Every Fine Day

As you can imagine, we were left with a "hole" in our lives as we came to the winter of that year. Ever since, I have figured out dates of when we did this or that based on the time that Nancy left. Actually, the baby took his first steps and got his tooth the day she left, but it was bittersweet. 

Things had to keep going at the house to take advantage of every fine day.

The east wall had to have plywood put on before drywall, not for shelving purposes but for some kind of structural purpose that I never remember (facts like that don't really stay in my memory for long!).

 I suggested to the children that as homeschoolers we were flexible and should take more time off to build the house and just catch up on school when we could. The one who was always escaping during school hours looked up from his math book in horror, and the others seemed to have suddenly developed a strong desire to do schoolwork. Could it be that my children were not keen on construction?

At least this insulation was under shelter. Our ten-foot deep porch was the best design decision ever.

I mentioned that our baby took his first steps, but he had a funny way of walking. He would put his arms straight up in the air and then plunge forward. None of my other children did that, and it must have been a way to balance. I wish I had not lost the film I took of it. It looked just like when our friend Nancy was holding his hands! 

Part of the Story

One of Nancy's sayings

I never got to give Nancy that "discovery flight" for Christmas that year. It wasn't really anything compared to the flight she got. She went away almost unannounced, as these things often go. She's probably on the ultimate camping trip with her friends, and it's way better than Paris for escaping a dreary winter. As you could probably tell from my use of past tense in previous posts, we did not get to keep Nancy. Yes, she "graduated." 

We happened to have a guest speaker scheduled at church for a 3-day Gospel Meeting at the time. His sweet wife had a Ladies Class on the topic of "servanthood." She passed out a list of things that women can do in the church, but to me it was a list of Nancy. We were in quite a state, and I'm not sure the guest speaker ever saw such an overwhelmed group as ours. Obviously it was up to those who were left to fill Nancy's shoes. Reader, for my part I have not begun to fill just one of them. 

I usually do not write about other people on this blog, but I wanted you to meet Nancy. She was such an important part of our story. Though we only knew her a short time, she made a big impact on our lives.  I know that even in reading the little bits I have written about her, she has made an impact on you. 

"Lord I'm ready take me now!" is a Nancy phrase. Yet she stayed and did what the Lord put in front of her, until it was her time. She was "ready to go," always.

Reader, are you?

Race against Weather

There is a limit to nailing into the composite studs of our InSoFast rigid insulation. Once the temperature gets colder than 60 degrees, nailing might bust the encased studs. Our climate has some remarkably warm and sunny days even through November, but we had reached the point where it was a race against weather!

The siding was wrapped around a good ways, though the front porch area was still undone. There were still "battens" to apply as well, then caulking applied. It had to be waterproof before any rainy season set in. 

The "finishes" phase of construction was what I was looking forward to the most. Routine trips to Lowe's for caulking might very well end up in a search for tile (which would become never-ending). 

Ooh, look at this stuff! So many distractions. 

 This deer seems to be looking at the space that eventually became our wee garden. Coincidence? More on that later. 

Although my husband really wanted an airplane for his hour-long commute to work, he had to settle with buying a bargain-priced used Prius for its ability to get 50 MPG. It wasn't a good winter car, but since the last winter seemed to mild we weren't sure we would need a winter car. The savings on gas outweighed the prospect of one or two days of snow. We had already bought a snow car the year before, which turned out to be a lemon and a gas-guzzler. It turned out we didn't even need it for the 1/4" of snow that came.

And what about the other winters you have seen here? Well, someone had told us that those horrible winters (the "snowpocolypse" type) only occur every 25 years or so. Back in the day, this area could freeze up with below-zero temps for two straight weeks. We had never seen it that bad. Perhaps heavy winter weather was an isolated occurrence around here. So the gas-guzzling lemon of a snow car was put up for sale. 

Now before you start talking about Murphy's Law, let me just say that we decided that our lives would not be lived in fear of Murphy. Yes, we had bought a snow car and afterward experienced a nice, mild winter, but that could have been because we were temporarily living in town. No, we didn't want ol' Murphy dictating our every move. 

"Phases" Phased out

See that bench? It is a really good "tool" to have around. After seeing our drywall Pros use it we got one for ourselves. If you have gathered by now, I domesticatee where I could (it wasn't always pretty). The bench was useful for drywall and painting, but also made a handy extra seat at lunch and could even become a buffet or kitchen counter.

I call it "drywall" but some people say "sheetrock" or "wallboard" and I am not sure of the proper use of each term. We read about some really cool "sheetrock" made out of basalt that was impact-proof and fireproof. It was just getting going in Canada markets at the time; if we could have we would have used that kind. What we used was the ordinary stuff at Lowe's. We felt like we were on the edge of all kinds of new innovations in construction. Frankly, the longer we took the more we could utilize some!

Our original plan was to finish up the downstairs, live in it, and then work on the "unfinished" second story. The county was fine with it, and it would mean we could move in faster. Somewhere along the way that idea was flipped. In this photo the upstairs drywall, for instance, was going to be done before the downstairs. I guess the idea of just doing one floor's work when you went to all the trouble to get a contractor out there seemed inefficient. If a plumber was coming, have him do all the drains. If wiring is going in, do the entire house.  Looking back, in some ways I wish we had stayed with our original plans, even though it meant calling everyone back a second time. Nevertheless, we began to look at the house as a whole project instead a phased project. 

Look here, a closet wall! Things like this seemed so progressive and exciting.