Here I am

Though I never intended to let two full months pass without nary a blog entry, I've done it and that's that. But here I am to share the latest.....not sure if I can sum up two and a half months of the Akiki Chronicles in one post but I'll at least get started. The most resent news is God is absolutely amazing and I love him so. Okay, so I should start a little before that. In early September, we were heartily praying about what in the world we should do next, do for income, do about our debt (desperately wanting to get out of debt especially after listening to Financial Freedom with Jim Sammons....SOOO hairy good, and I highly, HIGHLY recommend it...more on that later...), do about Texas (stay here or move), la la, we had so many huge decisions to make that we were beginning to despair. Then God sent us to NC for a few weeks to pray for our dear friend Steve Hingle and be with our friends there. While there, the Lord showed us, somewhat what to do, which was to sell our place here in Texas and move. So, we came home with that intent. But here we are a couple of weeks later with no income and asking God, what in the meantime? Here's where we differ from the mainstream (hold up, stop the clock, the Akiki's are by no means mainstream in any sense of the word, so when I say Here we differ, that doesn't make a hankin' lot of sense, but bare with me), one would logically say, Uh, hello, man get job...problem solved. After all isn't that what we should do? Well, something in us said no, though it makes no logical hairy sense and we couldn't understand it. But what about your business you say? John was ready to stop soap (but not really...that's a whole different post...) and didn't feel he should landscape anymore so what do we do until our place sells? Two days ago, Tuesday, we were praying and John decided to fast and pray about this caution we feel about taking a job right now. It's so weird I tell ya and he's getting ALOT of pressure from the outside to get a "job". Now we know that he very well could and that'd not necessarily be wrong, but it wouldn't be God's best for us right now and that's what we want (John's words). So, despite all this conflicting thoughts he's had on the subject, we were going with what God told us. Okay, yesterday, he decided to fast and pray for 48 hours, and the kids and I prayed for the Lord to clearly show dad something before we started school, and as we were praying that, John got a call from a friend, well actually we don't know them very well, it's the sister of a friend and the Lord had laid us on their hearts so they extended an invitation for us to come there and they would pay John to help them build their house!! Voila, income!!! God be glorified. It was as if he said, "I'm here, don't ever doubt my love for you." We were so amazed at God's timing and all that. So I'll leave you with that so you can revel in God's goodness and I'll share more later.

Color

I've yet to meet any other people who are as into color as John and I. I mean...we really like colorful things. It's funny. Due to a potty accident from the toddler (thanks for the incentive Thatch) we tore out the carpet in our bathroom and painted. Now, mind you we don't live in our dream mud house yet, but we do like beauty, so we're trying to make the best with what we got. Good plan, eh? So we painted. John's idea of the color "lime" was the outer skin of the fruit where I was thinking more the inner light color. And we were gonna do the floor blue, I was thinking dark navy, he opted for bright, but it turned out great and we liked it. And because I can't just paint and leave it at that, I had to add a little pinache, flair, whatever you call it. So the plan was a squiggly from ceiling to floor to opposite wall to ceiling, so I mixed the two colors (outer skin lime and bright blue) and white and the result??? GROOVY! The wall squiggly turned out blue and the floor squiggly turned out green. So cool.

More zippin'

In my last post, some of the pics weren't that good, but I'll try to get better ones. Here's a short video of Gabe zip lining. :)
~I really should do You Tube...this video is a little whizzey..sorry.~

Zip-it!!

We decided life can't be all work and no play. After all it is the play that makes the work more tolerable, even enjoyable. So we decided to put more energy into planning "fun"...what do I mean plan fun? Well, we want a natural swimming pool...we have to put more effort into making that happen...we want to help the kids build a clubhouse...again, focus. We can't spend our lives working like mad cats and never having fun. No please. So to start our new "fun" tradition. We ziiiiiiiiiip!!! (Note: Don't let this deceive you into thinking that prior to this we were no fun....laughing, happy kids attest to our grooviness.) So back to the zipping, John decided that zip line madness needed to come to our home. His dad put one up for him when he was a boy and he wanted his kids to have one too. Well, not only the big kids, but the toddler is LOVING this new idea. John took Thatch and Cherish halfway down the line, set up the ladder and had them go from there. Weeee. But once the ladder moved to it's orginal *high* starting point, he decided he need to go from there too. So, yes, our 2 year old, does whole 90ft line. Sweet mama, he's brave, eh? So this is how it goes, I climb the ladder, John hands him up, I lift him over my head, John runs in case he drops and he squeals with delight. Actually, by nature, Thatch doesn't squeal, he grunts, and swings his arms in this macho-monkey-man type pose as if to say, "Um hmm, beat that." And for all of you who gasp at the danger of it, just know we had him do it multiple times from the lower part before we let him tackle the high side, and John runs with him, and I say in a repetitive quicklike manner, "Thank you Jesus he won't fall, thank you Jesus he won't fall, thank you..." So it's all good.




Oh, and yes, Cherish does it too, but she hasn't scaled the heights her younger brother has yet. Feminine wisdom?

I think, I can

We've tried gardening before with minimal success. This year was better, but our goals soar even higher. We want sustainable living. Self-sufficiency. Mmmm, breath it in. Ahhh. So I'm canning like a crazy woman. So far, we've done green tomato relish, squash relish, potatoes (not sure how these will jive but we were given several free potatoes so...), rotel, and BLUEBERRIES!! Yum! Still to come is more rotel and/or tomato something, jams(oh, I forgot we did strawberry freezer jam...yumomanificient!)...which will include wild grapes that grow on our property...I did blackberry but we didn't get much and have already eaten it all :(, and PEACHES!! Yum! Today was a big day well, I'm not done yet, just taking a breather. It's fun and I'm learning. We hope to have even more next year...did I say that already? John's planted some trees and we are getting more in the fall (fruit and nut). It's so fun.

Back to my canning....I've decided the time is drawing nigh when I should write my own cookbook...my husband has said I should for years, my boys tell me at least biweekly that I should, and after making relish I've decided, they're right. Who writes these recipes?? In the words of our wise 6 year old, "They must be sugar pigs." I halfed the sugar in the recipes I had for relish...half I tell you and less than half in some cases because we don't like things overly sweet. Well, they were too sweet by Akiki standards and we were all bummed. So I revamped the recipes and will NOT conform. I'm bummed because of all the work I put into it and it would be so yum if not for the extra sweetness. It is beyond our comprehension how people can palate foods that sweet. I was wise to the sweet ploy by the time I made rotel and it is just right...finally. So here's to better success with my own recipe!


The kids oinkin' the rest of the blueberries.






Pretty berries!


















So far....







Our garden...to be bigger next year.

Zevulun Kade

Bath time...hey, what's that?

Family photos

I thought I had a good camera but I'm seeing my friends pics and thinking, those look better...oh well, contentment is bliss. We did some photos and here they are...I'll blog more later, gotta get off this machine. :)