KB Ranch

[I wrote this last week. Since then, I’ve gotten more interested in my project for work, in part I suppose, because it’s been too cold and windy to do much else. It’s a nice quality, at least, to find enjoyment in whatever I’m stuck doing. :]

I’m a big believer in finding something you really love to spend most of your waking hours on. Too many people hate their jobs, and we spend too many hours at work for that. I’m sure that some think it’s pollyanna-ish, but I think that everyone can find something they love that generates enough money to live on. I’ve been fortunate to do this for all my life. I love my job. I’ve been spending less time on it this year though and have started to think a bit about what I’m going to do after the house project is finished (not that that will be anytime soon…but it’s kind of like when I was in Africa; I was puzzling over how my career would track before I even left).

This morning, I spent awhile working on a project for work (my paying job, that is). It’s been a bit of a frustrating project that I just am not having a ton of fun with. After I finished, I went out to work on the house.

I started by putting up insulation for a couple hours. Working with insulation is not the most fun job in the world. It’s itchy and scratchy. You have to wear a mask that is awful. It requires contorting your body in weird angles to reach ceiling corners. And still, while I was doing it, I thought about how much I love doing construction. I kept thinking, “I wonder if I’d like this as much if I were doing it for someone else’s house?”

I asked Brad. He’s worked construction for years, and obviously knows me pretty well, so I thought he’d have a reasonable answer. He said that he thought I might like it even more. He pointed out that building other people’s houses gives you the chance to learn new things and to do kinds of work that you’d never do on your own house.

Food for thought.

Lest I’ve given anyone the impression that the work here is all fun and games, let me tell you about today. It was awful.

The morning started cold but with little wind, so it looked like a good day to prep Tumbleweed for stucco (our current #1 priority). So….we spent the day ripping most of the paper off the house so we could put new paper on. You may remember that I wasn’t too keen on putting the paper on. Well, tearing it off was much worse. Trying to dig all the capped nails out of the walls wasn’t that fun either.

As we worked, it got colder and colder. And the wind came up. Pretty soon, we were getting whipped by the half-removed paper.

Knowing it was difficult work, Brad asked me at some point how I was feeling.

“Frustrated. Cold. In pain. Tired. Cranky. And I NEVER WANTED TO BUILD A HOUSE ANYWAY.”

OK, the last part was just out of frustration. We got through it, but with the wind, we didn’t get to the next stage of putting paper on (just to get back to where we started). Maybe tomorrow.

For now, I’m baking fresh bread and pizza and not thinking about it.