Before and After

New front door

new hall bathroom (forgot to take the before shots, but it was BRIGHT YELLOW)

much subdued hall bath

my refurbished beloved old screen door

part of new kitchen--we plan to replace those amber panels with bead board

new kitchen. Those cabinets below were awful--missing trim and very beat up from over 30 years of use.

Someday soon we hope to replace the countertops but they will do for now.

We both just love our new kitchen. It just makes us smile to look at it.

When the sun shines in those windows it just delights my soul.

Dark and old kitchen

Tomorrow I will post the pictures of the new big bathroom. We are just gettin' all gussied up here at the Barlow household. I can hardly recognize us!

Sprucing Up

We are having a home makeover of sorts. This ole girl is nearing 33 years old and needed some overhauling cuz a whole lot of livin' has gone on in this house.
First, she got some outside wounds repaired--rotted boards and such replaced. Then she got a new door upstairs--the outside one into the schoolroom. That side of house gets all the wind and weather so there were some rotting places that had to be repaired and a new threshold to be built to keep it from happening again. Then we got a new front door--for free! We were blessed to be given some brand new doors and building materials from a friend who was selling their business. It looks sooooo nice. No more looking through the cracks like we could in the old one.
But the most exciting part is we got the outside painted. It looks so fresh and beautiful. The main part is a cream color and the trim is a rustic red. It is such a gorgeous, rich color of red and blends in nicely with the garage trim and the barn. And Don spent hours on my beloved OLD front screen door and gave it a complete overhaul--new screen, paint, wood, but the same old scroll work design that I love because it makes it look old. It is beautiful now. The front porch looks so very nice.
And on Friday the new window for Josh's old room (the one facing the driveway) will be in. The current window is barely hanging together as it has been broken by so many basketballs, etc. over the years.
And yesterday, the painters came and scraped all of that yukky, awful popcorn ceiling off of the living room, dining room, hall, kitchen and hall bathroom and put a new ceiling finish on that looks so fresh and clean. And right now, they are working in my kitchen repairing and painting my ugly, used up kitchen cabinets. And then they will repaint the hall bathroom.
So, the whole downstairs is a mess from all the stuff being moved around everywhere and stacked here and there. But all this has given me the incentive to really go through, clean out, and get rid of lots of stuff.
Remember Jenny's recent post where she posted pictures of the inside of my kitchen cabinets where I had old recipes and chore charts and other assorted tidbits from raising kids........I nearly cried when I had to remove all of them for the painters. But I took some pictures and was glad jenny had, also.
While I love the new looks and the sprucing up......change is still hard for me.

I will post some before and after pics soon.

I love October!

My sweet husband bought me these for our anniversary. Seven years.

Sunrise from our front yard.

My little Pork Chop asleep on the couch.

Alisa and I spent a few days at the ranch and went on many countryside adventures. These are some buffalo we saw.

And some deer who posed for us.

Pretty fall flowers were everywhere in Fredericksburg.

I just love this hay field on the way into town.

Wild turkeys.

This sunrise looked like a field of lava. So beautiful it took your breath away.

Another sunrise view taken on Pecan creek

"The heavens declare the glory of God"

Harper is a tiny town that is fun to visit. It is an old town.

I just love windmills.

The Pilot Knob old one room school house.

More fall flowers along a country back road.

Porky, again

"The chops"

Hasn't this October been just gorgeous. I love the deep blue skies, the cool mornings, the perfect days. A glorious month. It has been so good to just be home.

To school with Hayden

On the playground the boys were more interested watching the big machinery at work next door. They were so cute standing on their tiptoes to peek over the fence.

Is he saluting? Maybe he is trying to be like Uncle Adam.

He was suppose to be serving me grapes but most of them ended up in HIS mouth instead. I was very impressed with his ability to pour water from a pitcher into our cups. And after our snack he washed our dishes.

He had a shy moment in his classroom here. Was not ready to perform for his Gema yet. He was supposed to show me how he could cut with scissors.

Here is is telling me the names of the different kinds of balls on the cards. It was really fun having a snack with him and seeing his school during "Grandparent week".

Time is so weird. It just seems like yesterday my own kids were in preschool---and here I am with my GREAT GRAND-CHILD. Where did all that time go???

