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The post title makes it sound a little like the McRib… well I don’t have pickles or super processed meat on a dry bun, but I do have photos.

So let’s do something fun.  Let’s pretend like it hasn’t been ages since I shared a blog post, and look at some photos; unedited, super lazy, but exciting photos.  Believe it or not, even though I haven’t continued writing on the blog, we have continued work on the house.  Here is the Heffelfinger Homestead as she stands now.

Jon picked this happy yellow color. He doesn’t have too many opinions about such things, so when he does, I try to take advantage of the opportunity to not have to make a decision! I LOVE it! Now he refuses to choose the color for the shutters…. hmmm, maybe green? Blue? White? This is why I like Jon’s decisiveness! A future project that we are already planning is to add a full mason fireplace on that empty wall between the tiny windows… someday.

Someday (well after we move in) we’ll cover that ugly concrete wall with a sandstone veneer.

Basement walk-out. Someday this will not be where we store the 4-wheelers, but where I have a hammock, patio furniture, and fire pit. Someday.

There are a lot of “somedays” with the way we are doing things.  We are trying to do a lot of the work ourselves, but that means we have to take our time, and we are spreading out a lot of the work and expenses.  By the time the house is done with all the “somedays” we’ll be deciding who to leave the house to in our will.

We have completed the rough-in work for electrical, plumbing, and heating and air.  We have all the insulation done, and we are currently working on drywall, painting, and even a little tile.  Here is where we are making the most recent progress, the kids’ bathroom.  It’s tiny, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be awesome.  Imagine a few photos from our beach vacation on the walls, faux paneling, and shabby chic white cotton shower curtain.  I only share this detail because this is the only room in the house that I have figured out this much.  I don’t even know what colors we’ll do in any other room.  Well, I have it narrowed down to about 10 options, but, hey, that’s progress.

This washstand is a flea market find. Add a vessel sink, viola, loveliness! I might be a little jealous of the kids’ sink.

 

Just starting to layout the tile. Tackling this project this weekend.

A little peak at the master bathroom. Under this window will sit my claw foot tub! That little treasure is tucked under a dropcloth at the moment, but I’ll share photos of that craigslist find later. The smaller dark window and doorway to the left will be our walk in shower.

This pile of material will become the shower in the master bathroom. Yay, subway tile!

The rest of these photos are random.  I’m particularly excited about each of them, and they were easily accessible for a snapshot.

This is one of the non-negotiables with the house, a dutch door. Thankfully Jon is a wonderful husband and humored me with this beautiful but extremely inefficient, odd-ball door. This opens up from our kitchen to the back deck that looks out over miles of beautiful Kentucky hills.

 

This is the chestnut oak flooring that will run throughout the house wherever there is not tile. Every board came from the trees that stood where the house now sits. We are so happy to be able to use the resources that are available to us. This land is providing so much for us.

So for the rest of the photos I have to tell you, we have these great friends; their home belongs in a primitive home décor magazine.  It is gorgeous!  And lucky for us they have a lot of extra awesome stuff.  We were lucky enough to get these beautiful doors and a window from them.  Jon, being the incredibly handy husband that he is, loves me enough to make custom door jambs to hang these vintage, authentic, solid wood beauties.  Many of these doors still have all the original functioning hardware.  I even have a skeleton key for one of them!

This old exterior door will be the door to our laundry room. I didn’t know what we were going to use it for when I first saw it, but I knew I had to have it! That is real beveled glass, folks!

Probably a closet door, after a little cleaning.



It might be a little unconventional, but I plan to turn this baby on its side, add a little crown molding to the top and have a super cute, super easy, super cheap headboard.



Ok, I’ve got nothing on this one. I’m putting a window in an interior wall between the mudroom and kitchen, but this one is a little too tall, so I’ll use a previously found vintage window. It might end up as a cabinet door, a picture frame, or a door to a kid’s play area under the basement stairs. Whatever it is, it is wonderful!



