First Frost--And hoping for life to slow down

When the temperature drops, the molecules that make up the world around us--the air, water, soil, et cetera--start to move more slowly. Well, this morning (October 6th) we woke up to our first frost of the season. Yulia and I are hoping that, along with the world around us, life manages to slow down as well!

Frosty clover

We've been busy busy busy for the past three years, doing crazy things like digging a pit for our septic tank by hand at night in November! We keep fantasizing about slowing our lives down and enjoying life a little.

Will we be able to pull ourselves out of this pit we've dug for ourselves?? We hope so!

Assessing the frosty morning

We just got through a three day stretch of continuous rain. It's been a while since we've had a soaker like this. My heart sank when, during the storm, I noticed a leak in the ceiling of our future laundry room--now the shed. I knew that the roof of our shed needed to be changed--there's all sort of holes and cracks in it--but I was hoping it would hold out at least until next summer. Unfortunately, one of the concrete shingles cracked in half, and the lower part of the shingle slid down the roof a couple inches, creating a fair sized hole. This leak bothers me because I just put some fiberglass insulation under the ceiling of the laundry room, and now it's getting wet.

These actually aren't the sources of the leak, but three other holes! The entire roof is more or less like this.

I was in the city yesterday, so I got some plywood and shingles to begin the process of re-covering the roof. I planned to attack the project head on this morning, jamming this job in between English classes on a busy day, but I thought to myself: "No. This is the old way of doing things...How about I patch the shingle with a handful of cement for now and start changing the roof when I actually have the time in the next couple of days?" The occasional drip up there is nothing new, and it can wait.

I have no self control! Immediately after writing this I went outside and started removing the old shingles. By the end of the next day the new plywood and roofing underlayment was up.

We hope to change our old pattern of thinking, but it'll take some practice. We need to learn to be OK with resting when we feel tired--even if it's a nice day and there is probably something productive we should be doing.

I was chopping wood for Yulia's grandparents last week during this beautiful sunset.
Sometimes you just gotta stop and look around.

Wish us luck!