I am owned by a two-and-a-half-year-old husky. Every day, she gives me barely enough time to drink a cup of coffee before she is whining for her jaunt around the neighborhood. It’s our daily ritual. I get up, make a cup o’ Joe, and peruse Facebook while I sip my brew. Only then am I awake enough to face that much physical activity. My pup, however, thinks I’ve abandoned her if all that takes more than half an hour. Silly girl.

The result of this new habit has improved my overall health and given me a renewed appreciation of Mother Nature. Every day, the view changes, especially during the Spring and Autumn months. I’ve tried to share some of the pictures with you, but the camera never captures the incremental changes and the human eye. I also find myself smiling more as I work the age-kinks from the old joints.

The week before last, our region experienced its first taste of Winter weather after months of sometimes-punishing heat. Overnight, I noticed a change in the temperature of the breeze that accompanied our walks. Tuesday, the breeze was warm enough to make me shed the extra shirt I had worn because the air temp was somewhat cool. By Wednesday, the air had a crispness that belied the warmth of the previous morning. We got our first real “weather” of the season. First Winter has occurred.

And it warmed up again this past week. The mornings are still brisk, and the warm edge is mainly gone from the breeze. The afternoons generally have refreshing mild temperatures—as long as the wind isn’t blowing, then it can get downright nippy.

With the change of seasons comes an increase in activity on our home project. We (finally) got the proposal from our contractor, and, boy-howdy, was it an eye-opener. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I think the proposal was a bit more than anticipated. Suck it up, Buttercup, that’s the cost of rebuilding your dream home.

Now that the paperwork we’ve received has been signed and delivered to the appropriate folks, I think we’ll be flipping back into “hurry up and wait” mode as we get in line for permits, loan applications, and engineered plans. Today, though, we are spending some time with our contractor to stake out where the new house will sit. After that, we can begin the process with a soils test to make sure the land will support our building.

I can hardly believe that we are moving forward. It’s been a year since we lost everything, and while I still mourn the loss of our past, I realize that most of what we lost was just Stuff—and Stuff can be replaced. We managed to save some of our valuables, but nowhere near all of it. Some of our Stuff can be replaced, most of it can’t. But it is all still Stuff.