Dreams of Lace

Next to my senior picture in our high school year book there is a caption... Follow your dreams. This is the message I decided to leave with all of my fellow classmates for them to gaze upon anytime they were feeling nostalgic and wanted to dust of that year book on the top shelf and pull it down to reminisce for a moment.

I still stand by those words today, however with much wisdom gained. I must admit that following ones dreams is risky business. Dreams in life are much like dreams in sleep. They remind me of lace, lace is transparent yet the view of the other side is some what distorted and vague. That is the truth to dreams, once they become reality, it is never as you dreamed it would be. I have been very blessed in my life to have the opportunity to live many of my dreams. I realized the other night during prayer that I am granted just about every prayer or wish that I ask for. That was a bit of an overwhelming realization, basically discovering that many of the things in my life I am not happy with I have brought upon myself...wow!

We long for spring. We are so hopeful that with springs arrival all of these challenges will fade away and we will be left only with a fresh outlook. So many of the reasons we moved here will hopefully come through to fruition, especially seeing as so many of the core reasons for our move have been plagued by this depression we face as a world and other unforeseen circumstances. The move so far has not been anything we thought it would be. If it were to stay this way the only aspiration we would have is getting back home, because unfortunately this is not home to us yet. I know we are all hoping for the day that feeling changes. There are so many things about living here that we did not realize ahead of time and there are many things we romanticized in this "dream" of ours that when they turned out to either not exist or be no where near wonderful it was heartbreaking. We ask ourselves if we regret the move. There are days when we do, but how would we know if we never tried. And how will we truly know if we do not give it a fair shot. Therefore, we will not run home crying, not yet anyway! No we would not be crying if it did come to that. We would actually be holding our heads high and proud that we did it! We tried it! We have known since day one that this venture might not work. The truth is there are very few families anywhere right now that are not struggling. It just so happened we immigrated to another country in the middle of a world wide collapse. Well, Gabriel and I have always tended to do things the hard way. We also tend to take the path less taken and always come out on top. So experiencing this adventure and its outcome should prove interesting.

We are starting our planning for spring...that little ground hog better cooperate! We have started looking through the seed catalogs, talking about chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, horses. Trying to find books from how to make cheese to how to restore a 100 year old home. I have taken a break from painting, 75% of the inside of the house is painted, so I guess a rest is okay. I am contemplating making all of the curtains in the next few weeks if time, health and money permit it. We desperately need furniture, but I think that is going to be a pretty long scavenger hunt seeing as I am so frugal and Gabe is now 10 times worse than I am. We have realized that all of the floors in the house are thrashed. The odd part about that is we can not figure out how much of the damage the renters did and how much was actually here when we purchased the house. This house is so elegant that she can be very deceptive. When you first walk in you are so taken by the beauty and grace she has that you often overlook her imperfections. We do love the house, I must admit.