House progress, health, and gratitude

Returning a week ago from my little trip, I went from feeling renewed and excited 

for about half a day and then straight to bed for two days followed by a few 

days where I could manage just very slight movement. We all came down with a stomach bug and are still feeling the lingering "sinking" feeling in the belly. Strange it was, I never felt any real pain, nor did I or any of us have fever at all. The children vomited and had diarrhea, for Miguel and I there was no vomiting but intense fatigue and discomfort. I am thinking we had a mild case of salmonella poisoning, or perhaps parasites. Not much for doctors and with a strong faith in our body's 

innate ability to heal itself, we stuck it out monitoring ourselves and the children, 

keeping hydrated and resting. 

And by now we are all much better although not back to 100% yet. 

Just in case we will all do a parasite cleanse, I read up on parasites and feel that no matter what it will not harm to do this, and make it a biannual or at least an annual event.

What I found was a cleanse (if you are interested there is some info on it here and here) 

using black walnut hull tincture, powdered cloves and wormwood.

I had so much wormwood in our garden in NC, I wonder if it will grow here, I bet it will, or better yet find the local plant that the Mayan use against parasites.

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Anyways back to the house, which fortunately is nearing it's completion, 

(well the shell anyways), I say fortunately because we need to move in the

 first week of December no matter where we are in the progress:)

Here is where it was when I left two weeks ago, the first few rocks of the wall being laid,

this is a picture from while I was away... 

(and by the way, the storm Rina completely fizzled after

threatening to make landfall as a category three hurricane on this coast a bit farther north)

 and this is as it stands now, a little mushroom house. This is the view from the west, to the left is the bathroom window and to the right the bedroom windows. The little opening that you can see at the bottom left is where the opening for the dry bathroom compartment will be.

 This is the view from the north/east side of the house. To the right the large opening will open to a deck, and by the window to the left there will be a dining/schooling/crafting/drawing/sewing area, and the door on the far left is the main entrance to the house.

 We spent a long time today sitting in the house visualizing how we would lay out the space, now taking into consideration that the loft will be sectioned off for the time being, to be available to the partners. 

I enjoyed the creative process of seeing how we might be in this house, 

finding solutions and being open....

 This will be the joint sleeping area, to the right the bathroom

 to the left the main entrance, to the right the kitchen 

While pondering the challenges of working with round walls and an enclosing circle toward the middle, in other words a round house, out of nowhere it suddenly started to rain hard.

 It was lovely to sit inside looking out, feeling the fresh wind flowing through the house, and feeling the change of the season, which is now apparent. 

It was also lovely to find that the children, together, had run into the wilderness eager to explore.

 It reminded me of why I love living in the middle of nature, how our connection to it sets us free.

I can truly say that we are all looking forward to move out here. 

We asked for this opportunity, to live back in nature, 

and here it is....not exactly as we thought it would be, but then again is anything ever?

 ohh and look, signs of autumn here too:)

~With much love and gratitude~