Tuesday, March 31, 2015

How Do You Nurture?

I have never read the book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary D Chapman but many of my friends have.  It is on my list of future reads.  When visiting with my daughter Ashley about it, we were categorizing how we show love and how people show us love.  The love languages are listed below. 
  • Words of Affirmation
  • Quality Time
  • Receiving Gifts
  • Acts of Service
  • Physical Touch
So I realized that my way of showing love is "acts of service"...in particular, cooking for my family or helping them with things/projects.  It is interesting to me that how we show love is often how we need love.  In other words, what speaks to me from people who love me is what they do, more than what they say or what they give.

The conundrum of course, occurs when the people around you have a different love language.  It's hard to always stay in the moment, thinking an action through and how it impacts (or doesn't impact) another person.  And it is also hard to remember that what you want/need and what you get are not always the same thing and that doesn't have to mean we are not loved and appreciated.  The trick, though, is remembering what I am and what someone is, that they are two different things, and attempting to change a person is not an option.  We have control of ourselves, so we must focus on our own actions and reactions.

It is always interesting to me that in the middle of our busy lives, we sometimes loose a little focus.  We forget to take the time to practice another person's love language.  We get angry when someone doesn't practice ours.  This short little entry is simply a reminder to take the time to remember each other, and love on your families and friends the way they need loved on.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Crazy Cabin Upcycle Any Tiny House Enthusiast Can Appreciate

It's been ages since I posted.  Life has a way of getting out of control.  My dad was in a very serious motorcycle accident last July 1 and went home for the first time last Tuesday after 8.5 months of recovery and more to go.  The blessing is he is still with us to recover and we thank God for that every day.

Priorities of course, get rearranged, and I haven't been doing much of any kind of project until this spring.  And my husband and I took on a major upcycle.  Not furniture, not a car, but a house.  And not one house, but two!  We bought a cabin in Custer South Dakota and ended up with a cabin, garage, and a house.  The garage and cabin we are keeping.  The house is up for sale.

So in preparing the house for resale, we have put in trim, painted, fixed flooring, cleaned, taken down trees, repaired outside things.  That has been our focus. But this past weekend we were there, and we took out a wall in the cabin to make it a "studio" cabin.  It looks so much better.  And made so much more space.   This itty bitty 450 square foot cabin is our dream (well maybe not exactly, but still).  It is in Custer.  It was affordable.  It has a nice deck, great outdoor space, and creek running through the back yard-"Laughing Water".  It is not perfect but it is ours and we love it.  Take a look at the before pictures:





And after tearing out walls, painting, and some furniture...more to come.  




So this is our in between fix.  We tore down the itty bitty bedroom wall with the weird peek through window.  It was sheetrock, lath, and plaster and let me tell you...heavy heavy heavy.  We got it all pulled out, my husband patched the wall holes with 1 x 6, and we painted.  Now we have a place we can use until we do our final remodel, which will be to tear out the walls and ceilings at the front of the cabin and vault the ceiling, putting two windows up high above the door in the peek, and wood siding the whole front living room.  With some kind of new flooring, wood vinyl, slate, or wood.  It is a 1930 cabin, and the floors are VERY uneven, so whatever we do will be what works, and what minimizes the uneven floor.  But this is w hat we are living with for now, and we couldn't be more happy with the results. 

What's next.  Well, you will see by the pictures below that the cabin needs repainted and some outdoor work done on the front.  We intend to put in some kind of new front walk, clean up the landscaping, and probably do some painting to bide us some time until we are ready for the exterior make over, which will include some kind of wood exterior with a green roof..true cabin appeal.  That is down the road a ways, so for now, be watching for the temporary solutions we come up with.  


And my favorite down the road project is the bed.  We have an old bead board cabinet my husband is going to use to make a murphy bed for me.  I can't wait!