Hugs to you! Caregiving is emotionally exhausting - it is perfectly normal that you are drained and depressed.

Can you step back? Let your husband take charge for a few weeks, while you recover and regroup?

This has to be so difficult - my heart breaks for you and your mother. Try taking a chair and going to the lot and just sitting there for a few hours and enjoying the peace and beauty. That may help restore your soul and your enthusiasm for this project. And you know your mother would not want to spoil it for you - mothers want their daughters to be happy and enjoy their blessings. Do it for her, too.

Time red. It will take time. My mother-in-law started having health issues when we were mid build. She passed last May from ALS. Lots of tough memories and experiences unrealized in the new house. We never were able to sit together on the screened porch and chat like I had imagined. Never able to walk upstairs to see our boys bedrooms finished - stuff like that. Our last holiday together was Easter last year and she was at our home and fell. It's still hard to think about as we had no idea the end was so very near (long story but mis-diagnosis and then very late accurate diagnosis, confusion and bewilderment, etc). For a while I was angry with the house-in reality it was stress and grief and exhaustion all projected onto the build. Tough times. Hardships and realities do color your world though-no doubt about it. Allow yourself to live in the moment which may be excitement sometimes and sometimes not.

Hugs to you. Do what you can when you can with Mom. The house that you worked so hard on with your hubby will be there waiting for you and the enjoyment will return eventually.

awww ((red)) - this is the balancing act of life and right now your scale is tipped to something that feels bigger than your build and rightfully so - your mom vs construction is no contest. Lots of good suggestions here. Honor your sadness, sit with it as Anglo said, give it time as Autumn said, ask for help as Ann said. You will get your enthusiasm back when your well is refilled but it may not ever feel quite the same and that's ok. You have a new measuring stick which isn't a bad thing because it will help you keep the build frustrations that are sure to come in perspective. Wishing you peace.

Ann....you are right. I think I am a little depressed although I don't tend to get depressed. And I think I will tell him that he has to take charge of everything for now. At least for a few weeks. Good suggestions. Thank you.

Anglophilia...such sweet words and good advice. The first sunny day, that is what I will do. My mom is an angel and wants nothing more than for her kids to be happy. Thank you.

I am so Very sorry, Red. My suggestions would be to take a break. Step back from the project until you are ready to move forward. Your plans are amazing and I am so excited to see it come to life in pictures! I think you need to be ready to take the journey and if it takes a short break to be ready, then you should do that without feeling guilty.

Autumn..ALS is an evil disease. One of our youngish teachers had it and it also progressed very quickly. How hard for your whole family..

i hope your Easter this year is happier.

Good advice Amber. I am going to take a break, but by turning everything over to my husband. Putting him in charge. Honestly if I had my way we would wait a couple of months but our GC says we have to get started or he will lose his framer. So, here we go.

but, I am going to turn it over to dh without feeling guilty. I just hope the control freak in me can do that ;-)

thank you for the kind words.

Red - I understand where you are coming from. We began our build in September of last year and in December my 32 year old preganant wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Coincidentally I am sitting here with her as I type while she receives chemo. Everything is going very well with her and the baby. Sometimes we have struggled to find time to make decisions or go to pick out items between work, dr appointments and our 3 yr olds activities. Early this year I kind of lost interest in the house temporarily but now our new home (and new baby on the way!) serve as something to look forward to in all of this chaos. We hope to move in within the next 45 days or so. Take a couple of weeks break and I bet you will be refreshed and ready to get to work on it. Good luck!

Gway....your situation kind of puts things in perspective. Thank you for responding. I am thinking of you and your family and I hope you will please keep us up to date on how things are going. I hope you dont mind if I keep mrs gway in my prayers. Good luck to you too on the new house and the new baby.

Awww, I'm so sorry. I think I understand. I went through the whole Alzheimers'/assisted living thing with my dad, and just trying to handle that one "thing" just about did me in. I can't imagine adding the stress of building a new home (which I've also done!) on top of that.

