Initially, I was going to call this post, “Addition Tear Down”; but I woke up this morning feeling like I had been in a fight – so it evolved. Seriously, I was SO sore this morning. My abs, my back, my hamstrings, my shoulders, my ELBOWS (what? why??), SO SORE.
I had lofty goals for this weekend. “Let’s get the whole addition removed, in the the dumpster, and any garbage wood burned up – all this weekend”. Sometimes I’m amazed at how supportive my family is. They definitely gave some (possibly involuntary) “is she serious? does she actually think that is possible?” looks – which I entirely ignored. Here’s where we started:
Somehow I was lucky enough to get called in to work on Friday, but the dumpster didn’t arrive until about 2 hours before I got home. So I barely missed any work (but I also didn’t work much at all before we called it on Friday). I’m fortunate enough to have a husband who’s on board with my crazy goals and was ready to work this weekend, so he did the majority of the Friday work. He got the greenhouse portion all removed and was able to save a few of the windows – maybe for cold frames for the garden later? They’re in rough shape so we’ll have to see how it goes. Also, the external chimney was already gone! I thought that was going to be a hideous task. I got home and opted to take pictures instead of immediately changing and gloving up and getting to work, but I helped move some stuff to get ready for Saturday and clean up a bit.
Saturday I was scheduled to work again 🙂 Oops. When I pulled up I was surprised to see a couple of our good friends hauling a load out of the addition. When I got out and took a look around I was astonished at the amount of work that had been done. The Schoenmaker brothers apparently showed up with lunch and proceeded to help in the take down. They got all the bathroom appliances removed, had pulled out all the cabinets, got the inside of the chimney removed, and were started on more. Color me IMPRESSED.
My husband and I started dating on Leap Day 2008, so we celebrate at the end of February or the beginning of March. This year, we went out to the local pizza and brewery – which is incredible btw. At the end of dinner they provided fortune cookies which I thought was awesome (love fortune cookies!) and we got this fun fortune. The Cabin project seems like a journey of a thousand miles, not even including the whole Homestead project! It’s going to be an amazing journey, but important to remember to take it one step at a time!
On Sunday we went as hard as we could and I maintained optimism that we would get the addition down by the end of the day. Spoiler alert – I was not right. At an earlier time in my life, I would set lofty goals and when the goals weren’t met I felt like all was lost, like life itself wasn’t even worth attempting anymore. These days, (most of the time) I’m much less dramatic – but still set lofty goals. I try to keep the mindset that if the goal is met – fantastic! – but if it isn’t, then we’re still closer today than we were yesterday. We got pretty dang far this weekend. And I am immensely grateful to my family and our friends and my body for all the work they did. And we’re going to have to do a little more next weekend. And that’s okay with me. Around 3 PM on Sunday I was still pushing to finish and my poor husband looks and me and says something like, “I love your motivation, I love your push, but you’re gonna kill me.” So sweet. So genuine. I looked around and asked what he wanted to get done before quitting for the weekend, and when he told me I only added 3 more things on. (that’s pretty good for me!) Here’s what we ended on:
Monday I woke up for school and really felt beat up. Just down right sore. And I thought to myself, it’s time to start another project. This just isn’t enough for me. I’m super bored and have way too much free time. I need something more to keep me busy and entertained. Just kidding. But I definitely went to the farm store on my way home from school and picked out some chicks. They’re sitting in the Honey House on the table near the fire and boy are they adorable. I’ll be updating on the chicks here! Also, here’s some pics of Maverick, because he’s beautiful and ever present.
The Homestead Journey 