Day One

Little Jimmy doing prison labor. Lucy "helping"


















End of Day One Construction. A clean fence and half-way done with framing the floor?

Barbara and Jim arrived yesterday and today little house building was in full swing. Barbara and I mainly wrangled the girls although Barbara did go to town on removing old bamboo and ugly plastic from the backyard fence. We're planning to put on new bamboo before the little house walls go up.

Little Jimmy spent a lot of time today in serious hard labor, digging holes for the concrete piers to sit in. Then Mitch and Jim started framing up the base of the house. I'm just trying to stay calm and out of the way. I tend to panic that there is no way that this thing is going to get done and that we'll have two walls with no roof taking up half our backyard for the next ten years. That is all me, nothing on Mitch or Jim who are great builders. I just have absolutely no patience for building things and feel like if it doesn't get done within ten seconds that it will NEVER be done. So as I said, I'm trying to be a better person and just let the thing happen however it happens.

Today Barbara and I took Lucy and Josie to a sing-a-long at the mall and I also went on a window buying mission to Santa Paula. I picked up a 3 ft x 6 ft sliding glass window with a screen and wooden blinds for $20. It isn't in the best shape so we'll see if we end up using it or not but it seemed worth the risk. If we don't use it we'll take it to the RE-STORE in Oxnard which benefits Habitat for Humanity.

I'll try to keep posting each day with pictures so you can see what we are up to. Lucy and Josie are over the moon to have their grandparents visiting. Lucy helped Grandpa dig the dirt out of some of his holes. Lucy also enjoyed leaping off the deck into the dug holes. She also commented that Grandpa looks just like Bob the Builder. Josie mainly played ball with Grandma and ran away with Lucy's toys.

More adventure tomorrow.








Barbara and Josie playing ball.