Here we are, on the cusp of 2025. First Reader and I have lived in our new house for a little over a year now. We’re putting small touches on our living space and going through boxes, still taking up space in the basement. Each season has brought its own challenges.

First half of the year we settled into the house. Pictures on walls. Furniture in place. Learning how to heat the house efficiently and balance propane and electricity use in winter. Propane is expensive on its own, as is electricity. We discovered that if we use the furnace to get the chill out, then supplement the rooms we hang out in to our respective comfort levels, we pay less.

Spring brought the Mud Season. Of course, we still needed proper decks and gutters, so runoff control was lacking. We still have a lot of work to do in that area, but the water drains away from the basement. That’s the important part. Our contractor put in a mesh-sleeved French drain around the foundation that empties into the field thirty feet below the house. That’s a good thing. I hired a neighbor to help level and add diversions above our parking area. That way, if we ever get another microburst, we won’t have to deal with flooding inside the house or basement. Then, we covered the parking area all with recycled asphalt.

During the summer, we hired a new contractor to install our decks. While I didn’t get everything I wanted (a wraparound, with an elevated hot tub), but such is life. We have decks to hang out on.

After the decks came our annual migration to Sturgis, South Dakota the first part of August. As usual, we rode our bikes up to the Black Hills and played in someone else’s backyard for a week.

A month and a half later, we took a road trip to the west coast. This time, First Reader and I visited friends and family we haven’t seen in years, some in decades. I got to introduce First Reader to San Diego, where I lived for a handful of years before relocating to the Front Range.

With the decks finally completed and paper chase won, we got our Permanent Certificate of Occupancy in October. I had to chase down three bits of paperwork to satisfy the county inspectors. That, of course, meant reaching out to our previous contractors to get the certifications we needed. Anything regarding the vapor sheathing and the basement insulation needed to be on file with the building inspectors. With that out of the way, we finally got the hot tub installed.

The holidays are behind us, mostly. And a new year with new challenges faces us. I could go on a rant about the state of the world in general, and the United States in particular, but I won’t.

I’ll end with this: This year, we sit at a crossroads. It’s up to the collective Us to decide what direction we want to see our world take.