The Archives - August 2010

We're just a family following Christ, living in a ~90 year-old house out on the prairie (and yes, we do have peach trees), rearing a couple of Godly sons and all the while trying to not make the locals laugh too much at our attempts at farming. Poke around all you want and feel free to drop us a line anytime.

Life Goes On

Been a busy summer so far. Since my Mom's passing back in May, we've been doing quite a bit of traveling. The whole family went to West Virginia (helping at my Brother-in-law's Christian camp); I went back to Georgia to probate Mom's will* and the next week, went to visit a good friend at the the big airshow in Oshkosh, WI, followed by a trip back to Chicago two days later to meet the rest of the family for the final concerts at the Sforzando String Camp. The weekend after that, we were back in Chicago again, as the boys were invited to play in a presentation of Mendohlsson's Elijah. And Beth and Chad just got back from a trip to St. Louis for a dulcimer workshop and festival.

Whew. Ready to sit still for a while.

In-between all our world travels, we've been enjoying produce from the garden, and have been making steady progress on our house remodeling projects. Tyler and I are already well along in disassembling the 1963 Volkswagen we bought recently - it will be Tyler's first car once done.

Even though we're in the midst of the typical August heat and humidity here in the Middle West, I'm already looking ahead to the forced deadline that is November, when the ground will begin to freeze hard and outside projects come to a stop. Much to do before then!

*Speaking of wills, if you don't have one, please, for the sake of your family, go get one set up ASAP. Also, make sure your various accounts have a "Pay on Death" (POD) person set up - I would not have had to probate if Mom had known about this. I've written up a short document for Beth that tells her all our various account numbers (including contact information), and how everything is to be disbursed upon my death. Doing this should make the material side of my passing much less stressful. In fact, I've been going through the piles of stuff in the barns (the attic is next!) and throwing a LOT of it away - all I have to do is ask myself, "do I need this for a project within the next year?" and, "will Beth or my sons need or want this?" If the answer is "no," then out it goes. It's been very freeing!

Ya'll drop us a line when you can, now!