Whether we stain that door or paint it, it will open up to this view. This is the view from our room. That’s our barn down there to the left, then miles and miles of hills.

You might be able to tell that we are doing our best to make this house feel like it has been here for years.  I hope that the floor plans and material we use will come together to create a home that feels like it has history.  In fact, it kind of already does.  We’ve acquired material, fixtures, doors, hardware, and all kinds of odds and ends from so many loved ones that will be a part of this house.  When we live among these things we will forever be reminded of how blessed we are to have such amazing people in our lives.

I am no Longer Silent

Here we are livin’ the dream on our little Slice of Heaven one year after it first became ours.  So I thought I’d get things going again, but I have something I need to share with you before we get into all the good, the bad, and otherwise related to living on this land.
 

Disclaimers: 

1.       This will NOT be my typical light-hearted ramblings.  This is me doing my very best to initiate something positive from a dark past.  But after this I promise to limit my philosophical carrying on.

2.       The time I’ve taken to deal with and heal from this is one of the various reasons I have been MIA from the blog I barely started last year.  Well that, and then I had no idea how to explain what I was going through. While it’s still difficult to put to words, I know that it’s time.

 

 “The World suffers a lot.  Not because of the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of good people.” - Napoleon

 

When I was in the first trimester of pregnancy with our first baby, in 2007, I was on the phone with my sister.  She had argued with our step-father and mentioned that she still had a hard time getting along with him because of what he did.  I didn’t have to ask what she meant.  I knew what he did…but then, she APOLOGIZED to me for bringing it up!  I realized in that moment that my very own little sister had no idea that our step-father had also molested me.

So, I said it. 

“I was sexually abused.” 

Now, I’ve said it to the World Wide Web.  Well, I’ve typed it and uploaded it to my tiny blog.

But there it is nonetheless.

It’s a quarter to midnight, and my hands shake as my fingers poke at the keyboard. Having been barely able to admit this to myself for a decade, saying it to others still almost shocks me.  I’m wondering what you are thinking and feeling about this. Unfortunately, I know that it is likely sympathy.  I know some of you reading this have survived similar abuse.  Something I’ve learned since being able to talk about this is that WAY too many people say, “It happened to me too,” or “It happened to my sister/mother/friend.”  If this is true for you, you understand… and I’m sorry.  I fear that some of you will question why I would bring this up, but I hope that someday I won’t fear that – and that other victims won’t have to experience that fear.

The thing that is driving me to find these words is hope.  I have so much more hope than fear, that I am driven to share…  so I’ll continue.

Before I could feel our baby kick in my belly, my memories, my fears, came rushing to the forefront of my mind.  I knew my fear was not enough to excuse me from actively protecting our child from the possibility of this abuse.  I knew I would have to go through the pain that I buried.  Up until that positive pregnancy test, I was still in survival mode.  I denied my past to myself so that I could function on a daily basis. When I saw that second pink line, I entered protection mode.  The excuses I had made for the man who molested me, all the coping mechanisms I used, they fell short of being enough when I put my own child in my shoes.  If my step-father molested my child, it wouldn’t matter that he might have been drunk.  It wouldn’t matter if he has been sober for years now, it wouldn’t matter that my mother is still married to him, it wouldn’t matter that people would hate me for reporting it.  I came to the realization that simply, none of that mattered, period.  I had to forget the excuses in order to ensure that my step-father would never molest my child.

So, I began working through what had happened to me.  I worked very hard at sorting out the pain before our first baby boy was born.  In the first two years of our son’s life, it was enough for me to avoid my step-father.  I tried not to let him hold our baby.  I would never allow my step-father to be alone with our son, and we turned down all requests for overnight visits.

