Godmother Visit

My Aunt Lori and Uncle Jim visited a couple of weeks ago. They were only in IN for a couple of days. Our side of the family got her for one day and Jim's side of the family got her for the other day. The Lambs had cross country practice, but we did go out to dinner with them.
The last time I saw them was when Lamb 1 was one month old. The last time Ram saw them was at our wedding. They were glad to meet Lamb 2 and 3 and see the rest of us. We are planning to get together next year again, we don't want to wait another 13 years! Unfortunately it was cold and windy when they were here. Hopefully next time they come it will be warmer.

It is a blessing to get visitors in Fort Wayne!

Godmother/goddaughter

Sisters

Blessed with Furniture

My sister had a friend that was moving out of state and didn't have room on their truck for everything.  We originally went to get some bookshelves. We gave away almost all our bookshelves when we moved. Many of our books are still packed up, but the Lambs really wanted their own bookshelves in their room. It ended up this friend was only a few blocks from our house. We made several trips with our van. We brought home 6 bookshelves of various sizes, 1 small table which the Lambs claimed for their bedroom, and 3 of these chairs for our porch. The Lambs really wanted some porch furniture like their piano teacher has, but I couldn't justify spending a lot of money when we are renting and porch furniture might not be right at our next house. The Lambs were thrilled to get these chairs. Next spring, I will get some pillows and these chairs will be great.

The bookshelves ended up two large ones downstairs; one for our religious books; one in my bedroom for my books (instead of piles on the floor by my bed); Lamb 1 got one for his bedroom; and one went in the playroom. We moved books off of one small bookshelf that used to be downstairs and gave it to Lamb 2/3 bedroom. We moved the books where we used to have our religious books and Lamb 1 claimed that for his Bibles etc. that were confirmation gifts.  I'm sure there will be more organizing and more moving books from one shelf to another, but I am confident that we have the right amount of bookshelves in this rental house now. I was pretty worn out after all that moving so we ordered pizza that night after a busy day. It was worth all the work and helpful to the family moving to not worry about some of the furniture they decided not to take. It was so great to get everything at once and not have to continually watch garage sales to get one bookshelf at a time.

Unbelievable Blessings

Ram and I made 3 trips last week to the 5 for a $1 book sale at our local library. Someone had donated some books that were not former library books and there were a lot of children's books by a few classic authors. I bought one copy of most of these books available. I figured I would look at them and keep what I wanted; try to sell what I didn't want to Hyde Brothers, our favorite used book store; and donate the rest to our new school library that is beginning at our church. We spent between $8-10 on these books last week.

I am not done looking at these books I got last week, but Ram took a few that I knew I did not want to Hyde Brothers. We had a few other duplicates in our home library and he took in one box to try to sell. I was so surprised when he said we got $125 credit from that box! Lamb 2 declared that was the perfect amount for our family, we can each have $25 to spend at Hyde Brothers. I'm not sure I am willing to share that much with the Lambs, but I will be more generous with their requests at the next midnight sale we go to! We were out of credit at Hyde Brothers so we are extra thankful for this credit.

Hyde Brothers keeps track of credit in the old card catalog behind Sam.

The book buyer, Sam, was excited to see this book in his hand. He said it was worth $100! I didn't keep it because it was too girly for my boys. I paid 20 cents for this $100 book. He bought all the children's books that I sent in so there were none left to donate to our school library.

I had asked Ram to look for our next book for my book club at Hyde Brothers because our local library doesn't have very many copies. Hyde Brothers didn't have any copies on the shelf. But then Ram noticed a person in line had the book I wanted at the top of their box to sell. He spoke up and Sam took a few dollars off our credit and gave the seller a $1 credit for it. It wasn't in the best condition and he may not have bought it if Ram hadn't asked for it. It is amazing that someone would sell the book I wanted at the same time that Ram was in the store. It was even more amazing that the book that I wanted was at the top of the seller's box so Ram noticed it! And it wasn't in the best condition so we got it very cheap and only used a few dollars of credit. But the copy is readable and fine to read for book club.

I have some more blessings to post about in our journey with Ram going back to school this year. But blessings like this trip to Hyde Brothers are icing on the cake and really unbelievable to me. I look back over the year and I just can't believe how good God has been to us during this journey. After the recent total eclipse, some have been talking about how God has to be our Creator when you see events like this. I agree with that, but I am even more amazed at all the little blessings like this trip to Hyde Brothers that happen in our lives. I really couldn't plan this, only God could organize this!