Vaughnshire Farm

She is almost 5 weeks old and likes me a whole lot! I like her a whole lot as well. She loves to be near mommy which is completely normal and expected of a newborn who just spent 40 weeks inside me, feeling my every movement, hearing my heartbeat, hearing my voice. I am not one to let a newborn just “cry it out” and I do not really believe a newborn is spoiled by too much holding. I believe being held, touched, loved on is important for baby and mom. However, that being said, it is impossible to hold her 24/7. Sometimes I just need a brief moment to myself. I need to do necessary things like get dressed.

It amazes me how she knows when I am not there! I lay her down for a nap and usually within 5 minutes she is crying. I can snuggle up next to her and speak softly or sing to her while stoking her head or patting her back and she will fall back asleep. It is an incredible feeling to be needed by her. This time is only brief and I am trying to soak up all the wonder of her newborn-ness.

All that to say, I lost my sling.

I have had a variety of slings over the years. I am not a huge baby wearing person, although I do wear my babies when they are newborn and little babies. I don’t wear them once they get too wiggly and heavy! My newborns cuddle up in the sling and sleep contently. Currently I own a New Native Baby sling that I can’t find. I have searched for it high and low but am still hoping to find it soon.

Until then, I have thought about everything from making my own sling out of a blanket to velcroing us together.

It’s seems that I forgot one other “minor” project we completed when the floor was done. We built in a bunk bed over the new stairs, once they were moved. In order to salvage the use of the bedroom and double the use of the space, we built the bunk directly over the stairs.

This worked well for my nephew who enjoyed the “elevated” bed and the cubby hole at the head of the bed. I don’t have any photos of the actual remodel while it was in progress, but I’ll try to get some added as I get a chance.

We are currently making good progress on the house, but not on the blog. I try to get it caught up a little this weekend.

The beginning point to discuss any type of government will always be “self” and we will always find “self” originating from the family. Hence the first two of the four governments established by God, self government and family government are closely linked. In addition the remaining two, church government and civil government are also greatly effected by this foundation.

In Genesis Chapter 4:6-7 we find the very first mention of self-government as God is speaking with Cain:

And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee (shall be) his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Parting From Family

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsel and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday; and tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory steals me away to the scene. His tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain! He grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence, and then solemnly said: “God bless you, my son! Your father’s God prosper you, and keep you from all evil!”

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and, when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I was round the corner and out of sight in an instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted into the side of the road and wept for a time. Rising up cautiously, I climbed the dyke to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dyke and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he had gazed eagerly in my direction for a while he got down, set his face towards home, and began to return, his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as He had given me.

The appearance of my father when we parted has often through life risen vividly before my mind, and does so now as if it had been but an hour ago. In my earlier years particularly, when exposed to many temptations, his parting form rose before me as that of a guardian Angel. It is no pharisaism, but deep gratitude, which makes me here testify that the memory of that scene not only helped to keep me pure from the prevailing sins, but also stimulated me in all my studies, that I might not fall short of his hopes, and in all my Christian duties, that I might faithfully follow his shining example. Pages 40-42 Volume I

Changes in Life

Upon being set apart for mission work in the New Hebrides, and leaving his “thriving” ministry as a “City Missionary” Mr. Paton received much discouraging counsel from many of his closest friends and associates. Today, many would see this as “wise counsel” and may have abandoned their life work. However, here is one example of this discouragement and his response.

I cannot honestly say that such offers (a free home) or opposing influences proved a heavy trial to me; they rather tended to confirm my determination that the path of duty was to go abroad. Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, - ” The Cannibals! you will be eaten by Cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in that Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”

The old gentleman, raising his hands in a deprecating attitude, left the room exclaiming, - “After that I have nothing more to say!” My dear Green Street people grieved excessively at the thought of my leaving them, and daily pled with me to remain. Indeed, the opposition was so strong from nearly all, and any of them, many warm Christian friends, that I was sorely tempted to question whether I was carrying out the Divine will, or only some headstrong wish of my own. This caused me much anxiety, and drove me close to God in prayer. Pages 90-91 Volume I

Seeking The Wisdom of Parents and the Duty of a Son

On meeting with so many obstructing influences, I again laid the whole matter before my dear parents, and their reply was to this effect: - “Heretofore we feared to bias you, but now we must tell you why we praise God for the decision to which you have been led. Your father’s heart was set upon being a Minister, but other claims forced him to give it up. When you were given to them, your father and mother laid you upon the alter, their first-born, to be consecrated, if God saw fit, as a Missionary of the Cross; and it has been their constant prayer that you might be prepared, qualified, and led to this very decision; and we pray with all our heart that the Lord may accept your offering, long spare you, and give you many souls from the Heathen World for your hire.” From that moment, every doubt as to my path of duty for ever vanished. I saw the hand of God very visibly, not only preparing me for, but now leading me to, the foreign Mission field.

