Untamed Hearth

I’ve been struggling.

A sunset walk makes everything better.

The last week has been hard for me.

I noticed over the last couple of weeks that I have not had as much energy as usual. Almost everyday I need a little nap.

I have not been feeling that great. My nasal polyps (a holdover from my mycotoxin overload) have been popping up a lot and it is interrupting my sleep.

The house build is a LOT.

Homeschooling is a LOT.

Helping a high school senior navigate college scholarships and helping with graduation things is a LOT.

(In fact I had to take a moment to go complete something for part of the local graduation celebrations, that I realized was due by Monday while I was writing this.)

Making three meals a day is a LOT (anyone else feel me here?).

We area getting ready for a couple of trips and that feels like a LOT because many of the items we need are in storage. (Have I mentioned that the items we have left are stored in three different places?)

These are all GOOD things.

They just feel like a LOT right now because I am sleep deprived.

So I’ve been struggling.

We have been so grateful to have the use of a family members house for the winter.

It has been amazing.

The view.

The proximity to my brother and his fiance.

The proximity to friends new and old.

Staying in the same area so Trace didn’t have to change high schools his senior year.

It has also been hard.

Hard to fit our families things in the cracks between someone else’s things.

Hard for me to clean the house the way I want to.

Hard to have our things in three different places.

Hard to live quietly in someone else’s space when you want to live out loud.

So I’ve been struggling.

At this time in my life, I need less

Fewer menu choices so meals are easier to prepare.

Fewer things to clean around.

Minimal clothing options for everyone so we have less laundry.

For every item we have to have a home.

Less stuff around me so my brain isn’t full all the time.

Less distractions and more sunlight.

Honestly, I can’t wait to be camping again.

Camping is inherently harder, while also being simpler.

Less distractions.

Fewer meal choices.

Sunlight from the moment you wake up until the moment the sun goes down.

Limited clothing options by default.

Less stuff.

Everything has to have a home so it doesn’t get dirty/wet/crawled on by tiny rodents.

Less places that need to be cleaned.

The struggle is real.

Camping will be a welcome relief.

Find out about our house build here.

See what we have spent so far on our house build here.

Floors: A waterproof solution for the entire house?

There are so many flooring options for homes these days. We are looking for a waterproof solution for the entire apartment from bedrooms to bathrooms.

We have already decided that we will use the concrete slab foundation for the floor in our house.

The apartment is a different beast.

It is on the second floor and will not have a concrete floor.

Along this building journey we have a few goals:

  • Build this house as affordably as possible
  • Make the house as mold resistant as possible
  • Create a beautiful and comfortable home

I’m home by myself this weekend so I have had more time to go down rabbit holes and eat what I want while I do it. Without getting interrupted. If you are a mom, you get where I’m coming from.

Our home needs to be “Easy to clean.”

When Aura was helping us design the house I mentioned easy to clean so many times, she finally said, “I’m writing this down, Laura Anne doesn’t like to clean.”

It isn’t that I don’t like to clean, it is that I want my space to be EASY to clean. I have so many other things I would prefer to do with my time, so I want cleaning our home to be fast and easy.

Dust is a perfect breeding ground for mold, I want to be able to run a damp dust mop on all the floors in our house without having to move furniture and rugs etc. In my current season of life this is a NECESSITY for me.

I have a thing about floors.

Tile and grout can be beautiful, however…

I find them difficult to clean.

I love wood floors, but don’t like pre-finished flooring because it has cracks.

If a drink spills in the living room the water on the surface is easy to mop up, what about the water that slithered down the cracks? It can lurk there creating a damp environment for mold to start growing.

I’m not a fan of linoleum.

It is easily damaged if something is dropped on it and I just don’t like the look or feel of it in bedrooms.

Carpets are a big no for us.

