Thursday Thoughts

This week we have had some unusually warm weather. The weather man said rain...and instead we had some morning fog and beautiful sunny days in the afternoon. We made he first trip of the year with the top down on the mustang just the other day! Sweet! I had the blessing of working outside most of the week. I was topping trees on the farm for the early part of the week and it was nice to be outside working. As I was working on topping the trees the quote came to me "Raise a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart far from it." Now many of you don't know anything about how to raise Christmas tree's so let me enlighten you. Most trees don't grow up with nice pretty Christmas tree shapes and nice pointy symmetrical tops like the ones you think of when you picture a Christmas tree. I was out working on helping the young trees to develop a proper top. You have to cut back branches and help the tree know which branch should grow up straight instead of out. Sometimes trees have two leaders competing or the leader that is growing up isn't centered and so you have to cut it back. Anyway...I think you get the point. I was working on some trees that had obviously been in need of help in the past but this year the work was paying off and the leader we had been training was doing pretty good and all I had to do was cut back the competing leader or pick a bud that would help the leader stay centered when it grew taller this year. There were also some trees that had been neglected in years past or were just too old to help fix and that is when the quote came to mind. I thought about the way trees really get their shape early on and after that they just require some trimming and sheering and pruning (depending on the type of tree of course), and all this lead me to think about that quote. I thought how interesting it is to think about a child breaking a habit and how much quicker they are at it then adults. My niece Sara just gave up sucking her thumb in 1 week! Way to go Sara! Spiritually we are still children and malleable clay in the Lord's hands but if we don't submit ourselves now we may not come out looking like a very nice tree in the end. Anyway...thoughts from the trees.
I'm very excited to report that the kitchen remodel is moving along and ahead of schedule. We have this little schedule that the contractors gave us showing how everything was lined up and when they were doing what and at the weekly meeting they let us know they are ahead. We were originally scheduled to paint on the weekend of March 7th. I've very excited to report that we are supposed to start painting Saturday morning at the latest, there is a possibility we could get in Friday night depending on when they get the texture up. The sheet rockers have done a really good job and we have been impressed; they are also very entertaining, singing and talking our ears off with stories. The lead carpenter on our job wants us to try and be done with the painting by Wednesday and they are going to see if they can get the cabnet guys moved up earlier! Things are really taking shape.

Here are some pics from before sheetrock and after.