The floor moves along 2-3 feet per day. It looks beautiful! Like it was always meant to be there. I need to start visiting Lowe's and Home Depot looking for connecting tiles to put around the fireplace tiles, new registers, bathroom fixtures, etc. I also need to pack away the dishes he took out of the buffet, and the books and dishes in the cupboards we will remove above the peninsula. Friday night we had dinner with Joel and Debbie and now want a packed away book to loan them. WOW! I get so impatient with transition.

But as I sat and thought during Communion yesterday morning, Pastor's words took me into thoughts of serving the people around us. Who should I be serving any more than my husband? I know what he most needs: the grace to enjoy this project. He really is enjoying constructing it and watching it come together beautifully. He is an excellent workman. Just couldn't do it for a living because he wants it to be perfect. But in his (temporary) castle, he can take his time. In the next castle we'll likewise choose projects he can do slowly, and contract out projects Mama needs done more quickly.

Bill came by this morning to talk about raising our kitchen ceiling, and having higher cabinets. I can't imagine the cabinets, but I can imagine the lighting being higher and not on my back. I'm so eager! Too many times I am disappointed when a project is completed, because I allowed my expectations to swing too high with my excitement. I can't imagine being disappointed with this! I've never had a new house -- this will at least be part of a new house! The living floor is beginning to look like a new house. I'm grateful, and looking forward to having a new house in Nampa. Nonetheless, I'd rather be in Nampa with the kids and not have a new house than continue to live 8 hours away!!!

God, thank you for dreams, of new floors and chocolate rivers, and of some realization. But thank you also for the security that my life is not dependent on the people or things that give me this joy. YOU give me stability, no matter if the rivers or the money disappear, or the joints can't lay the floors --or whatever disappointments come. Someone said, 'joy is not in things, it is in us.' I need to pledge myself on the good days, to pick up that focus on the bad days.