Spring Tease in the Upstate

 Usually in March all of the snow begins to melt, and underneath that snow is ice that is partially melted, but still hard enough to walk on without it breaking.  Because of that layer of ice, the water has nowhere to go except to flow around on top.  It always makes for a really big mess.  

                                                            We enjoy it each year!

This typically doesn't happen until March.  Well, this year it started last week.  

I had to stop trying to ford the lake about 25 feet across the yard though because it was almost to the top of my boots!

We enjoyed splashing around and the weather was 61 degrees!  What a gorgeous day!

Spring gave us that little tease of a few days...and then all of this water froze over, and we now have 10 inches of snow on top of it again.  :-)  haha.  This is upstate NY in the winter! 

Outing to Bennington Vermont

 Hope you all are doing well and that you enjoyed a wonderful Valentines Day.  I've never really celebrated Valentine's very much.  I grew up in a family that didn't, and so I never have either.  When we first were dating/engaged/married, Dan would give me the obligatory bouquet of flowers or teddy bear and chocolates.  I convinced him a few years ago though to cease and desist.  haha.  

It's not that I'm a complete party pooper.  Really!

It's more that I've never really enjoyed getting flowers that die quickly, unless they are wildflowers picked alongside the road, or zinnias from our garden.  And I get annoyed when I think of the price gauging that happens around Valentine's for flowers and chocolates.  I'd much rather just get chocolates at random times of the year.  

So I have trained Dan well.  We said "Happy Valentine's Day" to each other and that was it.  

We took time after dinner that night to play some games with the girls.  Go fish, the raven game, and memory match.  They had a lovely time.  

A few days later, we had an outing day!  We drove to Bennington, Vermont which we have never visited in the almost 5 years we've lived here.  

We haven't had an outing like this since the fall.  

There was a battle fought at Bennington in the revolutionary War which was won and thus, helped the battle of Saratoga (a bit further south of us) to be won.  Saratoga is often referred to as the "turning point" of the Revolutionary war.  

There's a very large monument there in Bennington, dedicated to the battle that was fought there.  

There were also several covered bridges in that area which we enjoyed seeing.

We went out to eat at a diner there in Bennington.  As cute as the place was, I wasn't a huge fan of it because the waitresses were really super cranky, and made our experience there feel like we were cattle being herded in and out.  

Afterwards, we stopped at a roadside country store.  It was very cute.  Very overpriced, but cute. 

It was really a very lovely outing.  We look forward to these types of little trips.  Bennington is only about 40 minutes away, but the drive was beautiful and so scenic.  I loved seeing all of the old houses in the countryside. 

Hope you all are well and are enjoying February! I'm looking forward to Spring....and before that...FASTNACHT DAY!!! It's coming up!

New Church Pews!

A few posts back I mentioned driving thru Ohio on our way home from Tennessee.  I also mentioned that we stopped at a lovely church that Sunday evening and enjoying meeting the pastor and his wife and church family.  

Well, here's the other part to that story.  

When we visited that church, the pastor mentioned that they were soon going to be getting new chairs for their auditorium and getting rid of their church pews.  Dan said that we would be very interested in them!   

We measured, and while the new pews would be a bit longer than the current ones, the shape of them was much better, and the color was 100% nicer! 

A few weeks ago, Dan and a few guys from church went to a prayer advance in VA.  On their way home, they drove up to OH, rented a Uhaul truck, loaded the pews up, and drove home with them.  

It actually couldnt have been better timing because that very Sunday that they were in OH loading pews after attending that church's service, my 2 1/2 year old, Lucie, had decided to decorate the mustard yellow pew back at our church.  

Yes, I know that blue crayon can come out...but it was so nice to know that soon we wouldn't have mustard yellow pews anymore. 

Dan recruited several guys to help in that next week.  Some helped to take out our pews, some helped to unload the Uhaul, some helped to install the new pews...

Two of the helpers played, more than worked.  :-)

SO EXCITING!

I think they look 100% better.  Each pew has 3  book holders, and there are more pews now than we had of the mustard ones.  Which is very helpful because we've had many visitors coming to church lately!

What a blessing!  

Fixer Upper- Photo- free post.

 While we have lived in New York, we have needed to have supplemental income in order to not just live day-to-day, but to save and invest for the future.  Most people in small ministries understand that being in ministry is not a position one takes for monetary gain...:-)  

When we moved here, we sat down together and talked through our options.  They were these: 

1. Dan could work a part-time job and I could as well. 

2. Dan could work a full-time job ( but this was not a good option because Dan wanted to have    flexibility in order to build the ministry and grow the church).

3. Dan and I could find something we could do together to supplement our income..

We chose the 3rd option.  It made sense because (1)Dan has such amazing abilities with handyman work and fixing things already.  (2) He also has the tools and knows about materials and such.  (3) We have had (some) experience with taking run-down places and fixing them.  

We did this with our very first home in Baltimore. (feel free to see more about that in my post from 2017 here. (House #1)

After having this conversation and finding a home to begin this process with again, this time in Granville, we did the same thing we did in Baltimore.  You can see the original "before" photos at this link , here, as well as here.  When we finished this house, I posted about it here, if you care to see the pictures. 

