This is the outhouse/shower house. The roof is completed with a metal roof. I love to listen to it in the rain. Makes me look forward to our house!! The shower part isn't quite complete. But our friends have been quite generous and going to the laundry & shower place down the road.

This is where we are living. You see our mini lake when it rains. But dries up pretty quickly!

This Burl is why we live on lopsided lane!

Aug 18, 2011

Today hasn't been a day of getting things done just a lot of doing it seems. Got Zeke off to school, showered at the shower place, went to Izzy's kindergarten assessment, the speech therapist said she wasn't worried about her speech. Maybe because she talks constantly!! She asked Izzy if she wanted to go by Izzy or Izabelle and Izzy said, "well maybe Izza." so funny!! Then a few more errands and a extra trip to the store because I forgot my wallet the first time. Zeke threw up in my car and that sums up all the excitement for my day. Oh, yeah and a call from Zekes teacher. It's only the second day of school!! I remember why I homeschooled, but also know he needs to be learning the social things that he's behind in. Hopefully he matures more this year and is able to display more self control. I haven't figured out how to post pictures from my phone to the blog yet. So no pictures now. Plus I was getting the fire blazing so the water would boil so I can do the dishes. An hour later it is ready get get done. Off to wash dishes and go to bed. I'm running out of daylight. Good night Alaska!!

The First Few Weeks!!

Well, the first few weeks have had there ups and downs. Some way down like when Jeremy dropped his hammer down the hole when building the temporary outhouse or when Zoe threw Izzy's shoes into the hole. Izzy was happy to get a new pair shoes that light up and have sparkles!! Setting up the tarp over the moving truck and camper so we have some outdoor space that is covered had many ups and downs with it. It seemed easy enough, right? The wind had other ideas and man when a tiny breeze came in it soar and when it came down the grommets would rip out and frustration would come back, we thought we had it good until midnight when we heard the lines snap and tarp down again, where it stayed for a few days. As Jeremy had to travel and he came back with a man on a mission and is few walls built for it to be nailed to it has dome great!! Which is lucky because 1/2 the days have been rain. Today's rain was some crazy downpours off and on all day. The kids took advantage of me cleaning up and being out of view to splash, play and Izzy fell a few times in the lake in our driveway. Thinking we really need a rain barrel at the points it comes down. Filled my pans so I can heat them for doing the dishes. As we have to haul water, might as well use it and reduce the lakes in our yard. I do love the sound of the rain on the camper and tent. So peaceful and calming!!
Here's a few updates. As we are doing this all as it comes here's the plan now. To do a pole barn style garage with an apartment upstairs. Where our guests can stay and we can live during the winter and while we build our house next summer. Jeremy is also going to take a semester off from school, which will help him to have a bit more time for building. I am getting a part time job at our church for child care during different things they offer during the week. Which I can bring the kids if Jeremys gone for work or busy building. The electric company came out and will be able to make it so they only will run 15 feet to the end of the easement. Which will be good to hopefully have electricity soon. It was hard to give the school a utility bill when we don't have any utilities or even an address yet. As it takes around 2 months. Don't quite understand why it takes that long, but whatever. It's been about a month since we did the paperwork. But the school was more understanding than I thought and it wasn't a hassle to enroll them. Zeke had an awesome first day and is super excited to go back!! Izzy goes in to be evaluated tomorrow, should be good to see how she does. I don't think they are behind in school since I homeschooled, a fear of mine that I didn't do enough. Only time will tell. The rain has started and it's putting me right to sleep. Tomorrow I'll be brave and take pictures and post them. I've been embarassed but it's time to move past that and be excited for the future.

Welcome to Lopsided Lane!!!

This blog is for me to share my perspective of our house building experience. I am thinking it may be a bit like therapy for me and am going to try and update it daily if possible. I'll share the good, bad and not so pretty. This all started as a dream and as reality is getting closer and closer, it's a bit scary and still hard to believe. I am not really the outdoorsy person, so this will be interesting to say the least. I have always lived a comfortable life, with comfortable things and really rather spoiled by my parents and husband. But my life of easy street is coming to an end and moving me to Lopsided Lane. So this is where the story really starts. My husband came across an ad for 5 acres in Palmer, Alaska. That is owner finance, because of past mistakes and a whole other story, but traditional lending isn't an option for us for awhile. Jeremy met with the man, walked the land and we were hooked. We could finally own our little piece of Alaska!! We didn't want to just own a piece, we want to live on that piece which we so lovingly call lopsided lane. So our dream and adventure begins. The land is just that raw land. So after lots of late nights and research we (Jeremy mostly) has come up with a plan. We will live in a trailer of sorts, while we save up to build and start getting utilities on the land. So next summer we can build our dream log cabin home. Sounds easy enough. Box truck bought, truck camper bought, land bought. Sell everything big, because the box truck will be where we keep all our boxes, pantry, closet and Jeremy's mobile office. Our plan is coming together. My fears are mounting!! I like electricity, running water and plumbing. That will all change here in a few short days.
After Jeremy started to clear out a few trees for our driveway, we realized it would take us weeks to do it. So we called in a big excavator to do the job. He came in and cleared the drive way and house area, then leveled most of it in 2 days. We still need more gravel and stumps cleared and dirt work done. But now that we have a place to put the box truck and camper, things are looking up. One less thing on our plate.
Now the focus is back to the rental place. Finish packing up the house and getting it loaded into the box truck. We are probably 80% there. I just need to get the closet set up in the truck and start moving clothes out there. Then we'll have a really good idea of exactly how much we have left in the house. Once everything is packed and in the box truck, we can take it down to the property and start setting up our new living quarters. We are going to have the camper and box truck parallel and have a huge tarp over the top of them so we have more living area. We were able to get a bunch of free pallets and will put them together with some plywood on top and make a deck area under the tarp. Jeremy will also have to build a outhouse for us. Zoe will be able to win at 2 truths and a lie, she will be potty trained in an outhouse or port-a-potty. I still need to call about a port-a-potty. Adding it to my list to do tomorrow!!
We are waiting to hear from the power company to see how many feet of power they will have to run to our property. At $20/foot hopefully not to far onto our property. Jeremy is going to have to build a remote meter and then run the rest of the electricity lines to our "house". We are also planning on building a 20'X20' log cabin for the winter. We were wanting to also get the well dug before winter, but that is around $40/foot and it will probably be 35 feet down. So around $1,400, it may happen before winter. I'm not quite sure though, I did notice that some leaves are starting to change and the fireweed has been blooming for a few weeks now. So fall is a few weeks away. I know a septic tank is out of the question before winter, as it's going to be about $7,000 to install one. Since we don't have that in cash, we won't be getting one until next year.
I keep tossing around the idea of getting a part time job. I'm not sure if it will ease some of the burden of money or cause more stress in all the other areas. With Jeremy starting his Masters in a few weeks and him working full-time and building a house. It may just be to much.