Tennescenic

Well, today is day one of 365. I am optimistic that this will be a good year. There is a lot to look forward to and although there will be challenges I foresee a lot of happy times. I am not much of a resolution person but I do have a number of goals and objectives for the year. Most are pretty realistic, I think. And then there are things I am just looking forward to, mostly Luke -related.

Luke will continue with his speech therapy until at least his third birthday, about three months away. Then he will be reevaluated. He has made incredible progress over the past few weeks. Hopefully the virus will begin to fade and he can start getting in some socialization. Liz recently mentioned him starting preschool this fall. He has started potty training and is doing pretty good (I think) at it. So the goal is to make good progress with that in the coming year.

I plan on building and (hopefully) selling two more houses. These will be bigger than the last one and have a few more features. Right now we are getting the lots subdivided. I hope to have building permits by the end of the month. My plans are mostly finalized and the materials lists are almost complete. Hopefully the price of lumber drops and the availability of materials increases. I aim to break ground at the beginning of February. It will be nice to build over the longer days and warmer weather of spring and summer.

We have a lot going on at our house as well. I want to finish up all the little projects inside that should have been done a long time ago. We also need to landscape the outside and finish the she-shed. I think Liz wants us to have another go at planting pumpkins and other vegetables. I will need to get the tractor back down here in order to make that happen. Cutting the grass will be a lot faster and easier this year with the newer mower.

Speaking of new equipment, I hope to at least buy a heavy truck and trailer this year. That way I could transport the tractor and other rental equipment myself. It would be good for hauling more materials too. A small dump truck would be ideal but they are pricey. A flatbed would work too. Might end up with a dump trailer. Need to sell another house or two first though!

I doubt that I’ll be able to go camping this year but it would be nice. I got myself an exercise bike for Christmas and will try to ride it daily.

So, there is a lot to look forward to this year. I’m sure there will be surprises along the way but nothing we can’t deal with.

Wow, what a year. A year ago I never could have imagined how things would turn out. It has been challenging to say the least but also full of blessings. That’s what I’ll focus on.

The big thing was the continued joy that Luke brings. He is so much fun and full of life. His speaking has greatly improved thanks to therapy and his continued hard work. He loves reading, building with Legos, pushing the stroller on walks, eating, and helping Mama bake. He has gotten a little challenging over the past several weeks in terms of attitude and obedience, but is overall very well behaved.

Another item of note is finishing and selling the house in Monteagle. The virus really threw that off track, but it the end it was completed and I feel like it looked pretty good. Fortunately so did the buyer, and we closed nearly two months ago. It was a mostly fun project and a great learning experience. I am ready to start the next two houses.

Speaking of houses, we made incremental improvements on our own. The closets are now pretty much complete, the garage is coming along, and we are trying to get the yard under control. Still a ton of little things yet to do, but overall I am happy with the situation.

Our families continue to be healthy and that is a real blessing. Liz and Luke spent a bit of time in Michigan so that I could work on the house.

Liz’s work continues to go well. She really likes her team and her tasks. She was already working from home so the virus didn’t affect her too much. Another nice thing is that she will carry a number of vacation days over into next year.

So overall it was a good year despite the issues. Looking forward to what this next one brings.

We all picked up sticks in the yard this morning. Luke kind of enjoyed it and Liz was happy that we made good progress. I added them all to the fire pit. Luke didn’t want to nap again so we went on another car ride, this time to the other side of Spring Hill. We ended up at Home Depot where we bought some stuff to organize the garage. Luke and I read until dinner time. He was very naughty during bath and bed time. Hopefully he will do better in the morning.

This morning I worked in the garage while Liz and Luke picked up sticks outside. He didn’t want to take a nap so we drove around for a little bit so he could sleep. We arrived home and my parents arrived with Lauren shortly thereafter. We sat out on the back porch and opened Christmas presents. Luke was thrilled with his – books, small horses, and a car wash set. Unfortunately it was windy and things really started cooling down in a hurry. This evening we had dinner and bath time before Luke went to bed.

Luke slept in later than he has in a while. This is probably the last year of that. Liz made French toast for breakfast and I ate some generic Life cereal from Aldi. It wasn’t as good as the real thing. During breakfast I read about the Nashville bombing. Pretty wild. We opened stockings and some presents before doing video chats with Liz’s parents then her brother then my parents and Lauren. All those went pretty well. We opened the last of the presents after lunch. Luke had a pretty good haul: Puffs, Squigs, lots more big Legos, a dump truck, and some books. We played a bit with the new Legos then attempted a nap. That was a no go so we went for a scenic drive during which he did sleep. During the drive my cell phone lost service since AT&T is down because of the explosion. After the drive we did video calls with Liz’s older brother and her cousin. A busy day. Then we played more, had dinner, bath, and bed time. It was a good Christmas all things considered.