I've got LUPUS!?

Blood tests. That was for a second opinion. Lily, start the truck so it can warm up. Yeah, my autoimmune profile. We were concerned I might have a connective tissue disease. I'm negative in all these things. I don't know what they all mean. Maybe you nurses and doctors know. One concerning one that's, that's, that's positive. Oh, it's still locked on, honey. That's why it's not coming off.

Pony I need to get water!

If you were telling me— can y'all see this? DSDNA negative, borderline positive, 38. Well, I wouldn't know what DSDNA is. Apparently it's lupus. I'll meet Lily back up here in 20 minutes, but I want to spend some time with my other children as well this morning. Oh, they're up splitting wood. Hey, good morning!

Good morning!

Is that the lumber for that HVAC wall? Yeah. Look at you, you're on top of things. Are you and I the only ones working on this third day of Christmas? I reckon it looks like it. All right, you better look at this before making that decision. If you come out flush with this, or do you inset? Yeah, all right. And like over here, the same thing. It has to come— oh yeah, about, about to here. Yeah, if you had a little something right here, you could have a long shelf. You could even have it facing that way and you could put ugly stuff in it. Randolph's vote is to put the wall as close to those HVACs as possible so we can have room for little shelves. I bet she'll like that, but I better make sure. Okay, you want him to make the wall as close to the HVAC as possible so we can have shelves?

Yeah, that'd be great.

We didn't intend and plan on the HVAC going through that area. We had hoped for a nook for a staging area, but they recommended having the HVAC going through the vents going through the roof as opposed to the floor, which we really like because kids won't get crap in them. The boss approved. There's a better simulation. There you go. 8 minutes to check on the boys, but 8 minutes is better than no minutes. Got one and a half toast already. Proud of you. I gotta take Lily to Mommy's. Proud of you. Lily yelling at me, Papa. Come. Nothing like teaching kids responsibility, like giving them responsibility. Now they're bossing me around.

She's gonna get mad at me.

I'm taking you. You said we're leaving at 9:40. It's 9:38.

Yes, I know. I was supposed to— we had to leave in 2 minutes. Okay, shut the door when I come through.

Sure. You're good to my daughter. Friends tell me this will stay off her interest in boys. Okay, yeah, we're all about this horse. Tell me what this pony club's all about.

Um, it's like a pony club and it has horsemanship and riding, so we talk about like horse parts, what colors horses are, and like there's like There's like no white horses. There's only— although white horses are very rare. And we talked about the set, like riding and the parts of the saddle and bridle and how to pick the hooves and stuff like that.

This your snacks? Yeah. It's a new one? Yeah. Where'd you get him?

Uh, he was far away. He was like, like 8 or something.

When did you get him?

I think it was like 8 hours away or something. It was a long time.

Oh, that's funny. I said, when'd you get him? She said tomorrow. What's his name?

Who's—

who's Izzy? What? Who's gonna ride him?

I am.

All right, this is yours, huh? Yeah. Oh good. I love the hitching post right outside their house. How was it? Good.

You can put that in the car.

All right. Billie does a ride and then they do like an hour class. Uh, today they're doing grooming. Welcome to my office. Notebook, phone. What more could you need? Warm, warm, quiet. I'm getting some stuff done. Lesson's over.

Yeah.

All right, what'd you learn?

Uh, we learned about brushes and horse body parts.

What body parts did you learn about?

Uh, the hocks, the poster, and the fetlock. Um, the back, the neck, the forelock. What the—

this is good for you. I'm the horse dad, you just tell me what to do. Okay, trust. Eating your snack? Rebecca, you're on a mission. You're feeling good. You have a breakthrough. Yeah, and it shows.

I know.

Shall we show the bedroom?

Yeah, we can do that.

Y'all want to go on one of those '80s style house tours? This is the living room. It's small. We put the kitchen between the living room and the dining room, and it's the table between the kitchen and the The living room. It's a rugged, dark feel in here. Cozy, cozy. The kitchen is quaint. We do have one dishwasher and a half. We should show the people on this tour a fridge. Nothing special about that except we have a whole nother fridge. Yeah, you might be a homesteader if— a taller house we're gonna have. Several fridges. That's the bathroom that you have to walk through to get to the bedroom. Boots, what were you thinking? The bathroom's in the center of the house so you can proclaim to all the world that you're healthy. You got bowel movements.

If we ever renovate this house, which I don't know if we will.

We're out of here, bud. Our poor guests. The door would come in through here.

The door would come right through here.

You might be a health nut. If you have a sauna in your tiny bedroom. Okay.

Uh-oh.

What? You might have a tinfoil hat on. You have the Emotion Code next to your bed. I read it first, folks. And you guys gave it to me. You guys recommended it. I love it. It's like one of my— it's definitely a top book of the year for me. I wanted her to read it, so I set it on her nightstand. You wanna see my current read? I'm reading a book a week this year, guys. Drive by Daniel Pink. It's making me rethink goal setting. Go sitting for myself, the kids, the business, the farm. Uh-oh, change is coming. Baby's home tour is over. All right, that's all to see here.

Hey, Papa, what you doing? What you doing?

You look well equipped. Who's your enemy? John right there. Now look, look at this setup. He's got shorts and a t-shirt. I hope he's got a tank. Okay, back to the lupus thing. I had zero idea what that meant. I still have no idea what it means, except now I know it's an autoimmune disease. Rebecca has one of those. She has Hashi— is it Hashimoto's, Rebecca?

I was diagnosed with that. I do not have it.

Oh, okay.

I do not claim it as my own.

Okay. What do you know about lupus then?

All I know is that it's a connective tissue disorder and that it affects your joints.

Yeah.

And it causes inflammation, or I've had—

I have inflammation.

I don't know if it causes inflammation or creates inflammation.

Everybody knows I've had problems with my joints. You know, I had reactive arthritis. Yeah.

Lupus can come from Lyme. I don't quite understand how it makes that happen, how it makes the connection there, but it does.

So I had— we've been contributing my foot pain, my back stiffness, my mood swings. Like last night I crashed, just had to go to bed early and probably slept 12 hours. When we'll have this blood test back, today to give a second opinion. And then when do— when do I see the other doctor who will also weigh in on this?

You will see them next Wednesday, a week from today.

Okay, so we wait. We'll find out more if we need to, but right now we're not going to find out more, are we?

Well, not no more.

No, I mean, you're not going to go to Mr. Google Pants and figure out what's lupus and— no, no, I don't know what could I do more. A cold plunge, I walk, I sauna, I eat clean. I watched my blood sugar. Solve that mystery another day. 2 weeks, you said? Next Wednesday? No, 1 week. We see another doctor, then maybe we'll have the blood results of this test today sooner than that.

Yeah.

Okay, I'll let you guys know. Today was kitchen prep day, so things are set up and ready to go. Tallow. Probably use the rest of that. Out of the tallow, here comes one of these mini lards. Here we go. And that as my late father would say, is a happy day. We're gonna figure this lupus thing out. See you in the next one.