My story: It was all worth it.
I was born in February 1986, I was home schooled and raised on my family’s golf course and my grandparents’ (retired) dairy farm in northern Minnesota. I lived and breathed that golf course, I was a damn fine golfer and mowed so much grass to this day I refuse to mow even my own lawn.
I met a man from Oklahoma online during that time.
I owned a house before I bought my first car when I was 19 in 2005. I bought it on a cosign with him down in Oklahoma with the plans to renovate it and sell it for a profit and that story goes: I learned how NOT to do a renovation and to NEVER EVER EVER cosign for anyone.
I lost six years of my life splitting my time there renovating that house and my time here helping run the golf course. Minnesota had been hollering me back for years, it was WAY past time that I listened.
After he destroyed my credit score I came home pissed off, exhausted and broke in August 2010.
That year turned into a landmark year for my mom and I. In the next two months my family sold/lost almost everything (including the golf course) and my folks got divorced. (That was during the huge economic collapse in the US.)
Everything changed in that two months, every certainty, every belief, every plan I had ever had for the future – it all absolutely vanished. The golf school brochures went into a drawer to be eventually thrown away.
I was shell shocked.
I grabbed my freedom by the horns and kind of went wild. Everything I had missed by being home schooled. Everything I had missed by being tied to someone from another state for six years.
What can I say? I missed EVERYTHING and I had a lot of catching up to do!
Unfortunately this story has a real sad note though as in just a couple of years I also lost my three childhood dogs and my last two grandparents: my two Grandmas. I got back home just in time to experience a load of grief.
With the passing of my grandma Charlotte my mom, aunt and I began the clean out of the 100 year old house, barn and out buildings. There was A LOT of furniture, far more then any of us had ever anticipated.
Nobody knew what to do with any of it and no one wanted to sell it either!
My aunt and mom took the few pieces they had room for (they kept everything my grandparents’ had ever made as they had retired from farming to wood working) and then there was me, hand raised, grinning in shock at myself, I wanted it all.
I had no idea why but my heart just burst!
As long as I lived there would be no selling a single beautiful old piece, every one of them would be a part of my story somehow! I was ready to really start working again. (Its a sickness I inherited from my Mom’s side of the family – we’re not happy unless we’re working toward something.)
My Story
And so we filled one whole stall of my mom’s garage and in August of 2013, almost exactly three years since I came home for good from Oklahoma, I embarked on my furniture refinishing adventure. I had never done anything like it before but I learned quick!
It saved me.
It gave me hope.
It filled my heart when I was down and my hands, having done nothing but hold cigarettes and glasses of alcohol for the last three years, learned again how to create, mold, nurture. It helped me heal.
I had purpose again.
Since moving back I had been quietly on the lookout for a little place of my own. I hadn’t really told anyone about it but my mom and I had stopped and looked at a few small (very old) farm houses that were in my budget and one original little school house that totally took my breath away.
I had this image in my mind of an old place that I could restore. That could be totally mine. That I could make right and beautiful again.
My Story
Of course you already know it was right in front of me.
I was hollered home.
In April 2014 I began the adventure of the renovation of the 100 year old farm of my mom’s childhood, of my childhood, of all the fifty years my grandparents lived there together.
My mom, brother, dad, aunt, ex-husband and a couple of friends helped me some but there was still tremendous struggle and many ups and downs. It was my goal, my total focus, where I went every day after my day job and where I spent every single weekend.
With almost nothing hired out, after completely gutting the home, I managed to finish the electrical and plumbing in December 2014. (And passed inspection PHEW!!!)
My ex asked me to marry him during those long months while I was working alone here on the house. (Yeah total red flag, he happily did whatever he wanted while I worked (and paid) to finish our future home together.)
In the summer of 2015 we moved in and began what I believed would be a life filled with honesty and loyalty. I was wrong about him in every way and more than a little embarrassed that I almost let yet another leach destroy my credit score.