Truth fears nothing but concealment.  ~Proverb

As time went on, I started to open up to my friends, and I was hit again with a realization that my current methods for handling this past fell short.  I knew what my step-father did, so I could choose to protect my child from him.  But almost no one else knew.  When I told my best friend in the world, who was in her third trimester of pregnancy, who was my maid-of-honor, who is the dearest friend I’ve ever had, I realized how horrible it was to not speak up; I was ashamed that I had not told her sooner.  She had a right to know, she had a right to protect her child just as much as I did. 

I went home that night and typed into the Google search bar “molest statute of limitations”, but I was still a ways off from doing the right thing.

Nearly three years after that first phone call with my little sister, and after a lot of soul searching, I was ready to take the information about my abuse as far as was necessary.  I approached my little sister.  I let her know that I was considering reporting the abuse to the state police, and asked how she felt about it.  She barely let me get it all out when she agreed it was the right thing to do and said she would also report what happened to her, although she had a lot more to lose by reporting (my little sister… she’s a tough cookie).

So we reported it.  Then, we waited.  In my naivety, I hoped for a particular phone call - from my mother, or others in the family.  I hoped they (my family) still loved me.  Many of them didn’t… love us, that is.  At least they didn’t love us enough to face holding a child molester accountable - even if that person is their husband, their father, their friend.  Each phone call that never came was a new wound to heal from.  I am still healing.  Still now, when I see young men that are the same age as my dear brother, and I wonder what he might be like now, nearly three years since I last saw him; it takes my breath away.  THAT loss is the biggest I have faced since the first night I was abused.

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.  ~James A. Garfield

 

While I went on in disbelief, reeling from the continued and surprising betrayal from friends and family, the investigator found more victims.  When I would learn that someone else had been abused, that they tried to report it, my heart broke.  But I had so much hope that this was the opportunity for that wrong to be made right. There were four victims found in the investigation. 

We were patient as we fought politics.  Yes, somehow when a little girl is violated by a grown man, politics matter.  The prosecutor in office at the time never returned any of my 3 dozen phone calls.  When a new prosecutor took office, the investigator on the case submitted the case again, and we still waited, more politics.  Finally, 16 months after we first shared our story with authorities, our case was handed over to a special prosecutor (you know, to avoid politics – I’m groaning and rolling my eyes as I type this).

Charges were filed, then dropped for further investigation.  Finally, there was a GRAND JURY INDICTMENT!!!!  What does that mean? A jury reviewed all the evidence and ordered several arrests – on 6 felony charges!!  Others were also indicted for neglect of a dependent, official misconduct, and assisting a criminal (one of these two people was my step-father’s brother)!! Folks, WAY too many adults knew what was happening to us girls.  They knew it was happening, and they kept their heads down.  They allowed us girls to bear the weight of their fears, their egos.  We paid the price.  We were the currency offered up to continue in their lives the way they knew it.

It is error alone which needs the support of government.  Truth can stand by itself.  ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia

 

Then suddenly, with no warning at all, not even the courtesy of a phone call from the “special” prosecutor, ALL CHARGES WERE DROPPED!  That was it.  The prosecutor would hardly take our phone calls.  No call from ANYONE!  We just fell off of everyone’s radar.  When the prosecutor finally did answer my call, she blamed it on the statute of limitations.  The same statute of limitations that we spent so much time studying early in the case, that she had consulted with her colleagues so often about.  Apparently, Indiana State Law says that we weren’t afraid enough to justify not coming forward as children.  What’s worse? The man that abused me and at least three other girls from 1986 to 1998 is now fighting to erase his arrest record!  Seriously?!  A GRAND JURY thought this man should be charged with 6 felonies!  Just because he was not successfully convicted due to the statue of limitations, does not mean he didn’t do it or that the arrests were unwarranted.  Thankfully, the Indiana Attorney General’s office seems to be outside the reach of the political circus that has tainted this case, and I have hope that they will be successful in defending the arrests, thereby leaving at least some public evidence of what my step-father is capable of.  This situation, though, supports an ominous truth… not everyone that belongs on the sex offender registries will be found there. 

