I was humbled . . .

We have some neighbors who are, shall we say, a bit "odd."  That's putting it nicely.  They have some issues, so to speak, and there's a bunch in the family that are just not all there.  That causes problems in more ways than you can imagine.  Because the patriarch of the family passed away, they are now living on very little money, and things have become desperate.  They decided to auction off all their "stuff" and hopefully, auction their house, too.  I'm not sure what they're going to do after, but that's not the point of this entry. 

I had been to their place to look at their "stuff" well before they decided to have an auction.  I guess you could have called me a vulture.  I was there for me.  To see what I could find that I wanted, and to see what kind of deal I could get.  I like antiques and other "old" stuff, and knowing what I knew, figured I would have a lot to look through and would find some cool stuff.  I was not wrong! There was a LOT of "stuff" to look through, and of course I found a few things I had to have.   

When I showed them what I wanted, I was told "you can just have it.  You've always been nice to us."  Now, these are people that have had legal problems, and lots of other personal problems.  Like I said previously.  While I have always been nice "to" them, in the few encounters I've had with them, I haven't always been nice "about" them.  I've made my own comments to others about them, and I've wondered myself about all their issues.   In short, I was human, and believed myself to be "better" than them.   I could not have been more wrong!  

I was totally humbled by what they said to me!  I don't know if humbled is even the right word.  I know that I haven't stopped thinking about what they said to me and I know that this was a very important lesson that Jesus was teaching me!  Here I am, someone who's finally doing OK financially (I have a good job, can work as much overtime as I want to make extra money and can afford to pay my bills and even save some money to buy some new "stuff.") I can certainly afford to pay for the couple things I picked out from these people, and they, who have so little they are selling just about everything they have, are telling me that because I was "nice" to them I can just HAVE it.   How humbling is THAT?   

I don't know that I'm even writing this in such a way to show what a profound impact this has had on me.   If you've read my blog in the past or know me at all, you know I'm not usually at a loss for words!  Ha!  I'm just totally and completely awed by such a simple act of kindness.  All because someone thought I was "nice" to them, when in reality, I just was not "mean" to them the way most other folks are.  I saw Jesus in this poor, unsophisticated, uneducated, unstable family.  They may not know that Jesus is shining within them, but He is!  I will add this family to my prayers in a way I never did before, and I would ask that you do as well.  Their simple act of kindness toward me has completely floored me.  

This encounter makes me want to strive even harder to be more like Jesus.  He is my rock and my salvation, and the very least I can do is try to emulate Him, to the best of my ability, and remember this time in my life and how someone else was so Christ-like to me, when I absolutely, positively, without a doubt, did not deserve it!   

Like I said, I'm not sure that I'm actually conveying this the way I intended and the way this has impacted me, but right now, it's the best I can do.  I'd like to leave you with one of my FAVORITE new songs.  This is Matt Maher, Because He Lives:  

It is my most fervent wish that Jesus is able to touch you and speak to you the way He  did to me!  

Blessings to All!

Julie 

NEW Dishwasher!

I am SO happy!  Our dishwasher was pretty old . . . it was here for about a year before we moved in, which was 11 years ago this coming July!  That's a LONG time for a dishwasher . . . especially if you have hard water!   Yes, we have hard water, but it tastes AMAZING, and we don't even have a filter on it!  It just comes up from the ground and into our drinking glasses!  AMAZING is the only word I have for our water!    

Our old dishwasher had two cycles . . . ON or OFF.  Yes, that was it!  None of the other cycles worked.  LOL!  It was so bad that the dishes were pretty much CLEAN when they were loaded in the washer!  Greg had this "thing" about rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher.   The soap dispenser no longer worked, so we just poured the dishwasher detergent in there.  The rinse aid thingy didn't work, either, so there was no chance of having "spot free" glasses.  None, nada, not happening, period.   Did I mention how LOUD it was?  And by LOUD, I mean, if I was sitting here at my laptop in the dining room, watching TV, I couldn't hear the TV over the sound of the dishwasher!  It was LOUD!  I'm pretty sure the people before us never actually had it attached to the cabinets!  The more time that went by, the louder it got!  Seeing as the "delay start" function didn't work any longer, the only way to run it without hearing it was hitting the start button when we went to bed . . . which, considering everything else, made you wonder if it was going to spring a leak and we'd wake up with water all over the kitchen floor!  NOT a very comforting thought at bedtime!   Here's the "old" dishwasher . . . 

So, I saved up some money and sold some stuff and managed to get an  AWESOME deal on a new dishwasher!  I'm SO happy!  We thought about having Aaron install it for us, but after doing some research on-line, we decided to let a professional handle it.  After all, everything in this house appears to be jerry-rigged (as you will probably recall from my last post about the ceiling fan!).   We got a smoking-hot deal on the dishwasher, so I was actually able to afford to pay someone to install it for us, and it was much less expensive than what the store wanted for the install. 

We also decided that we'd pick it up ourselves, and save the delivery fees.   Because my truck has the cap on it, we were pretty sure it wouldn't fit in there.   We lucked out, in that our neighbor needed Abby to get her son's truck from Wausau and bring it home, so Abby met me at the store and we had it loaded into the truck she was driving. 

Here she is bringing it home for me!  

Of course, the ONE DAY it rains is the day we have to haul something!  Not a big deal, though, because we had them add some shrink wrap to it so it would stay nice and dry.  We were a little concerned about getting it out of the truck, but it turns out that this dishwasher is incredibly light!  Abby was able to take it out of the truck all by herself!  

