Reclaiming Wood

 Before Damon left on his mission, I informed him Claire would be taking his bedroom. She'd been an angel, sharing a room with Julia since we moved to Kansas 8+ years ago, and I knew she was tired of it. But, I told Damon, don't worry: I'll build you a room in the basement while you're in Mexico. 

Jake was not on board with this plan: finishing a basement is expensive. Not so, I replied. I'm going to "minimally finish" just one corner with reclaimed wood--it'll be cheap. To which he replied, I don't have time for a project like that. Don't worry, I said. I'll do it myself. And by gum, I did. It's almost done, and barring disaster, I'll show you the pictures next week.

In general, I consider Facebook an evil timewaster. But my sister informed me Facebook marketplace has replaced Craigslist as the go-to for free and cheap second-hand stuff, and she was right. A fellow was gutting an old house in Pleasanton (about an hour from here), posted pics in marketplace of the old wood he was giving away, and I was off and running. Here's some of the wood after I'd scrubbed it clean:

Note how handy stored water is: not only can you drink it in an emergency, it can keep your wood from warping as it dries in the sun.

Unfortunately, some of the wood was treated with creosote (a preservative used on railroad ties and telephone poles). I like the smell of creosote and planned to use it in the basement, but some unhappy research revealed it to be toxic and not approved for indoor use. So after ordering a test kit to for the wood that didn't smell like creosote and reassure us (i.e. Jake) that I wasn't going to poison us all, I built a raised bed garden out of clean wood to prove 1. I could build things and 2. this endeavor was already saving us money (raised bed kits started at $75 at Home Depot; test kit was $30 on Amazon plus $10 for screws plus $20 in gas driving to and from Pleasanton a couple times equals a whopping savings of $15).

See the cantaloupe hanging from the tomato cage? That green oval hovering at the middle back? This is a fun experiment to see how much weight a cantaloupe vine can hold. 

I used some of the creosote treated wood to build stands for our water barrels:

FYI, you want your water barrels elevated, otherwise you won't have enough pressure to push water from the barrel, through the hose, to your garden. Also, the larger water barrel is actually supported by cinder blocks hidden by the wood. AND the City of Leawood was subsidizing rain barrels and rain gardens last year. I didn't have time to do the rain garden, but they reimbursed us $150 for the rain barrels.

As you'll hopefully see next week, I used the non-toxic wood from the first photo to panel part of one wall in Damon's room. To build the wall that separates his room from the rest of the basement, I used pallets, also found on Facebook marketplace for free:

Above is the back of Damon's pallet wall. I was fortunate to find a source of pallets that was not only free, but also high quality and of similar size and build. I was also blessed and lucky to get just enough to finish the room. I've been back since, hoping to get enough pallets to wall off the furnace and water heater to make the basement look nicer, but they don't have many pallets there anymore. I suspect someone offered to pay the roofing company for the pallets with the wide boards I like so much, so they're not putting them out on the curb for free. They don't have a listing on marketplace anymore, either. And I haven't been able to find those wide-board pallets anywhere else. It's like the Rolling Stones taught us: you can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need.

Emo Res

 The Church has developed a 10-week emotional resilience course. My stake is trying out a shortened version for the youth (shortened meaning the lessons are only 30 minutes long as apposed to an hour+). Jake (who has now been bishop for 3 years [sidebar: in Catch-22 Dunbar cultivated boredom to make time slow down; being a bishop or being married to one is another way to slow time, i.e. it's been a long 3 years]) asked me to lead the Emo Res Youth Group for our ward.

To train for this assignment, I attended another ward's meeting where I was forced to confront the green-eyed monster. This ward has a youth program like the one I grew up in, the kind I always assumed my kids would also have: lots of active youth who know each other well and enjoy being together. There must have been 15-20 kids there. 

In contrast, at our first meeting the following week, there were four kids: Claire and Anne and the 2 teens of the family we asked to host. My job is to lead the discussion, which should primarily by the youth talking. Getting comments from this group was difficult and awkward. Anne didn't want to be there, and only attended because I made cookies and promised to keep it to 25 minutes. A few weeks later, 2 additional youth showed up, bringing our numbers up to 6, and the lesson was quite a bit more enjoyable, but alas. Those 2 never showed again, and now the host family has lost interest and we're down to just Claire and Anne and Julia (who is a couple years too young, but as it's now at our house, we invite her to join). We trudge through the lessons as best we can. ("best" is used loosely here; our lesson on anger management featured yours truly raging for the full 30 minutes, i.e. my anger was not managed unless you concede that I never threw anything or physically injured anyone).

But this past Sunday we finally had a lesson that felt slightly less torturous. The lesson was "Building Healthy Relationships." We learned to use "I" messages rather than "You" messages, as "I" messages are less likely to offend. The manual gave some examples: a "You" message would be "You never listen to anyone, and you're not really listening to me now." The "I" message version would be "I feel hurt when I don't think I'm heard. Looking at me when we talk helps me feel like you care." 

Julia caught on quickly: "You are a brat" was her example of a "You" message. Her "I" message was, "Callie and Lydia, I feel you are a brat." (I typed that correctly: more evidence that kids are having difficulty recovering academically from the Covid years.)

Later that day (which happened to be Father's Day) Jake got this card from Claire: