How was 2015? What were highlights and struggles of your year? Feel free to comment below or email me!
Here’s mine:
Jan 2015–Friends take off for the east coast, and we begin housesitting. Our kids love taking care of the dogs and cat.
17 y-o son Nathan wins Mock Rock competition at church with his rendition (lip sinc) of “Escape“ (Newsboys). 
Feb–Nathan takes ACT test; girls enjoy bi-monthly Wind Cave nature science program.
Our pastor finds private investors willing to lend us money for a house!!!!!!! (Banks won’t touch us for a number of reasons.) We have been researching the area for about 4 years, but now we begin looking for land in earnest. We can’t believe the real solution for my severe health problems is about to begin.
Mar–We search for land.
April–Land is purchased!!!! We spend as much time as possible out there for my health.
Church begins fundraiser for what investors can’t cover of the project.
May–Church friends help us build a shed, we get electricity on the land, and I sleep in there.
Dear, dear friend from back home (MO) begins working like crazy to help us raise funds needed. (She continues this work all the way until Jan 2016!!!)
June–Friend from church spends hours digging and getting us rural water on the land!
Bluebirds move into the bluebird house the kids made 3 years ago.
I help edit a friend’s book. Editing is one of the very few things I can do when I am really sick.
July–Our friend from church continues to spend hours on his digging machine, digging out a septic field for us.
August–Our friend continues to spend even MORE hours digging and creating a foundation plot for our house.
Smoke (and bad stuff with it) from the NW wildfires blows here so much that I cannot breathe very well. So we go back into town to stay with friends where their house protects much better than the shed.
But I know the time spent camping there and the healing begun has helped me.
Sept–Church friends help prep for foundation (gravel, insulation, heating pipes, etc.) Wonderful, experienced local guy pours foundation. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life. It’s real. House is coming.
Oct–Church friends help wash release oils off all siding and roofing (steel).
I finish publishing “The Cat Race” (on CreateSpace) and get my first print copies.
Nov–Accouters High Country Erectors in Hot Springs, SD puts up a wonderful Lester Building. 30 X 40, just WONDERFUL, and I got to pick out the siding and roof colors. 
Church friends do interior framing, licensed electrician wires house, and one friend spends many hours after his own job working on plumbing.
Husband, son, and others begin lath & insulation.
I help publish & edit a friend’s book (on CreateSpace).
Dec–Husband and son do more lath, insulation, plaster, and floor tile. Friend does more on plumbing.
I begin helping edit another friend’s book.
Yep, our life pretty much revolved around the house the 2nd half of this year! It has not been a year doing much fun with the kids at all (mostly because I’ve been so sick and also son and husband so busy on the house), but I must set that aside and look forward. And be thankful for learning experiences, bluebirds the kids loved, TV shows enjoyed together, and the hope for life-changing relief coming soon in that house.
Christa Upton Black Hills Picture Books PO Box 293 Custer, SD 57730
