Tag Archives: home improvement

Home-Construction Role Models

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I spent the weekend across the state singing, doing my best to pay tribute to the great Johnny Cash at a concert on Saturday and then playing music in one of my favorite bars with some of my favorite musicians that evening.

It was the first time I’ve been away for the weekend without the baby and/or my husband. Usually the babe gets to come along and we leave Husband in the dust to work on the house or the ranch for the weekend. Poor guy, he never gets to have any fun.

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But this weekend I left them both home. My mother-in-law came over to hang out with Edie while my husband and his dad worked on trying to finish up the basement.

This is our life. It has been for years, trying to fit in home construction on the little 48-hour space that we call the weekend. I spent the previous weekend going as far up the ladder as my comfort zone would allow to put stain on the house and kicking the five-years-ago versions of ourselves for thinking it would be a good idea to build a 30 foot house with cedar siding that needs to be re-stained every few years.

That was dumb. Especially when half of us hate heights and the other half has no fear and leans out too far once he’s at the top of 30 foot ladders.

So, to survive, I’ve learned there are things I just can’t watch.

And so here’s this week’s column, written after a weekend spent outside on ladders and in town at the hardware store and in bed late at night realizing that my life will forever be in a constant state of construction.

So if you want good advice, don’t ask us. We had every idea of what we were getting into, and we did it anyway.

Coming Home: The height of a ladder gives couple perspective
by Jessie Veeder
11-6-16
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

“When you get married, marry someone with money,” he said to our 13-year-old niece, sitting innocently at the kitchen counter, holding the baby and feeding her Cheerios. “Or just be rich yourself. That would be better.”

“Yeah, she’s right,” he said. “Be rich. Or marry someone nice and rich.”

This is the advice we give when you bring your children to our home. I’m not proud of it, but it came to us after a weekend spent trying to make progress on this not-ever-going-to-be-finished house we decided to construct ourselves almost four years ago. And, because we’re hosting a Thanksgiving/first birthday party here in less than a month, we need to get that basement finished, you know, the one that was supposed to be done a year before the 1-year-old was born.

So my husband spent the weekend standing on a ladder mudding the sheetrock on the walls, my niece worked to save the baby from climbing the staircase and eating box elder bugs while I spent my weekend outside on a much taller ladder trying to put stain on the house before winter and cursing the idiots who decided to side a 30-foot house with cedar that needs to be refinished every three years.

Because I hate ladders. And heights. And my husband hates projects like this, but he also hates hiring anyone to do a job we can do ourselves, especially when we’d like to have money in that bank at the end of it all. Because I figure by the time Edie’s 18, her college tuition will likely be approximately a million dollars a year, so we better start cutting back where we can.

Ramen noodles for everyone!

“In my next life, I’m not going to be a ‘DYIer.’ I’m going to be a ‘Hire Someone Elser,’ ” he said while he stood at the top of that ladder trying to reach heights I was unwilling to attempt, maneuvering a stain sprayer while his wife suffered anxiety-induced heart palpitations looking up at him with a white-knuckle death grip on his ladder, wanting desperately to believe that the tightness of my grip was directly related to the likelihood of him falling to his death.

“I should have married you in your next life!” I hollered up to him. “Now careful! Seriously, don’t lean so far over like that, my gawd, I can’t watch this!”

And so, given the weekend’s events, you can see where we were coming from with the money advice. Because while it’s not often people like to admit that money buys happiness, I can tell you with complete certainty that I would have been a lot happier watching a paid professional work a spray gun 30 feet in the air. And I know I would have been happier with the finished product.

Because at least it would be finished.

But it’s not. Nope. We ran out of house stain, daylight and weekend, and if you come over for the party, you’ll likely come in to a half-stained house and an almost-finished-basement, which may or may not have carpet because we did what we could and called it all good enough.

But we’ll have so many people crammed into this little house you won’t be able to see the floor anyway, so in the big picture, I guess it’s a blip.

Like my niece said as she walked the aisles of Menards with me in search of more Sheetrock mud, “What would this family do together if we didn’t do work together?”

“Go fishing.” That was the first answer that came to my mind. But how much real marital bonding can you accomplish on a beautiful lake? Certainly not as much as you get when you’re praying for his life as he extends beyond his comfortable reach 30 feet from the hard, cold ground.

It sure makes you love each other more when you’re back on solid earth, realizing you’re both alive to see another day.

