The Struggle Of Our Lives

Chapter 14: What does the future hold?

Finally, we were near our new home, so I pulled the line to stop the bus driver.

Once we got off the bus, thanking the bus driver, I turned to look at the twins, and crouched down to their level, "Guess what?" I asked.

The kids looked at me with bated breath, looks of confusion and optimism plastered on their faces.

"We're gonna decorate the garage!" I exclaimed. "Really?!" Lotte asked, "We are!?" Teddy gasped again. "Yep!"

I helped the two down the small cliff to our house, and told them about my plans to fix up the garage. Before we could though, I told the kids to change into some clean clothes, which they quickly did.

When it was my turn, the twins ran out and looked for berries, with my permission, of course, and allowed me some privacy.

I put all our dirty clothes in a pile, and made a note to either make or buy a wash board for us, as well as buy some string to hang our clothes on.

I laughed at myself thinking about how we were currently living like medieval amish people. I put on some clean clothes, and grabbed the trowel, the newly cleaned bucket, and the small hand axe I found the other day. Before I left the house, I also grabbed the garage keys.

I played a short game of Marco Polo with the twins to find them, and we gathered to walk to the garage together.

We walked over to the side to unlock the door, and I pushed the door open for the twins, the door creaking loudly, alongside the sound of two 6 year olds wowing, walking around the room.

I flipped the switch to open up the large automatic door which allowed more sunlight to come in.

For the next few hours, we gathered mud from the dirt near the river and used it to seal holes in the walls and cracks in the floor.

Then, I lifted Charlotte onto my shoulders to have her plaster  the small hole in the ceiling from the iron oven.

We added some more mud around the sides of the window and the old wooden door to ensure it's strength. I asked the twins to sit for a while and relax, which they did in the grass in front of the garage door.

I wandered around the woods with my axe in hand, looking for large dry broken branches to turn into firewood.

After calling the twins to help me carry the wood, We walked back inside to place them next to the oven, putting 3 small chunks into the iron mouth.

Soon enough, the room looked nice enough to decorate, which I declared we would save for another day, since we needed to eat dinner.

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Over the years, we kept collecting wood and other loot from the woods to keep us alive, as well as continuing to go to work and school when we could.

I ended up making enough money to decorate our garage and changing room enough to look semi-impressive.

This place had become our pride and joy.