Hello from the Mountain

See ya!

Leaving you with this.

I'm going away for the weekend and there may not be internet out there in wide wild world. 

Okay fine!  I'm not actually going into the wild.  I just want to sound adventurous.  And, there probably is internet there someplace, I just want an excuse if I decide not to take the time to post.  :)  Love you guys!

The point is that before I go I wanted to leave you with this post about my Claire.  As you know, there are many, many, many things that Claire has wanted to do for a loooooong time.  She waited years just to be old enough to play on a sports team with the other kids, go to homeschool classes with the other kids, play Upward basketball, and join the kids to play down the street.  She's still waiting for Upward {just a few more months, y'all} and it will be a while before she can say she's going down the road to play.  She doesn't realize that she is only 4!  She thinks she is 14!

But, a few weeks ago it was her turn.  Her turn to go to American Girls Club.  Yes.  A club dedicated to those over priced oh-so-cute historical dolls.  Isabel owns three.  Claire hasn't started her collection  yet.  But, she is finally old enough to join one of the clubs for homeschoolers in our area.  Thank goodness!

September was the first meeting and she was thrilled to run right into her class and jump into everything.  I stuck around to see how things went.  She's shy, believe it or not, so she jumps in quietly.  But trust me, she's happy about it!

A little craft action going on!



The girl is serious about her crafting, y'all.



Ahhhh, a finished clothes pin doll.

The girls were studying all about Kit.  She's the doll that "lived" during the depression.  Naturally, they talked about how hard life was during that time and it lent itself to a project for a local food pantry.  This pantry is in a house next to the church where the club meets {and is run by said church}.  At this point in the lesson the girls grabbed bags of food they donated and headed on a little {much longer than short} walk to the food pantry to drop off the canned goods. 

Okay.

That meant little legs that don't keep up well, had to try.

Claire walks.  But, Claire doesn't walk like other kids.

And, that does not bother her. Not yet.

Mom waited in the wings to see what would happen.

She grabbed her bag and started out the door in the line with the other girls.

Whew. Deep breath, mom.

Did she want me to help? 

Mom followed close by.

I offered to carry the bag that was knocking her balance off.

Nope mom, I got this.

She teetered and fell several times.

But, she got back up and kept going.

The other girls in the line behind her slipped past and she was soon at the end of the line.

Do you want me to carry you for a little bit?

Are your legs tired?

I can help you catch up.

No, mom.

I love to walk, mom.
Walking makes me happy, mom.



I'm not gonna lie.  This brought tears to my eyes.

It broke my heart to see her fall behind and try to run to catch up.



But, what you can't see.....what helped me get through.....she's smiling!

She doesn't care that she's behind them.

All she cares about is that she's there!

She's walking!

She's a big girl and she has way more grit than the rest of us!
The things that this child has overcome....leave me speechless.

She carried that bag and walked all the way to the house by herself.

She was late.

The other girls were heading back and the lady was already locking up the house.

But, they stopped and waited while Claire turned in her offerings.

And mom learned a very important lesson.

I've always waited on her and tried to let her do her thing without swooping in all the time to "save" her.

I really have.

As much as I want to carry her.

I don't.

Unless she asks.

And I have to remember that it isn't about my heart.

It's about hers.

And her heart?  It was good.  She was so happy that day!

I know it's hard to believe that she wasn't bummed about being left in the dust.

But, she really, really wasn't!

One day she may realize that she's different.

That she can't always keep up.

But, it wasn't that day.
And, right now, and probably forever, she doesn't want me to interfere.

So I won't.

I sucked it up and prepared to follow her back to the meeting room!

And then.

One girl made all the difference in this mom's day.

Grace {from Our Red Thread Journey} was leading the line, but she stopped before she took the first step in the direction of the church, walked to the back of the line, took Claire's hand and walked her to the front of the line.



She'd seen what the other girls weren't seeing yet.



That someone was getting left out.

When Grace took her hand and started walking, all the girls took hands and walked together!

No one left behind.

Isn't that what being an American Girl is all about?



And determined little Claire? She got another chance to be like all the other kids!

And she loved it!

And mom loved it!

Now excuse me while I go dab my  eyes.....I think my "allergies" are kicking in.  'Cause why else would my eyes be watering? 