So, yeah, if you want to spend your weekends catching walleye in the summer sun, make sure one of you has some money. But if you want death-defying, love-igniting, budget-friendly adventure, well then, we’re your role models.

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Sunday Column: Do it yourselfing

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In the beginning, there was big vision, big enthusiasm and big mess…

For those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning of time, you are good and familiar with our home building/do it yourself/never ending construction that is our lives.

We have been ankle deep in saw dust since moving out of the little farmhouse four years ago and into a house we are building as we go along. And in four years, while we’ve made progress pouring a basement and foundation, climbing scary homemade scaffolding to build the loft, nearly deciding to live in separate houses over a bathroom tile project the seemed to never end, my husband and father in law falling to their near deaths off of the roof, a giant garage project and countless power tools just hanging out on the kitchen table, I am not here to tell you that we are finished.

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No.

But I am here to tell you that we bit the bullet and, despite my pledge to hold off on new furniture until the damn house was done, we actually bought. new. furniture.

And, because we do things ourselves around here, I almost pulled every muscle in my back helping Husband get the couch through the door and around the corner.

He said he hasn’t seen me grunt so hard since giving birth.

And it was the truth.

 

Here’s the rest of the story…

Coming Home: Life and love look different for do-it-yourselfers
by Jessie Veeder
3-13-16
Forum Communications

A new couch was delivered to our house yesterday.

In almost 10 years of marriage, we’ve never had a new couch. In fact, the ratio of new to used furniture in this house prior to yesterday was like four to 20, the new pieces being Edie’s nursery furniture, the worn-out recliner we bought the week after we were married on a trip to one of my concerts in South Dakota that we passed off as a honeymoon, and the bar stools that were a little too big for our space, but we couldn’t pass up, because, you know, they were on super sale.

And so when guests started to get stuck in the cracks of the deep-sunk couch we bought from one of our landlords eight years ago, we thought it might be time to take the furniture plunge.

Turns out, for a couple who has survived on other people’s cast-off items for years, we’re sorta picky. It must be the whole “we’re spending lots of money so we better love this forever and never, ever spill wine on it” mentality.

Anyway, our track record with furniture could really sum up the way the two of us have been dealing with grown-up life. I was contemplating this as I stood resting my noodle arms on our new couch as it lay in limbo, half on the landing and half wedged in the door, while my husband searched for a tool to take the door off its hinges.

We will never be people who hire movers.

No. We are the people who save every random nut, bolt and spare piece of plastic in an old coffee can on the tool bench because we might need it someday.

Our garage and the room in the basement that we don’t let anyone see will always be a scary place full of useful things … if only we could remember where we put them.

I blame it on our fathers. While completely different, both held the same mentality when it came to saving money and squeezing every bit of life out of the things they owned. Neither one of them ever saw a stray bucket on the side of the road without stopping to load it in the back of the pickup.

It makes sense. I was raised by a North Dakota rancher who could make anything work good enough with a pair of leather gloves and a spare piece of wire.

And my husband was raised by a man who had a garage full of things like extra doorknobs, old, out-of-warranty power tools and a couple extra lawn mowers, you know, for parts.

I mean, the man built his own croquet set for crying out loud. My husband didn’t stand a chance.

So I wasn’t surprised when, in college, my washing machine went out and my then boyfriend/now husband had at least three washing machine motors laying around in storage.

I tell you, it’s a special type of romance to love a man with the skills to save you from the laundromat. If only I would have known that years later it would turn into me painstakingly putting up tiles on the kitchen island while my husband made 500 trips up and down the ladder leading to the dirt basement, because we still needed to build steps. And pour the concrete floor.

Ourselves.

I’m here to tell you that sometimes the “do it yourself” movement is only romantic when your car is broke down on the side of the road and he shows up with a toolbox and pops the hood.

Stay married long enough and it turns out he might expect you to know how to fix it yourself. Because apparently that sort of thing should wear off on you.

But if together we can get this couch through the doorway, past the bedrooms and around the corner to the living room without me pulling every muscle along the way, perhaps it’s a sign we’re turning a corner in our lives.

And the old couch will work great in the basement … once we get it finished

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Winter’s a s**thead and then I had a flashback…

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Somewhere in Montana…

Well we made it back from our road trip, dropped our bags at the bottom of the stairs in our cozy and messy house and proceeded to be welcomed by a slap across the face we have come to know as reality.

