I have not had a strong web presence over the past couple of years due to the situation going on with my husband. I'm not going into it in this post but being widowed for a second time has given me many new experiences.
When the Health Department made the rounds to educate people about water run-off into our creeks, I was slow to respond due to other priorities but I did respond and took their advice. I had been using the life insurance money to repair leaks in out buildings, replace my pickup truck, fix electrical problems, upgrade to modern electrical heating, and much more, and almost neglected the unseen septic system. When I put the issue to my brother-in-law who I was paying to help with the problems, he did some research and figured out what we had to do and that we SHOULD do it while he still had time to work for me. The first thing was to locate the septic tank openings, which was pretty easy, and second, to locate the D box, which was not easy due to the misleading diagrams we had.
In locating the septic tank openings he quickly figured out that the supports for the deck and the roof to the deck were badly placed. Facing the picture, the log support on the right was his solution to that problem. As he delved deeper, he was forced to remove the deck stairs and a small concrete slab at the foot of the stairs. The third problem was solved by the log support on the left. Before he put the log in he supported the deck with jacks and made sure everything was secure before calling the guy to pump the septic tank. He located the crumbling D-box and replaced it with a beautiful modern plastic one. He listened to all the advice from the man who pumped the tank and of course the lady from the Health Department and he completed most of those tasks himself.
I want to mention here that he finally located the D box because he quit looking at the diagram and focused instead on measurements. He found the measurement from the septic to the D-box to be the same in all of the diagrams so he trenched that distance from the septic tank until he finally crossed over the D box. He did a lot of digging before he used this method.
What we found was the pipe blocked to the D box and the septic tank filled clear up into the baffles which of course will rust out the baffles. The drain field was okay only because things were backed up at the D-box. I suspect I was weeks away from noticing a horrible smell under my deck. Another few months and the solutions to this problem would have been much more expensive.
Even though I had to relocate my favorite clematis and star jasmine, I embrace that I can now have a table on my deck where before was a path down stairs. Using the wheelchair ramp which was built for my first husband opens the entire deck to my attention, which means it gets better care. More has been added to my life rather than taken from me. I see the logs as a canvas that I might carve Celtic knots or other artwork into. I see a place where I can have a garden of annuals only, changing it out each year for something new and different. I love it.
I have become more open to listening to the universe. I am ready now to hear the answers to the questions I ask instead of leaning on a husband to know the answers. I had a limited income to start with and always had to prioritize. It is hard to prioritize when somebody else has different priorities, so much of my infrastructure has been crumbling for years. My wishes have always been secondary to the one holding the purse strings. This is not a complaint. It is an understanding. I now embrace that I am in charge of it all. It's not about right, wrong, good, or bad. It is about prioritizing at this very moment in time.
Instead of working hard to keep up with my little emergencies, I have slowed down and spent time simply looking, pondering, and doing a little research. The more of this I do, the more real solutions appear. The fixes became long term instead of short term. I can do many things for myself but when my step mom mentioned that I choose a pioneer lifestyle, I saw things differently. In a flash of insight I began to realize that I was not equipped to make good repairs but was making the repairs anyway which led to the need for greater repairs later. Pioneers did everything themselves whether they knew how to do it or not. They made do with what they had. In my ah-ha moments, I became aware of other choices that were available to me. When you ask God for a solution, you have to stick around for the answer. We put God in a box believing that we know what the solution is and all He has to do is give it to us. Ha ha ha. LOL. This is not a sermon. It is an understanding. If I ask a question, I always get an answer. There is more than one form of answer to hear but they all require a bit of action on my part. Even if I do not believe in the God of my upbringing, or the God of my peers, or the God that gives me tribulations, I still get the answers I asked for. Every single time, I get the answer. I only hear the answer when I am listening for it.
I still have problems to solve but I'm going about it differently. Each day I remind myself that I choose this life style and that means I can modify it to suit me. It doesn't have to be filled with emergencies.
Money is important as it is what helps you pay for things but I quit saying, "I can't afford that." I might now say, "When I have saved up enough money, I can do that". Mostly I allow myself to listen to the possibilities without attaching the need for money to them. If you let money stop you from thinking on solutions, then money is in charge. I cannot count how many times the very thing I thought I could not afford in the past, has come to me for the cost of going to get it, shown up at a highly discounted price, or has simply been brought to me free of charge, including unexpected money.