Well did I know that the sympathy and prayers of my dear parents were warmly with me in all my studies and in all my mission work; but for my education they could, of course, give me no money help. All through, on the contrary, it was my pride and joy to help them, being the eldest in a family of eleven… I gave, and gladly, what could possibly be saved out of my City Mission salary of $40, ultimately advanced to $45, per annum. Self-educated thus, and without the help of one shilling from any other source, readers will easily imagine that I had many a staggering difficulty to overcome in my long curriculum in Arts, Divinity, and Medicine; but God so guided me, and blessed all my little arrangements, that I never incurred one farthing of personal debt. Pages 92-94 Volume I

Her hair is blond.

It is whispy.

It comes in a thousand different lengths but……………

we accomplished something today that I have been waiting for….

Piggy Tails!

And she likes them !

Not everyone thought the new piggy tails were cute.

Patrick said, “Well, now she looks like a bull.”

So if you ever look at a set of stairs and think to yourself, “I’d really like those to be somewhere else”. Read this post before you reach for your saw! I would do it again, mind you, but I would have a much better idea of what I was in for. First here is a picture of the stairs in the kitchen when we first bought the house. (Refer to the last post for the house layout or view this image.)

I stated previously that we were already in work on this project. I should probably clarify that as I look at the size of my children here in this photo. We bought this house 3 years ago. We made the first couple changes I’ll be covering back then. My sister lived in the house for a couple years and now we are continuing with the remodel plan. So you will see some older pictures of the stairs, the expansion of the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, and a little work in the kitchen, mostly around the removal of the stairs, but also some trim work, and paint. Also, since you will see these same working children in some of the newer pictures I didn’t want you thinking we had some kind of super growth hormone we put in our foods here in TN.

So the first thing I did is pick up a hammer and knock a whole in the center of the wall in the dinning room. Not for any particular reason other I always wanted to be able to pick up a hammer and knock a whole in the wall and never had the opportunity. (sorry I couldn’t find that picture, but I’m still looking) After a great anticipatory let down when nothing happened other than a hole appeared in the wall, I pick up a screw driver and the hammer and started removing the trim.

Notice the narrow standard size door I’m working over, this was a 32″ doorway (If I remember correctly - it was small anyway) and the first thing we did was knock out about 20 or so inches to expand it into more of a walk through.

You can see the new dimensions of the door after we made the cuts here. We removed the paneling and sheet rocked the remaining portion of the wall shown exposed here. Also shown is the move of the stair well door. Notice the open stairs to the right and the new door to the left. If you were to open this door at this point, it would go into the back side of the closet in bedroom 1.

The next effort was to remove the stairs from their old position and remove the walls, thus adding a good 3 and a half feet to the kitchen. It makes sense, at least to me, that if you are going to move a large family into a small house then the kitchen and dinning space is going to be a premium. But then again, it made sense to me to start this project to begin with so I may or may not be a reliable source. At any rate, that was our chief motivation for moving the stairs in the first place.

Here is a view of the old stairs from below. The calm before the storm.

The storm begins as we stripped off more paneling and removed the coat closet that was in the living room and over the end of the stairs.

You can still see the door to the closet, and the 30 year old nicotine stains around the old cabinets. Notice, the paneling to guard against the open pit below. Once I figured out I had created a small child hazard, I had to get the new place for the stairs ready so they could be moved and my wife could be at ease again with the children “working with daddy”.

I first started with a drill and made a hole in the floor board - then proceeded to use the new reciprocating saw that I justified just for this project. Ah yes, did I mention new projects justify new tools? You should see what I got when we started the bathroom! OK, back to the floor, before I get carried away….

Just a note of caution, you should really watch out for electrical outlets when you start cutting on walls, moving floors, etc… they tend to get in the way, and I understand the can be dangerous….don’t ask me how I know. Just a word to the wise, one man to another - I would also recommend that your wife not be present with you when you work with electricity… it’s easier on her that way.

So after much demolition of the closet, the outlets, and anything else that got in the way, I was finally able to role back the carpet and get a clear run with the recip saw. It did great.. I was a little shaky, but the saw did great. I somehow got a hole in the floor the size of the stairs, more or less. Now I had two holes in the floor where small children could fall through! The plus side, was that the old floor made a great landing for the bottom of the stairs.

Now to actually move the stairs. Did you know that apparently sometimes they cement stairs in the basement when they poor the basement? I did not. Neither did it ever occur to me, until I had every nail, screw, and anything else that looked like an attaching device removed from the stairs and they still would not move. I would also add that the nails they use in the attaching of stairs are not small and don’t just “pop right out” as most other nails one commonly comes in contact with. As a frequent stair user, I’m thinking this is a good thing. However, as one who was then trying to move the stairs I couldn’t for the life of me think of what the people who installed these were so afraid of.

So the concrete… I finally figure out the stairs were not just sitting on the basement floor, but that they actually extend - for some distance I might add - beneath the floor. Fortunately, I had this great new tool… did I mention the new recip saw? Yea it’s great. I wouldn’t destroy a house without one. So I cranked it up and left nothing by nubs sticking out of the concrete where the stairs use to be.