Life will work itself out. It always does. Keep posting build updates here, maybe the rest of us can generate some enthusiasm for you. And hey, whoever said this may give you the added benefit of perspective for when the build problems start cropping up is on to something. Hopefully you are able to not sweat the small stuff as things evolve.....

Absolutely Red, I really appreciate it. I will definitely keep you updated. She's a trooper. I hope I didn't hijack your thread but rather just wanted you to know that I understand how you feel. Everyone's situation and feelings are relative to what they are experiencing in their lives.

I would say if you really want to delay until you are more into it then you should. Your builder probably just wants to keep all his subs busy and moving from one job to the next. Maybe you would be delayed a month or two. It's your build, do it on your terms.

Thanks Patrice...it feels good to know that someone else made it through it. And thanks for the pep talk. I gave dh instructions of a few things he needs to do today so I don't have to "sweat the small stuff".

Gway...don't worry about hijacking. I never really understood that anyway. Your response was so important to this conversation.

I looked at your house! You are almost done and it is a great house. Can't wait to follow you and see it finished up and celebrate your victory.

As far as postponing our build...we are 60 but have teen twin boys that are busting the seams of the tiny house we live in right now so we need to get this build done. This pep talk is just what I needed. Hesitant to post but so glad I did.

red you have put so much into this house already. It's gonna be awesome - you know it! One step at a time, take it as it comes. :)

How do you regain enthusiasm?

First you step back a bit and allow yourself to be a human being: You allow yourself to grieve. Making these choices for your mom is very hard. You want to do the very best for her, and you want to make everything "right", but that's not within your ability. You're only a human being. You trust that her caretakers are caring professionals, and they are trained to take care of her. She will make friends, and she will be happy -- maybe not in the transitional period, but within a few weeks.

While you're getting hold of your emotions, walk away from the house project. It will wait. Right now you don't have emotional energy for it, but you will get that back. When you're ready for it, focus on one of the things for which you're most excited: That perfect kitchen, or a screened porch overlooking the lake, or your relaxing master bedroom. Go to that first, not something dull like plumbing details. And you'll regain your love for your house project, even if it feels like -- at this minute -- you can't.

Prayers for you and your mom at this time.

You know, those first few weeks in assisted living are the hardest. My dad had in-home care too for months, and every time something happened, I got "the call." Aides wouldn't show up for shifts, they were worried about something, he fell - I felt like I was on call 24/7. (I was.) He didn't want to go into memory care either and it was not an easy transition for either one of us.

However, he settled in, and after a few weeks he was happy there. He made friends and he had a social life again.

Me? All of a sudden I realized I had a life again too. Of course the facility still called me - but I wasn't the first responder for every single thing that crossed someone's mind.

Hopefully you are in the worst of it right now. I hope your mom settles in and you can start to rest easier too.

Hugs to you! I'm so sorry you're going through this. Would it help to have something special of your mom's in a dedicated space in your house or garden? Whether a photo, piece of furniture, decor, or something from her garden that especially reminds you of her, it might be nice to think about where that item will go and how you will always think about her when you see it. And on good days she may enjoy sharing the process with you - looking at pictures, plans, or samples and hearing about what you're doing. Maybe it will prompt her to share stories she remembers, of lake house trips or home buying/decorating memories.

My DH died from cancer a few years after we completed a big addition, and a 100+ year old camp I had gone to as a child and brought my family to as an adult closed the same year. It was an awful double whammy for me and my kids. We now have oars from one of the camp rowboats displayed on a wall along with pictures of the kids and DH at camp - very special reminders of what was and how lucky we are to have those memories.

As others have said, allow yourself time and space to process and grieve. There is no wrong way to feel, and I believe it's natural if your feelings spiral and change from day to day or even hour to hour. Best wishes to you and your family.

The reason you can't focus on anything else is because you have your priorities straight. Focus on your mom and make sure she is fine. Your enthusiasm for this project will come back once you know your mom is fine. Tell her I said "Hi".