It is almost impossible to actually clean a carpet completely. The dirt and dust just hangs out at the bottom of the carpet. We may put in a couple of small throw rugs that are washable in the bedrooms or living area at some point, but I will never put wall to wall carpet in any home I ever have in the future.

Can we find a waterproof solution for the entire house that River and I can agree on?

I recognize that this seems like I’m overthinking the moisture issue.

I get it.

A year ago I would have thought the same thing.

Once you have had to throw away a majority of your belongings because of mold that has been hidden in the walls of your house, you really don’t want to go through it again.

We are looking for a solution that will be safe, prevent water from leaking into the floor, provide a seamless floor throughout the apartment and look nice.

This led me to epoxy.

And I had questions.

Can we put an epoxy floor over a plywood sub floor?

The answer is YES! Yes you can!

Will it look pretty?

There are so many color choices that I don’t think it would be a problem to find a color group that would work for us.

How long does it take to install?

It looks like it will take about a week or so to install, there is a lot of waiting involved. I think there are other floors that could be installed more quickly.

Is epoxy durable?

It seems that when epoxy is applied correctly over a surface that has been properly prepared it can last for 20 or more years. There is a possibility of some yellowing occurring if it gets a lot of sun exposure. We do have really big windows in every room, however the house is positioned in such a way that we get morning and afternoon sun and not all day sun. I feel like the exposure will be limited and we will probably pick a darker, warmer color scheme for the floors, so a slight yellowing wouldn’t show anyway.

Is it safe?

Once the epoxy floor has completely cured, the material does not pose health risks.

Epoxy is hazardous when you sand the flooring after it has cured and inhale this dust. 

I found this great blog post about the dangers of epoxy and how to use it safely. I also found this one, which makes it sound much scarier.

That is the trouble with the internet isn’t it? I can find information saying it is completely safe once it is cured and I can find information saying, don’t use it, it will cause life long problems. Of course there are people that install this stuff daily without problems as long as they use the proper protective gear.

Its a toss up.

River is not convinced that we will want to spend as much money as he thinks it is going to cost.

One of the YouTube videos I found by Andrew Thron Improvements said he spent $500 on a 100 sq ft epoxy floor for his shed. Just doing some quick math and our space will be approximately 1200 sq ft so about $6000.

Ooof.

That is a lot of money.

I looked on the Leggari website and they said it would be $2-3 a sq ft to do it yourself or $5-8 sq ft to hire a professional so $3,600 would be more in line as we would be doing it ourselves. That price seems much more doable.

Maybe Andrew Thron’s was so expensive because he had to get a large amount even though he had a small space to finish?

Comparisons for 1200 sq ft of flooring:

(All prices below came from Home Depot.)

Peel and Stick vinyl tiles $1,546.20

High end, Mavericks French Oak, Engineered Hardwood $4,810.32-6,290.96

Porcelain Floor Tile $2,668.48-4,788.00

Unfinished white oak flooring $5,912.32

Pre-finished White Oak $7,915.25

I’m sure we could find a flooring somewhere in between, but for right now I’m going to keep researching the epoxy flooring and see what we can come up with, there are some beautiful finishes that I think would look really great as a floor in every room of the apartment.

Maybe $3,600 isn’t so bad as a waterproof solution for the apartment…

I am worried about the yellowing of the epoxy over time.

As I have had time to think about epoxy, I have been thinking that perhaps we should put epoxy in the bathroom and kitchen. There will be less sunlight in those rooms so the yellowing won’t be a factor.

Unfinished wood floors that we finish ourselves would look lovely in the bedrooms and living area. I think we can make the floors waterproof if we finish them ourselves. It is messier but it will be done the way we like it.

Will epoxy be the waterproof solution for the entire house that we have been searching for?

We will find out in a couple of months.

Stay cozy everyone.

P.S. My weekend home alone writing was interrupted by a power outage that lasted for three and a half days. Needless to say this post is late. I apologize.

To see what we have spent so far click here.

Read about compromises we have had to make in our design here.

