God's Little Miracles

I'm so amazed at how faithful God is in our lives! John has been burning out ... I had no doubt that he is close to burnout if something didn't change. So, without really being sure we could do it financially, we made the decision for him to take some shifts off. And then God orchestrated some things at work that will make that DOABLE. I am so glad he is going to be able to work less shifts. The post-Covid world has left the ER SO SO SO busy. John used to go at about 70% "steam" on his shifts. Lately, he's been going at 120% steam. This makes his need for recovery time all the more important, and with 13 shifts a month (plus all the meetings he has to go to as Director), there is just not enough recovery time. In addition, anytime he takes a vacation, he has to squeeze his 13 shifts into the remaining weeks of the month making vacations feel more like "punishments" when he returned. Either way, some changes have come to pass at work -- bigger and better than anything we could have dreamed up. And those changes will allow us to make some changes. 

We also have exciting news in the puppy-arena. Raven is due with another litter on August 5th. Yipee! We contemplated skipping the heat because the puppies will only be a few weeks old when we go to Vermont. But ultimately, we decided to go for it. Truly, we left the decision up to Abigail who is our biggest-puppy-proponent. Was she okay missing up to two weeks of their lives for Vermont? In the end, the possibility of letting Raven do five litters becoming smaller if we waited another six months and the fact that having puppies in the winter is just plain exhausting and COLD, lead us to decide to let her go for it. We made the decision, put them together, and within minutes, we could not take the decision back.

Company and summer adventures abound here in TN. My niece Baylee has been with us for about three weeks. 

The pictures above are of our friend's little girl: Edie. After three boys, they have a girl! And she's a sweetie pie. Edie was here because one of her brothers was here. Our farm is filling up with young boys who want to help us on the farm this summer. So exciting!