Work piled up in our inboxes.

Bills in the mail.

Closet unfurled from last week’s haphazard packing debacle.

Garbage strewn across yard from an unwelcome raccoon (or pug or lab) shaped scavenger.

And winter. Winter being a shithead. 

Pug in snow

“Septic tank’s frozen again.”

These are the messages I get when I’m in town trying to be civilized.

Great.

“Heading to the big town to pick up a snake and a pressure washer and (something else that I didn’t catch because I was thinking about where I might shower that night) because if you want something done you’ve got to do it yourself around here…”

You know I know this better than anyone.

Great, now I’m having a flashback…

Phew, that was exhausting…

Anyway…last month when the arctic air whipped the trees around this place it shot the temperature down to -60 and apparently that’s too cold for a successful potty drain, so we called someone to come out and save us, and, well, I guess Husband learned something. Because last night I arrived home in the dark and he was out there in sub-zero temperatures unplugging whatever was plugged.

And he was successful. Thank God he was successful. I had to pee.

Husband is my hero.

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My wall-building, chandelier-hanging, power-tool-toting, tile-placing, ladder-climing,  potty pumping hero.

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God I miss summer.

Prom Day, thirteen years later…

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It’s prom season and on Saturday young couples in Boomtown spent the day dressing up, pinning on corsages, posing for photographs in front of the mantle, eating a fancy dinner, laughing and dancing the night away.

In honor of the season and happy memories, I’d like to take this moment to cue up a flashback:

Yes. There we are back in the year 2000, back before Garth Brooks retired, before bedazzled flip-flops were cool, every teenager on the planet owned a data plan and before I knew what I was getting myself into.

If only we could have seen into the future.

If only someone would have warned us that thirteen years later these gangly, innocent, teenagers who single-handedly kept Suave hair gel on the shelves and were so convinced they were in love would find themselves un-showered and un-filtered, wearing overalls and saggy work jeans, crammed ass to ass in an unfinished bathroom in an almost finished house arguing about what iPod mix to listen to while in the middle of another argument about how someone is hovering and someone else doesn’t understand the importance of cleaning the mortar off the trowel between tiling projects.

Thirteen years ago the plan would have been to get a job where you make enough money to hire someone to tile the damn bathroom.

Thirteen years ago we would have been listening to Garth Brooks and there would be no argument.

Thirteen years ago we would have been pretty excited about the whole iPod thing.

If only we would’ve known. Perhaps we could have avoided this situation all together. I could have suggested that my future husband, the one standing so coiffed, cute and confident next to that girl in the bedazzled flip-flops, just go ahead and become a trapper/mountain man like he dreamed of as a boy and I would just go on to marry a man who wears khakis and doesn’t own a table saw or a wet saw or a hand saw or any other kind of saw that would give him the idea that maybe, perhaps, he should build an entire bathroom from scratch, and then spend a good three to four days with his dearly beloved tiling the damn thing, from floor to ceiling.

I would have missed that mountain man, but as I pick the mortar from under my fingernails and behind my ears, I think maybe I could have gotten used to the khakis.

Why manicures don’t work on me…

I mean, did you know endless hours of mixing mortar, scraping it on the walls, cleaning it from the floors, accidentally splashing it into your eyeball and spraining your wrist while operating the high powered drill necessary to mix the stuff can turn you into the worst possible version of yourself?

Did you know that you can sprain your wrist operating a drill?

Me neither. But it’s true.

Turns out that forty-thousand trips up and down two flights of stairs to get to the wet saw does something weird to your right butt cheek too.

It’s true.

Just ask Husband.

Oh, now you might be thinking to yourself ,”Well, a couple that can survive building a house together can survive anything.” And the two of us might agree, but only under the condition that the house doesn’t have a single tile in it.

Because tiling sucks. It is hard and it is messy and it makes perfectly sweet and well-intentioned wives really mouthy and equally well-intentioned husbands really annoying.

And that, I fear, might be the only thing my dear husband and I agree on when it comes to the project that consumed our weekend.

But oh, I love this man, I do.

I love that he is capable and handy and looks good in those overalls. But our lives would be so much easier if he would just let me pick the soundtrack for the project.

And if he would stop with the suggestions on how I should hold the trowel, even if it might help me avoid getting so much mortar on my pants that not even tightening my belt can save him from the sight of my plumber’s crack.

