Because This Was Just Too Easy...

Or we're handling it too well. Or there are evil spirits trying their best to thwart my efforts not to erupt like Vesuvius. Or just to throw a little creativity into the mix... Whatever the reason, we've just received a bit of bad news.

I'm stealing Sarah's mantra for this weekend:

I am a glacier. I am cool. I am calm. I am chilled. I am freakin' enormous and I will wear down anything in my path. I am cool. I am calm.

Remember when I paid this month's rent and asked for an extension to our 30-day notice? They said, "As long as we haven't rented your unit, sure!" I paid for the full month, and they cashed the full check. I called back twice that week to verify, but they still hadn't been able to find the records. They said they'd call if there was a problem.

That was three weeks ago.

They called tonight.

They found the paperwork. And it seems there is a family scheduled to move in Monday. Yes. Monday. Four days from now. (Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat mantra.)

The leasing lady had already called the new family and explained the snafu to them. They graciously agreed to wait until the 28th to move in. But that doesn't give us until the 28th to get out. Oh no. The office said they'll need us to hand in the keys on Monday. They need to "get the apartment ready", and with Thanksgiving coming, they'll be closed Thursday and Friday, so they really need the keys Monday. In the AM. (Repeat mantra, start eyeballing the Khaluah.)

Okay...

Well, suffice it to say that Zorak, Dragon Slayer and Wonderful Provider, responded to the news as any provider would when faced with the very possible fear that he will not be able to provide. If this were someone else's life, I'd have found it funny that Mr. Uber Middle Child, who has spent the last ten years begging his Gypsy Wife to please-for-the-love-of-God-shut-up-and-stop-rocking-the-boat, suddenly began shouting, "WELL, I trust that you gave them a piece of your mind! You let them have it, didn't you?"

But it's not someone else's family, and so, it was just weird.

Um... no. (It's been a while since I've spiked coffee... how much would actually help?)

So, he and Wonderful Neighbor are still there, working out the initial panic attack. I asked one of the ladies from church to come take the boys to the park Friday afternoon (so I can speedpack). Claudia said she'd come help me finish the packing on Saturday. I will ask the Apt. Office if we can at least keep the garage through the end of the month.

When Zorak gets home, we will brainstorm the best way to mangle er, manage the situation and get heat into the house by Monday. When the lows are in the 50's, we can camp, but they've dropped into the mid-20's, and we aren't polar bears, so the heat needs to happen n-o-w.

John has another dentist appointment in the morning. We'll have been working several hours by that time, and then it's back into the fray. The boys and I had some extra snuggle time and an abbreviated family meeting tonight. We talked about the team effort. I let them know ahead of time that yes, I know this won't be a fun four days, and I understand. I let them know that we love them and that while my love for them will last forever, this stage in the process will not. I tucked them in with kisses and affirmations of total acceptance... and within just a few minutes, had two of three snuggled in my bed. Somehow, I think they get it more than they let on. So I laid down with them and stroked their sleepy heads, made them giggle, and kissed their brows.

Yes, I am calm. To panic right now would be to guarantee our failure. We may not manage to pull this off, but we owe it to ourselves and the children to try. Blogging may be light, or crabby, over the next four days. Please bear with us, and we'll return to our regularly scheduled perspective shortly.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Classical Unschooling

And out of nowhere, a homeschooling post!

I've read several posts and messages the past few days that revolve around life upheaval and the decision to put children in school for a while. For the most part, it's all gone over my head, as it's just not an option for us. But today, after the four thousandth thread on the topic, I started to a) question my sanity, and b) wonder "why". So, lucky you, y'all get to sit in on this mulling session while my children forcefeed bathwater to a rubber crocodile. If the croc dies soon, though, this may be an abbreviated post.

A) The question of my sanity. I prefer to table this part of the discussion. The jury is out, being bribed, and will not be allowed out of the room until it no longer matters, or the verdict returns in my favor. I simply can't afford an indictment at this point.

There, that was easy.

B) Why? Why are we homeschooling? Why are we keeping the children at home amidst all the upheaval and chaos? Why don't we "just send them to school for a while"? Thankfully, nobody has come right out and asked us these questions. It may be that they trust that we make the decisions we feel are best for the boys. It may be that they're afraid of my German/Irish temper. It may be that the people in our lives realize it's just not their business and they wouldn't ask us anymore than we would ask them why they send their children to public school, or to private school, or buy boxers rather than briefs. I don't know. But now I'm asking myself, and that's okay. Even if the discussion turns sticky, I can't not speak to myself for more than four hours at a time, so the repercussions can't be that bad.

