Labor of Love: A Few Days of Rest

Sweet time spent with family. We do good here and make it all work....and then family comes and hearts long for home. Oneday we will find our normal here. To have come from a close knit family to this new land...leaving absolutely everything and everyone behind...it's still new territory even 18 months later. While there are many advantages to geographical distance when there has never before existed any in life...there is just as much longing to return to all those we love and left behind. And my heart just yearns for home somedays when we are so loved on by those still 1700 miles away. Far way friends and family that love us in so many ways. 2 day visit with Pawpaw, my dad, enabled us to take a few days off from seemingly endless projects and workload. How thankful I am for those who come this direction....those who look past and understand all the chaotic mess of love and projects taking place around here. No kitchen cabinet doors/drawers, primed bookshelf, no couches, rough...to say the least...floors.....yet they come and love us anyway. How grateful I am for family and old friends along with all of the new with which we are surrounded with here. It is an amazing thing to be loved in life and something I just don't take for granted at all. Tears were shed, lots and lots of hugs, upon his departure. We look forward to all of those still left to visit before the end of the year.  And the two days off while he was here offered an amazing, much needed reprieve from the workload 

3 miles, 30 minutes, 1 of those miles run at an incline of 4. 5 minute warm up and 5 minute cool down swiftly walked at an incline of 10. And she smiles! It's a race to keep up with her these days. Love this girl and her determination.

Back to work. Multitasking. He finally got strapped to the back in an Ergo. Day 1 of kitchen cabinet doors/drawers/bookshelf shelves!

This just gives a whole new dimension to barefoot and pregnant. I may not exactly be barefoot but the whole baby on hip, paintbrush, and pregnant....kinda lookin like it just meets the criteria. Nothing like being a little stereotypical. Sexy.

And Day 2! Which almost resulted in completion of 1st coat of priming all...except for 2 doors....which dinner interrupted. Day 3 resulted in no pictures but the completion of 2nd coat on every piece. Beautiful days outside make for much progress inside. There's only around 172 pieces to try and get done...strung out, laid out, and propped up....everywhere. I don't exactly have the energy to pull the all nighters right now and it's just a little bit maddening to paint 2, stop to change a diaper, paint one, stop to clean up a mess, paint 2, stop to feed kids, paint half of one, stop to monitor location of everyone. But hey....only 3 days and everything is primed. On to paint! Hinges and hardware, such as knobs and pulls, are just way more expensive than what I'd originally thought so getting everything back on and in may take a few paychecks. But....at least the labor intensive part is half way done. 

The chain gang.  We've realized that there is no way we will be done with everything before warmer weather and snakes return. Right now we've had to break it up into manageable pieces already. Basement now stands in water 75% of time. It drives mice up into house and we now have massive mice problems...yet again. Sigh. Professionals have said that due to years and years of infestation problems this is not anywhere near being an overnight fix and will take many months of treatments as we demouse all of their many nesting sites within cracked walls, crevices and such. So, with increased rain we deal with another round of mice. It's being dealt with...but basement must be 100% emptied in order to reduce space to mere concrete and eliminate all hiding/nesting spaces. So, what little we had left now has to go also. As a result, we will stop the actual house improvement after kitchen/living are complete and move to basement. Once those are accomplished we'll return to house to tackle office/dining and then on to bathrooms and bedrooms. But the yard....yeah. And the warm weather....and the snakes....and the kids all over it. In an effort to knock out several things at once we have begun assigning projects and put everyone to work on specific task. The amazing joy of tons of kids! We are capable of knocking out many things at once. They have been assigned to raking yard into piles. We'll begin burning on Monday. One of the amazing things about living in the Amazon....you can burn all the time...anytime of the year! There is no burn ban here....a sheer novelty in and of itself. Leaves, twigs, sticks...everything. No bagging required. So....children have worked their butts off within the past week as they rake leafy autumn carnage into burn piles. So it is that we have had to delegate and they tackle outside while I work feverishly trying to finish up living/kitchen in order to move on and tackle basement....again.  I do love that they know how to work...and work well. Hopefully summer will prove to be productive as far as yard goes. Right now, concern is just the forest floor, snakes that abide due to it and getting that dealt with. Come summer maybe we can actually do some planting, landscaping, and grass growing. And just maybe it'll provide yet another way to get back into shape quickly after baby. 

My priming buddy finally gave it up.

All the continual dirty mess of love. It takes a constant making peace with it all and settling heart and mind to be ok with the continual state of disarray and unorganization going on. But....little by little we're getting there. 

Maybe I could just go around taking foot sizes to see who knew it was in the floor and failed to pick it up.

And here they come! They only get bigger from here. Boys were just more than a little bit thrilled. They were ready to rip out the .22's. As it was, the shovel seemed to work just fine.

Ready to burn!

These piles will be pulled away from fence and fed into ditch fires once we begin. The ability to just burn it all is still just such a huge novelty. Sooooooo much better than shoveling into bed of truck and hauling to compost site for weeks and weeks on end as was done last year. Who knew burning leaves could be so thrilling. It's the little stuff in life!

And the wildlife emerges once more...and completely thrills kids.

1st coat vs 2nd coat of primer! Ready for paint! At least the one on the right is. 

One of the many reasons painting gets interrupted 50 freakin thousand times. The mess up, tear up duo.

Inseparable duo. Their relationship is so amazing for husband and I to observe. She won't leave him and she's got him completely wrapped around her little finger. There's not much he wouldn't do for her tiny little self...including begging for her to stay up WAY past her bedtime! "Mom, it's just her and she's so happy. She'll be cool and lay still. She just wants to hang out." This is about how she goes to sleep every night daddy's on shift. She loves him more than life itself.

Spring! Painter's tape going on....yep...still waiting for 2nd coat of paint before I can take it off. But, before I can put 2nd coat on I need the above sink light completed. Holding pattern. Again. But the daffodils are pretty amazing and so much fun to have growing wild in yard!