Hello friends and supporters.  Hope the summer has found you well.  Some of you may have missed our monthly newsletters and our not so frequent blog articles.  Well it seems that our move to the country has turned out to be a bigger endeavor than even we thought it would be.

With the new home, we realized we had a lot of "barn" work ahead of us which prompted us to suspend the newsletter temporarily.  The old barn needed to be remodeled into a woodworking & metalcrafting workshop and a new barn needed to be built to house the Sew Many Paws mobile command center (aka the RV). 

The thing about building a barn we've discovered is that every step in the building process takes longer than originally planned.  Plumbing work caused us to have monumental landscaping work that had to be taken care of while barn building.  A muddy, grassless trench to our dogs seemed to say "walk here".  Trying to get grass seed to grow quickly in clay ground soon led us to the brilliant decision that maybe "sod" was a better way to go.  GREEN SIDE UP of course.  :-) 

Each step in the moving/landscaping/building process has become a reason for celebration but none more so than this week when we finally started to install the red steel to the sides of the barn.  From our customers viewpoint, the "end in sight" for the building of the "Big Red Barn" means that our newsletter will soon be back to publication.  We do wish to thank all of our clients whose patience this summer allowed us to take longer than normal to fill orders. 

Our goal of finishing the Big Red Barn, took another setback this week with the rain but barring any emergencies, we can get back to normal living.

The lessons we've learned from our barn building experience is that
a) where there's a will there's a way 
b) a day of rest will rejuvenate your body & your spirit
c) when overwhelmed at the task ahead, take it one step at a time
d) a tough job is made easier when a friend helps

And last but not least remember to take a play day occasionally to help keep the laughter in your life.