My House

So I walked into my room today and it hit me between the eyes...in less than 10 days this will no longer be my room. Or my house. These red walls that hubbo painted, this carpet I chose.....this whole second floor addition that we designed and toyed and played with from scratch. I had two babies while living here. Loud noisy inconsiderate neighbors, teenagers driving like jerks after the high school lets out....did I mention the neighbors we do not get along with at all? Their hot rod? Their constant noise making? Dog barking? The local garage band that only recently discovered how to carry a tune?
But still...I really really like my house. I like the layout. The open floor plan that happened when we tore down some walls. The wood stove we just put in a year ago that worked just as brilliantly as I told everyone that it would. The privacy of my bedroom, but still close enough to hear if the little ones call. The attic niche in the wall that looks like a hobbit hole, the cozy way our log bed fits that end of the room. Looking down at the stairs and recalling how crazy they once were before the back door was moved. My hide away washer and dryer...my jacuzzi tub. I even get a kick out of the crazy timing of the sump pump and the odd times it decides to spew forth, generally when there has been no rain for weeks! LOL.I like my yard, the trees that have survived my husbands obsession with chainsaws. My flower beds in the front. The lantern posts in the front and backyard that make me think of Narnia, where Lucy met Tumnus. I can glance over at one corner garden spot, and remember those baby bunnies that we tried to save...and finally buried there.
I look at our shed (still without siding on the front after all this time lol) and remember what a little tin hut was there before. How Phil wanted to help his best friend out, so he tore up the tin, and built that shed with such care and consideration. The way back of the yard where we used to sit on that rickety old picnic table daydreaming about what the addition should look like (and just where the heck would the garage need to go??).
My mulberry tree that insists on putting out fruit a couple times in a season despite my logical arguments with it. The grape vine that has simply burst with berries this year....the valiant struggle of the cherry tree trying to live.

Yes the windows should be replaced..all the walls painted. The entire downstairs desperately needs new flooring and will someone please connect the doorbell? All these things will be done after we have gone......I will miss my picture window and all the light it brought too....logically a house is just a house. It's my family inside of it that makes it into a home. I know this, this is a comforting truth...but I will miss these walls a bit. So much has happened here. We are comfortable here, even amidst the never ending construction.

As of this very moment, all I know for sure is that we are leaving for good in less than 10 days. We are packing up that truck in 8 days, and rolling out of here in 10. We will land at the family bay house and from there look for a new house. A new yard, A new home.
It would be rather unsettling if I had no faith that this is what we are supposed to do. There is no work here. Jobs are leaving at such a rate it boggles the mind...and the michigan economics. There is a future in where we are going, there is even a job waiting for hubbo. Our credit is wonky from not ever using credit but cash to buy stuff, and with changing jobs, I'm not entirely sure we will even be able to get a mortgage...and that too would worry me more if I did not have faith. Still, I am excited. I am so happy to be bringing our children back to where they can get to know my side of the family as more than visitors. I'm so happy to be getting back to a place where there is not a strip club every other block, and a liquor store on every corner. I'm happy we are going, but I am sad to be leaving my house. My church...my friends.
The first 5 years I was here, the friends made were far and few between. This last year we have been blessed with an abundance of people who are like minded. I'll miss the homeschool group, and their knit night. I'll miss Marquita. I'll miss CCDR..all of the people at CCDR. Sometimes I wonder if I did not make more of an effort to make friends because I knew we would leave and I didn't want to have any ties here? I would totally do something like that, I can be self destructive that way *sigh*

So back to point. My house. I do so like my little/big house with it's little/big yard. I hope the people who buy her really enjoy her as much as I did. Don't go feeling sorry for me though, I have an ace in the hole. My husband. No matter where we land, I have the fullest confidence he will turn that place into something I will love even more than I love this place. He will attack whatever trees are there, to whip them into shape. He will tear down walls, he will even redo the plumbing if we decide we must have a waterfall in the kitchen. Slowly but surely he will turn anyplace we are at into something that is fully ours. And with that comes the knowledge that it will be done away from these noisy neighbors, the jerky teen drivers, the constant barking of inconsiderate neighbors and their dogs. Garage bands. It will be a place in the south near my family where my future good memories lay. Lord willing we will be granted a place with land to grow some of our own food and maybe even have a sheep or two. My hope is that it will be THE place, the place we stay at, the place our grandchildren will come see us at. The place that we can really call home this side of Heaven.

Good bye House. I have you in my memories, I have you in my photographs. Take care of the next family, and may your sump pump ever keep your crawlspace dry.