Whew what a summer

I'm finally back. This summer has been a long, hard, extremely tiring one but also a very gratifying one. As you have read in my previous posts we have been waiting on the sale of our shop. Many months of constant worry, environmental tests, lots of hopeful people coming through we finally did it. Yes we sold our shop. Finally someone came in and wanted our shop. They did not buy the business because they intend on turning it into a micro-brewery. We took quite a cut because as we were getting all the logistics together we found out that most of the land in the back of the building that we had been operating on for 11 years wasn't ours. Now that was a huge surprise. I guess the previous owner had grandfathered that particular piece of land in with I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine kind of deal with the town. Well that didn't help us. The minute the town figured out we were selling it was the minute they reclaimed their land. The grateful thing was the new owners were aware of this and had already went to the town and figured things out before they put an offer on our building. God was with us all the way. One thing we were terribly worried about was the environmental study. This is where they take core tests on different pieces of the land to see if their is contamination. We were worried only because for the past 50 years it had operated as a machine shop. In that particular kind of business who knows what could be laying quietly.
So now here we are with a sold shop and the rest of our lives before us. My husband and I feel like teenagers just getting out of high school. So many choices so many ways we can take the rest of our lives. Do we move to the caribou like we always dreamed if so where in the caribou? Or do we move to the Island and be near the ocean like we always dreamed? As you can see we don't know where we should go. Island beautiful weather little bugs. Caribou lots of cheap land, cold winters, lots of bugs, beautiful place to live. The Island is so expensive and where we could afford is Port Alberni. A very pretty little city but right in tsunami zone. They say we are due for the big one so do we really want to take that chance. The Caribou is open country, very affordable, and I could be self sustainable there which I always wanted to be. But that too opens a challenge. At our age do we want to go into farming and be locked to our land by our animals or do we want to be carefree? Could we even do it or are we getting too old to take an adventure like that on? I believe I can do it but my husband has serious issues with his leg. I don't know what we should do. We have prayed for an answer but at this moment I believe God is working in his one step at a time mode.All I can do is patiently wait till God shows us the next step as hard as that may be.
So now that I have explained where our heads were, why was I not able to write? Well think of a great great grandmas house with all the knick knacks and things that have been collected over several years well that was a piece of cake compared to emptying a shop that has been running for over 50 years. Oh my goodness the clutter that accumulates for the one day maybe fix it job. I think the funniest thing that happened to me why we were cleaning the shop was the day I had swept the shop with a small broom because it was lighter and I had been sweeping honestly for about six hours non stop when my husband comes over to me and says honey you don't need to make it that perfect because the place is being stripped in three days. At that moment I didn't know if I wanted to scream or laugh. Instead I started to laugh. The whole stripping of the shop brought our family closer. I've never seen my boys work as hard as they did always there to come up with new ideas, always there to help with something.My daughter making sure the house didn't fall apart while I wasn't there. As the shop became more empty I saw a satisfaction on their faces and a relief on my husbands. Finally we were getting out of a huge responsibility. I will always remember this summer as a great turn in our lives and a time when our family really worked together as a team. If ever adversity happens I know I have a very dependable family I can turn too. What a blessing.