Throughout our 11 years of marriage we had always rented apartments, but when we moved to California after our year in Brazil my husband decided to build us our first home. We bought 5 acres of land on a hillside near Chino and made plans to construct a geodesic dome just like the hippies were doing. A dome is truly a unique building; kind of like a hollow ball turned upside down, creative though impractical for a family of noisy boys as their voices are amplified inside that space. Just imagine the Salt Lake Tabernacle with its acoustical qualities, but it was exciting to be settling down finally.
While my husband was building this unique home, a 35 foot diameter hemi-spherical dwelling from triangles of foam that would be sprayed with concrete, we needed a place to live. A small used trailer was bought. Building primitive triple decker bunkbeds for our young sons inside our trailer, a couch in the back room folded down for our bed. Some chairs and a table in the front were all that was lacking for our furniture. When we moved in, we felt just like pioneers as we hauled water to store in a barrel on the roof of our trailer for cooking and cleaning uses until our utility lines were installed. Clothes were taken to the laundromat again, but we were thrilled to be building our own home. Our oldest son began first grade and our two littlest boys started preschool several days a week, so I could teach dance part time. We lived this way while the dome was being built and our marriage was deteriorating.
Now years later as a divorced single parent building a new home with square walls in a Utah neighborhood, I made all the decisions involved alone. What color to paint walls, which carpet or curtains to order. It was an exciting, but challenging time. My oldest boy would have his own room in my traditionally-built three bedroom-one bath home with an unfinished basement. All the yard work lay ahead: putting in sod, trees, bushes, etc. We would have a garage, a backyard for my sons to play in, and room for a family garden. Life was beginning anew, all possible with my new teaching job and decision to start my life over again as a divorcee. It wasn’t an easy adjustment.