I don’t need his suggestions. I mean, doesn’t twenty straight minutes of tiling make me an expert?

And don’t you think when your wife screams out in agony, drops the drill, grabs her wrist and falls to the floor that a husband should come running to her side and ask her what’s wrong instead of calmly assuming she’s overreacting to another injury, waiting for her wails to turn to whimpers before asking her sarcastically if she needs to go to the hospital?

I mean, that like, really hurt.

I’m ok. It’s fine. But still.

Somehow I don’t think Sunday morning motivational home construction pep talks that include promises of foot rubs,  negotiations on who will make the coffee and a vow not to get pissy with one another today is the future prom-goers in Boomtown imagined as they walked arm in arm with their dates at the grand march last Saturday.

But maybe it should be. I mean, if I have to tile a bathroom at least it’s a result of my own brilliant idea that our bathroom be covered in tiles.

And at least I get to do it with a man who’s willing to do what it takes to give me everything I want, even if it means spraining his right butt cheek from forty-seven thousand trips to the basement while putting up with the whining coming from his wife and the music on her iPod mix.

And if I have to tile a bathroom at least I get to do it with a boy who took me on a date to Bonanza when I had purple rubber bands on my braces and still thought I was presentable enough to pass as a prom date.

Which proves he has just the right amounts of delusion and optimism to survive a tiling project and, consequently, a marriage to me.

At least I hope so. I guess we’re not quite done yet…maybe it wouldn’t hurt to compromise a bit on the music selection…

Oh the price you pay for a pretty place to pee.

10 Painting Tips from a Woman who always learns everything the hard way and should have never picked up a paint brush in the first place…

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So I spent the weekend elbows-deep in the never ending, house finishing project. Funny how a task with the word “finish” in the title has become never-ending.

But we have a deadline, and deadlines have endings don’t they? Please, someone tell me this will end.

For those of you just joining us here at the ranch, (and there are a quite a few these days, thankyouverymuchforstoppingby!) Husband and I have been working on finishing a house that was delivered to us here in a little oak grove at the ranch last December.

We’re nearing the finish line, and if I wasn’t insane before, after fifty-five trips to the Menards 150 miles away to pick up things like doors, toilets, floors, lights, vents, electrical wires, cement, tile, nails, glue, the weird and delicious peanut-butter stuffed pretzels they have in the checkout aisle and the dreadful and marriage-testing trip for plumbing parts in torrential rains, lightning storms, forty-mile-an-hour winds, blinding blizzards and the most recent ice-covered roads

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I am definitely, fully, insane now.

Horse frustration

And insane is not the best quality to have when your house is covered in sheet rock dust, there’s an air compressor hose dangling from the loft right next to the 12 foot cedar boards leaned up your wall cutting your living space in half and you decide that while husband is working on building you a giant closet to make up for the months of chaos his handyman ideals have created,  you are quickly going to paint the laundry room/entry way.

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It shouldn’t take too long. It’s a small space. You’ll just need a little assistance in moving that washer and dryer full of clothes you forgot about out of the way…

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Now, I could tell you how the painting project went and you could draw your own lessons and conclusions from the series of events that unfolded, but I think I will save you the analyzation and just cut to the chase. Because I figure I have enough home improvement under my belt to offer some tips to those of you who are confident and delusional enough to think that putting new knobs on your cabinets, tiling the bathroom, or painting a damn wall for crying out loud is, like, just going to take a day or two.

“We’ll get this done in no time!” we tell ourselves…

Yes, I could write a book on the many reasons not to wear short-shorts while attempting a tiling project, how to get out of helping to lay a hardwood floor by hammering your thumbprint off and what not to say to your husband as he’s dangling off a ladder twenty feet in the air.

It would be a best seller for sure, but I don’t have the time today. Because today I have to finish the damn painting project I was supposed to finish yesterday afternoon.

So in an attempt to stay focused, I give you:

10 Painting Tips from a Woman who always learns everything the hard way and should have never picked up a paint brush in the first place:

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Tip #1: Finish your house before you move you, your husband, your two dogs and all your shit into it. And don’t add a cat to the mix.  But if you do, definitely don’t let that barn cat in too.

Tip #2: 7.5 minutes.

This is the time you will spend on your project before you convince yourself you need a Cheeto break.