I think you've gotten excellent advice. I did message you privately. (((Red)))

PatriceNY and doc5md, those are the most powerful words I've read in a long time. We had kind of decided that my parents would never move and would stay in their house till the end with caregivers, but after another visit to the ER, I know that that cannot happen. I can't be the daughter they raised, and their caregiver can't be the caregiver she can be, because we are exhausted and always on edge. We tried rotating shifts of caregivers but it was too disruptive and unreliable.

Last night in the ER (which always consists of 45 minutes of personal interaction, mostly with technicians, and 5+ hours of waiting), I started the talk with mom. Of moving to not just assisted living, but something with more services. And this morning when I read your posts, I am committed to moving forward with that. I'm calling my aunt and my brother today to talk about it, and bring it up more with my parents.

Thank you so much, and Red, huge hugs to you and so many thanks for bringing this up. This forum called Building a Home often focuses on building a house, but house can move, while home remains. This poem is from the house my dad grew up in, that his dad built:

Awww bpathome - I'm so sorry you are in the thick of this. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.

Now that it is all over, hindsight being 20/20, the single dumbest thing I did was wait so long to move him into assisted living.

I don't think I've ever heard of someone saying, YAY, move me out of my home and into a new place, you know? Lord it's a brutal thought for me - I can only imagine what it feels like for a senior citizen who feels their health and/or their mind slipping away from them. Home is just that - it's HOME! It's where most of us want to be when we don't feel well.

So I "get" and agree with empowering people to stay in their home for as long as is safe. Of course, the problem is "safe" can be a subjective thing, isn't it.

My dad was no longer safe to drive (and I had to fight to get the keys away from him, that was just horrific - but he was causing accidents and his car looked like it had been in a demolition derby), so he was becoming increasingly isolated in his own home. No one ever visits. So it was just me (I'm an only child) and the care givers.

He built the home he lived in too, and he wanted to die there. And I went into his declining years determined to let him live out his life in the way of his choosing.

And then Alzheimer's happened.

Long sad story, and it plays out all over the world every day.

In the end, the time had come that keeping him at home unsupervised was no longer an option. He became a danger to himself (did crazy things as his mind deteriorated), and 24 hour care is so expensive he would have run out of money before he passed away. So I forced the issue, relatively against his will, when he ended up in the hospital for what felt like the 50th time. We told him he needed to go for "rehab" before he could go home.

I met him at the facility when the van pulled up, and seeing my dad in a wheelchair headed into his new home remains one of the saddest memories of my adult life. I felt like I was failing him. :(

But you know what? I wasn't.

He lived there for about a year before he passed away. The longer he was there, the happier he became. He made friends. He hadn't had friends in ages! They did a happy hour every night, and in his younger years he loved going to meet up with his friends at the local bar so that happy hour became his favorite part of the day. He had a glass of beer and chit-chatted with his new friends.

As his memory continued to go, they were always there and they did everything they could to keep him safe. I am 100% convinced had he not gone into assisted living, he would have kept falling at home and eventually broken a hip/something, and then ended up dying in an actual nursing home. Instead he was able to stay there literally up to the end, with Hospice services coming in for the last few weeks.

Anyway, I'm sorry I wrote a book. And my heart breaks for you and every other loving family member out there who is struggling with this. There are no easy answers and the costs involved are staggering.

Good luck. All I know is, now that he has passed on, I am at peace. I did everything I could to support him, and I visited 6 or 7 different places until I found "the one." I made the right choice for him, and like I said, in the end, I actually just wish I'd forced the issue sooner because we lived through some hairy and scary months with him at home! Alzheimer's sucks.

What a great bunch of people we have here. My heart goes out to all of you...

i have taken time to read and really think about all of the kind words written here. Bpathhome, I'm glad these words are helping you too. I'm so sorry for what you are facing.

Patrice....hugs.

I wish I had the energy to respond to each and every one of you but right now I don't. But I can't thank you enough for taking the time to respond. You truly helped. And re-reading your posts has helped.

For all of you going through the same thing. God bless you as you make these tough and agonizing decisions.

chicagoans....hugs to you for sharing too.