Storm Stories

Don and I have been working with Red Cross victims from the recent floods we had in Central Texas caused by Hurricane Hermine. Not much publicity about all this but we have heard some harrowing stories from the people we are helping. I would like to share some of them because I believe it shows how God protects and helps us and it might help you think more seriously about Disaster Preparedness. I believe EVERYONE should invest in a weather radio and HEED their warnings. Flash flooding can happen anywhere and sometimes happens where you least expect it....and it happens SUDDENLY.
The first family I interviewed was a single mom with two daughters, 16 and 20, and a 1 year old grandson. The 16 year old was awakened in the middle of the night because she heard water running and wondered why her Mom was taking a shower in the middle of the night. She stepped off her bed into 3 inches of water on the floor. She immediately woke everyone up and they called 911 who told them to evacuate the house after turning off the power breaker and then 911 hung up on them. When they opened the door to go to the car they were slammed against the wall by a wall of water coming in the door. They made it to the carport, the grandma holding the baby, the 20 year old holding onto the car, but the 16 year old was trapped in the middle of driveway with water rising all around her. She was afraid to move as she could feel it would suck her feet out from under her if she picked them up---which it did and she was swept away but thankfully able to grab a tree and hold onto it. Now here is what I call the "God part". There just happened to be (this is 1am in the morning) a city work crew in a huge front end loader at the end of their street who was watching them and hollered to the girl to hang on and they were able to drive in and rescue her--then they were able to form a chain to pass the baby from one to another til it was safe in the loader. Then they drove the loader to the other two who climbed in the bucket of the front end loader which carried them to the end of the street where it was dry. There was a policeman at the end of the street who told them to walk to the high school. The mother was frantic to get the workmen to go back down the street and help their elderly neighbors who were in their underwear outside clinging to the columns of their front porch so they were also rescued. The family said that while they had a creek in their backyard, the water was not coming from that but from somewhere else and this had never happened before.
The city (Round Rock) was overwelmed with 911 calls and simply could not handle it. Fire crews were sent to the most severe cases and most areas were left to save themselves and their neighbors. And in this case, I do not think the weather radio really would have helped much as they had been giving flash flood warnings and small stream advisaries but they were not very specific other than telling you which counties. They could not predict which areas were most dangerous. 911 did make calls to some people telling them to get out but by that time their vehicles were flooded and they could only walk out. A very scary situation. I honestly do not know how you could prepare for this if your area had never flooded before and you thought you would be safe. So I would say, you must know where to cut your power off. If you are swept away keep your head above water and grab a tree or post or anything stable and hang on tight. And most of all help your neighbors--do not expect that someone else will come to help them.
An added blessing to the story above: the 16 year old had a pet guinea pig whom they thought for sure died in the flood as the water was over 5 feet inside their home. So a family friend went back to the house alone once the waters had receded to take care of the dead pet. But when he walked in the door he heard the squeak, squeak sound the guinea pigs make. He was alive! What had saved him was he had been making such a mess on the floor with his litter that they had placed his cage in a rubbermaid tub so he kinda floated around all night in the tub but safe from the water. So it was a thrilling sight for the 16 year old to see her pet come out of the house alive.

I have more stories to tell but need to get to Bible study so will send them later.

Just some thoughts....

I was reading my emails and one of them is a blog I follow where once in awhile her mom posts about life when she was a child. Today her mom posted about her childhood summers with no air-conditioning. And that started me thinking.....as I also spent the first 12 years of my childhood with no airconditioning and I cherish those fun summers so much.

So I decided to look back in my blog archives to those posts I wrote called "Trips down Memory Lane", and maybe add a post of my own about that. Well, I never got to those but found the one I re-posted that is after this blog post. It interested me because I feel I am now at the opposite extreme of what I wrote about.

In that post I was lamenting about being away from home so much and yearning for that "homesteading" kind of life again. And that is where we are right now. We have a barnyard full of chickens, guineas, and sheep. We have big gardens going again. We have a pond full of fish and Don's aquaponic project/greenhouse. And a new puppy.

So now, it is rather difficult for us to be away for long periods of time as it is all really too much for Alisa to handle. And I miss the ranch. I miss being out there for extended lengths of time--I even miss building that fence together. (We still need to finish it, by the way....) And when I hear of a hurricane brewing I long to get packed to be called out by Red Cross and go help. BUT....less you think I am whining and complaining...I abslolutely love to be HOME. To have my daily routine of quiet time, a walk, letting the chickens out of the barn and watching their exhuberance over catching that first bug and slipping through the hole in the barn wall to get into the goat pen to see what they can find. And I love checking the garden out early in the morning, watching those big wolf spiders that are everywhere, and murdering those nasty destructive tomato horn worms. I love that the sheep so peacefully grave right with the dogs and that they all get along. And talk about being greeted with glee....Lulu is so excited when I deliver her breakfast and let her from the backporch out into the yard. She eats and then races all around the yard playing with her many toys and sticks. And I love looking at my pot plants and how fresh and pretty they look early in the day compared to their sad wilting during our smothering heat later on. I keep moving them back and back closer into the shade. I love the routine that comes with being home.

