A new outlook

This year has been one of upheaval and change for my family.  My husband's job was downsized just over a year ago, and so after seven and a half years in sunny Myrtle Beach (our entire marriage), we packed up and moved to rural West Virginia.  My grandmother passed away a few years ago, leaving behind the house that my grandfather had built himself about 63 years ago.  It made sense to downsize our monthlies and try the job market in another area, so we moved into the family home and have been adjusting to West Virginia ever since!  It was a scary move, leaving behind old friends, the beach, our church, and my oldest daughter, who stayed behind with her father in NC.  But despite its challenges, the move has proven to be a blessing for our family.  Our marriage is growing in new and beautiful ways, our children are experiencing a different climate and a different, small-town way of life, and my husband has temporarily found work.  

When we first moved here in August, the kids and I literally wandered into a small church in town (we happened to drive by just before service and saw the time noted on the marquee).  The pastor was preaching on the beginning of the story of Joseph - the coat of many colors, being sold into slavery, and eventually interpreting Pharoah's dreams and saving all of Egypt.  But the sermon was about the very beginning of the story, when Joseph's father Jacob was living in Canaan, his father's land.  As he put it, prospering in the land of his father.  And so I made that my personal tenet for the time we are here - to prosper in the land of my ancestors.  I've always enjoyed creating things with my hands, and so I plan on using my time here to fix up the house, start a large garden and a small chicken flock, continue living frugally through sewing, crafting and knitting, feeding my family healthy, home-cooked food, and  infusing value into our lives in any way I can.

Of course this will require some experimentation - a lot of these things are completely new to me, or I have only dabbled in them before.  But I take my cue from my grandfather:  when he built this house, literally with his own two hands, he wasn't a carpenter, or a mason, or a roofer.  He was a fearless amateur, and he built a solid, beautiful home for his family.