with a different partner. My brother Gabe and I have started talking about partnering together to flip...we'll see how we feel after this one is complete.

I took Jude to the house one day. He was so cute, genuinely excited about how different it looks. He continues to tell me how great I'm doing, and hugs me big at night when I come home from working, thanking me for working hard. He’ll be so impressed saying "wow, mom!" when I tell him what project I worked on that day. That blesses me so much. He tells me he wants to work on houses together when he's old enough to help. I love that idea, and sometimes I daydream about having a family business that we can all do together. I wonder if this is how Dad feels too.

I took Anna Joy over on another day, she played in the rocks out back while we watched the guys work on the roof. She said, "are they fixing the smelly house?" Haha, yep, it's still called the smelly house, although it doesn't smell anymore, except of sawdust and plumbing glue.

I'm glad that it feels like we're making headway on the house now, these days are very busy and I do miss having a day here and there that I don't wake up thinking about the house or all the tasks to remember. I miss weekends of lazy family days and piddling in my yard or art room. But I try to remember the reason why we're sacrificing so much of our time these days, it's all for our babies. We want to be able to launch our children off of our shoulders, that they can start off further ahead than we were, both spiritually and financially. I hope that's what they'll think of when they remember these days, mom and dad working hard for them, days having fun together while doing hard work that we love.

A PAUSE FOR GRATITUDE

Finding framers has been an answer to prayers - both dad's and mine - giving us a lot of relief. Also, my kids are troopers! They are going with the flow these days, and adapting so well to a different routine everyday. Some days we home school like normal, other days we do it after dinner, and even now and then on the weekends. They jump in the van with me when I need to run to Lowe's at a moments notice for supplies. It's not lost on me just how great they are, goodness I love them.