So I am getting this routine, time at home, the comforts and solidness of community and friends and church and HOME. Yet, I then feel like I am focused too much on me and my desires instead of reaching out to others--helping others out. Or that I am not being a good steward of the ranch and taking care of stuff that needs done there. And I must admit that I love the solitude of the ranch--just the QUIET. I miss it.

So what is wrong with me? I think I am over-blessed. I am so grateful for each and everything I have and the opportunities set before me. I have choices. I am thankful for this freedom we have to be and go and do as we desire. I am not complaining--just mulling it all over in my mind. I want to be a good, wise steward of what God has blessed me with. I want to spend time with family and those I love. I want to share God's love and care with others. And I also want time to be just quiet and alone and with my husband and at home. I just want to do it all right. To be in God's will. To not overlook anyone or anything. To not take anything for granted; to not be self-centered. I just want to be living and doing and being as God wants me to. And sometimes it is so hard to figure out exactly what that is.

A Look Back Three Years

This was originally posted on October 22, 2007
Home
Yesterday, Jenny and I went to Marble Falls to a baby shower . Amber kept Mason at our house and then Christy drove in from Austin where she was visiting to see us. How great to get to see two of my daughters in one weekend! It was so fun to spend time with Christy. I took Mason outside so he could jump on the trampoline and discovered lots of pecans on the ground. So we went in the barn to get some buckets and then spent time collecting pecans.That is when I just felt overcome with emotion--a sadness mixed with thankfulness, treasured memories, yearnings, confusion, homesickness, undone tasks, loneliness for our friends and community--I just felt all mixed up.It just felt so weird to be home. Just this wave of nostalgia swept over me.

We have been on the road so much this year with Red Cross or to visit Don’s family or we have been at the ranch. We have hardly been home over two weeks together at one stretch. It has just been weird. When we were out in the yard gathering those pecans it just felt like we were at an abandoned farm or something. I just felt sad. I felt homesick. I yearned for the days of the barnyard full of chickens and milk goats and a big vegetable garden beside it. It just brought be back to the past. I just can’t put into words how I felt. I guess there is still so much of that homestead kind of life in me--buried, but not dead--hoping to be revived someday. I love our home in Marble Falls--I love the land, the barn, the playground, the decrepit orchard, the big pecan trees that we planted long ago, the huge fig tree, the vine covered fences and arbor. So many wonderful memories there. How extremely blessed I am to have raised my kids in that one house. Brian, the oldest ,was 10, Micah,7, Christy,6, Josh,1, when we moved there in 1980. Jenny Rose was born there--at home--in that very house. God brought Beki and Gina to us at that home. And Tammie, Adam, and Amber lived with us there for seven years. I home schooled for 13 years in that upstairs schoolroom in that home. Umpteen beloved pets are buried on that land.I think this time of year makes me especially nostalgic. I loved the beginning of the home school year. Playing games with the kids at recess out in the playground. Just the special feel of fall-- The way the north wind would whistle against the windows of the school room when a norther blew in; the leaves swirling around outside begging for kids to jump in them; the smell of that first fire of the season in our woodstove.

I just love fall and I love home.I guess I started rambling. My thoughts and feelings are all over the place and I need to write them. I think part of me yearns to just stay home, stay put, be stable and predictable, be there to plant and harvest a garden, to gather those eggs each day, to bring the house and barn back to life. It is vacant now. I feel it is lonely. I feel like it misses its family. Having the big dogs gone--(they are at the ranch with us)--that hit me hard yesterday, too. There is not much life left there. But the ducks, guineas, and barn cats are still there. And my wild birds. And my pot plants. Thank God for Alisa who diligently comes daily to care for them although they are all rather independent creatures. But I am glad there is still some life at home. Life will go on there and we will be back.I just feel we are in a different season now. We have the time and freedom to do the disaster relief work we love to do. And to travel. And Don’s folks won’t be here forever--we need to spend time with them NOW. I just feel God has given us the means and freedom for such a time as this. I know He will let us know when it is time to become rooted at home once again.