Throwing him out in 2017 was not an act of bravery but one of survival.
Someone asked me afterward, “Aren’t you lonely now?” And I realized that I was FAR less lonely, being home alone, than when he had ever been here.
My Story
My home finally became all I dreamed it would be that he never allowed. A place for get togethers, bon fires, whiskey and wine and cards against humanity, guitar hero and Mario cart! A home all of my family and friends would know they could stop by absolutely anytime.
A home for people that understand that these are the times that we work for, that make life worth living and that there is nothing more important. (How I allowed him to take it all from me, even for just a couple of years after I had worked so hard for it, remains an utter shame of my past.)
It felt as though my life, finally, clicked into the place it was supposed to be and so much of it is due to my Grandma’s house. Having this place to take care of because it takes such good care of me is the happy story of my life.
This house MOVED me on.
I spent years happily single here, my life encompassing all that I had wanted it to be.
I worked a lot, I partied hard, I howled at the moon, I spent all the time with my family that my ex had taken from me and I got a TON done here on my home.
I created my very own workshop, renovated my guest bedroom, remodeled my entryway/office/dining room and my laundry room, totally transformed my kitchen, tackled and insulated my garage and even finished all of the siding and yard clean up! Not to mention I also completely repainted and updated the living room!
I eliminated all of the compromises I had made in an attempt to pacify my ex and also fix the work here that he did wrong and clean up all the trash he left behind.
It was an insane amount of work but I did right, finally, by this home.
Those years as a single gal I wasn’t just fixing this place, I really was fixing me too in the exact same way. I was absolutely happy, I had found acceptance that if giving up everything for a loveless marriage or being alone were my options than I could totally live with that.
Throughout 2018 into 2020…
First I completed the next three projects I had on my list which was another revamp, redesign of the guest bedroom, a total completion of my main floor bathroom and finally I finished the main floor hall as well.
Moving on to the bigger projects:
Meanwhile over the summer / fall of 2020 I also moved my back door from the back hall into the workshop and replaced it with a solid steel door and new doggie door. In place of the old door I added a window and a wall to make the back hall into a small room for the man I was with at the time and his arsenal.
Over the course of 2020 and well into 2021 I was also slowly hacking away at my once abandoned (and totally unfinished) basement. It took a long time to get the space down there just right to reveal it here but I was happy with how the basement “speak easy” living room turned out at the time.
I also finished the bathroom down there too. On the list for the basement is the kitchen and stairwell and, somehow, that will be the last of the unfinished spaces to “complete” this home that I started renovating back in 2014…
WOW
Over 2021 I tackled the yard with a vengeance. Added an addition to the garage and, in three separate concrete pours, I added an apron on the front of the entire building. I also got the new lower deck installed too and to say that after that summer of 2021 I was totally exhausted is an understatement!
That winter I was really excited for less intense projects and got to work repainting and redesigning my master suite and master bathroom.
Back in March of 2019 a devastating amount of snow followed by torrential rain was the beginning of the end of my old barn. Inevitable or not, I was still heart broken…
I knew it was only a matter of time before the barn would be too dangerous for even me to tip toe across the rafters and visit the hay mow again. So, one very early morning in 2020, I crept up there for what did end up being the last time and captured all that was the ruin, and the beauty, of her.
It was two years later that things took a real turn for the worse with the barn. She wasn’t just dangerous anymore but downright frightening to even be near let alone walking inside of. I made the decision to have her removed. In 2023 I was witness to the end of my barn’s story here. Mom had left the decision up to me and, though I don’t feel I had any other choice, I’m always gonna ache that loss. I may always look at that empty spot in the yard as a baffling thing that makes no sense to me.
I kept the silo and am playing with ideas and plans for it someday. I had vowed that 2023 was going to be my cut back year and wow how the universe did laugh at me about that. I also had to completely replace the old septic system here on the farm too. I did almost nothing besides watch it all happen but it all cost so much and the barn being gone was so hard – It put me in a funk for months.
