A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. But these 2 pictures are worth a couple thousand hours of blood, sweat, hammered fingers, achy feet, exhaustion, joy, accomplishment, and contentment.
Proof of Progress
Footings
A new house has gotten real in the last week. The footings are now done. We owe a huge thanks to Elvis, Jimmy, Fred, and Damon. Two of these friends are wonderful church friends from 2 different churches. Another has been a friend and help to us since we first moved in. Another is a new friend this week, another one of our neighbors.
The wood form in this picture below was because of a huge HUGE rock. It couldn’t be moved. It will be underground but is in the way of the footings. It was a bit of an oops when the concrete was poured, and it blew out the end of the form. But all is well after some quick repairs.
The block foundation starts getting laid Friday. That should take about a week. We had 1600 blocks delivered today and 800 more tomorrow. Because of the slope, the back foundation wall will be 8 feet, so our deck will be up that high and will make our view even better. But that’s a lot of blocks! 35 bags of mortar mix and 10 tons of sand.
From Above
Oops
Before all of this happened, Noel was busy with multiple “little” jobs. We had a water leak. A fitting had a slow leak that expanded into a large leak – lovely water bill, BTW! The “normal” person would fix the leak. This is how my husband fixed the leak. An entire vault! If I’m missing, you know where to look for me. =) He will even admit it got a bit large, but there is now great access to the main shutoff and required equipment. =)
More trees were cut down and stumps were ground down; the latter is a time-consuming job.
The Pups
My life is still often centered around work and puppies. I’m not doing great at retiring. And 4 puppies — what was I thinking! The big boys turn a year old this next week. They are well-behaved and seem grown up compared to the other 2.
Thanksgiving – Can’t Wait!
We will be taking a break probably before the garage floor gets poured to spend a wonderful Thanksgiving with 2 of our 3 sons and their families. Our goal to have the house finished is the end of July before our other son and his family come to visit. Noel needs a break, and we need kid and grandkid time. It has been a long time.
The View
My dad mourns our beautiful view off our back deck from our previous property. We have told him we have a view – we just have to take a few trees down once the house is built. Here is our future view. Some of those front trees will be re-purposed in the woodshop, and it will open the view up more. We actually live on the same “mountain” that we did before – just higher up.
Change for Good
We have left our comfort zone and daily realize areas where we can minister. We have met people we would never have met if we continued living where and how we lived before. We were comfortable and clueless. There was a salvation, baptism, and changed life in the neighborhood recently. (We were not involved in this.) We have lots of prayer requests but they need to remain unspoken.