Under Construction

There's something big going in our lives that I haven't updated you with, as of yet. Big, big, BIG!

Since the beginning of May, I've been getting off work at 3:00 and racing to meet Clint at his house, where we proceed to get down and dirty. We work up a sweat and end up coming back to my house, exhausted and sometimes even a little bruised, around 8 or 9 p.m. We find a bite of dinner and proceed to collapse in front of the telly to watch the news.

Wanna see what we're up to?



We are under construction! We are combining our Forces. Strengths. Hearts. Love. Lives. We have torn his country house to bits, and are building a new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, and a bedroom (aka lovepit).

We are so excited! We began last January, making plans, drawing up blueprints, picking out floors and cabinets and every imaginable fixture needed. Though it's still early, it is finally coming to fruition: Yes! I'm giving up my "City Mouse" ways, and we will be "Country Mice" together, come Autumn.

Here's a view of the back of the house before we started tearing it apart:

And with the new foundation poured in:



Friends join to begin the framing:



Walls! There's the new kitchen!



There's a second level too. Here's the (edited) view from our future bedroom:

The garage will go, and I drew in some deer, to represent...well, the deer that are always prancing around the property, along with bats, skunks, racoons, squirrels, turkey buzzards, barn swallows and spiders. (All spiders will be banned upon moving day.)

The two big squares in the corner will be kitchen windows at a corner sink, that will give us a similar view of the field in the back.

When I say that "we" are building this house, I mean that "Clint" is building it. I'm more the "clean-up crew," in charge of hauling stuff to the burn pile, and in general, trying not to put a nail through my foot, or do anything else that will send me to the ER.

We are told that if a relationship can survive remodeling, it will survive anything.

While Clint moves meticulously around the construction site, I am clumsy, and more often not, the bruised party on the way home each evening. I have been sitting in a cubicle for 20 years, people! My first appointment at the site was to clean up bricks from the demolition. "Just put them in these buckets, and carry them to that pile over there," Clint told me. Oh, hilaaaaaaaaaaarious. I filled the bucket with bricks, went to pick it up, and my arms fell right off.

So, I've learned to drive the tractor/lawn mower thingy, with a wagon behind it. THAT I can do, haul the wagon to the burn pile, unload, and drive back.

I can NOT, however, back the thing up without jack-knifing it. Clint walked me through it a few times before I snapped "Stop telling me how to do it, I don't learn anything that way!" It's confusing: If you want it to go right, you have to turn the wheels left, and then straighten it out, and don't overcorrect, and then go forward again because you've jack-knifed the thing once again.

He watched while I tried to master the thing about 100 more times. How he managed to keep his mouth shut I will never know, because I still can't back that thing up, and I finally told him "Tell me again how to do this, I can't get it!"

Honestly, how he hasn't given in and strangled me is beyond me. While loading lumber onto the trailer at Menard's, for instance, I became impatient, and insisted that I could carry 2 20-foot boards at once, to cut the job in half. He said "Are you sure?" and handed me 2 boards. CLUNK! I dropped those suckers right on the concrete. Well. Never mind. I can't carry 2 at once. Now I know. I didn't know before, but now I do.

Perhaps, they should tell him, "if your relationship can survive Lori helping out on the construction site, it can survive anything."

Cross ya fingers that he'll just keep laughing, folks, and I'll be keeping you posted on our progress!