Read about building our dream house on a smallish budget here.

The Budget: What we spent so far

How much does it cost to build a house these days?

The numbers you find on-line can feel daunting. It can seem like people spent a LOT or they found everything second hand and it was all free.

I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions about what it costs to build an average size house these days. We decided we wanted to present real numbers on what we spend on this house build. We are building this house ourselves. For this phase of the project, the garage with an apartment over it, we are spending extra money on things like pre-built wall panels, pre-built trusses and having someone else build the foundation to save time at the site. September 2024 seems far away, but it is less then six months from when I am writing this and the foundation won’t even be finished until sometime in May.

We have cleared this land ourselves with a little help on the big trees from my brother, an arborist. This has definitely helped keep our budget smallish.
This is all pine, but it isn’t all the pine.
We have had so many blow downs due to heavy winds.
In a way I am relieved. If they fall down now, they won’t fall on our house.

I’m going to give a little run down on expenses so far.

Architectural Fees

$3,499.00

Septic Design

  • Septic Designer

$750.00

Driveway

  • Crushed Stone

$5,846.00

Power Installation

  • Install Three Telephone Poles & Run Wire to Poles – Pole installation by a private contractor – this was less expensive and faster then going through CMP

$11,900.00

  • Electrician to hang a meter and do what CMP needed before power could be connected

$3,295.55

  • CIAC (Contributions in Aid of Construction) Tax – CMP

$975.00

Excavator Usage and Rental

  • Rental of big Excavator
  • Rental of my brother’s excavator (ongoing, we just paid up front)

$19,800

Fuel for Tractor, Excavator, Chainsaw’s

  • I don’t have an exact amount for this. This is a guess.

$1,000.00

Total spent so far:

$47,065.55

Upcoming Expenses that are Known

Wall Panels

  • We purchased wall panels through Hancock Lumber

$21,555.00

Roof Trusses

  • We purchased roof trusses through Hancock Lumber

$8,992.58

Foundation

  • We have hired a contractor to pour the foundation and the floor for the garage

$28,500.00

Window’s

  • Marvin Essential Window’s six sets of double casement window’s

$10,840.00

Total of expected costs:

$69,887.58

Total cost’s so far:

$116,953.13

To read more about building our house on a smallish budget click here.

To read about the compromises we have had to make in our design click here.

Compromises in a Dream House Design

Sunset views at the property in February.
I can’t wait for this to be my view every evening.

We knew we couldn’t have all the things we wanted on a small budget.

We had to let a few things go.

We also decided that some expenses were worth the extra cost.

Where we compromised:

The Office:

River is not getting a separate office. Sorry honey, it will be a table in the living area or a desk in the bedroom. It is possible that he may decide to use one of the rooms over the garage in the future.

Pretty Siding:

We really wanted to do a different siding. Vinyl was at the bottom of the list, but as the budget kept growing, something had to give. Vinyl is as low maintenance as it gets and low maintenance is very important to us.

I wanted board and batten siding. There were many options, all of them were expensive. We compromised with vinyl board and batten on the front of the house and vinyl clapboards on the sides and back of the house. The board and batten vinyl siding is twice as much as the clapboards, which is why we are only doing it on the front of the house.

Four Bedrooms:

Instead of four bedrooms in the house, we will have three. We expanded the living area above the garage so we have decided to eliminate the second floor of the house. The house just felt so huge and we don’t really want to pay taxes on all that extra space.

A separate space for creating:

When we eliminated the second floor on the house this space went away. We will have the space in the apartment, but I don’t think we will use it the same way we would have used the space upstairs in the house.

Number of Bathrooms:

The house will have one and a half bathrooms, not two. Since we expanded the living area over the garage, we reduced the sleeping area in the main house by eliminating the second floor and putting three bedrooms on the first floor instead, this eliminated the second full bathroom. The half bath will be in the laundry room by the front door. This does mean that I loose some pantry space, but a second toilet will be really nice to have IYKYK.