You can change that by holding yourself and everyone you know accountable when you know of this type of abuse.  It is hard, but it is harder for a victim to survive abuse than it is for the rest of the world to survive facing our own evils.

Unfortunately, none of these details of our case or the charges matter one bit to the little girl I was when I was so terrified about what was being done to me.  None of these details matter an inkling to the child that is the next potential victim.  I’ve made every single decision I’ve made thus far in an effort to protect other children just as precious as my very own children.  Countless people in positions to help further this goal have failed us, but my wounds are becoming scars, my fears are becoming lessons, my regret is becoming respect.  I am on the receiving end of an incredible amount of love that gives me all the strength I need.  I am no longer a victim, but a survivor.  I have survived what could have defeated me, and what remains to bear… is bearable.  I am happy, but that is not enough.

We do not err because truth is difficult to see.  It is visible at a glance.  We err because this is more comfortable.  ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it.  ~Malcolm X

I remain unconvinced that my actions thus far have had the impact that I wish them to have.  So tonight, while my three children and husband sleep, I write.  I write to ask no small favor of you.  Do not pray for me.  Do not have sympathy for me.  Do not think that there is anything you could or should do for me…

What I ask is that you hold yourselves and everyone around you accountable, your neighbor, your mother, your best friend.  If you must pray, pray that the people in this world that are responsible for the protection of our children will protect them, from their own husband, their own cousin, sister, or co-worker.  Pray that the next time a child is abused,  the person that can protect them thinks first of the child and not what it will mean to piss off the community by shining a light on the inconvenient truth.  While I appreciate that most of you care that this happened to me, please know that my scars are not only from what my step-father did to me, but from the world that didn’t protect me, from my mother choosing not to know my children because I came forward about it, from my children never knowing their Uncle who, as far as I can tell, hates me for what his father did to me, from those that could have stopped it and didn’t, from those that could stand by me now and don’t. 

Stand by me and stand by all other victims in this world by saying to the abusers and the enablers that abuse is unacceptable! 

Do not stand idly by when you see evidence of the abuse.

Do not remain silent when the victim’s name comes up in conversation.  

Let it be KNOWN that you will not tolerate such complacency! 

It is not enough to believe what someone did was wrong, you have to let it be known.  Your silence is your acceptance of what happened.  If you do not speak up, you are guilty of feeding this society that allows the abuse.  When we enable abusers to continue in their abuse to avoid our own discomfort, we make the world nearly unbearable to someone less capable of coping with such pain.  When my mother avoided the pain of leaving the man that was abusing her daughters, she forced upon us a pain that we would bear for the rest of our lives.  If you are strong enough, if you can survive the discomfort, I ask you to face that fear so that a child with less strength doesn’t have to.

“The World suffers a lot.  Not because of the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of good people.” - Napoleon

I am no longer silent.

 

 

 

 

Hard Times - Shmard Times

This is a long one and a late one, but maybe after reading it you’ll forgive me or at least feel sorry for me (I would much prefer forgiveness).  Also, I’ll tell you about “the chainsaw incident”.

I’ve heard a nasty rumor that building a house can be extremely difficult on a family, what with our 1 & 4 year olds not being able to pull their weight and at least help clear a tree or two.  Maybe there is a reason they don’t make junior sized chainsaws.  Anyway, building a house is hard, so they say.  Things don’t always go as planned, expenses always seem to grow as you go, and more doom and gloom.  I mean, we are two relatively intelligent adults.  We get it.  Such a big project with two young boys is bound to have a rough day or 20!  But I refer back to our naivety that I call optimism.  Anytime “hard times” are mentioned in reference to our decisions to chase this particular dream, we shrug and say “Psshhhhhh!  Don’t you know we can do anything?!”  The point is, of course it’s hard, but it is worth it.  I guess what I’m getting at is that we are seeing some of these “hard times” but they are not what they seem.

