James asked me before he left for his trip to Louisiana, "Why aren't you excited I'm leaving? You will be free from cleaning, cooking (and other miscellaneous wifely duties) wont that be fun?" Well, for the average person maybe but for me its agony. Its very, very hard to say the least. I am very attached to my husband, and he to me, so its incredibly hard to be away from each other... a fact I am grateful for especially since he is talking about retirement in a few years and working from home just like I have been.The weeks leading up to his month long departure were a whirlwind of activity for us, long movie date nights and long date days (my favorite was the Fountain Head Hotel Car Museum, shown in the photo). It was like we were catching up on all the time we haven't had over the summer and trying to cram it into one very exciting week. That put us off on the garage project a bit but even that project was going well. The sides and walls are up, the roof is on and all that is left is a bit more paint, garage doors installed and insulation. The boiler room is being plumbed by someone else so its safe to say most of the hard work is done.
While my James is away James L and my moms adopted son James Mason (everyone here is named James!) are working hard doing what they can do on the garage and straightening things up before my James ('Big James' as they call him) comes back.
James Mason is working on the transition of moving here permanently so that is one of the big things we are working him through now. He is pretty happy about the arrangement but I can tell its still a bit stressful for him. Hes been run through the foster care system so much that any new arrangement is tough on his mind even though my mom is still right down the street.
I'm holding down the fort on desk work and James L is filling in a LOT in the dog yard. We both are extremely ready for fall training and a break from all this hard work. We have been working way too hard and taxing ourselves mentally far more than we are used to. The puppies have a lot to do with this as they still require quite a bit of training and a lot of paw dodging as they are now getting tall enough to jump up for affection. It is delightful to have them around and they are teaching James L so much! I myself have been through the puppy raising times before so Ive left most of the hard work for him so he can learn. He is quick to get things done and they are learning heaps.
As the days pass I am grateful they are going by so quickly but also trying to keep a cool head and be mindful of where I want my life to go. Its so easy to get caught up in paperwork of all kinds and push aside the artist within. This summer Ive really come to understand where my soul is and where it yearns to be. I believe that most of this artistic transition will come when we get to the new property in Talkeetna but there is still a lot of ground work that I need to do here.
What all this creativity means I really don't know but I'm sure I will look back on it with a better sense of ownership in time.
The creativity is what is holding me together the most at this moment. My hand made, hand sewn (no machine used at all) anorak parka is coming together nicely and is a labor not only of love but of spirit. I'm not sure what importance it will have but it feels pretty darn neat. It is taking a while to put together but I am almost done with the three layered liner. After that is complete I can move onto the outer canvas shell.
Along with my new 'Spock and Iris' fur hat I will be fully ready for winter! Now if we can get our sled bags sewn up as well we will really be set for winter!!
All this is time consuming because of the lack of a heavy duty sewing machine but in the end the things we produce here are much more important knowing how much work went into it. Kind of like the dog truck that was made from scratch entirely by me, funded by my husband then reworked and refurbished by James L and myself. Each one of those processes took quite a bit of time but it is so worth it knowing we didn't cut corners and have very reliable gear that we know we can depend on when our trails get tough.
Since my mom is moving we have been 'moving' too working hard to get her out of her old place and all her old furniture over here to keep in storage. Her old desk came over and was set up in the office with a new desk put up in the office to help James L work through some of these mounting piles of paperwork we have to go through. It can be quite overwhelming at times but we are doing our best to chip away at it all and get back to a sense of completion well before fall comes around.
We have big plans once the leaves start falling off the trees and with two four wheelers to work with we intend to have two teams out training at the same time. If ample snow comes or not we will be ready with strong well trained dogs!!
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