Building

It has been a year now since we started building our home. Its amazing how excited you are in the beginning... discouraged, hopeless and tired in the middle and then numb at the end. I thought I would be doing back flips when we finished but I was so tired it took me the whole summer to recover and start feeling better again. Now that the house is built it feels so worth it but there were many times in the middle I wished we never signed up to build our own. But we love our home and it is kind of fun to know every inch of it because we did the work ourselves. I also picked up a lot of skills that will come in handy when it comes time to finish the basement. :)

I remember showing up for the first day of building with a skip in my step and so naive about how it was really going to be. After hauling wood for several hours by myself it soon hit me how terrible it was about it be. I think the only way I survived was having other people struggling there with me. I kind of feel bad for anyone that had to work with me, I am sure I complained way more than my share. But when the wind freezes your tears to your face its hard to keep positive. We liked to joke that we would have made terrible pioneers. We had gloves, hats, huge coats, warm boats and other luxurious the pioneers didn't. But I still felt so cold I could barely move. I think I would have been that pioneer that the group decides to tie to a tree and leave because I would have complained so much. :)

A couple who is about start the next group of winter building came over and talked to us a while ago. It was cute to see their excitement, I just didn't have the heart to tell them what they were really getting into. I think sometimes it is best just to let people get into things, struggle and then they will be happy with their house in the end. Any amount of hope you can hold on to during the process is needed. So they are heading into the storm with eager excitement.

One nice part about building our house was me having to face my fears. I was terrified to use a nail gun. When we did our safety training we got to hear all the horror stories of people being shot in the neck or nailing their hand to a wall. I remember shaking and holding it so gently in the beginning. I had to use it so much by the end I could have shot a apple off someones head. It was something I could use with my eyes closed. I never once got hurt by one either. I am also terrified of heights. We had to use ladders a lot and one day I guess I set it on a wall that still needed to be stabilized. When the ladder fell out from under me I reached up and grabbed on to one of the ceiling trusts just in time. I was hanging over the stair pit and could hardly breath (I also had a huge fear of falling in the stair pits). But I was able to swing over like a monkey to safety. The second time I fell off the ladder it had slipped on ice. Luckily I was able to jump away from the ladder so it didn't catch my legs on the way down. I think the two worst injuries I got was a black eye and I scalped my head once. I got the black eye from hitting out a piece of wood so hard it bounced out and hit me in the face. I should have had my hard hat on for the other injury (I learned fast after that one). I hit my head on some wood standing up and looked up and some of my hair and skin was on the wood. I had a little bald spot on the top of my head for a little while. The comb over hair do worked wonders. :)

I am looking forward to this winter. It will be nice to only have to go outside if I want to, not because I have to.

Spider Trouble

This weekend I was all ready for bed and starting to fall asleep. My Husband walks in and starts punching the edge of my side of the bed right by my feet. I asked him what in the world was wrong with him. I guess there was a big spider right by my feet. He killed it for me. I thought for a minute there he had lost it. :)

I could not for the life of me fall asleep after that. I made a little cocoon for myself in my blanket. Just my face was out so I would be protected from more spiders. My Husband was falling asleep and I asked him how he could just fall asleep when I am so freaked out and why he isn't comforting me. Next thing I know this large hand comes out of nowhere and cups my face. I screamed because I thought for sure I was being attacked by spiders. My husband was just reaching over so he could give me a pat to get me to be quiet so he could go to sleep. I finally just had to get up and go read a book. I don't mind spiders in the light where I can see them. But if its dark and I have no clue if they are crawling on me I can hardly stand it. The next day my sweet husband sprayed for spiders and we have all slept better since. :)

Fall

I LOVE fall! I am just hoping we get a little more of it. It has been cold. I felt like we went from summer to winter too fast last week. But it has been feeling better outside this week. Believe it or not we still don't have the swing set put together. We are missing parts out of the box. So I ordered some new chains and thought that was all we were missing. Last night we tried to put up the other stuff and found out we are missing more. By the time we get it all up it will be snowing. Oh well, hopefully by next Spring we will be all set up and ready to go.

We have loved having the grass outback. It makes it a lot more fun to be out there. I just wish we would have done it at the beginning of the summer so we could enjoy it more. In the Spring we are going to work on getting some shade back there. I have been looking at building our own pergola. It looks like it wouldn't be too bad. I guess after you have helped build 6 houses nothing seems too bad.

I have less than 4 weeks until the baby comes. I am starting to get excited. I love those first few weeks when you get to just cuddle and enjoy their warm little bodies. It will be fun to have someone to cuddle during the winter time (My toddler is just too cool to cuddle her Mom anymore).

Since we have been married we have always gone to one of our parents houses for Thanksgiving. I will just be a week or two out from having a baby so we decided to do a Thanksgiving with just the four of us here at the house. I am kind of excited to have leftovers. We have always been guests so we don't get to enjoy the leftovers after. When we were first married we decided to cook a turkey. We both didn't think about the amount of time it takes to thaw. So our turkey, which was supposed to be a lunch thing ended up being ready around midnight. It was pretty funny. We learned a lot from that experience about cooking. So this time I will give it lots of time to thaw out. :) I love this time of year and am so excited to not be building this holiday season. It will be such a blessing just to be able to enjoy my little family and be warm inside. :)

Stuck Indoors...

This has been a long, boring week. It has rained all week and we have been stuck indoors with nothing to do but bother each other. My husband decided to work today so I have another day at home alone with the toddler and puppy. I love them but can't stand another minute.

Normally the rain wouldn't bother me and my daughter. We would go out and do some shopping or something, maybe visit someone. But I feel guilty leaving the dog at home alone. She freaks out if she is alone. Maybe its the pregnancy hormones that make me extra sensitive but she gives me a lot of anxiety.

This morning I was trying to walk to the fridge and my daughter had a hold of my shirt and was trying to hang on it. She was whining because she wanted something that we were on our way to get but she couldn't wait another second. Then the dog runs up and starts biting my pants and I had to drag her too. There is too much love going on in this house, I need some alone time. :)

Being trapped inside this week has made me extra nervous for this winter. I will have a newborn to add onto the pile. I had an idea of making an emergency boredom box for this winter. I wanted to fill it with bags of coloring pages and crayons, playdoh, blocks, stickers, and different activities to pull out and rotate. I am hoping if I keep my toddler busy that it will help keep the peace around here. Now if I could just get the puppy to grow up faster I would be set....