Improvements

With the advent of more extreme weather in our area -- mainly wind and rain; it has led to deeper thinking about preparedness and greater appreciation of how "solid" our house is compared to a camper.  Despite the camper/ tiny home being on the larger end of the spectrum (2 bed, 2 bath), the decreased insulation (regular and sound) becomes quickly apparent when a storm rolls through.  

I suppose I had greater expectations with respect to build quality.  That bubble burst a while ago and we've been busy designing and building additional protective structures to deal with diverting water to hopefully avoid future commonly known issues.  D estimates he has put in over 200 hrs in the construction alone with likely more in my planning.  

Thank goodness we are nearly at 100% completion -- It has been exhausting. Not only did we save money compared to lesser effective alternatives, we now have something that has been custom designed with weight, sheer and other forces in mind combined with esthetic.  It has been neat to combine D's previous construction experience with my architectural.

There's another capital project I'd like to do but not this year.  Had we not been under lockdown/stay at home orders and lost another month to rain, it might have been completed or at least started, but as of now, we are both spent and just want to enjoy the fall.  My mind has linked this place to work and I don't like it.

We were recently at 40 hrs without power out there from another storm, but not going to consider a generator.  So will need to consider editing what we leave in the fridge and freezer moving forward.

The challenge for me is trying to stop my brain from automatically and continuously thinking (and dreaming) of solutions like an annoying program running in the background of a computer.

Misc

For environmental reasons we have been attempting to grow clover instead of grass on the lawn.  It has been rotation after rotation of lawn seed, additional top soil, aerating etc. -- All things that don't really interest us -- Just trying to save the initial sod replacement 14 years ago.  

After years of fighting acidic soil due to pine needles, we have given up on having a lawn on the shady side of the yard.  I think we are finally seeing some results.  Benefits would be no more mowing, if we aren't bothered with the flowering phase -- Especially now that we aren't around much over the summer.  Will definitely consider seeding the rest of the property next spring.  

After 7 1/2 months, I finally received an email about my Nexus renewal.  With border offices closed for so long, I had read last year to get your renewal applications in a year earlier; so I did.  Of course D waits until a month before his expires and gets his approval back in 2 weeks...nice.

Called the Canadian border office after D got his and the gentleman who answered was super sympathetic to my cause.  Saying that he'd be rich if he got paid each time someone called to ask why such a discrepancy in application timing?  Their office couldn't make sense of the US border procedures either. 

Am thrilled to finally receive my new card in the mail and proceeded with the subsequent activation.  Excited to read about the new streamlined Global Entry procedure as well.  Anything to speed up future re-entry to the continent.