When we finally moved down here it was pretty dang easy as far as moving to a new state goes.  See, we had an accepted offer on our Indiana house 9 days after we listed it (I like to say that even though the closing was postponed again and again, and it still took a while, the offer made us feel warm fuzzies inside)!  THEN, we found our Little Slice of Heaven on our third day out looking at properties.  Just like that!  BOOM!  BOOM!  Check and check!  House sold, property bought!  Let’s go!  (Shout out to the real estate agents, you rock!)  While we did ride this roller coaster all the way to the top of those good times, we knew it wouldn’t always be that easy.

So eventually came a hard day.  One day we were blazing a trail up a hill to put up a fence.  Jon was in front cutting the bigger trees with the chainsaw (duhn duhn DUUUUUHHHHNNNN) and I followed behind clearing the small stuff.  When Jon got to a clearing I heard the chainsaw tap something that was decidedly NOT wood.  That wasn’t alarming until I heard a slight grunt from Jon.  Yes, the chainsaw “tapped” Jon!  I wasn’t sure if I would look up and see Jon standing on one leg with the other leg in his hand, or just that the saw was stuck in a tree trunk.  Jon is THAT good at hiding it when he’s been hurt.  I’ve been with him for 15 years and I couldn’t tell the difference.  (Let’s just assume it doesn’t mean I’m that oblivious.)  Anyway, he was still standing on two legs, and all other appendages seemed to be intact, but there was a fresh hole torn in his jeans at the knee.  I knew it got more than his jeans when Jon asked me to come grab the saw and maybe we should go to the hospital.  When Jon says “maybe we should go to the hospital” it means “we need to get to a hospital NOW!”  Thank God my in-laws were there and they headed for a Burger King with a play area with the boys, and we went on to learn exactly how long the drive is from our future home to the nearest hospital, a handy piece of information in our family.

For those with a strong stomach here are a couple photos.  If you do not have a strong stomach, DO NOT look at these photos!!!  It’s not horrendous, but I don’t want to lose any readers because I induce vomiting or anything!

Seriously!  Please don’t get sick.  I’ll feel really bad!

The before and after really don’t look that different, do they?

Is it weird that I still think my hubby looks hot in this photo?  Show me dem legs!!  Ew, but not that one!

After x-rays and 20 stitches it turned out he cut himself directly over his knee cap but managed to do no damage to tendons or bones, only the flesh…  be it a lot of flesh, he was lucky.  THANK GOD!!  That was a rough day, especially for Jon.

Since then most of our problems have been related to things breaking down….to be more accurate, EVERYTHING breaking down.  This includes our truck, car, backhoe, tractor, and 4-wheeler.  At one point we literally did not have ANYTHING with wheels that ran.  So we bought an extra farm truck, complete with 4 wheel drive (now we can finally make it up our driveway!).  Then guess what…  That’s right, THAT broke down…  TWICE!  Thankfully Jon is a genius, as I’ve said before and has been able to quickly get the tractor and backhoe back in commission.  When the vacuum pump went out in the truck, he limped it into town and raced the clock as O’Reilly’s prepared to close for the night.  I think it was right at 60 minutes from the time the vacuum pump failed till Jon had the truck running again!  Like I said, the man is a genius or at the very least has magical powers!  Jon even got the 4-wheeler running, and will have the farm truck running back up the House Hill by this weekend!  We suspected the car needed a transmission rebuild, but an honest mechanic changed the torque converter (a much cheaper fix) and we had no problems with the car during our weeklong road trip last week!  Thank you, Mr. Honest Mechanic!  Today our farm fleet is doing much better.