We homeschool for more reasons than we had with our Starter Set, that's for certain. Some are altruistic. (This is what's best for them.) Some are ideological. (This is the responsibility we have as US citizens, and we must prepare them to be productive, capable citizens.) Some are purely, wonderfully, deliciously selfish. (We really like being with our children.) Pick a reason, other than religious (well, no, even then, I do feel this is the stewardship God has given me - it's a doozie, and doesn't require I use Abeka or BJU, but I guess even that could be considered a religious reason), and your odds are good that you will hit on at least one reason from our list.

The chaos may adjust goals and plans, but it doesn't negate the reasons we do what we do -- it only alters the way in which we go about it. We certainly take a different route to achieving our lessons and making progress (and, yes, there are some things that are simply on hold until further notice). We don't, however, stop learning, stop reading, stop spending time together, stop having discussions with our children, simply because things have grown wonky. We don't believe James would receive anywhere near an adequate education in the public school system. We don't believe John would be nurtured academically in an institutional setting. And there is no way on God's green earth I'm leaving Smidge with somebody when he can't even tell me what's gone on while I was away! (But that's a whole other post.) We don't believe the boys would be given the preparation to handle life, learning, or loving any better in someone else's care.

So here we are, unschooling in a most academic manner. Or perhaps it's "Classic Lite", just as filling, but in smaller portions. It's possible we are not currently considered Classic Homeschoolers at all, but rather on hiatus from the Classical realm. (I still haven't read Climbing Parnassus, you know...) This is not what I envisioned three years ago. It's not what I planned six months ago. But it's going, and we're doing. Why stop? Why send them off each day? What would they truly get from doing that?

For some, there are positive answers to that question. For us, there are none. True, we're remodeling a house, and that takes a disproportionate amount of our time and other finite resources. Would the boys actually receive more attention, education, and nurturing in an institution each day? No, they wouldn't. Nor would all our blocking in the house be covered in penciled-in CVC combinations and geometry equations.

Yes, I could accomplish much, much more if I were able to hop in and out of plumbing stores and lumber yards with just me and my belly. Would the socialization the boys receive in an instutional setting surpass the quality of learning how to conduct business, figure bids, solder pipe, and in general be polite and well-behaved in public? *snort* Not a chance. Is that trade-off worth it in the end? Not for us.

Yes, I'm pregnant, which means I am swollen, hormonal, have the memory of a brain-damaged goldfish, and would love nothing more than to sleep for days on end. But that's happened before, and it could happen again. I've tried to find a lab that will offer short-term cryogenics so I can suspend the boys in time and defrost them later... but that's just selfish. They're going to live and learn and grow and change. It's my challenge to be there for all of it, even amidst the chaos of life itself. After all, that's what. this. is.

This is life.

This is our life.

It's not always easy.

But it is always good.

I can't change that or trade that, and wouldn't want to if I could.

Every family is different, and that's something I believe wholeheartedly. This post isn't a condemnation of those who've chosen another route. Not at all. I will admit that I have a difficult time wrapping my mind around the concept that not having my children near me will somehow make it easier to raise them, but that's only one perspective on a situation - and it's not the one that matters unless the children in question are mine. Does that make sense?

I guess, in short, our "why" is the same as everyone's "why", regardless of the actual choices: this is what we know is right for us. I'm not a big fan of the subjective morality plays or the multicultural every-contribution-is-of-equal-value ideology, but I am a huge fan of the family unit and its freedom and responsibility to make each decision an informed decision, and the one that IS best for that family. A year from now, our dynamics will have changed drastically. The boys will have grown tremendously. We will be different people who must, occasionally, as MFS highlighted in a quote recently (that wasn't the point of her entry, but it certainly stuck with me throughout the day), give a nod to the people we were today. Last year. Ten years ago. We want to be okay with that, and above that, we want to enjoy it. We want to smile and wave at ourselves of today. So that's what we'll do. And we'll recognize one another because we took the path we knew was right for us.

Yup. That's why.

The croc does sound like it's in need of help, though, and we have Pioneer Club in a few hours, so I'm going to pile them on the couch with some protein and read a good book with them. After all, this is life.

