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One Of Those Days

 It's one of those days when I can't seem to get anything done. I go from phone call to phone call, trying to keep my head together, and trying to keep Gabe from eating all the cookies meanwhile. Thankfully Jasmine is sleeping, or we would be in real trouble!

A friend let us borrow a skid loader and bulldozer for the weekend,  so suddenly we are able to get a lot done! Andy was taking stumps out by hand and trying to level the house site with a shovel and hoe which was a lot of hard work, and took a long time.

Now that he has a skid loader, the house site is almost ready to go! He has it leveled and we just need to get a little bit of gravel on top yet.

So while I'm in here not getting much done, it feels great to be able to look outside and see things happening.

 Well, OK, I guess things are happening in here. I sold  two puppies before 6 AM this morning and two since!

Confessions of a Tired Mom

When I started a blog, I envisioned carefully crafted posts, with deep, inspirational thoughts, cool how-to articles, and hilariously witty observations about life.

Umm...

Instead, I do well to get my two posts per week written at all, forget about having time to actually think deep thoughts about what to write.

The Meaning Of Life, My Thoughts on the Book of Revelation and The End Times, How to Train Perfect Children...

All these are blog posts I will probably never write, or even have  the time to think about! 

My morning goes something like this. 

4 AM 

Jasmine wakes up. Feed Jasmine. Jump back in bed and try to sleep before alarm rings.

5 AM 

Open one eye and look at phone to see if there are any missed calls, texts, or emails for the puppy job. Answer what calls, texts, and emails there are trying to sound as cheerful as I can, because down in Pennsylvania, it is already 9:00 AM and people don't understand that they are waking you up at an ungodly hour of the morning. 

Turn on sound on phone and go back to sleep, hoping and praying no one else calls or texts.

5 to 6 AM 

Phone rings, answer phone, go back to sleep thinking about how I should really get up and get a jumpstart on my day.

7:30 AM 

Children wake up fussy and hungry. We drag ourselves out of bed, and in between phone calls try to get the children dressed, bed made, and breakfast on the table.

From there on out, the days really vary. The quality of the meals we eat, and whether or not the house gets cleaned and dishes washed depends on how grumpy the children are, how busy the phone job is, and how much effort I make to try to get outside and help Andy with the house.

So here it is, time to write another blog post, and I can find nothing deep, inspirational, or witty in my exhausted brain.

But this is life right now! And I have to just do the best I can, even when it feels like I have so many things to do that nothing gets done well.

Post Script

For those of you who don't think 5 AM is all that early, let me explain that here in Alaska the sun doesn't set until 11:33 PM, to be exact, so it sure is hard to go to bed in decent time.

The 'Hood

The house is down to piles of boards! Boards with all the nails pulled, too. It feels like we have made progress this week. Some of the materials aren't good for much besides building a chicken house or something, but we managed to salvage some floor joists and other boards that are actually good enough to use in our new house!

We have been meeting more and more neighbors, and so far that has been a relatively good experience. Moondog came over to say hello, puttering in on his little lawn mower tractor. The next day he was back, and the day after that. He seems like a lonely person who needs someone to talk to. We fed him lunch on Wednesday and he spent the rest of the afternoon helping Andy pull nails out of boards.

Some other neighbors, Richard Reynolds and his family, showed us around their place and gave lots of helpful information for Alaska living. Richard was born and raised here in Alaska. They also sent us home with three big slabs of fresh caught King Salmon. We fried it up for supper in some butter and it tasted amazing!

Last night we went across the road to say hello to our neighbors there. Kevin and Tessie are the closest neighbors we have, and they are definitely a treasure trove of useful information and advice. They have a small homestead with a flock of sheep and chickens. They invited us over for pizza and fresh apple pie and we played some fiddle and guitar music for them after supper.

It has been good to get to know some of the people in our neighborhood, and I hope we can become friends.

Writing Home

Sometimes when lots of things are going wrong, it's hard to know how to write home without worrying everyone. So here is a mock letter home just for fun. Some of this happened and some didn't, so take it with a grain (or perhaps a handful) of salt.

Dear Mom & Dad, 

We are having a great time here in Alaska. Andy wanted me to be sure to write in case you saw the flood in the news and worried. 

We are OK. Only 1 of our puppies and some canned goods got washed away. It's a good thing our creek isn't any bigger or we would be in real trouble.

Luckily, none of us drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for our dog when it happened. We never would have found Cherokee in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightning. 

Andy was upset that Cherokee wandered off, but it happened during the fire so no one saw her go. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas could blow up? The wet wood and trash still didn't burn, but our boat did. Also, some of our clothes. Andy is going to look weird until his hair grows back. 

We plan to go get lumber for the house if Andy gets the motorhome fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left. Andy says that with a motorhome that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why we can't get insurance on it. 

We think it's a neat motorhome. When we go over bumps the front flaps and we catch air. It's almost like flying!

Guess what? We have all passed a first aid course! When Andy cut his arm on all the glass from the windows we got to see how a tourniquet works.

Gabe and I threw up. It was probably just food poisoning from the canned food we've been eating. 

Did you know that the Alaska state bird is the mosquito? We get bit by them a lot, but don't worry. Only one in five carry deadly diseases.

The neighbor shot our dog, but he missed us. Luckily we had gotten trapped down in our underground shipping containers when he opened fire.

I have to go now. We are going into town in a borrowed van to mail our letters and buy extra-strength bear spray. The other stuff didn't work.

Don't worry about anything. We are fine. 

Love, 

Andy and Tabitha 

P.S. Can you remember how long it has been since I had a tetanus shot?

Progress (Or The Lack Thereof)

This week we started to tear down the house.

But we only got as far as the roof before we had to do other things. Andy agreed to work for a guy putting in rental cabins two miles down the road. Someone is booked to stay in one, um, today actually... so there is a big rush to get everything ready. One cabin and the bath house are almost finished, but they still need water and electricity hooked up, and with off grid systems, that takes a WHILE.

1. 

We have been gone about every day this week, running for parts, appliances etc. Since town is an hour away, running to town for parts can take all day. It stinks that the motor home is our only vehicle right now. We are in a constant state of upheaval!

I did learn something tho. It is possible to make bread in a moving motorhome! I waited and waited for the right time to make bread - a time when we would actually stay in one place for two hours straight, but it never happened. Finally I just started making bread, and sure enough, as soon as it was rising Andy needed another pipe fitting, so off we went!

Amazingly enough, the bread didn't even fall much! It sure was good to have something fresh after eating canned stuff for a couple weeks.

This morning we started off (late) to the vet with our five puppies in the motorhome to get them their rabies shots.

"Um... Hon..." Andy said on the way out the lane. "Looks like our speedometer isn't working." 

Thankfully it kicked into gear when we were partway to the vet.

I'm pretty sure this motorhome might just fall to pieces in the middle  of the road somewhere!