RAIN.
For ABOUT 5 MONTHS. MORE RAIN THAN THEY HAVE HAD IN THE HILL COUNTRY IN THE LAST 100 YEARS.
After only being back from my travels and enjoying our little cabin for a few days we were crushed when we came home from working after a long rainy day to find a torrent of rain rushing down through the roof panels into our house! right in the center of our bed!
this time we BOTH cried.
Sadly, the matress was never able to fully dry out because of the rain and humidity and eventually had to be taken to the dump becasue it molded.
The house would occassionally dry out for a few days and then it would rain again-- even with big tarps-- it was impossible to keep things dry... when we would lay down at night the mosguitos would go crazy, many nights we would drive to san marcos (15 miles away) and hang out at the IHOP till 2 or 3 AM just to have some place to be out of the wet and muggy/ buggy air. We couldnt do anything on the cabin because we couldnt seal the moisture in. We couldn't even put the roofing material on for fear of locking and sealing the mositure permanently into the structure.
Everyone kept saying--"this rain has got to let up. it can't keep going like this." But rain it did. Occassionaly the sun would come out long enough to dry everything up -- just in time to start raining again.
And lets not forget what comes with rain. MUD.
We had to keep all our clothes, books, paperwork, mail, bathroom stuff, tools etc... in the back of the jeep. our life was a crazy MESS.
We couldn't use the outdoor kitchen and because of the heat and humidity things would not keep in a cooler. Anything i cared about that wasn't already ruined got shoved back into the storage unit which was becoming increasingly disorganized. Everytime we went there to try to find anything-- we ended up in a big fight. (i don't handle chaos and disorder very well, and murv doesn't handle "complications" very well). Anytime we were hungry or needed to go to the bathroom we had to go into town -- it seemed like we were spending every penny on fuel and eating out and getting fat and unhealthy and borrowing other people's toilets and showers. Our dream of camping out on our land while building our cabin was turing into a nightmare. Even dru was miserable. The thought of other people in the world stuggling to survive, or being connected to our pioneer ancestors wasn't really even consoling us anymore.
One day the sun came out for a few hours and i decided to clean and organize the jeep because the mess was really starting to make me crazy. I laid out a huge tarp and took everything we own out of the jeep and began to clean it. I cleaned and cleaned. Then I organized everything on the tarp and folded and straightened out the mess. I was about to put it all back but got called and a friend was having an emergency and needed some immediate help. I quickly covered everything up on the tarp with another tarp and in my haste to get to my friends aid- I absentmindlely backed over the top of my tarp as I was leaving. I BACKED OVER all our stuff with my jeep. WHAT?? HOW?? By the time I got back to asess the damge it had started to pour again and even with the tarps, water and mud soaked the big pile of run over stuff (it's ok, you can laugh). A lot had to be thrown out, some was salvageable-- a bunch of books will never be the same, I had to throw away our crushed little portable DVD player. SAD day. TOUGH TIMES.
I honestly don't know how we made it through that time...but for the grace of god, a lot of faith, and some really great supportive friends and family members-- neither of us gave up, though we took turns thinking about it weekly. And lets just say unfortuantley we didn't really figure out how to stay friends with each other during that time. It was pretty stressful and hard on our relationship. i wish I could say it brought us closeer together but really it almost tore us apart. I could say looking back, it has greatly strengthened us, but while we were in the thick of it, we didn't figure out how to lean on each other the way i wish we could have. But I can say neither of us gave up.
And then in early fall it finally stopped raining.
And THEN it got windy. Just when I finally started to get to use my outdoor kitchen, 60 mile an hour winds came through our camp and tore it all down. I was totally devastated-- kick a dog when they are down! seriously! I really thought i was at the end of my rope.
For ABOUT 5 MONTHS. MORE RAIN THAN THEY HAVE HAD IN THE HILL COUNTRY IN THE LAST 100 YEARS.