Where we chose to spend more money:

Metal Roofing:

We do not want to have to redo the roof in our lifetime. It is a time consuming job and it can be expensive if you have to hire someone. If we got an asphalt roof, the likelihood is that it would need replacing before we died. We did not want to compromise on this. Spending extra money now will save us more money and time in the future.

The Butcher Room:

The Butcher room in the garage is essential to me. River loves to hunt and we process the meat ourselves, however, butchering is a messy job and I don’t really want to have blood and fat all over my new kitchen (if you have ever processed your own meat, domestic or wild, you know what I mean). Having a space in the garage to hold all the butchering pots and bowls, grinder and packaging materials and a big sink to wash it all in is going to be awesome. We have had to make it a bit smaller to increase the size of the apartment entryway. This room will make River and I both happy as well as being available for friends and family to use. This dream was not something we wanted to compromise on.

The Apartment Over the Garage:

We made the apartment over the garage larger then we originally planned for.

Due to time constraints and wanting a livable space before September 2024, we have decided to build the house in phases.

We had not planned to finish the apartment right away, that was an expense we were going to save for a few years down the road. It has gone from a cozy one bedroom guest suite to a three bedroom apartment.

Increased the Size of the Apartment Entryway:

We made the entry way to the garage apartment larger in case we need to put in a stairway seat elevator for any reason.

Windows:

We went with the Marvin Essential Collection windows. This is definitely more expensive then other window options.

We decided to go with the Essential collection because they are fiberglass, which is 8 times stronger then vinyl. We are going with the ebony trim and have an ebony extension jam on the inside. One of our goals with this house is low maintenance. The fiberglass windows do not require any painting and the extension jams are waterproof so if a window gets left open a bit in the rain we will not get rot around the window nor will we have to climb ladders to paint trim, or ask anyone else to do it for us in the future.

The casement windows are designed so the outside can be washed from the inside. I could not do this on the casement windows at our old house. As we age we want the maintenance on the house to be as easy as possible AND take as little time as possible. Being able to wash the outside of the windows from inside the house means no ladders are needed outside to wash them, this is good for safety and it makes the task faster.

Radiant Floor Heat

We will be putting in radiant floor heat in the house and the apartment. Ease of cleaning came into play here. Cleaning baseboards is difficult, there are so many nooks and crannies, I didn’t like cleaning them at my old house and I don’t want to clean them here. The end goal here is to be able to just clean all the floors with a damp mop. We also had heat pumps at our old house and those require major cleaning every week to keep them dust free so mold doesn’t start to grow in them. This requires climbing on stools and I am not a fan of having to clean one of these for the long haul.

That being said, I don’t know what we are going to do about air conditioning here. I lived without air conditioning until about five years ago and it was fine. Now that I have had it, I think I will miss it a bit, the Maine summers have been getting hotter and wetter over the past several years and I am not a fan.

I’m sure there will be more compromises and more things we choose to spend extra money on as the journey continues, for now, this is where we are.

I am sad that we are using vinyl siding, I have also excepted that this is what our budget will allow AND be low maintenance.

What is something you have had to compromise about on in your building journey?

To read more about the first part of our house design process read this post.

Building Our Dream House on a Smallish Budget

Schematics of a house and garage by Aura Doak Architect, PLLC
Elevation design by Aura Doak Architect, PLLC

How do we build a house on our own with a smallish budget?

Great question! This is something River and I have been working on since July 2023.

In August 2023, we sold the house that I had grown up in to build our dream house on six acres of property down the road. When we were first married,13 years ago, we talked about building a house together. At the time we decided to stay where we were and try to make the house work for us. Our house was located on one acre in a lovely neighborhood and we didn’t really want to leave the area.

We ended up selling our house because we had mold in it and it had made us sick. You can hear more about our journey to selling our house here.

