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All in all I must say this week was incredible (in a good way).  However, that being said, we were provided with plenty of opportunities for character building, turning the other cheek, and general blind optimism this week.  It’s bound to go that way sometimes… especially for folks taking on huge plans with little to no expertise, leaning on other people’s good graces, a healthy measure of stubbornness, and accurate google searches to light their way.  We’re learning.  And we got a boat load of opportunities to learn this week.  For instance…

Did you know a tankless water heater has to be drained when you aren’t expecting below freezing temps but they happen anyway?  Well you do.  If not, you’re going to wake up really friggin’ cold in the morning (because it’s below freezing) and you have a broken hot water heater (because water froze, expanded, and split a pipe).  Lesson learned.

Or, how bout measuring walls to exact dimensions before sliding them in place?  Did you know that was a bad idea?  It is.  If you don’t give yourself a little bit of play, you’ll never be able to slip the wall into place.  Taken down, re-framed, and now noted.

This one may not surprise anybody.  Weather changes.  Abruptly.  This week we had a smattering of 50 degree sunny weather with a splash of 60mph winds, snow storms, hail, sideways rain and fog.  One must be prepared for all of these.  Fortunately we were sitting pretty well for most of this.  This gets chalked up into the “we now know to stay on our toes with Moosicorn weather” category.

Oh, yeah.  Almost forgot.  Truck batteries go bad, oil caps get lost and the 4 wheel drive may go out again for no apparent reason.  All of these are fixable but can give you a lengthy set back.

Also one should be prepared that when a plumber is charging for time and materials outside of scope… they ARE charging for time and materials without a heads up from time to time.  Yep.  $600 over budget on plumbing rough-in.  Still figuring up how to make that up on the ol’ budget.  No biggie in the overall picture, he did great work, was a cool guy and had great tunes.

I’m not sure what the eventual lesson will be on tractor.  But since we found a couple of missing bolts and a drained hydraulic reservoir I’m sure we’re about to learn one.

Despite these setbacks, everything was really great.  We still spent an inordinate amount of time just grinning like idiots and looking around, thinking to ourselves.  Holy cow!  Is this for real?  So glad to be here.

And think… once we get this whole crazy thing figured out, how much we’ll be able to help others out.  That’ll be nice.

-Scott