After only being back from my travels and enjoying our little cabin for a few days we were crushed when we came home from working after a long rainy day to find a torrent of rain rushing down through the roof panels into our house! right in the center of our bed!
this time we BOTH cried.
Sadly, the matress was never able to fully dry out because of the rain and humidity and eventually had to be taken to the dump becasue it molded.
The house would occassionally dry out for a few days and then it would rain again-- even with big tarps-- it was impossible to keep things dry... when we would lay down at night the mosguitos would go crazy, many nights we would drive to san marcos (15 miles away) and hang out at the IHOP till 2 or 3 AM just to have some place to be out of the wet and muggy/ buggy air. We couldnt do anything on the cabin because we couldnt seal the moisture in. We couldn't even put the roofing material on for fear of locking and sealing the mositure permanently into the structure.
Everyone kept saying--"this rain has got to let up. it can't keep going like this." But rain it did. Occassionaly the sun would come out long enough to dry everything up -- just in time to start raining again.
And lets not forget what comes with rain. MUD.
We had to keep all our clothes, books, paperwork, mail, bathroom stuff, tools etc... in the back of the jeep. our life was a crazy MESS.
We couldn't use the outdoor kitchen and because of the heat and humidity things would not keep in a cooler. Anything i cared about that wasn't already ruined got shoved back into the storage unit which was becoming increasingly disorganized. Everytime we went there to try to find anything-- we ended up in a big fight. (i don't handle chaos and disorder very well, and murv doesn't handle "complications" very well). Anytime we were hungry or needed to go to the bathroom we had to go into town -- it seemed like we were spending every penny on fuel and eating out and getting fat and unhealthy and borrowing other people's toilets and showers. Our dream of camping out on our land while building our cabin was turing into a nightmare. Even dru was miserable. The thought of other people in the world stuggling to survive, or being connected to our pioneer ancestors wasn't really even consoling us anymore.
One day the sun came out for a few hours and i decided to clean and organize the jeep because the mess was really starting to make me crazy. I laid out a huge tarp and took everything we own out of the jeep and began to clean it. I cleaned and cleaned. Then I organized everything on the tarp and folded and straightened out the mess. I was about to put it all back but got called and a friend was having an emergency and needed some immediate help. I quickly covered everything up on the tarp with another tarp and in my haste to get to my friends aid- I absentmindlely backed over the top of my tarp as I was leaving. I BACKED OVER all our stuff with my jeep. WHAT?? HOW?? By the time I got back to asess the damge it had started to pour again and even with the tarps, water and mud soaked the big pile of run over stuff (it's ok, you can laugh). A lot had to be thrown out, some was salvageable-- a bunch of books will never be the same, I had to throw away our crushed little portable DVD player. SAD day. TOUGH TIMES.
I honestly don't know how we made it through that time...but for the grace of god, a lot of faith, and some really great supportive friends and family members-- neither of us gave up, though we took turns thinking about it weekly. And lets just say unfortuantley we didn't really figure out how to stay friends with each other during that time. It was pretty stressful and hard on our relationship. i wish I could say it brought us closeer together but really it almost tore us apart. I could say looking back, it has greatly strengthened us, but while we were in the thick of it, we didn't figure out how to lean on each other the way i wish we could have. But I can say neither of us gave up.
And then in early fall it finally stopped raining.
And THEN it got windy. Just when I finally started to get to use my outdoor kitchen, 60 mile an hour winds came through our camp and tore it all down. I was totally devastated-- kick a dog when they are down! seriously! I really thought i was at the end of my rope.
This was my kitchen which I started calling my "ghetto kitchen" after I had to cover it with tarps and a piece of tyvek paper (which I got when Murv was cleaning up on a job site) to try and keep things dry-- this is the very same kitchen that was destroyed by the wind... :(
One good thing that happened during this time though-- the missionaries and our home teachers stopped by to offer encouragement and support-- the polynesian guy is actually the cousin of one of my favorite companions from my mission, sister paongo-- small world...
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