We were able to get the dishwasher installed the very next day, so I was extremely happy!  It works out well that Greg is home during the day and can take care of this kind of stuff, so I don't have to take a day off work or worry about when we're going to get it done.   It ended up taking about three hours to install, but I only had to pay for two hours labor, which was great!   The guy who installed it said that it was really well built and the entire motor (or whatever you want to call it) was totally enclosed to help make it super quiet!  

I know it's hard to see a difference, as they're both black, but trust me, there is a HUGE difference!  The first time we ran it, it was soooooooooooo quiet that I forgot it was on, and went to open it to put something in, and water sprayed out all over!  LOL  I've now learned that you can just pull the door open a little bit, wait five seconds for the water to shut off, and THEN you can add more dirty dishes to it.  :-)   We're so used to rinsing stuff off before putting it in, that I've actually be putting stuff in REALLY dirty, just to see how it does!  And let me tell you, it does an AMAZING job of cleaning all our dishes!   

Yes, I am VERY happy with my new dishwasher!   

Blessings to all! 

Julie

Hello Again!

It's been a rough year, and I guess I just wasn't into blogging.  I was doing everything I could to just keep plodding ahead.  I've been thinking about my blog a lot, and I guess that meant it was time to get moving on it again!  I'm not going to make any promises, but it seems like the time is right to restart this blog!   

With that in mind, rather than going over everything that's been going on here in the middle of nowhere (that would be a LONG post!), I'll just start with something recent!   

If you've read my blog, or know me, you know that nothing is ever as it seems when it comes to any sort of home remodeling or even just updates in our home!   As I've been working on painting the master bedroom (the ONLY room I've never painted in the ten years we've lived here!), I knew we needed to update the ugly old ceiling fan.  I was going to wait until I was all done painting, but that's one job that seems to be taking a little longer than usual.  Not only was the old ceiling fan UGLY, it made a lot of noise when the fan was on.  It was a ticking sound . . . so you get this tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . tick, tick, tick, tick, tick . . . tick . . . tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick  . . . ok, so you get the picture!  It was ANNOYING, to say the least!  Yes, it was something that we kind of got used to (like the sound of traffic when you live on a busy road), but when you're first trying to fall asleep it was awful!   Here's a picture of the old, nasty fan.

So, after work yesterday (yes, I work on Saturdays now, but only because I WANT to, not because I HAVE to!)  -- I guess you may not know, I got a new job last April!  I'm in the health insurance industry now, working for one of the largest health insurance companies in the world!  What that means is that when I go to work on Saturday, it's because I get time and a half for the overtime!  YAY for my budget!    OK, I'm getting off track here . . .  Sorry!

After work, I stopped at Menards (a big home improvement store in this part of the country), to pick out a new ceiling fan.  Erica was with me (she works with me at the new company and gets to make overtime, too! YAY for HER budget!).  Anyway . . . Erica picked one out that was really nice (a Hunter) and was on sale for $70 off!   We couldn't find one in a box, so she asked one of the sales reps if they had any.  The only one left was the floor model.  It was marked down to $109.99.  Seeing as it was the floor model, I did my best to get more of a discount, but they just weren't budging.  I was shooting for $99, but it just wasn't happening.  Oh well, at least I tried!  It was still a GREAT deal.  I figure they saved us about 85% of the work, because basically all we had to do was wire it up!   

It's a good thing that Erica's car allows you to lower the back seat to make the trunk bigger and accessible for putting bigger stuff in.  (We carpool to work and she wanted to drive.)  Oh, not to go off on another tangent here, but with Erica now having an awesome full-time job, she has been able to buy a new car for herself!  She got a great deal on a 2008 Dodge Avenger last month.  Yay for Erica!   So, we were only able to fit that HUGE ceiling fan into her trunk because of the ability to put that seat down.  Whew!  That was a relief!  

So Greg and I start taking the old fan down.  He's removing the screws from the cover plate, and as he's on the last screw, I ask him "it's not going to fall, is it?  Do you want me to hold it."  Just as he's saying "No, there's a bracket holding it up under this" the FAN COMES CRASHING DOWN!  Seriously!  The FAN CAME CRASHING DOWN and landed on the bed!   Can you say HOLY CRAP?!  Well, we sure did!  Ha !   We've found so many things jerry-rigged in this house, but who would have thought that someone would actually jerry-rig a CEILING FAN and NOT use the bracket to attach it to the ceiling!  Seriously, this thing was only hanging by those itty bitty screws that are used to attach the cover plate to the ceiling to hide the wires!   WHAT MORON DOES THAT?!   I'm almost afraid to sit here at my laptop underneath the ceiling fan in the dining room, because it's probably the same!   

We WERE going to give the fan to our friends, Nate and Jess, but when it fell, one of the blades landed between the mattress and the bedframe and snapped. 

Unfortunately, that means it's going to end up in the garbage.  Not much we can do about that!  

Not too much later, we had the new fan up and running!  

What's really cool is that the top light is a night light and leaves a soft glow in the room.  VERY nice!   It was so awesome to sleep last night without that awful ticking noise from the old fan!  It was also comforting to know that the fan was hung properly!  This thing was HEAVY!  It's on a LARGE bracket that is attached to the ceiling studs, so won't be going anywhere and is certainly not going to crash!  This one is also much bigger than the other one, so moves the air a LOT better than the old one.   

So, there you go!  Once again, nothing is ever at it seems at this house!   Oh, and just to leave you with something super cool . . . last Saturday, driving home from work, there were two Bald Eagles munching on a dead deer in the median of Highway 29!  I actually turned around to go back and take some pics!  

One of them flew into the trees on the side of the road. 

How awesome is THAT?!    And, in case you're wondering, all that snow in the picture has now melted!  

Blessings to all! 

Julie