Saturday morning came and we were waiting for our plumber, Doug, and also Home Depot to bring us the correct sink base cabinet and take the wrong one back. Nope. Actually, we weren’t waiting for Doug at all. He was waiting for Jim when he got there! Such a nice surprise! Something is going right this time! Wait for it….you just know that won’t last. But let’s enjoy the nice surprises while they last, shall we? Yes, we shall!
I was still at home with a sick dog, and sick kids. So much fun. Our dog, Rocko had an acute attack of pancreatitis the night before and I had spent most of the night in the ER with him. For a senior dog with major liver problems, that’s pretty serious. And I really love my dog, so I was quite concerned…and possibly irrational at times…maybe.
Thankfully, the wonderful ER vets were able to help him and sent us home around 3am. At 4 am Camden woke up with a fever, a horrible cough and runny nose. Great timing kid. Well played! Really well played. I think Camden and Rocko had a bet going to see who could break me first. I think they both won. I was a zombie the next day.
So, morning was not my friend at that time. But knowing that Doug was already there and ready to work definitely lifted my spirits! I forced myself to get my chores done and then loaded up the kids to head to the grocery store. Why is it that when you’re tired and grumpy, you always run out of all the necessities at the same time? Out of milk? Yep. Out of laundry detergent? Yep. Out of deodorant? Yep. Out of garbage bags? Yep again. How does that happen all at one time???? It’s Carter Crazy, I’m telling you!!
We hit the grocery store, or rather the grocery store hit me. I always feel like that when I leave the grocery store, don’t you? It’s always so expensive and by the time I’ve told the kids “No”, a million times, had the buggy run over both my heels, taken kiddos to the bathroom at least once, scrounged through my purse for bandaids, itch cream, Kleenex, etc. and walked the length of the store at least 3 times because I forgot something. Well, by then I am exhausted. And grumpy. It is always something when I go to the store! Wow, that doesn’t sound like I like my kids very much does it? Sorry, that must be the exhaustion talking… I really do love my kids, I promise. I just don’t like the grocery store!
Anyway, we made it through the store and then had to wait for 20 minutes to get gas. I don’t think I like Hurricane Irma much at all. Nope. All done with her and she hasn’t even made landfall in the US yet! Go away, Irma! Go away! I actually muttered this while we were waiting in line for gas and Maylin promptly told me to be nice. She then proceeded to remind me that if I can’t say something nice I shouldn’t say anything at all. Needless to say I was quiet the majority of the morning. Thank you for the reminder to be nice, dear Maylin. I will certainly remind you of this when you have kids one day. Ha!
I will spare you the rest of my journey that morning, but we eventually made it to the farm, with all of us still alive. Doug had made lots of progress with the plumbing. If I had known him better, I would have hugged him! Since I didn’t know him very well, I didn’t want to be all awkward and weird about it. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m awkward and weird regardless of how well I know someone. That’s just how God made me. Awkward and weird. Apparently Jim loves awkward and weird though. Thank you Lord!
The plumbing was well on it’s way! We have pipes in our house!
Home Depot still hadn’t shown up, but they had called and said they were in Lake Lure heading our way. Long story, but the short version is that they never came that Saturday. They called at 4 to apologize. They had gotten lost and then they were called back to the store. They promised to deliver the cabinet on Sunday morning. Wow! Now that’s customer service. Especially, if they deliver on their promise on Sunday! And they did! They actually delivered the cabinet on Sunday. Aren’t they nice?
Anyway, while Jim helped Doug, and I use that term loosely, because Doug does the majority of the work. He just likes for someone to hand him the right stuff and chat with him while he works. Jim was definitely the right guy for that job. And Jim did help when he could!
The kids and I moved the 2 wrong trusses to keep them off the ground. Then we sorted through the trash pile. Ok, I sorted through the trash pile while the kids rode circles around the house on their bikes. At least they were entertained, right?
I love our builder, but there is NO way that we were throwing away all that scrap material.
Nope. No way. No how.
I was determined to save as much as I could to build a shed barn for Desi and Minnie. (Desi is the sweetest horse in the world and Minnie is the craziest cow in the world. And if you ever meet Minnie, please don’t tell her she is a cow. It will crush her!) I hadn’t figured out exactly where we wanted to build the big barn yet, so in the mean time we were going to build a shed barn and divide it so both of them would still have shelter. Gotta take care of my girls!
So, I sorted through the scrap materials and restacked it on the pallets from the tub and shower. Thank you Home Depot! Honestly, I think we have more than enough materials to build the shed for the cow and horse without buying anything except a few posts and the shingles. Wow! That’s amazing and sad at the same time. So much waste in this world. But at least, it was going to save us some money for now.
I was even able to reuse the cover from the plywood and wood stacks to cover the scrap wood. Yeah! As Jim pointed out, it wasn’t pretty. But it worked! It simply amazed me how much this scrap pile grew over the next few weeks. We now have 2 huge piles of scrap wood out there. Maleah is wanting to build a bigger chicken coop for her future birds. Why not?
I loaded up all the plastic and loose materials that I thought might blow away during the 40mph winds we were still forecasted to get. Nope, not looking forward to that at all. At least if all the loose materials had already been taken to the dump I wouldn’t have to walk around picking up trash all next week. Then the kids and I decided to go for a well deserved and relaxing walk.
Ok, to be honest, Maylin rarely walks. She hops, skips or runs everywhere she goes.
Maleah is, of course, a typical teenager and wants to drive everywhere.
We ended up at the creek. We always end up at the creek. We love the creek. Hello, lovely creek!
We even saw these fat tadpoles. I have honestly never seen tadpoles that big before! They will grow up to be the biggest bull frogs these parts have ever seen.
We played some. Or we played a lot.. We kind of lost track of time…but we had lots of fun.
Then the kids kept playing while I took these pictures.
I just love that the kiddos love playing in the creeks as much as I do.
I don’t think I will ever get over how beautiful this place is.
Or how blessed we really are to get to live out our dreams here.
Thank you, God!
P. S. Dear God, if you could please spare all of us the wrath of Hurricane Irma. Thank you for that as well. Amen.
