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We’ve been far too absent in the last several weeks because, well…
LIFE KEEPS HAPPENING TO US!
Perhaps you’ve felt like this too. You start feeling like you’re catching up and you can actually juggle everything and then everything comes crashing in again. We totally get it. While the setbacks we’ve faced lately aren’t the worst things that can happen to us, they have slowed us down a bit.
So mostly, I just wanted to check in with you dear readers to let you know that we haven’t abandoned you and have some pretty exciting things in the works even though our home life is CRAAAAAZY right now.
Related: Homestead Building When LIFE Gets In The Way
Home Building Progress
First off on a positive note, WE FINISHED THE SIDING! Look how gorgeous it turned out.
Ugh, I still need to clean off those bottle ends.
Mark worked so so hard on this and I’m so proud of him for how tirelessly he devoted himself to this project. Covering up the house wrap was highest on our to-do list, so we’re absolutely ready to move on to the next task: finishing the interior framing.
Personal Issues
In the time since finishing the siding, life decided to happen. We experienced some losses of friends and family, some expected and some not. It isn’t the kind of thing I want to share details on, but I would ask those of you who pray to please remember those special intentions for those close to us who have had a loss in recent weeks. It’s never easy to lose someone and they could use all the prayers they can get. Related: Life is short. You are loved.
R.I.P. Truck
In the midst of everything, our little family got rear-ended and the truck was totaled. The car behind us was stopped but a much larger truck hit him from behind at about 45 mph and sent his car straight into us. Everyone in the accident was okay, thankfully! I think everyone lost their vehicles though. It doesn’t look too bad at a glance, the frame damage we sustained meant the truck was a total loss.
We’re pretty bummed about this for a few reasons. One is that this is the truck that helped us start our homestead. It towed the cedar trees we used to build our house, carried us to the sawmill for the sawdust we used for our insulation, and made countless trips to every hardware store around for bags of lime, sand, lumber, tools, and more. It was a member of our little building crew!
But also, losing the truck meant we had to take time away from the project to go truck shopping, plus make a pretty big dip into the emergency fund until the reimbursement from the insurance company comes in. Boo. We managed to go truck shopping and find something that would work for us (even though it needed a bit of work…that’s expected when buying used).
Financial Preparedness Helps!
Even though we’ll get reimbursed for most of what we spent on a new-to-us truck, that money won’t get to us for a little while. That’s why you HAVE an emergency fund! You need to have a rainy day fund for WHEN it rains, because it’s GOING TO RAIN. And when it rains it pours. If this had happened to us before we paid off all our debt and built up our emergency fund it would have been catastrophic. Now, it’s mostly just inconvenient.
If you’re still working on paying off debt and struggling to build up your emergency fund, you should definitely check out:
So what’s next?
Right now we’re in the midst of musical theater season. When we’re not building our homestead we are active teachers and performing musicians and this is the time of year when we’re both playing lots of shows. Once we survive that, things will slow down and we can resume the ever-daunting task of building a house from scratch.
Beyond that, there are going to be some big changes coming up for us that I’m starting to get excited about! I can’t say too much aside from that, so stick around to see what happens next! It’s going to be a completely different adventure, that’s for sure.
Until then, take a look at some previous updates to see how far our little homestead has come.
If you want to know more about our off-grid cordwood homestead project, click here. Like this content? Be sure to share it! Join us on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram for more building and homesteading goodies that don’t necessarily make it to the blog. Thanks!