We had to take out a loan to remediate the house. River and I decided that if we had to have a loan, we would rather have a loan on a house we loved and that fit us perfectly, then on a house I didn’t think my body would ever feel safe in again. We had one year left on our mortgage when we sold the house, it was heartbreaking to have to start over.

Our goal is to build our house with the smallest mortgage we possibly can, no mortgage would be ideal.

Our Options

There are many options available to build a house these days.

  • Build a stick built house
  • Buy a modular house
  • Design our own house and use a modular company to build it and put it on our property
  • Build a post and beam house
  • Have another company build panels and trusses based on our design and assemble them on our property.

Stick built

The stick built house is the least expensive option if we do it ourselves, without hiring help, HOWEVER, it would take the most time and require the most labor by ourselves or people we would have to hire.

Pre-designed Modular

We could buy a pre-built modular house, we could have easily found one in our price range. I looked and didn’t find any that fit our needs for a large living area with bedrooms on the first floor. I could find large living areas with all the bedrooms on the second floor or houses with bedrooms on the first floor but small living areas. They were all nice houses, they just didn’t suit our wants and needs.

Modular Design and Build

This would have been the quickest way to get the house we wanted. I spoke to a couple of companies that build modular houses to your own designs. It was going to cost at least $50,000 for their design team even if we had a basic design already. The price for the house itself was going to be close to $400,000 without a garage. This was more then we wanted to spend on just the house.

Post and Beam

I love the way post and beam houses look and the concept of building a giant puzzle is so cool. Post and beam houses can go together quickly with SIPS panels. I wanted something easy to clean and I find beams joints can be tricky to keep clean. If you want to see some neat post and beam houses or learn how to build your own post and beam house, click here. Post and beam houses are so neat!

Pre-built Trusses and Wall Panels

In the end we decided to design our own house, use pre-built wall panels and pre-built trusses to build the house more quickly with less labor on site. Time is important to us, we would like to be in this space by September 2024.

The Design

What we wanted in the new house

The first thing we did was list everything that was important for us in the new house.

  • large mudroom
  • garage (at least two bays)
  • two bedrooms on the first floor
  • four bedrooms
  • two bathrooms
  • lots of light
  • metal roof
  • a screened in porch
  • a butchering room in the garage
  • storage in the garage for all our sporting activities
  • detached woodshed close to the house
  • large with enough room for all of us to hang out with friends comfortably
  • accessible bathroom on the first floor
  • an office for River
  • a small apartment over the garage for guests
  • a space for crafting, reading and puzzles that was not in the living area
  • the possibility to expand the garage to house a conversion van for adventures
  • as low maintenance as possible

We wanted all these things in a smallish package.

It was a LOT to ask of this house and we knew it.

We tried to do the design ourselves. Most of the designs came out as rectangular buildings attached to a garage. We tried single story ranches, capes, modern designs. So many designs! None of them were pretty, some of them were okay. I wish I saved some of the drawings so I could show them to you. Where the stairs should go was an obsession for me. I did not want stairs in the middle of the living area and I couldn’t figure out another place to put them that worked well. The houses kept being huge and we just couldn’t seem to make it work.

We ended up hiring an architect to help us with the design. We worked with Aura Doak Architect, PLLC. She was fantastic, she listened to everything we said and provided the basis that we used for the finished design. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing she was, she continues to check in with us to see how we are coming along and the design is beautiful. I loved it as soon as I saw it. Aura did three sets of drawings for us. What I am showing you here is the third draft.

Floor plan of a house by Aura Doak Architect, PLLC
Floor plans by Aura Doak Architect, PLLC

We have made some changes to this design as we have gone along that I will explain in future posts. This design was from November 2023. It is March of 2024 as I write this and things have changed as we have moved through the process of preparing to build.

I can’t wait to live in this house!

I may be slightly obsessed.

To read about compromises we are making on this build click here.

To see how much money we have spent click here.