The Fall Out

The fall out from having that BIG OLE yard sale....was that I was in no mood to do anything on Sunday.  Oh, we went to church.  I ignored the trashed house and mountain of laundry.  Walked past all the dishes and made my tea and oatmeal as if I didn't even see them piled high in the sink....and on the counter....and falling out of the dishwasher, which no one bothered to start!  I refused to deal with the aftermath of that crazy day.  HEY!  I drug the left-overs off the front lawn and dumped them in garage {and sunroom}.  What more do you want? 

After church we picked up the College Kid and unloaded at Waterfront Park.  And did nothing.  Well, except eat and watch the kids run and take pictures and walk to a nearby candy store.  But, that's it.  Nothing else. 

Just smiling!

And relaxing!   

Eating.

But, that is it.

Unless you count racing.

Cheating.

And Chasing!

'Cause some of us did a little of that too.

Some of us just acted goofy!

All of us had a nice relaxing time.



Especially when mom wasn't snapping pictures! 

Hey, who can resist these pretty faces?





Not me!

Just Amazing!

First off, let me just say, I had no idea just how exhausting a yard sale of this magnitude could be!  I'm not a complainer, so I'm going to drop this in a minute and never re-visit it, but for those out there that are thinking this yard sale thing looks like easy money.....think! again!  You will earn every penny.  Was it worth all the lost sleep and pulled muscles?  Yes!  Because every dime is going to help bring Asher home.  But, I would not do this just for fun, I tell you!

All that said, our yard sale fundraiser on Saturday was AMAZING!  Just amazing!  Of course, it started weeks ago, when we began taking in donations.  It was exciting to see the stuff coming rolling in and know that it was going to bring in cash for our fund!  Then Friday was spent getting a little bit organized.  Isabel made signs for her concession stand.  That girl loves a chance to guilt people out of their money sell something for a good cause and she knows it's hard to refuse a little cutie like her little self! 

The boys hauled folding tables and set them up around the drive and walkways.  We moved our cars and brought out some of the larger things and then covered them with tarps to protect them from the dew.  Friday night ended around 1:00am on Saturday for Paul and me.  Saturday morning?  Yeah, that came way too early!  5:15ish.  Even the three older kids were up by 6 o'clock.  There was a garage and two rooms full of stuff to get out!  Everyone worked.  But, it wasn't fast enough.  Is it ever?  The yard sale that was advertised to begin at 8:00am, had it's first official customer at 6:45am!  She bought just about all the wood furniture.  Loaded it in her truck and drove away before we even had the other half of the stuff out of the house! 

If these pictures look like they were taken in the dark, 

it's 'cause they were!  I tried to snap these before that lady ran off with everything.  You know, I wanted to document how much stuff we had.  But, here she was buying it all up.  Thank Goodness!   



We had so much that we were stashing it in the garden!



Yes, someone donated tubs and trash cans.  And they sold!

Most of what you have just seen, is gone.  SOLD!

And yet, we have a curious amount of stuff still piled high in our garage and sunroom that did not sell yet.

The grand total from the yard sale (insert drum roll)

$1330.87

Not in my wildest dreams did I expect to reach $1000, much less exceed it!  Especially after all our "big ticket" items walked off before 8am and we only had about $200 to show for them.  Only God could  have done the math on Saturday!  Some how, some way, He pulled it off! Paul is still scratching his head, trying to figure out HOW we could have made that much money on the stuff we had and still have a garage full. 

Well actually, he's not.  We gave up trying to figure it out around 11pm, when we collapsed into bed on Saturday.  We have also taken in another $100 in cash donations. 

Fundraising




Update Fundraiser Thermometer Here

Not so scary now, are you little thermometer?   HA!

As for the big guy over there in the right column.  Well, I made some adjustments to that guy.  I had a few of my figures wrong because I had too much coming at me at once.  I've sorted out the agency stuff with the agency.  I had one fee too low and Asher got a grant attached to him from my agency {YAY!} so the agency fees worked out to be $200 lower than I had planned.  That is always a nice mistake!   Then a friend helped me see that the travel fees were estimated too high.  She booked all her own travel last time she went, about a year ago and will help us this time.  So the BIG thermometer is updated to show the total of what we need from now until Asher is home.  And it shows what we {with your help} have raised to be sent in and applied to those fees!