Honeymoon Bay House: What hapend to August to December?

Life got busy.

When we got back from fishing, we got to spend some time visiting and having visits from some people we really love. Ariel went to be part of Acacia's wedding on the Olympic Peninsula, Dawn-Mom came to visit, Alice-Mom came to visit, Andy and Elias came for their anniversary, Tim went to visit Mike and Holly on the Olympic Peninsula, Joy-Mom and Rich-Dad came for a visit, Roni-Mom and Joe-Dad came for a visit, Ariel went to visit Andy and Elias, Felix and Morgan came for a visit during a storm, we all went to Daniel-Brother and Amanda's wedding, Adrienne came for a visit, Tilly-the-human came for a visit, we went camping for Tim's birthday, Grandpa's birthday and Thanksgiving happend... something like that. We quickly fell back into the now-familiar pattern of a revolving door of whirlwind visits with friends and family, stacked back-to-back and filling the in-betweens with busy, but each a person we love and are so happy and grateful to see. But that's sort of our baseline.

On top of that work started back up for Tim, now increased to an hour of over-time every day (plus a good-sized raise - woohoo!), days got shorter, darker, colder, we finally got the fence finished-enough to remind Tilly not to run off. We built additional houses for the goats and chickens, put up electric fencing, moved them over to the property. We've been busy working at this "how to make running water happen" project; clearing trees, leveling land, scheduling expensive work crews to get a well drilled - meanwhile hauling water in the truck and using water sparingly to wash dishes and cook. But again, still sort of our crazy version of baseline.

The real clincher in stopping all blogging from August to December came as Ariel started work for the fall. Ariel agreed to teach all the first grade classes from the public school in the school gardens on Mondays, all the kindergarten classes on Tuesdays, lead a new middle school program at Calyx Wednesday through Friday, including Thursdays at a working farm and Friday nature skills with extra students those two days... and Ariel was trying to keep up with volunteering with the Fire Department and Search and Rescue. Oh, and direct market selling 500lbs of frozen sockeye salmon, with weekly pick-ups on the far side of Seattle and coordinating drop-offs all over the island. Oh, and milking the goats for a half-hour or more every morning.

Blogging stopped. Sanity stopped. And Ariel said, "But other people work 5 days a week and it's no big deal! Other people work and have a dog! Other people work and volunteer a little here and there! I should be able to do this!!!" And Tim said, "Other people don't live in a bus and have to haul water. Other people aren't working on building their own house. Other people aren't also running a farm. Other people are stressed out and unhappy. It's okay to say no!"

So Ariel quit the fire department, and Ariel stopped milking the goats, and Ariel stopped working on Mondays, and Ariel relied a lot on other people to help with teaching, especially on Thursdays and Fridays. And Tim got a coffee maker.

We learned it doesn't work for us BOTH to work full-time or over-time and still expect to keep up with all the things we love. One of us needs to be around to take care of the little things or the unusual things while the other is away working, and for now that means I am scaling back on some of the things I do and puting our family and farm first.