Family Ski: Saddleback Mountain in Maine

Our family of five, with varying skiing abilities, went skiing at Saddleback Mountain in Maine on Sunday. It was the first time all five of us have been downhill skiing together. It was so much fun!

Family standing at the top of the Rangley Hi-speed Quad chair lift with snow covered trees behind them and clouds below them. Blue sky in the background
At the top of the Rangley Hi-Speed Quad on Saddleback Mountain
Photo Credit: A Saddleback employee

The Lodge

Saddleback has a very nice ski lodge! It was clean with a fireplace and big windows looking out at the mountain. The tables and chairs were wooden and there were lots of cubbies that fit our boot bags. The bathrooms were clean too, I always appreciate that.

The Food

There is a food court at the lodge, we usually opt to bring our own food as I have celiac disease and generally can’t find food that I can eat at ski areas. It is also a great way to save some money while skiing.

We like to bring soup as it is nice to warm up when you come in for lunch. I made a Sausage Noodle Soup to bring with us today which is a fan favorite. We found these Kleen Kanteen TK Canisters when I was looking for a new thermos at a local store the other day and got 32 oz one to try. They have a nice wide opening that is so much easier to pour into and eat out of.

How to properly fill a thermos:

  1. Preheat the canister by filling it with boiling water and setting the cover on it while you heat up the soup.
  2. Put the hot to boiling soup in the canister.
  3. Make sure the lid is seated properly so it will not leak.
  4. Wipe off any drips on the outside of the canister.

Did the canister keep the soup hot?

We filled the canisters around 5:45 am and it was still hot between 11 and 1 which was when we were eating. They worked so well I decided to get some of the 16 oz ones to try so each of us will have an individual one and we don’t need to bring bowls, which always tends to be a little messy. The Kleen Kanteen canisters have a nice handle to get them open and they stayed sealed and hot until we were ready to eat. The 16 ounce canisters aren’t supposed to hold the heat as long, but I think they will be sufficient for our purposes.

Sausage Noodle Soup in a 32 ounce Kleen Kanteen TKCanister
Sausage Noodle Soup in a 32 ounce Kleen Kanteen TKCanister
Kleen Kanteen TKCanister's in 32, 16 and 8 ounce sizes
Kleen Kanteen TKCanister’s in 32, 16 and 8 ounce size

The Trails

I started skiing again last year for the first time in more then 25 years, and I still prefer the green circles most of the time. The boys all like a little more of a challenge, blue squares, black diamonds and double black diamonds are all in their repertoire, as well as some runs through the glades. The runs through the glades are a favorite with our eight year old. He says it is so quiet and peaceful in the woods and he really loves that.

View from Saddleback Mountain in Maine. Skiers stand of the edge of the mountain prepared to take off downhill.
Views from the edge of Saddleback Mountain.
Skiers and snowboarders ready to head down the mountain.
Photo Credit: T.M.

My favorite run was taking the Rangley High Speed Quad up to Hudson Highway. Hudson Highway is a long meandering easy trail with nice curves. I really enjoyed it. Our eldest and I did the Blue Devil which is a blue square, so slightly more challenging, while the others did a run through Woolly Glades and met us at the bottom. The Blue Devil was a nice run, a little narrow, so no long sweeping turns, it had some powder on it when we were there, which T and I found a little tricky, but fun.

River and the boys took the Kennebago Quad up to the top of the mountain and came down Tri-color (blue square) to Nightmare Glades (double black diamond).

See a short video of entering the Nightmare Glades on our Youtube channel.

Our oldest son is also a beginner, although he is more adventurous then I am. He went to the top of the mountain and took Tri-color to Green Weaver (both blue square) he said the trails were really nice.

View from the top of the Kennabago .Quad at Saddeback Mountain, Maine. There are clouds below and above, blue ski in between
View from the Kennebago Quad at Saddleback Mountain, Maine
Photo Credit: T.M.