And then my family was hit with utter devastation. I received the call at work from one of my eldest nephews who could barely speak. His two year old brother had a seizure and had passed away that morning. January 9th. On my dad’s birthday he lost his little grand baby.
I didn’t do much in 2023…
But I did help my mom design and get her house built and to see her finally get her dream home, and start that next chapter in her story, mended my heart a little.
Unfortunately this story did not see a break in losses or awful days. 2024 hit me very hard. I lost my heart horse Garcia in March and emotionally I pretty much just closed down shop after that. He’d been my best friend for over 23 years.
2024
I set out determined at the end of 2023 to finally (fully and completely) tackle my workshop and make it the combined office of my dreams. I installed wood storage in the garage and painted and installed the cabinets and the old work bench giving me an awesome place to move most of my tools out of my office.
With all the new space I patched and fixed up the whole room and revamped the closet for WAY better storage. I even “carpeted” the room with lots of rugs that warmed the whole place up! A new couch with lots of pillows and a shelf I built myself made me really love the room again. My completed game room and office became my safe place.
Because, unfortunately, I desperately needed a safe place.
God I wish I could say things were better moving into 2025.
My family experienced another out of the blue (and devastating) loss. My uncle was diagnosed with cancer in late November and he was gone by late January. It was a shock to my whole family. It just wiped us all out.
Besides the losses I was also in a situation here that I hid very well. Lodi came into my life in 2019, we married in 2022 and in August of 2025 I finally called the police. He was arrested for domestic assault and a DUI that night. I have a restraining order, he can’t come anywhere near me legally again.
(I wish I could delete so many of those blog posts I wrote back then, me faking it, me smiling for the camera, me using makeup and Photoshop to hide my bruises, it makes me sick to my stomach.)
As far as abuse cases go our relationship could be the dictionary definition. Love bombing, getting into my life at a sprint, treating me like I was the greatest thing ever, sweeping me off my feet, moving in as soon as I agreed to it, all of his other exes and wives were just crazy and horrible.
It started with open handed slapping and back handing and it moved on to slamming me to the floor and strangulation.
I bought turtle necks and got very good at hiding bruises. He was on top of me every second of every day. The moment I woke up he would call me. He would text all day every day constantly. If I wasn’t with him I had to be talking to him. And it was because he just couldn’t get enough of me and loved me so much…
I thought Lodi was spontaneous and fun – he was actually impulsive, irresponsible and manipulative. I stopped believing anything he said and I started not only calling him out on it but placing boundaries.
That didn’t go over well.
My attention on grieving the loss of my uncle really didn’t go over well. Lodi didn’t bother going to the funeral and my family isn’t a bunch of idiots. They didn’t hide that they had suspicions and that they no longer liked him and he really didn’t like that.
Image is everything to Lodi and consequences is not something he’ll take. If someone doesn’t like him (even if its his fault) he just ghosts them because they must be wrong. Seriously how many times did he think I could have black eyes until somebody would begin to suspect something?
I realized that I used to think that definition required intent. Like first degree murder requires the planning to commit murder. As if wife beaters are only those who plan to hit their wives. No. Wife beaters are spouses who hit their wives regardless of intent. Just like you’re still a murderer even if you didn’t plan it.
Lodi is a wife beater.
Scott Allen Laube AKA “Lodi” wife beater from Fargo North Dakota. DOB 01/29/1982
There is something incredibly wrong with you if you beat your spouse and there is something incredibly wrong with Lodi.
Over the years I blamed it on his depression, his PTSD, his experiences in the army, his shitty childhood. I gave him all the excuses and worked with him desperately because I knew it was never his intent to hit me… as if that made it somehow forgivable. He always blamed me. Always was just “reacting” to something I said or did. As if him hitting me were just the natural consequences of my own behavior.
People said things he didn’t like all the time at his job, in regular life, disagreed with him etc. and he never hit them. Proof that he wanted to hit me. Proof that as long as he could get away with it he would continue doing it.
