A Labor of Love ...

 A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 

Good morning ...

I have worked hard my entire life. At age 13 I had to go to work to help my family out. My father had a brain hemorrhage at age 48. He, by the Grace of God, survived.

However, he had to learn how to do everything again. Paralyzed on one side of his body and vision in only one eye. He stayed many months in the VA hospital and came home almost as bad as he was in the first day after his brain hemorrhage. 

The VA hospitals at that time were horrible, so my mother brought him home. To which he laid on a twin bed in our dining room. So my mother and his sisters could help care for him. In hopes that he would recover. 

I would come home from school (7th grade) get out of my school clothes and go accross the street to neighbors house where she would drive me to work with her. I never complained, I just went to work. To me that is what I was suppose to do to help my family out.

My family was lucky to know a kind person who owned a restaurant. My neighbor was a waitress at their restaurant. I was the babysitter for a 3 yo and a 3 month old. Their house was connected to their restaurant, with a breezeway. I cared for their children while they worked. They fed me 7 days a week and paid me. Plus left overs for my family. 

That is how my family survived. Me and my oldest brother worked 7 days a week to pay bills for our  family. It took many years for my father to get his Veterans disability pension. And just as many to recover. No, he never fully recovered, but he never let much stop him. My father WAS a mason, a brick layer.

My father was my hero, I was a daddy's girl, wrapped up in a Tom boy persona. Not because he treated me that way, it was because I had three brothers, two older and one younger. I learned to toughen up. To be more like them. To do what I had to do.

My Dad and his Dad

I never had to work hard to get my fathers attention. I was his only daughter, his little girl. He taught me so much throughout my time with him. Girl stuff and boy stuff, that my brothers didn't want to learn. At 16 I knew almost every part in and on a car, and what most of them did. A learning experience that when I was in my late 20s early 30s landed me a bottom of the ladder job. I worked hard, showed them my knowledge and within a few short years I was one of only 2 women in the Auto Recycling Business. 

I learned then that hard work does pay off, in everything you do. Does not matter if its a bottom step on the ladder or the worst house on the street. It is about how you toil.  I have had many careers in my life since I was 13 ... Some of the jobs I loved and excelled at. Others as said in a past post, on Monday I would wish for Fridays ... I feel like I wished my life away at that job.

Thankfully I was able to leave that job behind. I will say this, I learned from my Father, not just what he told me. I learned by watching a strong man get up everyday and work for what he needed. It didn't matter if he only had vision in one eye, or if he had bad headaches and dirty clothes to wear. He toiled because he loved his life and his family. And that there was nothing I couldn't do, if I set my mind to it.

That leads me to where i am today ... Another job that with time can and will be done. And will be done, but only with Gods Grace.

Much has changed in the 3 weeks I have owned this land. So much cleaner. More wildlife seems to be coming on the property. A Wren has built her nest on the porch of the junky trailer. More deer and deer poop ... Yes, of course my dogs rolled in it. Ugh ... But even that makes me happy, in a way that I know my dogs are happy here.

Shed/ tiny house arrived. I will be cleaning. And getting her ready for part time living. More on that later. For now she is parked in her home. She isn't so pretty now, but with a whole lotta love and labor she will be beautiful and a great place to stay when my house sells.

I have found that if you add love to the labor, it makes your laboring more enjoyable. 

Thanks for stopping by. Blessings form the soon to be cottage.