challenges of rural construction
A New Week in a Spectacular New Home In The Southern Colorado Foothills!
So relieved to have our final move behind us!
All I feel is gratitude for the many ways my life has changed since I decided to make love my highest priority back in 2004. I see now that if I hadn’t decided to find a way to believe in love again back then, none of my other goals could have been achieved.
First there was my fortuitous meeting with Mike in early 2005, which led to having the courage, time and energy to begin a new writing career. My books followed as Mike and I’s relationship grew.
Then, when the time seemed exactly right, we decided to move out of the city forever and found this lovely valley to build in with 180 degree views of the Spanish Peaks and the Sangre de Cristos. But if Mike had not had the vision and the proper skills to create this home, it would have never been built.
The peace and quiet, the chilly air in the morning as the sun comes up, this is heaven or close enough for me.
How did I end up here, feeling so fortunate?
It’s a long story, one I can now share with you!
Sharing difficult times with a life partner
I had an insight this morning. I have most certainly experienced more difficult times in my life than this past year and a half; struggling through the process of leaving our old home, past lives and dear friends behind to build in this new, rural setting.
A number of tough times in my twenties, thirties and forties come to mind, but I have never struggled like this while sharing my life with a partner. Now I know it is both easier and harder to struggle with major life challenges while intimately involved with someone else.
It is easier for the most obvious reason. With the right partner you can experience understanding, encouragement and support in your darkest hours. This is an amazing benefit to someone like me who has spent most of my adult life living alone.
The hard part is when both of you get down at the same time, what I call “Who stole the bright side.” It is so essential that we work together and not push each other away with guilt or blame when things get tough.
So glad we have each other to turn to. I cannot imagine this experience without Mike’s loving support and caring. This is “sustainable living” at its most basic, and Rasta our little dog helps immensely too… comedy relief is ESSENTIAL!
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The trials and tribulations of building a custom home in rural Colorado…
So we’re back with our original builder, who is supposedly finishing our home. Two weeks later he hasn’t even begun to finish tiling our small home.
Excruciatingly slow progress! And please don’t say hire someone else. There is no one else available around here! We were supposed to be in there by now, one year after we moved here to build. We did our research and chose the best builder we could find here, so WTF?
Please note the steam coming out of my ears at this point…. In the meantime, I am trying very hard to stay zen about my circumstances, as my husband awaits possible neurosurgery, and our home does not move forward.
Because of all the extra rainfall we have received here (over 10 inches since the middle of April!), the wildflowers are going WILD up near our new home!
Especially these yellow flowers called Plains Greenthread (or Navajo Tea), but we also have Indian Paintbrush, Lupines and a couple Penstemons around.
Just had to share these amazing fields! Who knows when they’ll be like this again…
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Are You Willing to Fight For Your Dreams?
One of the most important lessons I have learned from my midlife struggles, is the need to be willing to fight for my dreams. This journey began for me back in 2004, when I lost my job and then spent months in introspection.
I focused on this question: What do I need to happen before I die?
I concluded that for myself I needed to find ways to believe in love again. I so wanted to find one genuine love in this lifetime. This book is a summary of what I learned in this process. I fought through a lifetime of tragedy and disappointment to change my perspective and find new faith in the power of love. Then I found a great new partner within a few months.
With Mike I found true partnership where we are able to work successfully together towards shared goals. One of his lifetime goals was to build his own solar custom home with an incredible view. This is the goal we have been working on for over a year now.
So many obstacles have arisen in this process. Leaving behind our life of 20+ years in Fort Collins was our first challenge. I wrote about that extensively in my memoir of this entire experience. Suffice to say this kind of change is never easy.
We moved into a 100-year-old little house in Walsenburg and put much into storage last June. It took five months just to get a proper slab completed in this rural Colorado county.
We noticed every step of the construction process was costing much more than we had budgeted. We found that our contractor was not taking bids for work, but simply using his regular sub-contractors. At that point Mike decided to take over the contracting part of the process. He took bids from both local and Pueblo companies and cut over 30% off the cost of the electrical and stucco work. Our builder was not happy.
This week, after almost a year of struggle, we were finally ready to complete the inside of our home. We have collected everything we need to complete the kitchen, baths, trim, etc. The response from our builder? I may be able to get to that in a few weeks. I went ballistic! In response he hung up on me.
Luckily Mike apologized profusely, and so we’re back on track again. It will all get done, and we will move in sometime in July, more than a year after we moved here.
I tell you this NOT to discourage you from pursuing your own unique goals, but to warn you that pursuing dreams can get ugly sometimes.
You must be willing to fight for your dreams…
How did I end up here, feeling so fortunate?
It’s a long story, one I can now share with you in my new memoir!
Remember: WHATEVER YOU’RE NOT CHANGING, YOU’RE CHOOSING.
Figuring out where you belong
Just took a quick trip out to our building site west of town… Every time I do, I feel even more certain that this is the place in this big, wonderful world that I belong!
I know we all have our own opinions of the most beautiful places in the world. Some can’t live without the ocean, others love the plains, but I am perfectly sure that this semi-arid piece of land close to the high mountains suits me just fine.
It’s hard to say what it is that makes me so certain. The absolute silence is very important to me, especially after listening to the relentless traffic noise in Fort Collins for nine years. The natural beauty and wide variety of birds, plants and wildlife also help… This is simply my place.
This setting makes me feel like I never want to leave. I feel gratitude that we can finally live our dream in our very own place in the sun… solar-powered, of course!
I’m a newcomer to rural southern Colorado. After two years I decided to compile a short journal about the ups and downs of moving from a good-sized city to rural America to build a passive solar retirement home in the foothills:
A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado
Please share this information with your friends if they are considering similar life changes. Feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges, and to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 