A lot of people have reached out and asked, “How’s the cabin going?” so it’s definitely time for an update. The short version: the rafters and cabin are still where we left them, kissed by alternating rain and shine.

The next step: roofing. As much as I’m ready for the cabin to be “in the dry,” especially with all the rain we’ve had this year, I’m not looking forward to roofing.

For starters, there is a chance, based on the way the rafters are sitting in the hangers, that the OSB boards won’t line up perfectly at the top. We certainly don’t want our cabin to leak! In the words of a friend, we’re going to have to go forward before we know whether or not we’ll need to go backward.

We rushed with the rafters because we knew six days of storms were coming. Now, in order to take our time, we may need to wait until the semester is over in five weeks. We’ll lose many gorgeous 70-degree days, but right now we don’t have as much time or energy as we feel we need to keep moving forward.

April is perhaps too soon for a 2016 retrospective, but a year’s worth of ups and downs have squeezed themselves into three months. An immediate family member was diagnosed with cancer, we’ve lost a friend and two relatives, and we’re facing a challenging situation with a family member who is struggling with mental illness.

Yet 2016 has been surprisingly bright and beautiful as well–a trip to Washington state for a conference and to visit friends, a yoga retreat with Kevin Gardiner, an exhilarating Springsteen concert, and wonderful moments with loved ones.

The journey to building our own cabin began nearly a year ago, and we are more resolved to finish it than ever. We’ve learned about construction, patience, and as The Boss would put it, “the ties that bind.”