Tomorrow Tomorrow, La La La

Tomorrow is going to be great. I do like birthdays - and tomorrow is my birthday - but that is not the main reason I'm excited for tomorrow. I also like sunny days and 70 degree weather in September. But I have an even better reason to be excited for tomorrow. NATE IS COMING HOME! He's been gone for 9 days, and while I don't feel like we've been drowning without him, I do feel completely exhausted. And it could be in my imagination, but I think the last time I had bags under my eyes like this was when I brought a newborn home from the hospital.

I cannot imagine how a single mom does this child raising thing. To be on call 24/7 is just too hard. And even though Nate's been away, I have not been on-call 24/7, maybe just 24/5. I've had so much help, thanks to Marcia, Helen, Anna, Sarah, Ariyl, Bethany and Melissa. Thank you ladies, you're the best!

I also can't imagine how a single mom does it when kids don't sleep well. My kids sleep well, thank you, God. How ridiculous of me to be annoyed when Louisa woke up at 6 this morning, saying Mom. Mom. Mommmmmm. I can't go back to sleep. It could be so much worse, is what I would tell myself if I'd have been in the mood to rationalize. Normally Helen comes at 7:30 am, but on the days I had to work while Nate was gone, I asked her to come at 7 instead. She happily obliged. I really don't know what I would do without you, Helen.

The biggest challenge the past few mornings was peeling Cora off me so I could get Louisa to school in time. Cora has never been too sad to see me go, but recently it's been much harder for her, thanks to pre-school, being three years old, and dropping her nap. Normally Nate takes Lou to school, so hopefully it will get easier for Cora once we're back to that routine. A co-worker who doesn't have kids asked me a really insightful question yesterday. She asked if Cora was having more trouble since my work schedule switched to 3 days in a row on, then the next 4 days off. Absolutely. I'm still baffled by her insight.

The only good thing about Nate being gone is that I go to bed earlier. Actually maybe there are three good things. We can eat lots of fish for dinner and we don't go through ice cream as quickly. But I'm willing to sacrifice sleep, fish and ice cream in exchange for you, Nate! Traveling mercies. We'll see you tomorrow.

Finishing The Finishing Touches

We're getting closer and closer to our home sweet home. The siding guys finished weeks ago...sorry for the post delay! Nate worked last weekend to get the columns secured and caulked before setting his mind to the back porch. We still need a ceiling on the front porch, which will likely be bead board. Traditionally, the ceiling of a front porch is painted sky blue. This is what Nate tells me at least, and typically, he's done his research.

We need to order house numbers, which will likely go above, under the porch soffit

We just ordered a vintage French mailbox to be wall mounted to the right of the door

If the mosquitos weren't so bad, we'd be lemonade sipping on this here front porch

Choosing outdoor lights was another fun decision because we both liked these the best

Then there's the back deck, which has been purposefully left out of tours and photoshoots, because it just wasn't much to look at, nor could you walk out on it. But leave it to Nate to find someone selling 16 year old ipe (a tropical hardwood great for decks) for CHEAP. He drove to Slinger 2 weeks ago to buy enough for our smallish deck and now we can safely step out the back door and walk down the steps. We love you Nate. You're a wood rockstar.

To buy new ipe, we would have paid more than $5 per lineal foot. This was $0.50 per LF

I wasn't sure I'd like the weathered grey look, but I do!

A weaving project for another weekend

After a fair amount of debate, we decided to go with cedar posts and cable railings

These steps are as steep as code allows

For a human (canine) touch to end this post, here's Ries: