Handy husband home updates

Check out the awesome cedar shutters and doors my husband built for our house...

Left side

Right side

Small bathroom windows

Large crawl space door (and Chad's finger)

Small crawl space door (Chad's finger again)

Finished(ish) front of the house 

This is the house that Jack built.

Actually, I don't think Jack built it, but here is the picture (excuse the iPhone quality) that I took of the house sometime early 2012 to show Chad hoping that I could entice him to move into the deep South, where the dirt (clay) is impossible, the summers nearly unbearable, just around the corner from my parents. Honestly, I don't think it was the picture that convinced him. Haha. It must have been The Lord. 

In true feminine fashion, the minute I saw it I began looking for ways to change it. My sweet husband is very handy, so we have really enjoyed tackling projects in the inside, but we definitely enlisted the help of some professionals to install new windows, siding, soffit, columns, etc on the exterior. We are very pleased with the way it turned out. 

(Sorry it's not quite from the same angle. The tree blocks the view pretty well when it's full of leaves.)

More pictures, of the interior, and other projects, to come soon. 

Hello.

Poem of the week is dead. Many apologies (or perhaps you didn't care, haha). I think one day my goal is to print and bind those poems into a little book I can have for myself to enjoy. Those are some of my favorite poems. 

At any rate, here I am, about a year since live-posting anything on the blog. Confession: many of the weekly poems were set to publish in advance. The last one was Ex Ore that some of you saw in December. So there. Call me Hilary Duff. I'm coming clean. 

So why now? Why am I back? Well, I have discovered this magical thing called the blogger app. I didn't think it was possible to post from my iPhone (my sole source of Internet from my home). 

[Side note: It's not that my sweet husband and I are stingy (but we are). It's more that we wanted our home to be a place where blessed work could be performed more easily without distractions. Plus, the Internet, and cable, which we also don't have, invite so much of the nastiness of the world into the home. I am honestly not trying to sound preachy or anything. We obviously still access the Internet from my phone and have a television that we use for watching movies, but we just didn't want those things to be the focal point of our home life. So far we have been pleased with our decision.]

So, this rainy morning, as I sat up waiting for the morning (night shift sleep problems), browsing some of my dear friends' latest, and not-so-latest, blogposts, I thought to myself, maybe today is the day. Well it is, my friends. I'm back.  

Poem of the Week ...

Ex Ore Infantium
Francis Thompson

LITTLE Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of there.
And ask where all the angels were?
I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky;
I would look about the air,
And wonder where my angels were;
And at waking 'twould distress me--
Not an angel there to dress me!

Hadst Thou ever any toys,
Like us little girls and boys?
And didst Thou play in Heaven with all
The angels, that were not too tall,
With stars for marbles? Did the things
Play Can you see me? through their wings?
And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil
Thy robes, with playing on our soil?
How nice to have them always new
In Heaven, because 'twas quite clean blue.

Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,
And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?
And did they tire sometimes, being young,
And make the prayer seem very long?
And dost Thou like it best, that we
Should join our hands to pray to Thee?
I used to think, before I knew,
The prayer not said unless we do.
And did Thy Mother at the night
Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?
And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,
Kiss'd, and sweet, and Thy prayers said?

Thou canst not have forgotten all
That it feels like to be small:
And Thou know'st I cannot pray
To Thee in my father's way--
When Thou wast so little, say,
Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way?
So, a little Child, come down
And hear a child's tongue like Thy own;
Take me by the hand and walk,
And listen to my baby-talk.
To Thy Father show my prayer
(He will look, Thou art so fair),
And say: "O Father, I, thy Son,
Bring the prayer of a little one."

And He will smile, that children's tongue
Has not changed since Thou wast young!

Something beautiful...

As promised, something beautiful, a wedding photography teaser, from the BRILLIANT Diane Phelps (esse photography) and her team of photographers:

my handsome groom

Vacation

No, not me. Poem of the week is on vacation. I don't know when it shall return. Instead, I will show you something beautiful.

Poem of the Week CL

In light of yesterday's events...


To My Dear and Loving Husband
Anne Bradstreet


If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.