Kiss those babies! (And thanks for letting me ramble on the porch.)
~Dy

Our Zen Water Cave & Why We Needed to be Married to One Another

It was quite a day: our stove was ordered and greenrock hung above the tub, the sinks templated and marked for cutting, water pipe layout designed, and children herded like wild kittens; the "light thundershowers" forecast for today morphed into one heckuva downpour. Zorak and I headed to the basement to grab the specs on the wood stove, killing time to wait out the onslaught so we could leave between floods.

It was then I heard it. The Zen Water Garden. The gigantic, Buddha-sized Water Garden. The part of my brain that's in denial tried to say it was someone flushing the toilet, or perhaps doing laundry. The very small part of my brain that's still semi-functional insisted that no, we have nothing to flush, that's simply got to be a water fountain. (Notice I've said nothing about my brain being reliable in either instance, only that it disagreed with itself on several levels.) Anyhow, I followed the sound to the Scary Room, and there we found it...

The biggest indoor waterfall we've seen since we hit the Rocky Mountain Knife Factory in Pigeon Forge, TN. Fifteen feet long, eleven feet high, and flowing at an unknown - although thoroughly impressive - rate.

Hey, honey, I think we've found another leak.

Ya think??

Zorak made a funnel from a gallon jug and the garden hose while I went in search of tar paper. He got the funnel set up to catch the water, then trekked into the darkness to divert the water from the house. Yes, we have a tar paper gutter system on the ground now, but this was an emergency. And it worked. We have it staved off temporarily, but that does explain a lot, as well as confirm our plans to move the gutters and install a French drain along the back side of the house.

Since we closed on the home, the weather has been positively perfect (read: dry). The last two times it's rained, we've dutifully checked the basement, the walls, the attic. All have stayed dry. The Smell emanating from the yucky room seemed to increase, but that room is so nasty that it's difficult to tell when something's gone "wrong" in there. Poor Rufus, our dehumidifier, however, went from being able to run for about 36 hours before filling up, to less than 12 before he was stuffed. Huh. Well, yeah, indoor waterscaping can do that to the humidity level in a room.

Now, why, one may ask, does this story highlight how important it is that Zorak and I married each other? It's simple, really. In this case, we were both needed to make the problem not become an issue. He didn't hear the water, so if it wasn't for me and my bird-dog like sense of hearing, he wouldn't have found the waterfall at all. Yet if it wasn't for him and his quick engineering-type thinking, I'd still be sitting in the Scary Room, watching it flow, thinking, "Yeah, this is bad. I hope it stops raining soon so I can slap some tar on the foundation... *sigh*" But together, we found it and stopped it. YAY US!! Things like this make up for the times I forgot to wash the whites or he didn't hear me beg for creamer on his way home from work. It's good stuff, the way we work together. I wouldn't want to be married to anyone else. Ever. He's the best.

Kiss those babies, and those wonderful co-conspirator loved ones. What would life be without them? (Mine would be rather wet and soggy.)
~Dy

Don't Pass Out, BUT...

Our cabinets have been ordered!

If we had accomplished nothing else today, that would have been enough. I am satisfied. All is well. But wait, it gets better...

The Appliance Fairy dropped off a shiny new fridge!

Oh joy! It's huge, and the kitchen is empty, so it looks like an obscure tribute to crisp fruits and veggies - a large monolithic white... thing. And it's *sniff, sniff* beautiful.

But there's still more!

The midwives have several new clients up in our neck of the woods (which is, for their territory, more like the very tippy top of the head than the actual neck), and since there are so many of us who would be caravanning down to Birmingham for prenatals, they asked if they could use the house as the appointment spot for the Northern end of the state. Heckyeah! C'mon over! Granted, that means that at least one bedroom is going to need walls and perhaps flooring... maybe we'll roll out the red carpet and hang curtains for a little privacy... by mid-December, but that's okay. We can get ritzy and put in walls. It's for a good cause.

Zorak and I were really tickled that they felt comfortable asking us about it, and we were also thrilled that we're in a position to be able to help out. So many people have helped us in so many ways over the years. It feels good to open our doors, even if in such a small way, and be the ones doing the helping. Good stuff.

All is well with the baby. It's come to my attention that there are quite a few of the menfolk who read the blog, so I won't go all "pregnancy update" on you here. Just that she's fine. I'm fine. She's inherited Zorak's atomic elbow of death and if she doesn't move it soon... I'm getting scared. I stepped onto the scale, thinking, "Oh, this'll be funny." Um. Ok, shoulda defined "funny" before I got on. I weigh now just two small pounds less than I did when Smidge was born. I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking, "... gosh, but I FEEL so... well, less than that..." Zorak pointed out that the way I felt by the end of Smidge's pregnancy was (and I quote) "one of the unfortunate side effects of abject poverty". Ahhh, good point. Also, as I just realized this weekend, this is the first time I've ever been this pregnant in temps under 100'. I'm likin' it!