And that’s the real kicker right there.
That’s the truth that makes me sick. If Lodi can get away with something he will do it regardless of morality or decency or loyalty or what most people would say is right or wrong. He was not a good person. I don’t believe he loves anyone not even his own children. His mind works transactionally. “I do this for you and then you do this for me.”
I realize now that his hitting me was the punishment every time for me not complying with his transactions. Over the years I complied less and less and less. Over the years, he became more and more violent.
“I’m being nice to you right now why aren’t you being nice to me and loving me?” “You hit me last week.” “You’re so negative. I just told you I hoped you had a good day and that I love you so much.” “I really need some space after what happened.” “You’re always bringing up the past! I’m being positive and loving and all you want to do is fight.” “I just need some time!” “Oh so you don’t want me.” “Of course I want you, I love you very much.” “I just told you how much I want and loved you all day today.” “I was at work! I have told you over and over again to stop texting me at work!” “I was just trying to tell you how much I love you and I wanted you to have a good day.” “Not at work! I could lose my job!” “Why are you yelling? Why are you so mad? See all you want to do is fight.”
(If you see a narcissistic trend in the men I choose you’re not wrong. I have officially lost 16 years of my life to them though Lodi was by far the worst… I guess the only way I was going to learn was to have it beat into me.)
In the spring of 2025 I did something that felt like I was committing a crime. I built my garden. And that didn’t go over well either even though I did it almost entirely myself and paid for it completely on my own. Really, anything that wasn’t Lodi’s idea by then I would face consequences for. And anytime I focused on anything but him I would face consequences for.
I couldn’t love or want anything but him and I couldn’t give my attention to anything but him either.
I missed my garden so much and it was such a small thing. But it felt like this enormous act of defiance. My life had been reduced to asking permission and then just giving up when he shot any ideas I had down. In five years he had had taken me from the fearless girl that renovated this house all by herself to the girl that was scared to plant cucumbers. He had me frozen. I built my garden in a straight up F you to that utter ridiculousness.
And it was ridiculous.
And it was exhausting.
He didn’t just have me frozen out of fear he also had me so emotionally wiped out I did little else besides sleep, eat and go to work. He put up with me playing Fortnite with my dad and nephews and nieces but only if he wasn’t there.
When his schedule changed to driving nights that really escalated the abuse. Lodi is like a shark, if he can’t be moving at all times then he at least has to be talking to someone at all times. Late nights with no one and nothing and losing so much control over me because are schedules were the opposite was his nightmare. (He generally had to leave for work at about 1am.)
He started setting his alarm for the exact window of time I would be playing Fortnite with my family. He’d come home, sleep until 7pm and stay awake until about 10pm saying he just wanted time with me that he missed me.
Why didn’t he set his alarm for 10pm or 5pm then if he wanted a couple of hours with me?
Because I wasn’t allowed to give my attention to other people. And because it was a test. Everything was a test. If I didn’t stop playing Fortnite with the kids when I could be spending time with him then I wasn’t choosing him – then I didn’t love him or want him. That he wasn’t the most important thing to me and I was a liar.
I was constantly, desperately trying to prove how much I loved him.
Yes, even so far as to lie to my coworkers, my boss and my family about the abuse. He had me so screwed up I argued with him that anyone else would have left him or reported him to the police and by letting him get away with constant abuse, didn’t that prove that I loved him more than anything?
But his insinuation was always that I caused the abuse so he wasn’t an abuser I was just experiencing the consequences of my own actions and I was legitimately lucky that he loved me so much he was still with me.
He destroyed by kicking in three doors in our home because I shut them on him and locked them when he was coming after me.
Lodi made a big theater of moving out a few months before his arrest. It was a huge drama to show.