Something important that I’ve been reminded of the past couple of weeks through these “hard times” is that as bad as these difficulties seem, it’s really not that bad.  In fact, it’s still pretty amazing.  We are reenergized every day when we step foot on the “House Hill” and stand where the porch will be and take a quick look at what we will wake up to… someday.  The boys are enjoying this dream as well.  When I put Willie down to bed I ask him every night, “What are you going to dream about tonight?”  My favorite answer is, “I’m going to dream about when we live at the Homestead all the time and we can play there all the time!”  This is one of those times I feel like we’re doing something right.  Even without a home or a single running engine on the property, we have an amazing thing to share together as a family…   and hopefully with many of you who will surely come visit!  Don’t worry; you don’t have to come visit until after we have running water and power, and probably a functioning bathroom.

Finally, I said I would work on a name for our place.  I haven’t gotten very far, but feel free to leave your suggestions (please).  We’ll address this again next time, as well as our adventures in installing our own septic system, and what happens when a dump truck driver lacking in skill attempts to deliver 26 tons of gravel via the barely passable driveway…  but there are good times to report as well!

What our dream looks like - at the moment

These photos might give you a little insight as to why we are so excited about being in Kentucky. THIS is what we found here! In these photos you’ll find two things: a lot of potential and a lot of work.

This is one of the first things we saw when we first looked at the property.  Our driveway now runs up the middle of this valley to the top of the hill.  When we first hiked up this holler (yeah, I can use the Kentucky lingo) this is what we found…

Mmmm-hmmm. That is the top of a telephone pole you see in the bottom right and my hubby and first born in the top left. That is a cliff, my friends, at least by my standards.

This is probably one of the major reasons the local ER will know us and our boys on a first name basis, but it sure is pretty, huh?  Our driveway turns when you reach the top of the hill coming out of the holler.  If you went straight instead this is what you would find… a sheer drop off.  Seriously, how are we going to keep our boys from playing on this?!  Jon says just to give in and invest in rock climbing equipment and lessons.  I say build a wall much like The Great Wall of China, but maybe we’ll find some middle ground.

This is the top of the hill where the house will be.  We will have this view…

I can’t wait to see it this fall!  As we build the house some of the trees will have to go to make room, and some to make our flooring, so the view will open up quite a bit.  Now the only reason Brown County will be worth the drive is to revisit where we were married.  <3  Sorry, Indiana.

When we first looked at this land we wanted to see as much of it as possible, but our treks out into the brush were mostly less than successful.  THIS is what we were contending with-- with two boys in tow.  What isn’t a pine tree in this photo is a thorn bush.  When we finished our hike we were covered in two things - scratches and ticks!  We actually started one particular hike with a plastic bag carrying a couple water bottles.  By the time we made it to a clearing, the bag was literally in shreds and we had the bottles in hand.  What we learned from this is that sometimes we jump into things before we think it through much.  Even so, we will probably jump into the next thing too hastily as well.  You’ll see plenty of evidence of this in the future.

This is the day we closed on the property!  Let me introduce the family.  Clockwise from left: Conor (1), Me, Jon, and Willie (4 this weekend!).  As you can see, Willie was eager to get to work.

Conor is quite a little nature lover.  If only he didn’t express his love by eating it.

This is Toro, one of our four legged family members, playing with Willie on what we are calling the West Hill.

…and another random photo of Toro, just because we love him so!

Here are Jon, Conor, and Toro hiking the East Hill.  This photo is taken from a deer stand left on the land in one of those “and that’s not all…” infomercial deals.  You buy land and they throw in a deer stand!  THAT’S how we do it in Kentucky!

This is a view of the House Hill in the background, as well as many of the dead trees and results of unfortunate logging from decades past.

Now that you’ve had a tour of the land, I’ll start sharing some of our adventures in preparing for construction including clearing trees, working with tractors, driving 4+ hours one way for our #1 investment otherwise known as a backhoe, close calls with the chainsaw (yeah, it happened, but the stitches are out and the wound is almost healed), and other excitement sure to be found on this Little Slice of Heaven.  Also, now that you’ve seen it, you may not see the “Heaven” in this land that we do, but just you wait.  It’s there.

Maybe by next time, I’ll dream up some kind of real name for “The Property”. Have any suggestions?

