Personal

Why is January always the month that seems to last eight thousand years?

Seriously. January is the worst month. Why does it have to be the longest too?

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. And being a bit of a baby about the snow, negative degree weather, pitch black evenings, and icy roads.

Wait a minute.

No, I’m not.

Guys, I haven’t been able to get my car out of the driveway for weeks. Weeks, I tell you!

Ridiculous.

January is fired.

I’m moving to Mexico to open a chinchilla farm.

Okay, whining aside, I promised y’all a house update. Remember at the beginning of 2022, I told you that we bought an airplane hanger and had broken ground at our new house site? Everything was great, we were excited, progress was happening after a year of waiting, and we were finally going to move out of our 400 sq ft cabin and into a house that was big enough for us to walk by each other in the hallway without turning sideways.

And then . . . reality set it.

Because the next step after breaking ground was to get our plans approved and get our permits in order so we could start building.

Which means . . . the government got involved.

It took months, guys.

Months.

We couldn’t pour concrete for the foundation, we couldn’t get the plumbing in, we couldn’t do anything. We had to sit around on our hands trying to fix all the nitty gritty details so that the government would finally give us permission to build a house on our own land.

I’m not bitter about it at all.

Thankfully, we had an actual angel—for real, I’m actually pretty sure he was a real angel from heaven, you know, the ‘do not be afraid’ ‘I bring you good news of great joy’ kind—who finally got us around the last tripwire, and permits were issued.

After that, we sat around on our hands some more, waiting for the foundation guys to have time in their schedule to come out.

Building a house sounds like a lot of work, but it’s actually three or four days of crazy activity followed by weeks of waiting followed by three or four days of crazy activity followed by weeks of waiting followed by—

You get the idea.

On top of that, winter has set in. Which means icy roads, way too much snow, mud when it all melts (if it melts), and extreme cold.

Okay, maybe not extreme.

Extreme for me.

Oh yeah, and I had a baby and spent a month and a half recovering from a horrible breast infection because apparently breastfeeding is not intuitive and it’s harder than it looks so education is really important, guys, please always remember to have sunflower lecithin on hand before you start breastfeeding and don’t be afraid of pumping right from the beginning, especially if you have a clogged duct.

Inhale.

But!

The foundation is in. The metal building is up. The support beams for the second floor have been installed, as has the plumbing. Once the snow is gone and temperatures are more moderate, we can pour the concrete pad. Until then, we will be working on framing the upstairs, getting in a gas line for our propane stove, leveling the dirt work, and installing the pipes and insulation for our in-floor heating.

In other words, we have plenty to do.

Thankfully, after a year of drumming our heels, we have reached the stage  where most of the work is on us, and things will proceed as quickly as we can handle.

Since both of our little families are living in cramped quarters and have been going crazy with cabin fever this winter, we are pretty motivated. Our hope is to be in the house before we have to spend another winter in our tiny cabin.

Actually, what my sister says is, by the end of summer.

That feels ambitious to me.

But you never know!

Yikes, that was a long update! Let me know what you think in the comments, and any advice you may have for lasting through a long project like this!