Adulting is hard, folks.  Seriously hard.  Impossible at times or so it feels.  Add general adulting + homesteading + winter + home renovation + small children + budgets and well, some days I let some four letter words slip that I am not proud of.  Some days I look at my husband and ask him “what the hell was I thinking taking all this on?”

Let me rewind and tell you about the last few weeks.

We were cruising along, doing alright, churning forward on various project, staying on target and then… BAM… life.

It started when both cars got stuck in our driveway and mine required a tow truck to dislodge it from the snow.  This winter has illuminated that we need a truck and a plow.  We had planned to buy a truck at some point, but we were hoping to put it off while we, ya know, took care of the other million things necessary to the day to day homestead existence.  But okay, that’s just fine.  We can work it out.

Just after, my husband’s car died.  The prognosis: needs a new engine.  Cost + labor?  Astronomical and more than the car is worth.  So… we are back down to one car.   Okay, I can live with one car.  I’m staying optimistic here.

Then our one remaining car died.  It required a new starter, which was honestly not too painful on the wallet, but when my husband started using it for work it became clear that the car required new tires if it was going to be a safe, daily driver in the heaps of snow.  Bye money, it was nice knowing you.  

Oh and there is a timing valve cover leak and a few other “minor” issues on that will only cost $1200 to take care of.  I don’t like this one bit, but I guess we’ll figure this out too.  Goodbye fund to refinish the run down mother in law tucked on the back of the property.  You will remain an eyesore for another year, I suppose…

Then a few days ago the new UV filter on the well started beeping… late in the evening.. on a weekend.  Our little 19 foot deep hand dug well tested positive for coliform bacteria when we bought the homestead, so a UV filter was installed to provide the luxury of drinkable water.  A visit from the drilling company later, it was concluded that the problem is not the filter, it’s the electrical supply.  So in addition to the person who came out from the drilling company, we may need to have our good old electrician, Mike, back to fix this too.  Okay, Lord, is this some kind of joke?  No potable water?  Seriously?  I’m not made of money here…

And we discovered a blessing in disguise when we finally sat down to do taxes.  We miscalculated our withholdings because our income increased more than expected, so now we owe the IRS a sizable chunk of change.  Crap.

And I found, while trudging through the snow to knock down icicles that the cricket flashing on the chimney was not done properly by the previous owner, so snow is pushing it over. Well, sugar … Lord, if you send one more flurry of snow and it takes out our roof  and chimney I will be very cross…

And there’s more, but you get the point.   Any one thing would have been just fine, I keep a good size emergency fund that can absorb these kinds of hits BUT NOT ALL AT ONCE.

My husband and I joke that we need to have a print of this cartoon hung on our wall.

I trust that with enough work and re-figuring on the planning front all this will pass eventually.  Some months and years are hard for everybody and I recognize that my “hard” is a privileged kind of hard… I have a homestead that I own, we’re all in good health, and really it will all be just fine.

Even as I sit in the “burning house” drinking my coffee or chai latte, I am desperately clinging to thoughts of spring.  Spring is my life line.

Spring when a garden will be planted, chickens and ducks and goats will arrive, the frigid dark of winter will melt away, and the hard work can be for the joy-bringing activities of homesteading.