The House Goat: December 2022

“Do you want to come over? It’s muddy, don’t wear nice shoes.”

This feels like my motto the last couple months. Before you jump into this:

imagine pulling up to a wire fence with wooden posts that have seen better days, covered in trees in some places, dried out vines in others, and a black mailbox that is slightly dented in the middle. The gate is open and you see a dirt path but no visible house and it all looks kind of… forgotten. Being the adventurer you are you decide to pull in, you wonder if that twig is gonna scratch your car, then you round a little bend and see signs of life… a kid tractor, a swing set, bikes, flowers that recently froze over and a house that someone started painting but didn’t finish. Your skepticism dies down a bit because your friend could probably live here. A cat sleeps on the front porch with no intention of looking for or killing creatures (minus the occasional venomous acorn, (he’s a vegan) and when he’s done with said acorn he will place it in your shoes you left outside because they were caked in mud). He opens one eye at you and wonders if you too are going to hold him upside down like the smallest person in this household does. No? Ok great, you may proceed. In you come, Welcome! It’s not as forgotten as you thought. They must have tried hard. Coffee? “Always!” you say because all the good people say that.

“Oh wow I haven’t seen a stove with coils since my childhood,” you think.

This feels like your grandma’s house a bit, in a good way. And then we sit down to chat.

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How do I recount a year where we changed everything? Rob calls this change our mid-life retirement because it feels like retirement compared the pace of life we were stuck in before this. I’m going to miss a lot of pieces, as my mind likes to hold onto random bits and send more logical pieces to the scrap pile. I pulled out an old CD case on one of our drives from Midland to Dripping and y’all I knew EVERY SINGLE word to 47 songs from my jr. high and high school days. Now when I try to recall something important it’s like, *icloud is full* but without the option to purchase more storage. Good thing I know the whole third eye blind album from ‘97 though … just in case.

On June third we drove away from Midland. The same morning, the lady I had set up to clean the house that day called me and said, “I can’t clean this, there are too many people here working, and trash and dust everywhere.” The contractor led us to believe that he was done with the floors, fireplace and paint. He was not. And so we moved into an actual disaster area. (Note: my mother-in-law and her sister are saints and cleaned as much as they could before we got there) And more fun than paint and dust was a cricket infestation, broken shower and kitchen sink. Rob unpacked the uhaul and went back to Midland where he would work during the week until October. The kids were with my parents for the first week and so I joined the work crew painting mostly. “No Miss, we do it” False. Give me a paint brush. People were in and out for most of the summer. I finally just said I would paint the rest so people would be out of my house.

We joined the YMCA or as Johnny calls it the “Wyatt See Eight” and started a daily rhythm of “mom works out for an hour in hopes of being too tired the rest of the day to lose her mind” followed by an hour of pool time where I got a new sunspot on my face. We walked the land a lot, I found my pear trees and my hope that this was all gonna work out somehow. I began the endless rounds of cleaning construction dust from the walls and floor just to wake up to a new layer that had settled in. I would find myself standing barefoot at the bathroom sink at night with my toes curled under me. Unconsciously, my body was telling me this place couldn’t be trusted, it was trying to keep itself from the dust and hidden creatures waiting to suddenly appear. The worst thing about crickets is not that they are terrifying but that they jump and scare you. There was one in the girls’ closet and Nora stayed up almost the whole night for fear that it would “get her.” Another night Nora was thirsty due to her, “awake too long due to bug and lizard fear (oh yeah there were geckos all over the house too)” and I told her not to turn the lights on, just walk down the hall and grab her water. I went down the hall minutes later and realized by God’s grace she hadn’t noticed the THREE crickets in the hallway. After a couple rounds of pest control the crickets ceased to jump in our faces unexpectedly. That’s when the ants showed up.

We have a vaulted ceiling in the living room with a wooden beam down the center. It was infested with carpenter ants. You could see them come out during certain times of the day, thousands of them turning the brown beam black in little rippling pools as they crawled on top of each other. We cut the trees back away from the roof. Pest control came back out, and sprayed them. Then inevitably, what goes up must come down. Ants fell and covered my window sills, kitchen table, piano, and occasionally landed on people. The kids would come to ask me a question and I would act like I was lovingly playing with their hair while actually picking out little ants. We treated the beam over and over. It took months to get rid of them.

Summer:

Summer ended. We went to meet the teacher night and by God’s hand we met exactly the right people. Rob said hello to a worship leader at another church, whose wife then introduced me to a neighbor of mine, who then introduced me to another neighbor of ours. All of the sudden I had people again. I was invited to little gatherings from generous Christ loving women over and over, and with that gratitude I started to invite people over, over and over. To my surprise everyone said yes. I would push the newly fallen ants behind the piano, vacuum them off the rug right before they got here and prayed no one would find surprises in their hair when they got home. Midland taught us that community is everything. It’s the whole reason we moved really. To bring that kind of community to Dripping Springs. And that meant letting people into my mess of a property, my sky-diving ant infested mess of a house, and my skittish of new people heart.

