Dealing with grief,and getting on with life...

The last week has been a roller coaster of bittersweet emotions. It has only been a 8 days since my step dad succumbed to fatal injuries from a tragic tractor accident, and yet it seems like so long ago. We are finalizing the purchase of our very first home, and trying to gear up for a short move to the new house in a couple of weeks. I am trying to come to terms with my family's loss, and beginning a new chapter in my life all at the same time. It is a very confusing time.
I was in Walmart shopping, and they were playing Christmas music, and I became very sad, and began to cry. I am sad for my mom who lost the love of her life, and I am sad for myself, for losing my Daddy Jerry, I am sad for Molly for losing her granddaddy whom she is too young to remember. I am sad for LeAnn and Jay who have lost their dad, and for my whole family. It is so unfair. :(
I keep trying to remember that he is only away, until we can meet again.

If things couldn't be complicated enough, I am also planning on selling Christmas crafts that I have been making for the local Christmas markets coming up at the end of the month.

I am also scheduled to have a laproscopic procedure with cystectomy the 2nd of December. I will be looking forward to a calmer December, and hoping that aside from being away from my family at Christmas we will have a good holiday with Molly.

Here are some pictures of our new home
pics
Cheers!

Moving Forward....finally!

Greg, and I have been dreaming about having a home of our own for the last 5 years. We started out by purchasing 5 acres of land in 2004 with dreams of building a home there one day. Well, a year and a bit ago we moved up to the town where our land is here in Quesnel, BC. We rented an older townhouse in town, and we started some minor clearing, and put a drive on the property last year, but didn't get much else accomplished.

Winter set in November 1st, and so did the snow, and the snow stayed up until about a month ago. We actually still have snowy spots here, and there up in the shady parts of the property. Greg actually thought we could get some stuff done this winter, but was rudely awakened by the amount of snow we got. At least 4 feet or more stayed the whole winter at our place, and most of the higher spots.

Greg has been researching cordwood masonry for the last 5 years, and we had hopes of building us a cordwood home ourselves. I was skeptical that we could do it ourselves, but I was willing to give it a shot. Well, we have been muddling over plans, and more plans, and trying to decide what we wanted to do, and up until about a month ago, we were still set on doing a timber frame with cordwood infill. We even met with a timber framer. Having a house still seemed so long away, even years if we had continued on the path we were.

We finally decided to go to our credit union to see what kind of money we could get for a building mortgage. They came back to us with a decent figure, and not way off of the charts too, and within our limits. Until we got a ballpark figure, there was no way we could even decide on what we could afford to build. So now we are getting somewhere....We had talked about house kits before, and played around with putting a trailer on the land until we could build, and all kinds of alternative housing until we could build our cordwood home. This just made things more complicated.

So we revisited the house kit idea, and decided that with Greg's work schedule this year often having him out of town, that we would should do a house kit instead. This would put us on our land in a reasonable amount of time, and not years from now.

I had only wish we decided this a year ago! :)

So we have been looking at house plans, and we have looked at lots of websites, books, and magazines. Greg found a plan he really liked, and I sort of liked it too, but it just wasn't giving me that "I really love this house" feeling.
I was looking through another magazine the other night, and I found a plan that I really loved, and the house was very nice. I showed Greg, and he really liked it too.
Unfortunately the company that produced it was in Tennessee.

We decided to contact log home builders in the area to see if anyone could reproduce this house, and fortunately a local builder right here in Quesnel answered our email with a very positive yes, I can help you response. So we are going to make an appointment to meet with the builder, and hopefully everything will continue to fall into place.

I am very hopeful, and optimistic that we will be in our own home in the near future. I think the Fall sounds good to me, but we will see.

Here is the link to the floor plans, and a sketch of the place online, and this is a photo I took of the picture in the magazine.
House Plans