This is Hard - A Letter to My Husband**

So here we are, in year three of our marriage, with a one year old and a 'house on a piece of land.' 

It was 4:19am when I woke up yesterday to turn on the heat in our holiday trailer that we have been living in since June 1. We had collapsed into bed at midnight after shoving insulation into the joists of our upstairs attic-I have the bruises on my forearms to prove it. Last night we talked heat exchangers and circulating pumps and did our dishes and cleaned up instead of installing insulation so that when I leave this morning for my new part-time job, you will have enough space in our little trailer to care for our little girl. 

Every once in awhile you say you're exhausted, beat, burned out. Every once in a MORE whiles you listen to me complain and cry. 

This is hard.

We chose this. We love this. I am learning SO much by taking a bare piece of land and making it livable. We are pioneers of a different sort. When all is said and done we will have a relatively tiny mortgage in this uncertain economy because we are choosing to do the work ourselves....while asking others to join us as they are able. I used to keep track of how many bags of demo we took out of the house; I should start with how many hours of babysitting dear friends and family have provided. 

This is hard.

These seasons of life that we have been through my Farm Boy; the falling in love and the staying in love. Staying in love when I was adapting to life in our town; away from all the familiar. You held me then while I cried. During those sleepless nights with our little one; you held me then too while I cried-or held her so I could stop crying and sleep. Now when I measure something wrong or am just plain weary of measuring, lifting, cutting, hammering, scraping, mudding and taping (didn't take me long to weary of that); you still hold me and we both say...this is hard.

And then we laugh. We laugh at our daughter who is absolute Gift to us. We laugh at ourselves and happy dance after installing kick-a** hardwood flooring. We laugh as we fill a borrowed dump trailer with absolutely everything on a supply run to the city. We celebrate the generosity of certified and credentialed friends who provide advice and feedback; phone call after phone call. 

 

We laugh. We cry. We hope. We pray. We trust. And we build. We build this marriage, this family, this life-one hard and happy experience at a time. 

So dear husband; I'll say it again today-there's no where else I'd rather be. I am so proud of you and us. We're doing this! 

**Thank you to my friend Rachael for her permission to borrow the format, style and even title of this blogpost from her recent one. Please read hers at: The Good Wife