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The Baughman Homestead

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If you had asked me a few years ago about retirement, we were planning to buy a motor home and travel across the country. We had a nice home without a mortgage, a significant amount of money in the bank, and we were taking several nice vacations a year. We were counting down the days until retirement, and we were planning to climb the mountains. Little did I know that life was going to take a different turn. We began homesteading a year ago when we bought a house older than we are, renovated it, and now we rarely leave home. When I told a friend that we were planning to stay home for our wedding anniversary this year, she said if I had your house, I wouldn’t go anywhere either. I laughed but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t want to go anywhere and I was content with staying home.  When we sold our house and moved a few miles across town, it was more than a move, it was a lifestyle change. We haven’t moved a lot, but we have lived in a few different...
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Another Milestone Birthday

They say age is just a number and my number this year is 60. I’ve been dreading this birthday for months and now that it’s here. I’ve come to realize that each day brings me a day closer to retirement and a day closer to the end . . . the end of this life and on to eternity.  Any birthday number that ends in zero, feels like a life changer. When I turned 50, I felt vibrant, healthy, and energetic. We were hiking and checking off some crazy and somewhat dangerous bucket list hikes. But 60 feels different. I still feel healthy, I still have several hikes on my bucket list, but like many people, I am fighting to keep the energy going. Although Ecclesiastes may not be the best book in the Bible to go to on a milestone birthday, it is a book with a few things to say about life, aging, and the end of it all. The verse I want to share is Ecclesiastes 12:1, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.”  What does it mean to “Remember your Creator?” It means to know Him, to love H...
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Why Michigan

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Why  Michigan? With all the fabulous places we’ve gone on vacation, Michigan has never been at the top of my list.  So, why did we go there for vacation? Well, for two reasons. #1) Indiana is on the way so we spent our first night at my sister’s house and then we met up with our daughter who took great care of our little boy while we were gone. We are always thankful for a free and reliable dog sitter! We were also able to spend time with our daughter on our way back. #2) Michigan is a state we had never been to and I needed to color it in on my map (yes, I have a map, on the wall, in my craft room). We have 15 more states to go!   So, what did I think of Michigan? Not my #1 vacation spot, that’s for sure. We started the week in Gaylord, Michigan and took the ferry to Mackinac Island. This was the highlight of our trip because we had heard about Mackinac for years and had never been. It was cold that morning on the boat ride but the weather while we were there was...
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A Year of Loss

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If you ask me about 2022, the first word that comes to mind is loss.    I lost money in my crypto account. I lost money in my retirement account. I lost a few pounds, and I lost my car in the parking lot, not once but several times. Some losses are small and not important. I can recover from financial losses, I will probably gain the pounds back, and I will eventually find my car in the parking lot. Other losses hurt deep and stay with you forever.   I lost a grandchild in 2022. When our youngest son and daughter-in-law first started talking about children, I didn’t think much about it, telling them not to be in hurry. As time went on, and on, it became apparent that it wasn’t happening. Like so many couples, they started the very expensive and very difficult process of dealing with infertility which finally led them to IVF. With only one fertilized egg, we thought our prayers had been answered and we celebrated the “miracle baby.” I was so excited that eve...
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The Notebook

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Have you ever gotten a new notebook or journal and it's so pretty that you don't want to write in it and mess it up? My daughter-in-law picked up a pretty spiral notebook and gave it to me about a year ago. I loved it 1) because it was from Brittney and 2) because it was given to me for no reason. She knows I always take a notebook to church to take sermon notes so she thought of me when she bought one for herself. The pretty notebook has sat in my kitchen untouched. Sometimes I would pick it up, look at it, and put it back down. It wasn't that I didn't want to use it    — it was that I wanted to write something special in it and I didn't know what to write. I wanted the words on the pages to be as special as the notebook.  Our pastor preached a sermon on the Sunday before Thanksgiving called "Every Day should Be Thanksgiving."  As he preached, I thought several times about my mother who had an amazing heart of gratitude. After she died, my sister and I fo...
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Road Trip

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We took our small RV on a trip — not just any trip but a 4700-mile road trip. Our adventure took us from Knoxville, Tennessee to Rapid City, South Dakota with stops along the way in Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa. Here are a few thoughts and helpful comments about our trip that might be useful if you ever want to follow in our footsteps. The Camper - As you may remember, we bought a camper two years ago. Our camper sleeps two on a short queen bed; has a small table, refrigerator/freezer, microwave, bathroom with a very small shower, and a good amount of storage. With a dry weight of 3500-lbs, we pull it with our Toyota Highlander. The camper is not anything fancy, but it's paid for and it works for us. Now the real test was taking a long road trip and spending 16 days together in such a small space.   All our campsite reservations were made ahead of time, and I had each day's agenda planned out. Yes, I even had a binder with tabs. One more...
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The Simple Truth (from God's Word)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1).  He created male and  female (Gen. 1:27).  They (one man and one woman) were joined together (in marriage) as one flesh (Gen. 2:22-24).  They had an amazing place to live and everything was perfect. And then, here comes trouble -- or we’ll call it temptation. Adam and Eve had a choice to make and they made a bad one. They chose to go against what God said and chose to do what they wanted instead (Gen 3:4-5).  Now we have a problem — a sin problem. Man’s relationship with God has been messed-up because of sin (Gen 3:1-19). We now have a separation between man (the created) and God (the creator). The penalty for any and all sin is death (Rom 6:23).  Romans 5:12, "Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned." Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."   So, did God create us ...
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