Tip #3: You can try to fool yourself into thinking that painting a laundry room/entry way will be a quick and painless project, despite the thirty-seven angles, outlets, doorways, cabinets, utility sink with exposed plumbing, trim boards and mud splatters you have to work around. Approach the task with confidence, but assume it’s going to suck. This will save you the shock of postponing breakfast, lunch, dinner and the shower you meant to take before  meeting up with friends for a drink. Speaking of drinks…

Tip #4: Pour yourself one. And then put alcohol in it. Oh, and if you don’t particularly enjoy the taste of paint, use a cup with a lid.

Tip #5: Don’t wear your favorite Steve Earl t-shirt. No matter how carefully and quickly you think this project is going to go, you will get paint on that t-shirt you forgot you were wearing. You will grow tired and careless as you reach the end of your rope and you will let your guard down. You will lean into the wall while reaching for a final touch and you will get paint in places that will amuse your husband.

And your husband will express his amusement by pointing and laughing and shaking his head.

You too will shake your head while your entire body droops at the thought of throwing your favorite Steve Earl t-shirt into the pile with the other cute and innocent garments inadvertently turned into construction day clothes.

Tip #6: Make enough weird and agonizing noises (aka: grunting, moaning, saying “ohnoohnoohno” or “shit,” really loud, whining, weeping, or all around screeching) loud enough to catch the attention of your husband working with power tools on the second floor.

Follow those sounds with well-timed moments of silence and he will eventually find an excuse to come down stairs to see if you’re still alive…which brings me to what I think should be the next tip…

Tip #7: While he’s downstairs and you’re standing on the washing machine leaned over with your head dangerously close to getting stuck in that small gap between the cabinet and the wall, kindly ask him to re-dip your paintbrush and while he’s at it, refill your paint tray. If you’ve picked out the right painting pants and lean over at the right angle, your husband might suddenly become invested in the project, offering to pick up a paint brush to help go over the spots you’ve missed and, well, now you’ve got help.

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Tip #8: Be prepared to hate the color you chose. You will never want to see it again for as long as you live but you will vow that you will just close your eyes when you attempt to do laundry or put on your boots to walk out the door because no matter how much you hate this color and the fact that it is now likely going to be in your hair and on the back part of your elbow you can’t see or reach for a few days, you sure as hell are not going to paint this damn room again. Ever.

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And when your husband informs you that it will likely need another coat, take off that paint covered Steve Earl shirt before taking a running face plant to cry on the bed.

Tip #9: Sell your prized collection of Troll Dolls or Precious Moments collection, the pug or the cat or whatever it takes to be able to hire someone to paint whatever else needs to be painted for the rest of your life. But for the love of Lucchese, never, never, never sell your boot collection. If you remember anything, remember this.

Tip #10: Now, I’m not sure because I’ve never birthed anything, but I think painting and other home improvement projects might be like childbirth. Like, you might forget how painful it was while you happily thumb through Better Homes and Gardens and find that Martha Stewart has a really pretty shade of lavender that would look stunning in the sun room that you’ve been suggesting your husband build for you this summer.

I’ll tell you agin, if you really need a  sun room, sell your car so you can pay someone else to do it.

If you really like that lavender color, call me. I’ll read my tips out loud and with a stern and convincing tone that will help you with the whole clarity thing.

If you’ll excuse me, now that I’ve finished this, I’ve got to go and find about two or three other tasks to occupy my time while I procrastinate that second coat.

Happy Home Improving you crazies…

A house becomes a home…

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This weekend the house that arrived at the ranch in the middle of the coldest part of the winter, the house we’ve put a few tears and sweat droplets into in order to move in earlier this month, came to life.

Sure, the trim wasn’t up and the outlets weren’t covered, the staircase isn’t complete, the basement is full of dirt and I can’t use my stove, but who needs a stove really?

Or a basement?

All we needed was for the much-needed rain to hold off for a few hours so we  so we could enjoy our beautiful front yard and celebrate husband’s 30th birthday with friends and family.

I have to tell you I was a little uncertain about the capabilities of hosting 20+ family and friends in an unfinished house we had barely unpacked in the middle of a wild place. I had visions of small children falling down unfinished stairs, guests twisting ankles on one of the thousand dirt clumps that have yet to be leveled  and rain that would force us all to cram inside the dirt filled basement. But when I asked Husband what he wanted to do for his big 3-0 he said with confidence that he wanted to have a party.

