Cheerful Distractions Blog

Rolling the Rails

As summer dwindled and fall was nearly upon us, we were rushing to complete outside work in between splitting firewood. One of the last projects was the handrailing around our deck, most of which is more for decoration. We had already installed railing where it was required for occupancy the year before. Initially, we thought this railing would be temporary but as we began to price railing that usually went with engineered decking, we found the cost was ridiculously high. Tha

stacey946

Feb 172 min read

Mean Machine

The hits keep coming but this one has a happy ending. Before we even began to build our house, we purchased all of our appliances on a Mother’s Day weekend sale. Of course, I thought we could build the house ourselves in one year. Silly me. The next season came and I thought surely, we can finish it this year. Think again. The same was true for the third year. The fourth year we finally were able to set up all our appliances. I have already told you about having to replace o

stacey946

Feb 122 min read

Upsetting the Cart

While trying to get our special generator for solar systems working, the generator battery would die. Then we’d recharged. It would run for about seven hours but not recharge itself in the process. At first, we thought it was a faulty battery. We borrowed from our neighbor Nick but his did the same. Eventually we bought a new battery all together. Still without success. Jer did what he always does, lots and lots of research. What we found out was that this particular generato

stacey946

Feb 102 min read

Chop Chop

The summer was winding down, and we knew that every weekend we were at the property we needed to spend one day chopping and stacking wood. A couple neighbors were a little less than encouraging with statements like, “Kind of late to get started.” Jer and I were not deterred. There were two and three year old downed trees waiting to be cut, split, and stacked. Jer’s friends at Home Depot, literally friends because he’s spent so much time with them over years, gave him a great

stacey946

Feb 52 min read