Reflections

My husband and I are fixing up the house (cabin really) that we raised our kids in. Its been either rented out or vacant for the last 15 years because our business is in town and it was so much easier for me to work at the Home Center and home school Rachel at the same time when we lived in the apartment over our business. Then when Rachel decided she wanted to go to High School, she could get dropped off there and go right upstairs to our apartment and when I got off work we could fix dinner together and then work on her homework. Rachel is so very smart but without the extra help at night it would have been hard for her to get the A's and B's she got in mainstream classes. Also, I have asthma pretty bad, so to live 30 to 45 minutes away from the nearest hospital, surrounded by damp leaves and mildew (which is the major thing I'm allergic to) didn't seem to bright! But when a cabin stays vacant or has people living in it that don't care - the house eventually goes to rack and ruin (which is what has happened to our old home)

Now we are working every weekend to fix it up. It is a beautiful location. 450 feet of lakefront on 10 acres! Believe it or not, we got it for $25,000.00 - thirty years ago! To see it degenerate is really hard, but at our age, its hard to do the work ourselves and, with the economy the way it is, its hard to pay someone to do it. We have one conscientious contractor who owes us lot /of money and he is working it off doing work for orygonhomeboy on the outside of the house. I am cleaning the attic, insulating, drywalling, mudding and taping upstairs. My niece and nephew are pulling up rotten flooring and putting new stuff in the kitchen and then we will put new cabinets in because that is what we do for a living so its about time our house (shoemaker??) has new cabinets! When we are finished it will be clean and usable and our kids can visit their childhood home and we can weekend out there (without working) sometimes.

On the way home from there it is always like a mini vacation, animals, view,and nature So.....the Autumn reflection picture. But really the reflections I'm talking about are all the years we lived and raised our kids out there. Never convenient but always beautiful!