I can’t tell you how degrading it was with his brother and best friend cleaning out my home, walking by me like I wasn’t worth their time. The only moment one of them spoke to me was to tell me, “We don’t want any trouble.” As if I were the unstable, abusive one.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so angry or humiliated in my entire life. (And this is when the victims of abuse finally just go crazy and prove all the lies their abusers have been telling about them.)
Coincidentally this was in the days surrounding my uncle’s funeral… I hadn’t been giving Lodi enough attention.
He came and went in and out of my home whenever he felt like it then. I never knew when he would show up, what he was going to do or what kind of mood he’d be in. Those months absolutely destroyed what few nerves I had left. He claimed that him getting an apartment was for us, so we could date and find each other again.
Then he would ghost me if I didn’t reciprocate and then just show up at my house unannounced again, throwing back the shower curtain when I was showering. Screaming at me while I was sleeping.
I was still dealing with my own grief over my uncle’s death and that had changed me quite a bit. Going to the funeral alone and being reminded that I wasn’t alone at all changed me even more.
Him leaving like he did changed me a lot.
I WAS VERY ANGRY.
I had put up with his abuse for years for him to leave me like that in what was one of the hardest, most grief stricken times of my life.
WHAT A HORRIBLE PERSON. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.
He told me over and over again that he didn’t actually leave me at all that he loved me and that’s why he thought it was best to give me space. And yet he gave me absolutely no space. Him claiming to go to his apartment meant I was constantly on edge wondering when he would show up.
Lodi got another place because I was no longer fun. I was sad. I was a burden. I was shitty to be around. When I should be supporting him I was sitting there needing his support instead. How dare I expect him to do anything for me when he wasn’t getting anything out of it.
I found out later that he also got his own place so he could be with someone else while still playing married with me.
I was done. I was consequences. I no longer believed him. I would not give him an inch until he showed actual change and accountability. I was unmoving. I was a total bitch and treated him exactly how he treated me.
He really didn’t like that.
I started seeing my friends and family again and having them over whenever I felt like it. I started thinking I deserved better. If he asked me where I was, I didn’t tell him. He no longer got to call me in the morning, I didn’t answer. My phone was officially off limits when I was at work, I didn’t answer then either. He didn’t get to know where I was or what I was doing because in all the years we’d been together in all of his constant texting and constant calling I never once knew where he was or when he would be home.
The double standards were over.
This went on for almost five months.
In early August 2025 he closed fist punched me.
Less than a month later he did it again only far worse and in the same place that hadn’t even healed. My best friend saved my life. She said, “You are going to die and then I’ll kill him and then I’ll go to jail.” I filed my police report, he was arrested and convicted of assault and a DUI and a restraining order has been in place ever since.
Around my right eye, especially the cheek bone, still hurts eight months later. He did nerve damage that I hope someday might go away entirely but I’m alive.
No one wants to get a divorce. It felt like a failure. When I said “I do” I meant it. But “to death do you part” doesn’t mean until your husband beats you to death. I have flashbacks, memories that make me sick with how easily and how many times I could have died. People are fragile. He hit me very hard many times and I landed very hard just as many.
It would have been so easy for me to have hit my head just right and been just gone.
I’m still getting my confidence back and its coming slowly with every victory. Just two weeks after the woman he had proposed to broke up with him he had found me. Just a couple of weeks after his arrest he was already posting selfies with a new victim I’ve begun thinking of as his future ex wife #4.
Somehow I was still surprised by his lack of shame.
Me and my little dog Link are doing better every day. I hadn’t realized just how traumatic it had been for the little guy to live with him too but of course it was. Lodi punched walls, threw furniture, screamed and yelled. He never hit Link but he did force himself on him. Whether it was in play or hugs etc. the little dog never got a choice. His only defense was to hide which he did constantly.
He doesn’t hide anymore. My comes and visit every day. Link is getting better every day.