But for now, I am thankful for what we have. I love to travel. I love to work hard when we are on Red Cross jobs and to help others. I’m so thankful to be able to be there for family when they need us to come and help out. I love going to Haiti and helping to give fresh drinking water to people who had none before we repaired their wells. I love being in New York, Florida, and Arizona with Don’s family. And I absolutely love the ranch and being here.The ranch. I feel the same about the ranch as home. I am sad when we leave here. There are sheep and goats and cows here that we have to leave to fend for themselves--(which they are very good at doing). But my heart aches when we leave here and it yearns to return here. There are projects and repairs to be done here as there are at home. It is such an incredible blessing to have two homes that you love so very much. BUT it is also incredibly difficult to do a good job of maintaining and caring for two homes, also. So the best thing we can do is to do the best we can. To prioritize needs and projects and spend chunks of time at each place taking care of those needs. Thank goodness it is only an hour and 15 minute drive from the ranch gate to the home driveway.

I am not at all complaining. Just sorting it all out in my mind. Sometimes I worry we are not being good stewards of all this God has blessed us with. We try and we work hard, but sometimes the work is more than us.I guess it would just be easier if I was a woman with few interests and desires. But I love life. I love being outdoors, observing nature, learning about all I can, being around animals, reading--all kinds of books about all kinds of things. I want to grow more, learn more, be more. I love learning. Everything interests me. I love meeting new people and making new friends and traveling to different places. I love seeing how others live in other parts of our nation or our world. I love adventure and travel.

BUT.......... I also relish a consistent early morning quiet time with God; being at home and cooking and homemaking and gardening and weekly Bible studies and regular date nights with my husband and going to church each Sunday and being part of a home group and having girl’s movie nights and being part of a book club and just plain having a stable, comfortable routine.Maybe that is it. Routine. I need a sense of routine and this year there has been very little routine in my life. Each day is different. While that can be enchanting and exciting--it can be unsettling, too. Ok--I am beginning to feel better. Maybe I just need to work harder to establish some basic routine in my life that can work wherever I am. That might help. I am going to try it. I think that part of my uneasiness is just not knowing what is coming next. I need something to be predictable. Some structure in my life. A plan. A direction. Certain goals to accomplish in a certain time. Not a legalistic dogma but firm ideas of what needs to be done daily-and in the immediate future to make me feel together.Enough. I feel better. Thank you for wading through these crazy feelings and garbled thoughts.
Posted by Gema at 2:55 PM 4 comments

I Love.....

• summertime, even when it so HOT
• wolf spiders in my garden--especially when they have caught a big old grasshopper
• the sweet call of "Bob", my quail each morning. I can hear his "bob-white" call all the way around our block when I am walking.
• kisses from my new puppy

laughing with my husband over how it takes our two brains together to come up with someone's name.

• walking outside after dark to close my chickens up and listening to the quiet and feeling the breeze and seeing the pretty moon and just being thankful for HOME.
• coffee in the morning
• how good you feel after a shower
• memories that God kinda lets you live all over again. Last Sunday night our church had baptisms at the lake--42 people. It was at this shady, beautiful place by the lake, and we brought chairs and gathered around and sang hymns and praise songs and listened to testimonies and watched peoples lives being changed by Jesus. It was all so sweet and precious and it brought back to me long ago Sunday night memories of Camp Longhorn on Inks Lake, just a few miles away. We would walk up to church mountain and sit on old benches under the stars and moon and sing hymns and praise God and it touched my heart so deeply. It was like God letting me relive those memories and I cherish it.
• seeing pictures of my grandchildren
• being with family--just watching everyone enjoy each other.
• watching my chickens
• dusk--I love the way the world looks just after the sun has set--so calm and peaceful and beautiful. I love the way our freshly mowed field looks with the pond in the background.
• our Sunday school class. I love the deep discussions we have and just hearing from others their interpretation of scripture or how it has applied to their life and what they have learned. Iron sharpens iron and I love learning and growing in God's word.
• And I could go on and on but I love the feel of my bed and need to be there now.

Notes

I have posted out of order. Please go to "older posts" to see my post of our family reunion pics. I just never got around to posting about Haiti until now.