Of course now I had a bigger problem. The stairs were free. Do you know how much stair weight? Me neither… but they’re heavy. The first thing I thought of, was no wonder they had all those rail road spikes hold these things up! What a massive work of wood. Somehow, with the use of straps, chains, and ropes I managed to get the stairs down without breaking anything on me or them. If I recall correctly, they laid on the basement floor for several days before I would even consider dragging them to the new hole in the floor and look longingly up at the top towards the new door and wonder how in the world I would lift the massive things back up to the floor they are suppose to connect to.

Again through the miracle of ropes and chains, and what ever else I could find to prop them up with at the various stages of “lifting” I managed to get them “hung” on the main floor again. I say hung because it took me a while to find a railroad supply store to get the right size spikes to secure them properly! But in the end, they were moved and are still standing today after a couple good years to test them out properly.

I did still however, have two big holes in the floor. All I had done was trade the location of the stairs, I hadn’t made any progress in securing the place for small children, who by now were learning to not fall down big holes… just kidding, but they were learning to stay away from them! I don’t think I have any pictures of the replacement of the floor in the kitchen. I know my father was in town that week and helped out with that project along with my youngest brother, but it seems that we were too busy swinging hammers to pick up a camera. If I find any I will post them later. But we just laid “matching” boards around the hole we had made and then extended the support joists underneath as close enough to perfect as we were able. One glitch, was we had to replicate the extra layer of linoleum on the old floor so we purchased a cheap patch of it from Fred’s and put it down… worked like new and provided the foundation for the wood flooring we put in latter. (Some men from the church, surprised my sister while she was out of town, so this was an unplanned project that ended up being a temporary solution for my sister, but that we are changing currently. - more on that later too) Speaking of later, be sure to note the “hanging” electrical outlet. It just keeps getting in the way.

At any rate, here is the new kitchen as it appeared after the musical stairs and doors game and after the new floor.

Notice the ceiling that needs attention… I’m sure you will hear me talk a lot about it in the not too distant future. As Peyton and I worked on this today in the rather small area in the bathroom, it is all I can do to lift my hands to the keyboard. I’m not looking forward to the kitchen. We are trying to get rid of the 1970s texture. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. We are scraping and sanding.

This post covers three years… not in actual work on the house or attention time, but in actual living time. This will bring us up to the current projects that have been taking place during the last couple of months. We should be able to catch up fairly quickly now that we have moved into the current year. Take a good look at this picture, because now that we have all that finished, we removed it all… all the way to the studs. More next time.

- Paul TN

I should mention as we get into this, that this project has already begun and there has been a lot of work that has already taken place, so for the first several posts, it will not be occurring “live”. We are currently working on the bathroom, but the posts will start from the beginning to catch you up to the current live status. This shouldn’t be too hard as I find that typing goes faster than hammering.

Next, I should probably start by giving you a few details about the layout of the house, so you’ll know what we are trying to accomplish.

First it is a very basic 1,000 sq ft. house. 40′ X 25′ It sits on a basement and is positioned on a slope so that the front of the house is 5 steps above the ground and the back is level to the ground but also accommodates a fairly aggressive slope from front to back. There are 9 windows 2 personal doors, one sliding door (to the deck) and one garage door. We will be focusing most of the attention upstairs first and then after that is complete we plan to move into the house as we work on the basement.

Here is a simple floor plan of the upstairs portion that we’ll be working on.

The stairs are shown in light blue in their new location, as they have already been moved, but they were originally on the kitchen wall that boarders the living room. The first steps we took were to widen the entrance to the kitchen and to move the stairs into bedroom 1.

That is where we will start in the next entry. Moving the stairs. Feel free to leave comments if I leave anything un-clear.

The smell of her newborn-ness is alluring.

The face of innocence is captivating.

Her soft skin and wrinkly neck are divine!

Her smiles are melting.

…..oft times sleepless nights……showerless days…..sleepy momma….

all worth it….newborn warmth, softness, gentle fast breaths, whimpers, squeaks and tiny grunts, newborn cries, tiny feet and hands, startled jumps, little stretches, frowns and smiles, nursing smacks and milk dribbles…..contented baby and blessed woman.

Watch the DVD trailer here:

See more about why you should have this movie here.

Paul has been working on a new website www.familyworkforum.com It is a website that encourages family entrepreneurship. Family Work Forum, is a meaningful exploration of legitimate opportunities for families to turn their hearts towards home while still earning a living to put food on the table.

It is still very much in the baby stage, but he hopes to build over the next few months to something substantial. The FAQs are still being written.
The Family Work Forum will contain a wealth of business and entrepreneurship ideas and articles. It also will be home to many blogs on various subjects for business owners to post information, updates, ramblings etc. etc.

The Birth Dynamics blog will be moving over to The Family Work Forum soon. I have already posted a couple of repeat articles out there. http://familyworkforum.com/?q=blog/3