Our Little Slice of Heaven - "Grand Opening"

Now for the real start of the blog.  Think of that first entry as the pre-opening and this is the grand opening that will maybe be even better.  Imagine big signs, and balloons, and a little fake excitement, just the way TJ Maxx would do it.  Now here’s a photo just to keep you reading.

This is our horse, Rocket.  He really doesn’t have anything to do with this entry, but you should keep reading anyway.

Why am I blogging?  Well, my hubby, Jon and I, are perpetually falling in love, and we are chasing our dreams with our two beautiful boys (and ANOTHER baby on the way!  Whhhhaaaat?  Yeah, I guess we like babies a little bit.)   And I guess I just want to brag tell you about it.  I think there is a lot of excitement in life if you ride the line between choosing to be brave and risk doing something stupid.  We can serve as an example of riding that line, and you’ll see that when we mess up life is still great and there is so much to enjoy.  I want to spread the word that it is worth risking hard times to live the life you want…or you can all just laugh at our hysterical naivety that I prefer to call optimism, and continue in your cynicism as we continue to have a great time in this adventure.  Did I just come across as cynical… definitely not.  I could never have such a vice.

Back to my bragging story.  Jon and I, we are soul mates/best friends/awesome (yeah, I said soul mates, gag if you must).   We have been together since I was 14 and he 16.  Here’s proof, thanks to one of our youth counselors who shared this on Facebook.  Now I get to share it with you:

 So the story goes that we dated all through high school and college, got hitched (with a hog roast, no less – it was a classy hog roast, you can ask our wedding guests) then we started having babies!  And THEN… the hospital just sent us on our way and said “make sure the car seat is in the middle, and put this goop on your nipples.”  Well, that’s what I remember at least, but I’ve slept since then not had a single full night of sleep since the third trimester of the first pregnancy 4 years ago.  It’s all a blur…..                                               

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Both our boys are so beautiful, so smart, so funny, and so loving!  So, maybe somewhere between all the things we don’t do quite right, we’re getting something right. 

That brings us to 2012.  We live in Kentucky, Y’all!!  We have been trying to move here for 3 years!  We probably could have just walked down here in that amount of time, but that’s not our style.  Our style is going on and on for years about our big plans and how it’s going to happen any day… then one day, the man (Hubby’s company) FINALLY calls up and says “Sure!  Come work in Kentucky, where the land is beautiful (and inexpensive) and it’s slightly warmer and awesome because they have Ale 8 in abundance – look it up.”  Then, we say “OKAY!!”  We pack up enough stuff to fill a camper; we sell our house; we find and buy our little slice of Heaven. Now we are Wildcat fans!  ).  Isn’t that every little girl’s dream?  Fall in love, kids, wildcats? Something like that.

So now that I have officially started this blog, what can you expect to find here? I’m sure to go on and on wrestling with homebuilding decisions (like, whether or not to line the boys rooms with padding – just kidding, sound proofing should suffice), parenting dilemmas, more bragging about my spouse, and all the hilarity that is sure to ensue with a family of 4 (soon-to-be 5) uprooting, settling, building, and playing in this beautiful land!  Also, I like to fantasize about being a photographer (www.facebook.com/MelissaHeffelfingerPhotography), so I’ll probably throw some of that in there too.  What you will NOT find on this blog is an expert opinion on anything.  There will be plenty of opinions, but what they will lack is an expert source.

Tomorrow I’ll post some photos to show you how our dreams are materializing.

First Day of Summer - Pools, Hotdogs, Ice Cream, & Good Samaritans

Today is a great day to start a blog!  Not, at all, for any of the reasons I have wanted to start a blog, but I’m writing nonetheless.  I will write next time about the reasons I thought our lives might be interesting enough to blog about, but today, this will be completely unrelated…  but possibly not a complete waste of your time.