My Haiti Photo Journal

I went on a mission trip to Haiti with our church the first part of July. It was an awesome trip--I was blessed far more than I could possibly bless others. The Haitian people are incredible--so resilient, hard working, persevering, and joyful. I love the people of Haiti. It was very hot and humid; we ate rice and beans for nearly every meal and it was delicious; water was often in short supply so we took "bucket" showers (meaning you had a bucket of cold water and a cup and that was how you bathed)...but it felt oh so good and I was thankful. We stayed in a beautiful three story house high on the side of a hill overlooking Port au Prince. It was so lovely and comfortable and the views were incredible. But we left around 7:30 am and returned home after 9pm so we had little time to relish in that comfort. Most of our time was spent on the streets of Carre Four, an area of Port au Prince where we were doing street evangelism and our pastor was holding a Pastor's leadership conference at a Haitian church for 100 pastors. Then each night there was a church service we attended.
I will explain more with the photos below. I forgot how blogger works so you need to scroll to the bottom and work your way up for them to be in chronological order (somewhat).
Evangelism was easy as the people are so open and when you speak to one a crowd gathers and they all listen. I learned to never make a superficial decision based on a person's demeanor as to whether they will receive the gospel message. I was humbled many times. The toughest, meanest, most stoic people were transformed before my eyes when they truly listened to the gospel being presented, received Jesus, and were born again. Their whole countenace changed--they glowed. It was so amazing and humbling. It is not the messenger....it is the good news message that does the transforming. Jesus scooping them up in his net of love.
The church services were held in this big tent in the middle of what was once a street of a neighborhood but due to the earthquake it was full of rubble with only a footpath to get through. The service lasted 3 hours or more and there was much loud praise and worship. The Haitians truly worship with all their heart and soul. So beautiful. It was great to see the people that we witnessed to come to the services.
We visited some of the orphanages were there are kids we are trying to get freed to come to the US for adoption. The orphanges are sad--not much at all for them--few toys and not lots of interaction with people. The kids just hung all over us. Such cute kids with such big smiles.
I will explain the rest through the photos. (Remember to start from the bottom and work up)


Saw this shirt on a girl at Miami airport. She was from England and had been on mission trip to Guatemala. A great mission t-shirt.

This was home that one of our interpreters was building. Very nice by Haitian standards.

I love this scene of woman in old boat.

Our last day we did some sight-seeing along the coast and ate LOBSTER at a fancy resort.

They fill those tap-taps to the limit.

These are houses that Habitat for Humanity are building.

We are in rural area where horses and donkeys are the mode of transportation.

Doesn't she have a pretty smile?

Bill and some little ones.

She wanted this pose for my camera. A cute little girl.

We visited this rural orphanage where we are suppossed to be getting 20 kids from to bring to the US. Lots of kids all ages here and they were so excited to see us. That is Roz they are climbing all over.

Rivers are used for swimming, bathing, washing clothes, watering livestock, and sadly for drinking water, too.

This is view of Mission of Hope, a huge complex that has a clinic and a big hospital that was much used after earthquake. Clinic still sees about 100 people a day. It also has a school and orphanage and dorms for mission teams to stay in.

This is one of the big buildings that collapsed.

More earthquake destruction.

This was the President's palace in Port au Prince.

There is earthquake destruction everywhere in downtown Port au Prince and many tent cities.

But, life is pretty much back to normal with many people put to work in clean-up crews. Bill was amazed at all that had been accomplished in the past two months.

On our last day Bill took us downtown to where the worst damage occurred.

That is a truck full of bags of little bags of cold water. That is how it is sold on the street--you drink water from a bag.

Just a photo of me taken off our balconey at the house.

See that little bit of blue in the background? That is the tent for the church service at night. This is what it is like to walk down the street now.

The street where the Haitian church is that we were working with.

These are the kids of the Haitian pastor. They were great kids--so polite and helpful.

This is our interpretor, Wilford, and his family.

Our pastor and Pastor Tony.

That is our pastor's wife, Rosemary, who held a women's conference one day. The Haitian women loved it and asked lots of tough questions. 60 women attended.

market place

scenes taken from the car as we passed the market

They call the UN the United Nothing as they can do nothing unless they are fired upon so they really are not much help or protection. Though they do drive around looking real tough.

Red Cross trucks

A Tap-tap---like a Haitian taxi cab only they pile on as many people as possible

Pastor Rodney helps Haitian woman draw water from the church cistern.

This is man we prayed for who wanted out of Voodoo and wanted Jesus. He dug up all his voodoo objects from around his home and burned them.

At the Pastor's Conference

more street scenes

Look at those men pulling that heavy load.

more market scenes--the clothing aisle

street scenes

This house was right across from ours and was destroyed by earthquake, yet ours untouched.

Tent city as seen from balconey of our house.

gardens outside the house

This is the little balconey where we had devotions each morning. So pretty.

What it looks like when you walk in front door of house (which is on the third floor)

This is the best picture I could get of front of house.

view from balconey of road to house

View of Port au Prince from house.

a tap tap

busses are really decorated...and named.

home of our interpretor, Wilford.

a tent city

Martine

These were taken at the special needs orphange.

I am always amazed at how the women carry stuff on their heads. One woman that I witnessed to in the street had 6 boxes of eggs balanced on her head and each box held 12 dozen eggs. It was so incredible.