The two youngest really enjoyed the terrain park on Wheeler Slope. They came through it every time they could and our middle kiddo went up and down several times himself. It had some pretty big jumps. There was another terrain park near the lodge. We didn’t get to use it because there was a competition happening while we were there.

This mountain offered a variety of options for all levels of skiing.

To see a map of Saddleback Mountain’s trails, click here.

It was a beautiful day on the slopes

We had a fantastic day on the mountains and I had never seen snow stuck to the trees like this before. It was magical looking. You could feel the moisture in the air as you ascended the mountain through a cloud to a clear arrival at the top. There was a light snow for about half the day and that was lovely to ski in.

As we were gathering up our skis to carry to the racks by the pick-up area, I saw people ski right to the the pick-up area and I thought that was so smart. I hadn’t considered doing that before but it makes so much sense. It is hard to gather up all the gear and food and tired children, and get everything to the pick-up area even though it isn’t that far away. I’m definitely keeping that one in my back pocket for next time.

All three of the boys slept on the way home, we wore them out! Our youngest said he was too tired to even carry his bag. He has a smaller boot bag then the rest of us that has straps on the sides, we were able to clip his skis right to his bag keeping his hands free. This made a huge difference when we were leaving and everyone was a little worn out.

Our conclusion: Saddleback offers excellent skiing for people of all abilities and we will definitely be back.

My only complaint was that my goggles and glasses kept fogging up! If anyone knows how to prevent this please leave a comment below.

Happy adventuring!

Meet Laura Anne

Welcome to Untamed Hearth, a place where adventures are a way of life and home is the cozy place we snuggle up in between.

Hello, I’m Laura Anne!

My husband, River, and I live in coastal Maine with our three boys.

In August of 2023 we sold the home I grew up in to build our dream house on six acres of forest a few miles down the road. When we got married we dreamed of building a home that suited our adventure life, and now we are living that dream! I’m happy you are joining us for our journey.

About Me

My mantra is: I am never too old to learn new things.

In my 40’s, I started rock climbing. I am scared every time and I do it anyway. When I watch my kids overcome an obstacle on the rocks, I tear up because I know how darn hard it can be and how good it feels to do it.

I started downhill skiing again last year for the first time in 25 years. River has been bringing the kids for a few years now and they want to go on some big ski adventures. I don’t want to miss out on the adventure so I decided I better join the club.

In my late 20’s, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Gluten free sourdough has been a game changer for our pizza crust.

I homeschool our two youngest and it is a blessing, allowing more time for adventures and family. Our oldest is off to college next year, thinking about it makes me sad and happy at the same time. I will miss him so much and I can’t wait to see what he does with his future. Parenting is a double edged sword, isn’t it?

In June of 2022, I went to Alaska to meet a group of women I had only met on Instagram and camp in the bush with the grizzly bears.

I had emergency brain surgery in January 2019 for a meningioma. I still have trouble finding words sometimes when I’m talking, especially when I am really passionate about something.

Mold made me sick. I am still recovering, it is a process. I get a little better all the time, unfortunately, my body is VERY sensitive to mold right now. Even a small exposure takes my recovery back a bit.

Hear more about my mold journey and why we sold our house on the Taylored Talks podcast.

We had a homestead

We used to have a homestead on our one acre. We raised pigs, meat birds, laying hens and had a really big garden. I loved putting dinner on the table and saying “We grew everything on this plate.”

We made maple syrup. We participated in Maine Maple Sunday a couple of times and it was really fun. The kids miss being part of Maine Maple Sunday and I miss the copious amounts of maple syrup!

Right after I had my brain surgery, our septic system failed and the only place to put a new one was where our laying hens and some of our gardens were. We lost one of the only areas we had to raise animals and had to destroy all our gardens except our greenhouse when this happened. My recovery took years and sadly, I was not able to build the gardens back up.

I’m so glad you are here!

I’m excited to share our house build and our adventures with you!