At our house.

So I took one look around to gauge, on a scale from 1-10, just how far off we were from looking like a page out of “Better Homes and Gardens,” determined that we were about a 0, took a deep breath and made a few lists.

One for groceries.

One for booze.

And one for Husband  that looked something like this:

“Happy Birthday my sweet and lovely man. Can you please accomplish the following before Friday:”

-Make a fire pit in the front yard
-Put up the backsplash
-Prune back some wild and dangerous trees in the yard so we don’t ruin anyone’s good hair day
-Put up a railing to the front door so your grandmother doesn’t plummet off the edge and to the ground 15 feet below her
– And while you’re at it, make sure the lock is on the door to the basement, because, if you remember correctly, there are no stairs on the other side.
– Write down instructions on how to cook a 50 pound brisket
– Put the doors on the closets
-Help me figure out why the new fridge smells like fish
-Call Pops so he can help you put up the giant chandelier that has been sitting in the middle of our living room for three days
-Try not to die on that ladder, I want you around past 30…
-Oh, and tell me what you want for your birthday…

Then I wrote my own list. It looked like this:

-Clean as much as humanly possible in the time that you have between now and the arrival of guests
-Channel your inner Lutheran Church Lady and learn to make some Jello Salad already
-Make sure Husband and Pops don’t die putting up the chandelier
-Buy plenty of booze

I put boxes next to each item and prepared to check them off.

I was feeling pretty good about getting after it all on Monday. And then it came and went. The same way  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday flew by and pretty soon it was Friday and all I had was a long list with no check boxes,  $300 worth of booze, one giant chandelier sitting in a box in my living room and 20 or so people thinking their might be some noodle salad and a cake the next day.

But Husband didn’t seem worried. He thought it could all get done in a few short hours. First item on his list for party day? Put up the giant chandelier.

Fifteen scenarios of how Husband could potentially die, three mini-heart-attacks, one broken bulb and four hours later, the damn chandelier was in place.

One more hour and up went the railing while my salads chilled in the fridge.

Another thirty minutes and my Little Sister arrived with cake ingredients, I mixed us a bloody mary and Pops grabbed the chain saw to take care of some wild tree branches while the first guests arrived.

Turns out we didn’t get to the backsplash or the doors. We winged the brisket and held our breath when we reached into the fridge.

And nobody opened the basement door to plummet to their death.

In fact, nobody even got so much as a scrape in the chaos and beauty and wild space that is our unfinished backyard. Our guests arrived with proper foot wear, bearing desserts and dips and gifts and then took a seat in the shade or stood around with a nice cold drink on the hot first day in September to celebrate a man who built this little unfinished dream.

And I was overwhelmed. Not with what there was to do, not with the menu or the heat, but with the sudden realization that this is our home.

Forever.

And these are our neighbors and our family. And their kids are marching toward the big hill to throw sticks in the dam. My nieces are making up names for their favorite spots and pulling at my hand to take them on an adventure hike.

My Pops and his band are singing around our campfire.

My friends’ laughter seems to be lighting up the moon and my husband is dancing with his mother.

In his yard outside a house he built on a place we fall in love with over and over again every day.

See, it had been years since we had played host to that many friends and neighbors. Living in tiny apartments, in houses in renovation and in the small ranch house for the last two years simply did not allow us the space or resources to embrace and welcome our neighborhood into our home all at once.

But on Saturday we celebrated a big birthday and a giant step in our lives as a couple who has made a commitment to a place, to a neighborhood and to ourselves to work and live and love in this spot, and to keep our doors open to anyone who wants to walk through them, to sit down, have a cocktail or a cup of coffee and enjoy the view and the company.

Outside my kitchen window…

As I washed the dishes and prepared french toast in my kitchen on Sunday morning for the family and friends who spent the night, I smiled while I poured another cup of coffee and listened to the recap of the conversations from the night before.

They weren’t about the outlet covers, the dirt clumps in the yard or the giant chandelier.

They were about the people who came and ate and hugged and talked and laughed and sang and spilled. The stories were about the kids who climbed in the hills, rode our horses and wished my husband a Happy Birthday.

And I couldn’t help but think that our new house, unfinished as it is, has never felt so complete and it has never felt more like a home.

Happy Birthday Husband. Thanks for helping me make this dream come true.