Saturday, March 5, 2011

"So what does William do all day?" 53/365

William takes the tractor out to dig holes for fences

 People ask me all time about William and how he keeps busy all day.  When we decided we needed to move back to the US from China it was because it was the right thing to do for our family. William's job in China was taking him away from us (he was sent to northern China for 3 months, and even when he was finally allowed to come home we barely saw him) and I had some concerns about Baby Girl's health. So when we decided to move we did it for our family and our marriage, but we didn't have a job. Luckily, my mom has a farm that needed some work done.  She generously offered to let us move into her house and she said she'd hire William to help her out around the place.

So far he's built and put of fences, re-built part of the barn, dug out tree stumps, installed a stove vent, plastered and primered a wall, burnt dead trees and stumps that needed to be gotten ride of, and of course there's the daily maintenance of the goat pens, which usually involves shoveling goat poo.

Most of William's work is outside, but when it was really cold and snowing he worked on my mom's dinning room wall.  It needed to be stripped of old nasty wall paper, plastered, sanded and primered. Before he started with the plaster he built this really cool tent around the wall so that plaster dust wouldn't get all over the rest of the house.
I called it the "man cave". I was pretty impressed with it. It was great that he could do the whole wall, sanding and everything, and we didn't have to worry about the furniture getting nasty or our food tasting like plaster dust.
William wears protective gear while sanding

William working in the man cave
Now that the wall is done William is back outside. Last year Mom had a bunch of trees removed from the property to make room for cow pastures. There are still a lot of tree stumps that need to be removed so William gets to work with this cool machine and dig them out.
After he digs out the stumps he piles them up and burns them. He is trying to get a lot of that done before summer when it's not safe to burn.
Other jobs around the place include putting up new fences so the goats can have more places to wander around and eat this spring. Also, the goats' pens can get pretty filthy so William digs out the old hay and poop and keeps them happy and clean. There are also lots of odd jobs around the house. Pretty much when anything gets broken or burned out William is right there ready and willing to fix it and make it better. It is so wonderful to have such a handy man around.

As good as William is around the house and with the machinery, he's even better with a pen.  William's passion is as a writer, and more specifically as an editor. He loves making words come alive on a page. He loves taking a piece of writing and polishing it to make it shine, to help the author say what they want to say and inspire them as artists. I love watching William when he's editing. Even when he's tired he loves doing it.  I'm always amazed how he can take a confusing sentence and make it crystal clear and poignant while still staying true to the voice of the author. Maybe I should have him edit my blog once in a while.

Right after we moved from China a friend of ours, Shelly, had a book come out that she'd been working on while we were all together in China. It's called Under the Ash, you can buy it here, and William wrote the introduction for it. I think it's some of the best writing he's ever done. I'm also a huge fan of Shelly's and her poetry.

William also has an account on Elance.com and is looking for at home Editorial work.

So as you can see, William is very busy all day long putting his skills as a writer and editor to work as well as his handy man skills.

I'm very grateful to my mom for opening up her home to us and giving William a job so we could come back home to the US. It's so nice to actually see William every day and even have lunch with him. It's nice that we all sit down for dinner every night and laugh together. And it's so wonderful that Baby Girl no longer has her "shanghai cough".

Eventually we are going to have to find a different job and even get our own place, but for now it's nice to have a place to stay and be together. And Bonnie Rose really loves being around the animals and her Nana.

2 comments:

  1. yes, he does stay busy. You forgot to mention the amount of time he puts in to concentrating on his iPhone. That's important too. How many angry birds has he launched today?

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  2. By the way, I know it's a bit mean and selfish, but I really do love it when baby girl cries crocodile tears because she wants me. ... Oh my melting heart. WE are all in BIG trouble.

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