Closing on the Old House is getting closer!!

Hi all, we are just rejoicing in the progress to closing on the old house. My brother Tim came out last week to help me...no he really did the fixes and I pretty much watched. We needed to put in several GFI outlets and some were a challenge because of all the ground wires...I would have been frustrated and at a loss. It even caused Tim to make a call to his buddy the electrician...made me feel better when he needed to call for help. But a BIG THANKS to Tim for helping to get the repairs completed which were requested from the inspector.

Only 1 thing left between now and closing...the buyer has until July 8 to lock in all their financing and then we should be closing on July 15th. Sandy will be happy as that should end the finacial freeze on discretionary spending ....maybe we will get the new drapes and paint etc. and I will be relieved to just have the expenses of one house to deal with again. God is so good and faithful ALWAYS...I have learned some patience through this and also seen many things that we can easily do without. Keep those 2 dates in your prayers...July 8 & 15.

Thanks,

Bill

Latest Update on the Old House

Things are still pending on the appraiser, but our realtor got a signed contract today for our house! Please continue to pray for us as we continue to trust God to do whatever is best.

My Weekend...

I got to help my mom's cousin Nathan with his astronomy, not to be confused with astrology, presentations at the ICHE (Illinois Christian Home Educators) convention. I always enjoy working with him, in fact, I helped him do these presentations for last year's convention also! I also enjoy receiving all of the facts and being filled with awe at how gigantic our universe is, not to mention our God who created it and is even now in complete control of every aspect of it!

This year we started with Psalm 103:11 ~ "For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him." Other versions translate the word "mercy" as kindness, love, and lovingkindness. We took this verse and began to expound on it. How high are the heavens above the earth? Here is the very short version. It took the Voyager 12 years to get to Pluto traveling at 40,000 mph! To get to the nearest star it would take approximately 40,000 years at 40,000 mph! It is estimated that there are around 200 billion stars in our galaxy, and that there are around 200 billion other galaxies! Talk about a vast universe! It is amazing and huge, yet God chose to make man in His image and to place us in the Milky Way galaxy on planet Earth! By the way, just as a note that might be of interest, secular scientists are saying that one human being is more informationally complex than the entire universe!

This is one of the groups that came through for the presentation. ( I am on the left and Nathan is on the right.)

This is Nathan, myself, and Joe.

This year, during a break of about an hour in the schedule, Nathan told me that I should go into the planetarium and mess around with all the switches and see what I could learn. I did so, and I greatly enjoyed it!

By the way, if anybody is even slightly interested in stars and hasn't ever heard of the program "Stellarium", I would certainly encourage you to take a look at it. Stellarium is a free downloadable program. All you need to do is google it and you can download it in a matter of a few minutes. I have it, it is part of the presentation we do, and it has really come in handy when I'm looking out at the night sky wanting to understand what I am looking at.

Here are some other passages of Scripture to look at:

Isaiah 66:1&2 ~ "Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."

Psalm 8:1-9 ~ "O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

Psalm 19:1-6 ~ "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."

Job 38 makes several mentions of different stars.

Also look at Isaiah 40.

NEW~Zachary Helps to Mow the Lawn for the 1st Time!!

Zachary is the star of this post! Dad was mowing our lawn and Zach asked if he could help him. Daddy told him he could and Zach stuck with it for the whole rest of the lawn--which included all of our pretty big backyard!

Zachary noticed me taking the pictures and turned back to smile--good thing Dad was the one really controlling the mower!

He is working on turning his "marshmallow muscles" into something worthwhile!

About half-way through mowing the back lawn, they were called in for dinner. At the table Zachary mentioned that "the girls make dinner while us guys do the work"! You think if we were to make him make dinner for us several days in a row maybe he would change his mind?! By the way, he did go back out as soon as he had finished his dinner and was standing at the door waiting for Dad to join him so they could get back at it again.

It's Me...but who are you?

I guess I've given you long enough to try and guess who writes the majority of these posts! I am Heidi, for those of you who haven't figured it out yet! Many of you, though, can tell pretty well when it is me and when it isn't me! I am often the one who ends up doing it for multiple reasons... ~I can't stand it when others don't update theirs blogs very often and that helps me to remember that I should update ours as well. ~I am often the one who sees the potential for something that might be "blog worthy" and goes and gets the pictures and/or other information. ~The last reason--well, if nobody else is going to do it, I guess I will!

We know that there are people who look at our blog from the comments that you make sometimes when we see you, however, just about nobody ever makes a comment on our blog--and it is not because we don't allow it! I understand that some of you cannot make comments since our blog does not allow anonymous comments and you do not all have google accounts...but many of you do! So, I ask this, you don't have to comment all the time, though it is encouraging to get comments every now and then, but if all those who are able would please comment on this post and include at least part of your name (first or last or common nickname or something) so that we can get a basic idea of how many and who is viewing our blog. Thank you!