Neither me nor the dog ever knew what kind of person we would be dealing with when Lodi came home. It was at my uncle Gary’s funeral when I realized just how isolated I had become. Hiding what Lodi was doing meant I couldn’t let anyone close to me. Him not being there meant I was surrounded by more love and support than I had experienced in years. I missed my family so much. I went to Thanksgiving and it was like I had been on leave in a warzone and I finally got to go home.
I saved myself.
And I am so thankful for this beautiful little home of mine.
My Grandma’s house is saving me again, giving me lots and lots of good work to do. It was actually convenient that he had moved out before it all went down so I didn’t have as much of his crap to get rid of. In the weeks following his arrest I tackled my home in a way I haven’t been able to in years.
I got rid of him and got busy filling the gaps and it was wonderful reclaiming my spaces, not just getting rid of him completely, but also leaving no place for him to return. And, not to mention, the wonderful petty cackling moments when I did things I knew he would have hated and would have even hit me for.
In spite of him I had plowed ahead with a couple of projects that I completed in 2025. He didn’t support me but (like with the garden) I started moving ahead with my goals anyway. I could not continue living as I was. Frozen and alone. It wasn’t a lot but it was still an act of defiance.
(I’d been getting so little done in the last couple of years for the blog that I had even added food recipes here for more content. Though I don’t really regret it and will keep on it as its been rather fun!)
My nephew helped me start the tackle in 2024 of the very last unfinished space at Grandma’s house. The stairwell down to the basement. And getting that space done (the very last space!) on my ten year anniversary of being here… Well, it was just all kinds of right.
I started a ten years on the blog then, recounting all the times from the very beginning in every room. The good. The bad. And the ugly. I didn’t realize it then but I was leaving Lodi behind. He despised anyone I had anything good to say about. I suffered fiercely for my nephew coming over to help me. I was not allowed to love anyone else, especially a man, even if they were family.
I stopped letting him control me and he didn’t get a say in the matter. He could either get with the program with me moving ahead with my my goals and my life or… well you know what he decided to do. He got arrested for it.
My Grandma’s House, Ten years going by in a Blink
I’m really looking forward to 2026.
My first act of the new year was to buy myself 350 seedlings in oak and pine to plant my back pasture. Lodi knew how much I wanted a no-mow, ever blooming yard for the bees and butterflies.
He killed everything on this property with a bloom and mowed anything down that he could. I still can’t even think of the day he took out thousands of wild milkweed that was growing in the back pasture. He claimed he didn’t know. If he didn’t know then he never heard a word I said or he just deliberately destroyed something I loved. I haven’t seen a monarch butterfly here since.
Looking back there is no way that that man didn’t hate me. Looking back it all looks like he was with me simply to punish me. To make my life an absolute living hell. To make certain, one little step at time, that I would lose everything that I loved. I just can’t fathom it and am so lucky to be alive.
I know most people say that a restraining order is just a piece of paper (and I absolutely agree with them!) but I know Lodi. He loves himself more than he hates anyone. He won’t come near me if there is any chance of repercussions. If he comes near me again he will be arrested again and he will look like the crazy unstable abusive one and he can’t abide that.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so relieved in my life. I slept well for the first time in years.
I had had NO IDEA just how destroyed I was until I started healing.
I PURGED THIS ENTIRE HOME OF EVERY LAST PIECE OF HIM AND IT WAS WONDERFUL!
I made his “music room” into my office and I really enjoyed absolutely gutting his armory for his freakish amount of knives, guns and ammo and making it into my new tool room.
Yes, you can do anything you put your mind to, male or female. Houses, furniture, none of it cares how old you are or how strong you are or whether you know the difference between a reciprocating saw or a jig saw.
These are old trades and there may be no more satisfying a thing then the restoration of a home, a room, a bathroom vanity, a saved rocking chair that was destined for the dump, a saved dresser that went from a beast to a beauty.
This is the good stuff, the best of stuff, this is the stuff that gets under your finger nails and fills and nourishes your heart as well as your body. These labors transformed me just as deeply and completely as all of the transformations I have created along the way.