That's about it. Oh. No, wait, we also stopped by a plumbing supply place in Birmingham today. The folks there were wonderful. We were there for two and a half hours. The boys were wonderful. They had completely wormed their way into the hearts of every guy working there, and most of the industrial reps who came in during our stay. Not only did we walk out of there with a gazillion fittings and manifolds and a few bazillion miles of pipe, but it was at a good price, great customer service, and we are SET for indoor plumbing! Well, for cold water, anyway. We'll hook up the hot water after we have a water heater, and the propane to run it (you know, details, details, sheesh!) But all we'll need at that point is a bazillion miles of red PEX to go with it. WooHoo!

I'm off to tuck my sleeping angels in again and give them some sleeping 'nuggles (not that they notice or remember, but it feels so good, and sometimes mamas do things just because they really enjoy it), and then to rest, for tomorrow's another busy day!

Kiss those babies!
Dy

The Remodel, Day 17

Great day, progress-wise!

The bathroom is ready for greenrock. (That's sheetrock w/ mold resistant stuff in it, but ours isn't green, so I don't know why I'm still calling it greenrock. Good thing this isn't an official This Old House remodel blog or we'd be getting letters from angry drywallers.)

The living room is ready for heating.

There's a tent in the kitchen. How cool is that when you're seven and five and two? WAY cool.

We're going to "live" in the first bedroom for a while when we move in. It's backed against the wall w/ the wood stove, so nobody will freeze in the mornings.

The "shop" has been relocated from the living room and deck to the master bedroom and back deck. Hence, the room and safety aspect for the tent in the kitchen.

OH! And have y'all ever seen a Big Lots FURNITURE?!?!? Oh holy bat crap. This place is amazing! It's Big Lots, which we know and love, but it's ALL furniture. And I'm talking WOWSA, this place is nifty, FURNITURE! Anyhow, I've been looking for a futon mattress for several weeks now. We just wanted a thin (read: cheap) all-purpose pad. You know, something to keep the children from slipping between the bars on the futon frame. A place to, in true futon fashion, pass out when we just can't push on any more. Although we salvaged the frame from the curbside, we wanted a new mattress because... well, c'mon, futons aren't for the prudish... SO. Back to the story, futon mattresses are ridiculously overpriced! Did you know that? Ugh. We found one place online that sells them for $139, but when you add the seventy bucks shipping, there's no savings. So we popped in there yesterday. The conversation (may all future purchasing conversations emulate this one) went something like this:

Me: (openly drooling at the displays) Wooooowwww...
BLF Guy: Can I help you, ma'am? Lamps? Couches? A bib?
Me: Yeahhhhh... I need a futron mattress... and one of those barstools... no. No barstools. Just a futon mattress. Do you have those?
BLF Guy: (chuckles quietly) Yeah, what kind would you like?
Me: Cheap.
BLF Guy: The $79 one, then!
Me: Wow, you're good!

And he headed off to retrieve a lovely, cheap futon mattress for me. I followed slowly, wanting desperately to TOUCH THINGS, but knowing I was covered in grease and would leave many easily identifiable finger prints by which to track me down and make me pay for damages. But ohhhhh.....

BLF Guy came back with a HUGE mattress, rang it up, and then (BLESS HIM) carried it to the pickup for me. *happy sigh*

One. More. Change. To the cabinet order.
I'm not even going to venture a guess on the fridge.
The stove-related eye twitch is back.

But those are Zorak's things to handle. I'm good to go, otherwise.

We have a new mascot. He is The Poor Lizard that walked under a piece of paneling on the deck. He didn't make it. He did, however, dry out quite nicely, and James has adopted (?) him. Absconded with him? I don't know what you call it, but it's a boy and his pressed lizard remnants, and they are quite happy. Now if he'd quit leaving the thing standing upright on the banister (the critter is only three inches long, but it's disturbing to walk out there at night and be greeted by it in its three-legged dance of the dead pose!)

