The Heavens Declare

We had a special delivery this weekend. Can you guess??

Yup, that's smoke coming from the chimney.

The prospect of having some form of heat in the house is very exciting.

It's warming up, almost ready to engage the catalyst..

With the weather cooling off, this is a most welcome sight!

Notice the wall behind it? It's the very first wall to go up in the house.

Now I just need a chair, a cup of tea and a good book. I've waited so long to sit next to a fireplace again.

Having fun with shadows. Fi-re powah!!

(Not funny unless you've seen the movie.)

You have to love fall. The fog gets pretty thick here.

Everything just seems to disappear in it.

This is what it normally looks like.

We had to move almost everything outside to make room for the drywall. Things were getting a little too messy for my liking.

 A clean up day became necessary. Ah, much better on this side.

This side too. I feel like I can breathe again.

And who doesn't like a clean, organized work station?

More insulation going in.

The trusses have a neat effect in the attic.

We still have to have the insulation blown into the attic. 

Ah, the sun pipes! They really do have the desired effect of letting the light in. Time to deal with them though. We were hoping for a safer way to do that. 

They say necessity is the mother of  invention and that definitely proved to be the case here. 

Simple in design yet functional and effective.

It is so much easier to work when you don't have to hang on for dear life.

Getting supplies up to the roof is much easier too. So glad this job is over. I am so ready to not think about the sun pipes for a long time. One problem dealt with, time to move on to another one?

See how this lock won't go in the door evenly? That's because the door company drilled the holes at an angle. We're not sure why. They are looking into it. In the meantime, we can't install the door handles which prevents us from locking up which we need to do soon because of the drywall. If it feels like we are dealing with more than a few issues lately, it's because we are. It would be nice to gloss over these frustrating parts but then it wouldn't be an accurate description of what's going on. Hey, just keeping it real!

Let's face it, we experience the whole gamut of emotions. Sometimes the best way to define the atmosphere here, is to, um, look at the atmosphere here.

There are the days without a problem in sight. Things flow smoothly and all goes according to plan.

Sure sometimes, small problems come up but they are easily dealt with and are not a cause for concern.

But when small problems roll in regularly, you begin to feel the pressure build.

You begin to feel it on all sides...

...growing larger....

...and threatening to take over.

Then, there are the days when only a small ray of hope shines through and that can eventually give way to... 

...feelings of discouragement.

Those days, it's hard to remember what the big picture looks like, let alone see it through the fog. We are robbed of peace. Peace that passes understanding. We see the clouds and think they separate us from God but those same dark clouds still declare the glory of God. That He is good all the time. That everything is for a time and a purpose and a season. That He is with us. 

No matter what. 

And for that, I am so very thankful.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Psalms 19:1