Today is the first day of summer and it has come with all kinds of excitement.  We’ve done some typical, fun, summer activities but topped off the day with some unexpected, non-fun, non-summer….  Crap.  I’m just being honest.  It’s crap.  Not literally.  It’s not, in fact, feces, but it’s still…  well, you know.  In a house with two young boys, I feel like that distinction is necessary.

In true cool Mama fashion I had great “first day of summer plans” of blowing up the baby pool (even if it leaves the hubby and me light-headed), hotdogs on the grill for lunch, and a run for ice cream cones.  All of which we did!  Great!  Our kids think they have a super cool pool – check; provide fun, but nutritionally lackluster meal that everyone loves – check; stuff everyone’s tummy’s with even more summer junk food with chocolate on top – check!  We are incredible parents!

Then back to reality.  Daddy must go to work.  The boys and I begin an afternoon of errands in our recently unreliable car.  After some “car issues” (since I don’t know what else to call it) I dutifully watched all the gauges, reasoning through the readings with countless flawed assumptions until….  It happened.  A little light started blinking.  30 seconds later, there I was along the highway in 90+ degree heat with two young boys, and a car that won’t move an inch!  Some kind of transmission problem – boring!  We’re still trying to figure out exactly what’s going on, but I’m leaving that to my genius husband.  No really he’s a genius.  I don’t mean he’ll solve all the world’s problems or anything (afterall Oprah needs something to do), but he really is about as awesome as a man comes.  I’ll ramble on about that more later.

What I’m interested in now is what happened after I stopped along the road.  See, in our previous state of residence over a period of 10 to 15 years I’ve been stranded with a car in one way or another and handful of times, and the reaction (or lack thereof) of those passing by always surprised me.  The most memorable of these instances occurred when I was extremely pregnant with our first son (imagine a short girl with a regulation NBA basketball under her shirt), on a VERY cold winter morning.  I was driving my husband’s very large diesel truck.  As any normal pregnant woman would do, I forgot to unplug the truck before I backed out of the drive, therefore, also, forgetting to close the hood of the truck.  A tenth of a mile up the road, guess what happened.  I got a windshield full of blue truck hood!  It didn’t double back, but still flew up with such force that it was stuck.  In the below zero temps (maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but it makes the story better than just saying it was cold doesn’t it?) before the sun was up, there I was literally hanging from the hood with my belly hanging over the radiator and feet dangling just below the bumper.  Let’s all take a moment to picture this…  It’s ok to laugh at me.  Ok?  Guess where my neighbors were!  Watching from their front door as they drank their steaming hot coffee!!  I was just as angry about the lack of response from our own neighbors as I was my mistakes that led to the current predicament.  I did find a very large, very heavy monkey wrench in the toolbox.  What was I going to do with the monkey wrench, you ask?  I beat the crap out of the hinges on the hood!  I had flashbacks to high school softball, and I was swinging at the plate!  By then there was no hope of getting help.  I mean, who is going to approach a pregnant lady wielding such a large chunk of medal in that manner?  I’ll tell you who wouldn’t!  The people that lived 3 houses down from us!!  After a few  intervals of wailing away on the hinges and thawing my hands in the cab, the hinges gave; I closed the hood, waved at my warm neighbors, and started my 1 hour drive to work.  That is what happens when you break down in that state.

Do you know what happens in THIS state when you’re stuck alongside the road?  In a matter of 10 minutes 4 cars stopped to help!!  3 of those 4 drivers crawled under the car to give their two cents.  I won’t consider the difference of traffic, time of day, the fact that I had two young children, or any other facts.  The fact that matters to me is that people stopped to help.  We love Kentucky already, but every day we are here, even the “bad” ones, we find reasons to love it more.  If you know which state we moved from, don’t be offended.  We disliked it for more reasons than the lack of good Samaritans.  Just kidding…  kind of.

Again, next time I’ll fill you in on “Our Little Slice of Heaven” and why I think I need to write about it.  (I’ll give you a hint, much like what I assume much social media sharing is, I just want to brag).