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a summer of paddling

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Most people who do pretty cool things find themselves injured at some point in their lives. Brandon does a lot of cool things, he skis mountains, can fix anything with moving parts, and also he's a member of an exclusive club, Costco. In the typical fashion Brandon sprained his ankle doing super mundane- carrying a duffle bag while wearing flip flops. So since June, we've been spending time sitting, and also sitting and paddling.  Our family has a whole battalion of small human powered watercrafts, we have everything except a canoe. So we decided to take up canoeing. We found the perfect canoe candidate to add to our fleet. The Montgomery Ward "Sea King". This elite model was first put into production in 1972, and our particular vintage specimen was last registered in the state of California in 1995. She weighs between 100-200 pounds, came full of wasp nests, and always tracks sightly left. Our family was ecstatic to see she still floated.  Annabelle is happier than a...
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Lifestyle Creep

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Some point in everyone's life they start to experience lifestyle creep. Brandon and I have fought off lifestyle creep with frying pans, rakes  and vengeance for as long as we can remember. But alas, we have succumbed and have joined the ranks of Americans and have acquired a second pickup truck.  A brand new building is not complete without a new shiny truck to park in the garage. So I formally introduce to you the brand new to the Rouses the 1991 Super duty Ford F250 Lariat edition plow truck. Better known to us as "Mr. Plow".  With only 35,000 miles on the 5 digit odometer, last titled and registered in 2022, and a stiff price tag of zero dollars ("please get her the fuck out of my field")  she's a real beauty Clark. This bad boy was brought back to life after spending two years camping out in the middle of the field with an electrical problem that caused the key to stay on. Using the knowledge of his hooligan past Brandon hot wired the truck with a vice g...
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December

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Things have been busy out here  building a building and a new community of people. We've made it through two holidays, a hog roast with 50 people we didn't know and a six year old  bouncy house birthday party at a tap house. I also attended a neighborhood ladies night where I listened to some lady tell me the medicinal uses of crystals and some other woo woo shit about sound waves and carcinogenic effects of light pollution. Being the new kid on the block really has really been enlightening.  Lucikly for us, Annabelle continues to make all our friends and is really slaying it at school. We started out the school year by walking a mile each way to the bus stop wondering why everyone else was driving. When the weather hit 23 degrees we started driving too.  She is learning to read and is starting to write pretty amazing stories like, " I see a dog. The dog pooped". If she keeps it up she might be ready to take on the responsibility of my blog soon.  We've been eat...
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attractive construction outfits

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 Annabelle started kindergarten the first week of September. The best part of day one was when they got to watch TV because the music teacher called in sick. Her favorite special class in school is helping out in the school garden because "she gets to eat more". She's learned a lot of valuable lessons at public school so far. For instance, if you lick the bottoms of your feet you get better traction climbing up the slide. There are lots of aspects of public school that seem similar to a prison yard at first glance, but somehow it works ands she loves school so much that she plays kindergarten with her stuffies on her weekends off. I formally quit my job the same day Annabelle started school upping my status to trophy wife. So far so good. I'm not eating government cheese yet, but have the van ready with a nice spot by the river picked out if it comes to that. I've been volunteering in art class at Annabelle's school and working on building our project. I have ...
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roofing, and a rooster named Enchilada.

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The last building trip to Winthrop was filled with summer camp, fairies, inflatable rattle snakes and old friends.   Annabelle got to go to fairy and gnome themed summer camp. She came back everyday covered in glitter and smiles with a metric F load of arts and crafts. F stands for fairy.  She also got invited to her first Winthrop Birthday party which was snake themed. There were about 30 inflatable rattle snakes floating around Perryaguin lake with a matching number of five year old's having the time of their lives, "swimming", splashing and generally trying not to sink by grasping onto as many inflatable rattle snakes as possible.  Annabelle also had her first run in with a rooster with bad behavior, which we nick named "Enchilada" . She survived the ordeal but is eager to eat the rooster.  Besides ensuring Annabelle had an amazing week filled with bountiful little people time we also did a lot of work with the roof. The building is 24 feet high which makes y...
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