John is learning some not-so-fun lessons in personal responsibility. For instance, if you have gloves and you insist on putting them somewhere other than the tool table, you will lose valuable play time until you retrieve them. Your brother will lovingly help you look, but that offer caps out at three occasions per 24 hour period for the same. pair. of. gloves. Your mother stops speaking coherently after the fourth such occurrence, and you'd rather just suffer than ask her to help you look. However, last night as we headed out, he proudly announced that his gloves were on the tool table and aren't we proud! (Yes, sweetie, we are. These lessons are no fun at all, but you're learning them well. Good Job.)

Smidge decided yesterday that he'd really like a nap and since nobody seemed ready to go for a ride in the pickup with him, he just climbed onto the bench seat, folded his arms, and laid his head down. It was precious, but it broke my heart. I want my baby to fall asleep in my arms, not at some hard table. May this phase be over soon so we can get back to our regularly scheduled snuggling.

Midwife's appt today. Better get on the ball!

Kiss those babies!
Dy

He grabbed the camera!

Without further ado, here are some shots from the Forever Home!

The fun part of having such a long driveway is that you can ride in the back of the pickup to check the mail!
Ta-Da! Here we are, officially recognized by the US Postal Service! (Great job, guys!) The rocks in the wagon are now decoratively piled around the base of the post.
It took Smidge a bit to catch his breath at the bottom and answer when I asked if that was fun. I caught this shot just as he was breathily saying, "YES!"
This is for Donna. It is what passersby see from the road. With the leaves dropping considerably, you can *almost* see the house (but not quite). All that's really visible is one of the meadows, the barn, and our pickup. I tried to catch the sunlight before it left the treetops, but the boys had my attention up to this point.

And now, I really must get some rest. Thanks for stopping by the Front Porch.
~Dy

The Remodel, Day 16 Reprise

Zorak and James had a great time working together this morning. Zorak was, I think, a little surprised with the maturity and growth of his eldest spawn. He beamed, glowed, and in general, raved about how helpful and quick James is, how intuitive and on the ball he is, and what an excellent hand he makes. *he he* Ayup, he's growing up, that one. Of course, James also played in the sawdust when his plumbing apprentice work was done. It's important to have balance in one's activities.

John and Smidge had a wonderful morning of sleeping in, dressing slowly - it's imperative to do things slowly when you are two and five - eating eggs and sausage until they both sported some impressive puppy belly, and they were more than ready to head to the House when it was time to go. John picked Smidge's favorite CD (Freddy Fender) for the drive. We sang. We talked. John's a neat kid. He loves to smile, and he gets a lot about the good things in life. Smidge sang and squeaked from the back seat, just happy to have a book and good music.

I'm not entirely clear what we did today. We worked hard, but a lot of it was grunt work (at least on my part, it was). The boys and I did get the mailbox post hole dug and the post set. They put the numbers on the box once it was up, and then enjoyed a celebratory wagon ride down the steep-very-steep drive from the mailbox toward the house. If I can convince Zorak to retrieve the camera from the Suburban, I'll post some pictures.

Cabinet Guy called to check in. Bless him. I was supposed to call him back yesterday after we'd played around with the new fridge and were happy with the final layout, but since it never arrived, I didn't call. He knew the fridge was originally supposed to be delivered Wednesday, so he was a little stunned to hear it still wasn't here today. He listened quietly, then asked if they were going to go get it and bring it to us today. *no* Did they schedule a delivery for Monday? *um, no* What did they do? *they told me to call the warehouse myself on Monday and schedule a delivery* OH NO, says he, that's hogwash! (Says he - I don't use that phrase.) He handled it immediately and scheduled a deliery for us for Monday afternoon. Whew. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have an order in soon!

Oh, I got to fondle my faucets today. Serious perk. Even covered with fingerprints and plumber's putty, they're lovely. *deleriously happy sigh*

Tomorrow is HUGE. It's big. It's scary. It's coming. And it's going to be oh-so-good. I can't wait, and I really truly hope that Day 17 at least remotely resembles the To Do list sitting beside me at the moment. Keep yer fingers crossed!

And as always, kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Remodel, Day 16

The poor fridge guy got to the house this morning, only to find that the warehouse crew hadn't put ours on the truck.

Of course not.

*sigh*

Oh, but we can call "first thing Monday morning" and talk to them. Yeah, if we didn't have a midwife's appointment in Birmingham, we could do that.

*grrrr*

On the upside (there must be an upside to these things or I'll lose my mind!) James and Zorak left the house this morning at seven and had some great one-on-one time, breakfast in a cup, and now they're working on plumbing together. Gotta love that kind of stuff.

