Not long after my husband graduated we bought a house. A house is quite a big purchase that should be considered carefully. After living in little apartments for almost 6 years we were definitely ready for a house of our own but our bank account may not have fully agreed. We bought one anyway. It was a brand new 2400 sq foot spec home in a new development. We loved our house but felt it needed a bit more to become our home. So have spent the last 7 years making it into a home. Since our bank account was pretty no
ne existent at this point this project required a lot of manual labor on our part. This (manual labor) is one of those decisions I definitely had moments of regret over. Our house was newly built and did not come with grass. So one of our first chores in the house to home transformation was to add a yard, we decided a house needed a bit of grass and hopefully a few flowers to make it a home. So we began that long horribly tedious job of landscaping.We first had to remove the rocks. Our home was built in an old gravel pit. I am not really sure why they abandoned this gravel pit and sold it to a home builder because there is still an over abundance of rock to harvest. Perhaps they got tired of the wind or moved onto bigger and better things. Whatever the case may be we bought a home with move rock than dirt surrounding it. We removed the rock and traded it for dirt. We had to buy dirt, I had never thought of dirt as something you buy before. I always assumed it was just one of those things found all over the earth that was essential to farms and a curse to carpet cleaning housewives. But we bought 3 dump truck loads of dirt, for a pretty penny I might add.
We then dug trenches and laid sprinkler pipes then covered them up again. For some reason it kept snowing during the pipe laying process this caused on trenches to fill in again. So we had to re dig, and re dig and re dig. This was not a very fun process. I did learn a valuable lesson though. A pick ax is one of the best tools ever invented. It is extremely handy for digging trenches, removing rocks and getting your frustrations out. It also helps the muscles on the back of your arms to hurt.
After we got our pipes in and our trenches filled back in with very expensive dirt we decided to add some grass. We though about seeding, but worried it wouldn't grow. Then we thought about hydroseeding. The experts say this is a sure fire way to get your seed to grow. They come and spray this green looking gunk all over your ya
rd and in just a few weeks little sprouts of grass appear. Sounded ok but lots of our neighbors hydroseeded yards seemed to have more weeds than grass. So we opted for the real sure fire way to get grass. We just paid (again a pretty penny) for someone to cut up a bunch of beautiful green weed free grass in little squares and bring it to us. We laid the sod and presto chango-we had grass. My insightful husband commented we went from trailer trash to a respectable family in 2 hours. Grass really does something for a yard.Well the next step in our yard development was a fence. A fence can be seen as two different things. First a way to keep things in and second a way to keep things out. I had 3 (at the time) precious little babies I wanted to keep around. I wanted them to enjoy the fruits of our landscaping labors but I didn't want them roaming the neighborhood. So a fence seemed like a good idea. So we began installing one. It was one of those white vinyl easy to install do it your selves kinda things. It took all summer. We just aren't that handy when it comes to fence installation apparently. But we finally got it up and it looked really good. The wind took it down a couple times but we found a way to screw it into place and all was well. I sat back and once again enjoyed the fruits of our labor. The kids played in the yard for hours on end. Then I began to notice they were getting lonely and so was I. All of the neighborhood friends that would drift over to play with us somehow got stopped by the fence and were finding other places to play. The fence was keeping my kids in but my friends out. I began to doubt my fence decision. So the question that plagued my mind for the first few years of fence ownership has been is it better to keep my kids in (with little effort on my part) while risking loneliness due to isolation, or risk insanity by chasing my kids around the neighborhood while enjoying an occasional drifting in of the neighbors. I have gone back and forth on this.
At times I concluded that getting a fence was the smartest choice I have ever made and then a few weeks later it is on my list of regrets. Well why do I bring this up now. Because yesterday we had a beautiful spring day, I was out playing with my kids in the backyard and the thought came up again. I realized I am smarter than I had once feared. I am now very confident that a fence was a valuable asset to my life. I still have all five kids and I do contribute that in part to the fence keeping them in. (For proof of this stay tuned to future posts where I relate several losing kid stories - for some reason I have a bad habit of losing someone when we on vacation) My kids have grown old enough to have friends who can drift in over the fence or through the gate so now we often have more neighborhood kids in my yard then I can count on both hands. The last and most important reason is it has allowed me to really play with my kids (and husband) in ways I wouldn't be brave enough to do with the whole neighborhood watching. (We have one neighbor who I am fairly convinced is Mrs. Kravitz cousin.)
We have had a lot of good times behind that fence. From wrestling competitions and soccer games, to paper macheing projects and cub scout activities, from neighborhood bbq's and enrichment dinners, to seat wars on the tramp and sun bathing, from birthday party pinatas and water fights, good times and happy memories have found there way into our back yard. While some of those things could have easily been done without a fence, others most likely would have never happened. For example, while the sight of me flying down the slip in slide is not one I am comfortable sharing it sure does make for some fun memories. We have had some pretty tense moments back there too, like the time we decided to build a fire and roast marshmallows. We had forgotten how windy it gets, after a few minutes of pretending the smoke in our face was fun and the flying sparks probably start a fire we packed it up and ate our graham crackers and chocolate bars inside. My stalwart husband stayed out and braved the cold and smoke to keep an eye and the hose on the flying sparks.
Some other unforgettable memories are laying out on the tramp late at night and star gazing. We have done this several times the latest of which was this week. The mother in me fought back the guilt associated with allowing my kids to be up and out so late on a school night, while the mom in me realized that these moments can be far and few between so we laid out there huddled under blankets giggling, wishing on falling stars and hopefully making some memories.
There is now no doubt in my mind that the hours and hours of back breaking sweat producing work required to change our dirt yard into the lovely memory making haven it is today was well worth it. Those hours were some of the best investments ever made. In truth those hours made some pretty important memories in and of themselves.
The yard was barely in and ready for its first mowing when I decided it was time to start in on our next home making project - the basement. My very patient husband did not really agree but humored me anyway and bought some books on framing and started sawing and hammering. Looking back we definitely should have invested in a air compressor and a nail gun. But you live and learn. The basement was a long time coming. Between his job, his calling, and his fatherly responsibilities my very wonderful husband had little time to play Bob the builder. I tried to hurry the project along by helping all I could. Which wasn't much. I mostly held things and fetched tools and kept the kids away. But every once in a while I decided (always regrettably) to do something myself such as frame the walls for the hallway. After spending all day measuring, sawing and hammering I got the hallway up and I was very exhausted, sore and proud (I should mention I was about 7 months pregnant). When my amazing husband came home from work I hurried to show off my work. He hemmed and hawed a bit and praised me for my hard work then changed his clothes tore it all down and stared over insisting that a wall really should be straight and at least semi level. Well long story short thanks to my wonderful husband and a mud and tape man - we now have a basement (except for the bathroom that doubles for a storage room).
While the work, worry and stress that went in to building that basement seemed never ending so have the benefits both of having one and building it. We have played, worked and grew in the basement. The process of building that basement gave us the opportunity to work as a team. It grew my husbands patience and self control. He never once yelled or threw a hammer at me although I often deserved it. It broadened my horizons and taught me important lessons in work ethics. I learned a job worth doing is worth doing well. I learned you should wear rubber shoes when working with electricity (fortunately this lesson was learned through lecture and not experience) I learned you shouldn't leave a very heavy wall standing in a middle of the kids playroom without anchoring it down (unfortunately this was an experience lesson). I learned my husband is very resourceful and truly a jack of all trades. I learned we can accomplish a lot if we work together, I learned we make a pretty good team, I learned building a home is a big part of building a family.
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