I cried when I dropped the girls off at school. All dressed up and brave walking into a new place.

I dropped Johnny off too, shocked at how well he just walked right in and didn’t seem to mind watching me leave. Suddenly the house was quiet again and I had seven years worth of work to begin. I decided to clean up the leaves that had piled around the house and flower beds. I didn’t get too far before a new shock of country life hit me. I pulled back a pile of leaves and disturbed a bed of baby snakes that then exploded in every direction. I called Rob and asked him to bring back some baby cats. Little did we know that boy cats are not the hunting kind. Here we enter Bubbles and Kevin, brother cats that have no purpose other than entertaining our children. Welcome snakes. You are safe here.

And so a new normal began. And church began again. Never have I been with a group of people so consistently that all had the same goal and dream: to bring hope and Jesus to a community. We gathered just us (and our 11 children, now 12) and dreamed and prayed together and then opened the doors and have since just watched God move. It’s been a thing of beauty to watch a new church unfold. New people come in that you introduce yourself to and then talk with and then have dinner with and then cry with too. It’s been amazing to watch Rob walk away from oil and gas and live out his God given gifts of leadership and music. He’s just so naturally good at it. We’ve gotten to sing together consistently for the first time in 9 years. He’s written some amazing songs already. I could not be more proud of him saying, “yes” to a very different life for himself and for his family. Pictures below are him leading worship and baptizing the girls a couple weeks ago.

I still like to underachieve. But now I see it as a personality trait called “You must fail… but just a little bit.”

Exhibit A: I led worship at Redeemer Round Rock and it was one of those times where I was like man, that went so well. The Spirit was there and I was unhindered by my own nervousness. I got in the car and realized I had scratched a bug bite and had blood smeared very visibly across my entire calf, just below the hem of the dress I was wearing.

Exhibit B: You know when you are trying to get a pony tail just right? You grab your hair up, nope that's not it, new grab. Ah! That’s the money grab! Cute pony-tail self. Your gray stripe looks so cool too, great job, go meet those new friends with your cutie hair. Again… get in the car afterwards and realize the cutie hair also included a very long rat tail hanging out the back.

Exhibit C: I had three large babies, and with that came large bulging varicose veins. I finally got them fixed and all went well. How can you fail at this Danielle? Well, let me tell you. First the compression sock you must wear post procedure for 3 weeks comes with little plasticy grabbers at the top to keep it from sliding down. Wouldn’t you know that I would be allergic to those little plasticy bastards?! So not only does my leg feel 500 lbs but I also have 500 bright red hot spots on my thigh that burn like fire. Easy fix: just wear it inside out… and have it slip down your leg, all day every day. But wait there’s more. This year I figured out I was under-eating. And so I began to eat like I should have been and ta-da I felt a lot better and ta-da I gained 10 pounds, which is fine with me except it was not fine with my jeans. Especially already too tight jeans with a demon compression sock under them. We have one great clothing store here in Dripping so I set out on a mission to find some new jeans. Now if you haven’t worn a compression sock, one, good for you and your eternal youth genes, two, you must know getting one on is enough to make you sweat, get a side cramp, and say some bleeped out words. So here I am in the dressing room and I’m like I can’t try these jeans on with this sausage leg stuffed in a sock! So I take it off to try on pants. All is well, I go up a size and they fit like magic. But now I am in a tiny dressing room with a CURTAIN not a door and I have to shove a swollen bruised leg BACK into the demon sock. Do you remember Swiss Family Robinson where they fight the giant snake in the water? That was me with my leg in that dressing room. My foot was coming out and kicking around under the bottom of the curtain into the walkway as I wrestled that beast of a leg into sock submission. Bless those that had to see that foot thrashing around Lord God in your great mercy.

Fail. Just a little bit, it keeps you humble.

If you have made it this far, we're best friends now. Please come over and see us and I’ll show your kids all of our creatures and tell you my garden plans whether you want to hear them or not. Bring shoes you don't care about, it will be fun. You can stay in the tiny house (that will be on air bnb sometime soon). It all feels like home these days, my feet are flat on the floor now. I’m wearing my footsteps into new patterns and more intentional rhythms of life. There’s a lot of peace at the Goatstead, whether it be on the porch or in the middle of the forest and I know it’s not just for us. It’s for you too. You are welcome here.

Songs/Albums of Year:

Medium Tempo - Rob Goates

Anywhere With You- Mat Kearney

Dreaming in Electric Blue - Dave Barnes

When the lights Go Out- Patrick Droney

It’s our time- The Light the Heat

Weatherman- Wild Rivers

Most listened to Album:

Anywhere with You- Mat Kearney (seriously every song is good)

Books Read:

The Old Testament 5/5

Messy Minimalism 4/5