We sold that original Granville fixer upper (house #2) in December of 2019.  While we had waited for the loan to go through with the buyers, we found and bought another.  (house #3)

This one, fondly referred to as "Mettowee" (named for the river that runs through Granville, is one that we still own.  We have made it a short-term, furnished rental.   

This house has proven to be a very good investment.  Though it needed a few major repairs like an entire foundation wall replaced, drainage around the house, and grading around the whole house, a new roof, and a massive tree removed in the front yard (whose roots were finding a home right in the sewer line), this house is located in a wonderful neighborhood.  It heats well in the winter, and is perfect in size.  

We finished fixing/furnishing Mettowee in February 2020 and began renting it out.  When we finished it, we looked for another, which we purchased in April 2020.  

This house (house #4) was another very large colonial located over the border in Vermont.  This house needed some major repairs as well- entirely new foundation under the large addition, new furnace, all new windows throughout the entire house.... 

We originally hoped to do another rental with it, but we quickly realized that the neighborhood was not suited for it, and the house was just too big to be a successful rental (in our opinion).  Dan remodeled the addition of the house and made it into a studio apartment.  By June, he had finished this apartment and we were able to rent it out in order to continue fixing up the rest of the house.  I loved the layout and style of house number 4:Tall ceilings, beautiful, huge bedrooms...but man, was it a beast to heat! I felt like every other week during the winter, the fuel truck was delivering.  

Dan completed working on this house, putting in new flooring, new plumbing, painting everything, etc...in May of 2021.  We had rented the apartment out as a furnished short-term during that 11 months, so that was very helpful.  We listed it for sale in April and it was sold by the beginning of June.  This was an answer to our prayers.  The market was booming, and everything going on the market was selling in short periods of time.  This was true for house number 4.  

Because we knew we'd be buying another house to begin the whole process of investment real estate again, we decided to do an exchange.  We sold one property, and with the monies, then purchased (or exchanged, if you will) for 2 other properties.  Our summer was stressful because we were given only so many days after the sale of house number 4 to identify, make offers on, and have offers accepted on the next houses.    

God worked out the timing and the details for us, and I'm so thankful!  We purchased house #5 and house #6 in August, within days of each other.  

Sometimes people are shocked that we've bought 6 houses in our short 6 years of marriage.  However, it's important to clarify that out of all these houses, 3 were foreclosures, 2 were technically estate sales by relatives of recently deceased, and 1 was so close to being a foreclosure it wasn't funny (literally within days of the bank re-possessing it).  The kinds of houses near us that are foreclosures are run-down, have been let go for many years, are dirty, and have some very serious issues.  We got all of these for low because:

House #1 needed all new heating, plumbing, flooring, painting, complete remodel of bathroom and kitchen, and new radiators throughout the whole house. 

House #2 needed all new wood siding, new roof on the back addition, all new windows, new driveway, 2 new bathrooms, new plumbing, new electrical, new water main, etc.

House #3 had new foundation, roof, furnace, flooring.

House #4 had new addition foundation, new furnace, new electrical, new plumbing, new windows

House #5 needed complete drainage around foundation, new windows, new furnace, new plumbing

House #6 (which has not been worked on YET very much) will need new windows, new furnace, new roof, new back basement wall, drainage around the house, new plumbing, and complete overhaul of the kitchen and both bathrooms, as well as fixing damage from some serious roof leaks. May even need a new well... 

These are not tiny repairs.  And though we get the houses for low prices, we have to put an awful lot (work AND money) into them before they're ready to sell or rent out.  Dan does all of this work himself without hiring out separate contractors for everything.  I am so blessed to have a husband who knows how to do all this!  It's rare to find a man who truly knows how to do everything.  I have neglected to blog much about most of these houses on here because I got behind...and then kept forgetting.  But I will catch up with some before and after photos (I obviously will not be able to walk through the process with you all on the last few (houses 3 and 4) because they are already finished.  House 5 is complete, and I will post the pictures in the next few posts.  

House 6 is special and I will designate a whole post just for that one.  

SO there you have it!  A part of our life that has not been much posted about.  I've posted in years past about two of our fixer uppers, but life ran away from me, and when I would remember, there were more fun things to post about.  

When we sat down and talked through how we would supplement our income when we moved to this state, Dan said that he would like to be able to about and in the community as much as possible.  

If he were working a full-time job, this wouldn't be as possible, since he'd be confined to a building or business.  Because of the "job" he has now, he's invited so many of the local hardware workers, Lowe's employee's, local contractors (electricians, furnace repair men, people who rent out dump trailers/dumpsters etc. etc. etc.) to church.  Only living here for 4 1/2 years, he is well-known in the surrounding communities, as well as being respected by those in the community.  People in this area appreciate hard workers, and they especially appreciate when a person takes a run-down home and turns it into something beautiful to be used once again.  

Now, enough of these posts without pictures.  :-)  Let's go see some before and after photos!