2023-10-18 — Feeling Small and Stupid

I’m not doing very well right now. I’m feeling small and stupid.

And I’m pretty afraid right now.

It might be a complete over reaction. It might not even be my fault at all, but Heather and Hans are supposed to have the footings poured for their house tomorrow, and I’m afraid that I’ve ruined the pour. The footing forms are no longer level, and I’m afraid they’re no longer level because of me.

Hans asked me to help him screw in boards to the exteriors of the forms to keep the concrete from pouring out the gaps in the bottom as the concrete is poured into the forms.

Well, I did that, but there were a few times that I caught myself leaning on the forms. 😬

In the evening, after the sun had gone down, we went out with a laser to double check and make sure everything was good, and it… wasn’t anymore. Han said he had gotten everything just perfect a couple days before we showed up here, and now it’s messed up.

I don’t know if it’s my fault because I accidentally leaned on the forms a few times, or if the plastic has bowed a little bit, or if maybe I put too much counter pressure or not enough counter pressure when screwing the boards on, or if somehow some of the boards got wedged in instead of screwed in and thus exerted upward pressure where they shouldn’t have.

Or maybe it just has nothing to do with me at all, and I’m taking responsibility for something that I shouldn’t, but I have no idea, and there isn’t really any way to know who’s at fault, if anyone.

All I know is Hans said that he had it perfect last week, and now it’s not. And I’m the only one, really, who’s messed with it. Hans screwed in a few himself, but I’m the one who did the vast majority of them.

I just feel like crap.

What I do know is that the foundation is perhaps the most important part of the whole house, and this is pretty much the end of the season, the last possible days to pour realistically without going to a monumental effort, so the concrete is coming tomorrow, and it’s after dark tonight, and I don’t know what to do.

To his credit, Hans isn’t worried at all. He’s been trying to console me, telling me that it’s not my fault, and even if it is, it’s not a big deal. He said he thinks that the plastic has some parts that have bowed. He says it’s not really a big deal because the blocks that go on top of the footings are designed to be adjusted for exactly that reason, so if there’s an imperfection in the footing, it can be fixed when putting the blocks on.

I hope that’s the case.

I still feel like crap. 😞

I can’t really remember much else about the day right now. The issue with the footings is just overwhelmingly right now.

…

But I’ll try and get into the rest of the day anyway.

I spent a while this morning working on that post about feeling the Spirit. I ate breakfast, and I tried to help Hans with the preparations for the house.

I helped him remove the huge water tank from the back of his truck. I helped him take a few sections of fence from by the trailer over into the horse pasture. And I worked on screwing those boards into the footing forms.

I spent a good bit of time pondering today. I listened to Neil A. Maxwell’s Free to Choose talk. That’s been one that I’ve listened to over and over and over for years. Of course, I hadn’t listened to it recently until today, given the status of my spirituality, or lack thereof, for a good while now.

What else… I spent a little bit of time going through the King Follett discourse. I spent some time listening to the Book of Mormon. Etc…

Aside from being overwhelmed by what’s going on with the footings that I might or might not have caused issues with, my mind has been occupied thinking about one of my Utah peeps who’s been going through a really hard time, thinking about what the best thing might be for me to do for her and her family as they (mostly she right now) navigate through some super challenging circumstances.

That’s been on my mind a lot lately.

So much on my mind…

Lift the world.

~ stephen