I stayed behind with John and Smidge, who desperately needed their rest. They are finishing up breakfast now, and we'll head out as soon as they're done.

Today should be a lovely day.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Remodel, Day 15

In short, this was a rough day. Full of ups and downs. That's exhausting.

The boys were amazingly wonderful. I wish I had the words to convey how much we truly enjoy them, but mere words fall flat. They're just so very good, and we appreciate them more with every passing day. Even Smidge, at two, is a joy and a team player, and a wonderful, helpful child. We're in awe, and in love, and oh, so thankful for them.

If only the rest of life were so deleriously easy to enjoy! We do enjoy it, but it takes a little more effort to stay chipper.

We keep setting parameters and defining goals so that upcoming scenarios can be managed. Inevitably, however, we have yet to hit on a *black or white* scenario. Not once has anything come in within the parameters we've set. If we set a price range scenario (say, x we'll buy it, y we'll finance it, z we'll pass on it), it's going to be the cubed root of x plus y plus z, somewhere in a grey area that we didn't see. If we set a feature parameter (we need it to have a and b, but that's all, everything else is flexible), we will, without fail, have picked the only two parameters that are mutually exclusive and simply do not co-exist. If we set a timeline... yeah, who knew such-and-such company uses the Chinese calendar??? There's just not been an easy, no-brainer since we've started. We don't mind, so much, but we have begun to look at one another and mutter, "OK, this is getting weird. Even for us, it's weird." We would do well on The Price is Right, which is fun.

The stove we decided upon... is not available until late January, at the earliest. I guess GE didn't quite count on the power of their marketing team? We can't wait until late January for a stove, so we won't be getting that one. On the upside, the second choice stove is available for delivery next week, and we can get the 48" range (vs. the 36" we'd have bought today), with two ovens instead of one, and a broiler, for the same money. This one has no proof setting on it, but hey, will it kill me to let my bread continue to rise on the counter? I think not.

John was t-i-r-e-d today. The upside: John was s-n-u-g-g-l-y today.

The fridge was not delivered today. On the upside: It will be here in the morning.

I have heartburn that would bring Spawn to his knees. But, on the upside: I know why!! :-)

I could go on, but you get the picture. There were a few major glitches in the day, and I had to cut it short for all of us before I completely lost my mind. They were unavoidable, unforseeable, and simply caught us offguard. That, too, however, has its upside, as it means we were home and snuggled in early enough that tomorrow's way-early wake up call won't leave us all growly. There's some Zen mastery lesson to be learned from today, but I haven't the energy to decipher it. Discuss amongst yourselves, if you'd like. I'll kick back with my coffee and listen.

The tub is in and plumbed. The toilet is ready to go. The sinks are roughed-in. We need to buy light fixtures for the bath, but we have the tile for the floor ~ got it on clearance! woohoo! Seriously, it's going to be peed on daily for the next two decades... inexpensive and waterproof are just the ticket for that!

The two-oven range means we won't need to buy a wall oven, or a wall cabinet to house it, so I think we're going to scootch the island over a bit and put a kitchen couch against the far wall. Aunt B has this great couch beneath one of the windows in her kitchen, and it's a wonderful hang-out spot for folks to gather. I'd love something like that, and we may have room now. We'll block it out tomorrow and see.

I called the Cabinet Guy to make the change in the island and will pick up the official changes from him tomorrow. We may have cabinets by Easter! I Suspect he is beginning to Doubt my capabilities (and possibly my intelligence), though, so we might want to hurry before he writes us off as asylum escapees.

Zorak has found his groove, his happy spot, his rhythm. It's great to see him rambling forward and enjoying the work. He's not only the provider for our home, but the carrot that keeps us moving forward, the glue that keeps us together, and the warmth that lets us know we're safe. So, it feels good to see him happy and know he's enjoying what he's doing. Because he is doing so. much.

Tomorrow... um... well, we're getting breakfast at a drive-thru. There's a coffee pot at the house, too, so we're all set there. Other than that, I'm not sure what the game plan is. Maybe a little drywall, a bit more framing, and a whole lotta plumbing. I'm on ditch-digging duty, for the most part. And clean up duty (the irony in the fact that I have done more vacuuming at that house in the past month than I've done in our own place in the past year is totally not lost on me). But whatever we do, we'll be one day closer to camping out in our Forever Home. The leaves are beautiful. The days are clear. It's coming together.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy