The One I Didn't Want

 This is one of those posts that I feel guilty about putting my logo on. I am sure no one in this photo would think anything about this task was "pleasant!"

Yet more photos of a heavy, up-hill load. 

(I think I have documented just about everything they have brought up, minus a fridge and a piano. I missed the former and it was too dark for photos of the latter.)

But by the time my husband had it at the top, there was no way he was going to put his back into it any more. I'm sure the boys were glad to hear that resolution.

Work smarter, not harder.

The tub was lifted to the porch with a wench!

 Well okay, there was still a lot of back-work left!

I didn't want this tub. It is a Kohler and good quality, good price, but it is kind of  shallow for a bath, but overall it was the SHAPE!

The shape just was a bit creepy to me. Who in the design department thought that would make a good bathtub shape? Sure, there's room for the elbows, but it sure doesn't look inviting to take a soak in.  But it's installed in the first floor bathroom now and I have accepted it. Not everything will go they way you want it to in house-building!

Our Door Open to Friends

 I don't know what we would have done without our friends from the Far North popping in just when we needed them, and always bringing the carpenter of the family. He hung our door, and then adjusted things on it for us on subsequent visits.

I'm happy they always stopped by on their summer road trips. 

(I'm sure they started to wonder if we were keeping work in store just for them?)

Just a wee review on the handle: We bought a heavy-duty door handle through Direct Door Hardware; the Emtek "Orion." The look and feel of this handle go perfectly with our heavy door. It works pretty well, but the quick-release of the lock feature (in case of emergency) no longer functions as intended, so we need to take it off and see what is slipping.

The Good News

I'm speeding through these spring months, because there was such a story to tell, so one more long post here!

 This was one of the lighter things the boys had to tote up the driveway!

 Keeping on with the spring progress, we bought special low-chemical leaching water supply pipes for the house. The house was now planned to be as anti-cancer as we could make it, choosing materials that were as harmless as we can get them (it was about as easy as finding all-organic food not packaged in plastic).

We kept up with school as best we could. Here you see a display of specimens for nature study.  One son did family presentations, learning to use power point, and organizing the other children to do presentations of their own. He also made a new math curriculum that wasn't boring (something to do with turning it into a story: voyages by explorers in the arctic sea and calculating supplies needed, ballast, etc.) One son learned to program computers. When he was told that Artificial Intelligence will eliminate the need for computer programmers, he  responded that he will be a programming historical reenactor! Overall, though, the big high school education was "shop class" and building a house.

 

Like my writing, the laundry must go on, and on, and on...

 My husband had surgery for real mid-spring, with the surgeon bringing me the news out of the operating room that now he was confident there was a very small chance of cancer. It was a cyst! A cyst that contains cells that are usually cancerous, but in this case, benign. We were HUGELY relieved, as you can imagine. The last word was with the pathologist though, and he was taking his time.

view from one side of the canyon to the other side

The surgeon specialist was excellent. So excellent, that my husband felt such little pain in recovery, he would not take any medications. The surgeon did such a precise job-must not have touched a nerve!- and my husband felt so good, he refused to sit around and be nursed. Instead he took the kids on a hike way up the high canyon the third hill behind our house. I couldn't stop him! I stayed home, and was glad I did because they saw a rattlesnake along the way. 

We chose to believe the surgeon, who was quite confident about his guess, and the relief of the end of the whole ordeal gave quite a boost to house-building. The last bit of exterior framing was finished, we hired a builder for a bit of inside work, we hired an electrician! The plumbing got started, and the Kitchen was plumbed!

 The first door was installed-- a side exterior door. No, we didn't make this one because the opening was standard on the side, but we did find a very nice one to buy, don't you think?

We had one more surprise-- which really should have been expected-- and that was that we could not rent the RV forever! The owners needed it back... so we were making inquiries for another RV to rent, and packing up our items in totes.

In the end, the pathologist came to the same conclusion the surgeon did. The several months we spent with possible cancer in the horizon permanently changed our way of living.

Aquatherm polypropylene pipes, usually used in industrial applications, were chosen because of its lower chemical leaching.

My husband had picked “hope” as a theme word for that year. I now think that picking a theme word of the year is akin to praying for patience! I think a phrase would have been better– something like “expect the unexpected.” There did come a point in all this, whenever the next shock came like another wave to crash our boat, that I had to laugh. How much more could there be? I am now very appreciative for the uneventful days in life. All I wanted to worry about that upcoming summer was keeping the freezer full of popsicles for the kids...

 

[*I have had Rod and Staff math for them for years, they all dislike it but they all have their math facts down. However they have taken turns trying to write their own, that's how frustrated they have been with the experience of a text book. I still persist with R&S though because it's works. I'm sure they wouldn't like any math out of any book anyway!]  

A "Stunning" Spring

 Now where did I leave off..

 (Yesterday one of my children glanced over to see what I was writing about. They shuddered when they saw that last post: "that was such a year!")

The fleeting green hue meant spring was on the way.

an interesting rock found on one of our walks. The pink item is not a butterfly, but a flower

While the Dr was on vacation, we Googled head and neck cancer... now we know why doctors always tell you not to google things.

We spent a lot of time stunned. But we can't stay that way for long and we had a house to build. 

 

And the laundry must go on.  

By now we were up against our building permit expiring. We were able to get an extension that reached to Autumn. 

Even though the house wasn't near ready, we bought a refrigerator. We were changing our diet to as close to anti-cancer as we could get, and the RV fridge just couldn't hold all the produce. From this point on we changed to an almost all-organic, mostly vegetarian diet. Huge amount of veggies, salads, and berries were on the menu. 

I say "mostly" vegetarian, because although we did not give up meat, buying organic, grass-fed meat is spendy. We just sprinkle it on our salads-- individual steaks are out of the question!

We eventually added back grains, but it has been a wild ride food-wise. Organic food can easily be double the price of conventional, and not always easy to find, so it has been more stressful to shop. Even the thought that this is much better for my family is not as comforting as it should be when I am unable to buy or find what I need for dinner! 

By the end of the month, my husband was almost in surgery. Oddly, just before the surgery, the surgeon couldn't find the lump. It was...gone? He was too nervous to go exploring and told us to get a scan. My husband got some socks out of the experience but not much information. Later the scan revealed enough further in to warrant a specialist.

 Stacks of rigid insulation.

And guess what! The new specialist surgeon didn't hold out much hope for something benign, and scheduled another surgery. Then he went on vacation.

As always, to be continued!