apologies

number one:

k's laptop dropped out of a cabin windowsill, and we haven't been able to deal with a new way of uploading pics. We have them, but you can't. Sorry.

number two:

being a crappy poster, but come on, it's crunch time, and we worked until after 8 tonight, then drove an hour here, ate dinner, and now i've got to get some rest before tomorrow's marathon.

But:

tomorrow, we put on the roofing tin. the tarpaper and decking is already down.

and the windows and doors get put in.

and we finish our loft.

which means, my friends, we have a cabin. a drafty one without its final flooring, an incomplete porch, and no installed stove, but four walls with a roof and doors a cabin makes.

g/night.

September

It seems that September is our month of gigantic change. Last year, K. and I threw our mutual belongings into a house together and got married. This year, we're building a cabin and in limbo between D.C. and Mississippi.

Two of my old friends have become engaged. Two friends have had their first children. My best friend has bought a house.

Change.

Perhaps unfortunately, I believe in the power of the past. And so, as we near completion of this project and move onto a very undefined future, I keep reminding myself-- that last year, I was 6 days married. And two years ago, I was in a different state, still a student, months away from my I'm-graduating-college-without-a-job crisis. And the September before that-- I was still dating the wrong guy, still trying to stuff myself into the college-sized hole.

I visited my former best friend today. Former best friend; isn't that odd? Why aren't there any books about maintaining friendships after the easy laughs are gone? According to our culture, with its emphasis on the self-created urban family (Will and Grace, Friends, Sex and the City), friends are forever, and family are the baggage you leave behind. But in my life, family are the ones you're forced to keep sticking with, and friends-well, I've had too many friends fade out or burn out, depending. It takes years, but here I am, still young, and I have two definitive best friends I no longer talk to. (Let's not even enter the boyfriend realm.)

Anyway, enough. In a week, the roof will be on, God willing. In a month, we'll be denizens of the fine state of Mississippi.

And next September? Here's hoping that we're in a house, the right house, still healthy, still here, and for Pete's sake, not moving.

5 minutes left on a computer in the library.

the walls are way above our heads. the roof tin gets delivered next thursday.

i love vermont-- we went to a steakhouse-- on our 1st anniversary-- with my mother's cousin and her bf (nice, but so not romantic)-- and at this steakhouse, they buy as per their contract with VermontFresh from local farmers. how cool is that? if only the rest of the world had such high standards.

speaking of high....the walls are above our heads.

:)

Short, because Saturday is a work day

This morning, I rolled on to my own arm and woke up because it didn't feel like mine. Yep. Whole new arm here, chock full o'muscle. Let me tell you, all you abs exercisers and aerobics fanatics, that building a cabin for 11 hours a day on a hillside is supremo exercise.

That being said, of course, I prefer aristocratically languid exercising.

Cheerio chickens. Hope everyone is well.

Pictures ? below. The first is now; the 2nd, Sept. 6th; the 3rd, the site pre-bulldozer.



  

  

  

It's a woman's perogative to change her mind

Conversations from the Camp:

1.
Him: You're a whiner and complainer...(it's in a tune, like a...well, I'm tone-deaf. But it's a song, consisting of that phrase.)

Me (given the fact I've been complaining for 24 hours): Then why'd ya marry me? Huh? Huh?

Him: You'll recall, my sweet, that I began singing that song to you on our honeymoon.

Me: Sucker.

2.

Me, sitting astride a log that I'm peeling the dirty bark off so that it will not blunt K.'s chainsaw, hysterically crying: I want a home! A home! I want a shower, and a room with a door!

K.: We're building a cabin. It's for 30 days. Cityslicker.

Me: I'm not a cityslicker! I don't mind working! I'm a good worker! But I (bursting into fresh sobs) I don't like living under a tarp in the woods! That doesn't make me a cityslicker!

K., considering for a moment: That's true, isn't it.


3.

Me: I hate living outside.

K.: I know. You'll never have to do it again.

Me, thinking to myself: Victory?



So, you've probably gathered that the euphoria has worn off. It's ok. At the end of this damn, wretched, dirt-and-bug-filled month, we'll have a cabin, and I love cabins. I love woodstoves. I love the trees. I am a little afraid to go to the outhouse by myself after dark, but who wouldn't be?

That being said, the cabin is coming along. Mostly, we've spent this week milling logs. Now, if you're like I was before this adventure, milling logs means nothing to you. Here's what those two words mean: Finding a tree. Cutting it down. Cutting all extra branches off of them and leaving them to rot in the woods, a fact that fills my psycho-neat-freakness with HORROR. Hauling said log to cabin site, where you use a peavey (amazing miraculous tool) to heave the log that you can't budge by pushing on it up onto risers. The bark is filled with mud from being dragged, so I “skin” it with a drawknife. K. then sets up a very long board on top of the log, and cuts the length of the log 3 times, a process which takes a minimum of 30 minutes, not including the inevitable chainsaw repairs.

We need over 80 of these.

But as K. says, we are not the kind of family who buys pre-cut logs, or even a darling little antique cabin that was crafted with handtools (I tried this, since we have the tools. My dear Lord, those pioneers were made of IRON).


But here we are, still married, still talking to each other. And only 10 days in :)

____

Written Saturday morning. And after 9 hours of work on the cabin, some visible progress, and that thorough venting of my feelings, I am once again quite chipper.

A woman's perogative.

P.S. I have tried for half-an-hour to post pictures. It cannot be done this evening. Very sorry.

___

Sunday morning: trying again!

1. the site before bulldozer

 

the site post bulldozer:

 

The site with sill logs:

 

The site with two layers of logs, joist hangers and porch joists in, and doorways blocked out:

 

And there we are! Not bad for ten days work.

hand on hip and jaw cocked

showered. in clothes that do not smell of woodsmoke. wearing flipflops. it's like a vacation!

after finishing the foundation, K. and I are at his parents' house for the night...and our day off tomorrow!

now, I'm tired of talking about the cabin. It's what K. and I do all day long, think about in the wee hours, and all of our outside conversations with other people include it. So I'll keep y'all updated, and when we remember our camera, I'll post pictures, but that's it, ya hear?
________

problem being, I have nothing else to say. We don't even listen to the radio. I haven't read a book in a week. It's funny how fast a world can get small. Which brings me to a previous ponder: aging.

Because we all know that I like to chew my nails to stumps over things that aren't actually pressing problems, I worry about aging all the time. Not just the physical aspects, but also the personality parts. It seems to me, in my admittedly extreme youth, that some people just...stop at a certain point. And it's not even when they're super-duper old. They stop changing and growing and all those new-agey things I'm so fond of and become more like caricatures of what they were when that stop occurred.

Anyone noticed this? A person whose life, opinions, habits become static and gradually become more like a default reality?

In the cases I've seen, it's as if these people have had some small internal spring cease to function, because of some life tragedy, or, in one case, laziness.

That "stopping" has gone on my list of things to avoid, along with becoming fat, wearing mommy-jeans, and unprotected sun exposure.