Home

I loved our house on the acreage, though having a zillion people help sort it, inventory it and haul the contents off was more than a bit of humble pie. Basically cause our house was messy. Just for the record I'd like to justify a little bit about why that was so.

1. There were a lot of people in it.
2. The people never left, as in we homeschool, so the majority of the people were there the majority of the time.
3. We did a lot of stuff. We had a lot of hobbies. We were curious about life. We tried things out, explored, got messy, made mistakes (think Ms. Frizzle).
4. We had a lot of books; we are a family of bibliophiles who use books, wear them out, get curious about the next thing.
5. We were busy with life. We cooked 3 meals a day, from scratch, usually for a whole passel of people, canned, chopped wood, homeschooled, read, walked the dogs, gardened, talked,etc. All of those activities detract from mess-organization.

We lived in our home. We lived on our property. I wish it hadn't been such a mess, more ordered, more organized, but I'm glad that we spent hours and hours outside gardening together, and hauling wood, homeschooling and talking and praying together and all of the other things that we did, even when the house needed cleaned. Cause we did enough of that, too.

I'm a bit anxious about what this move will mean. It will mean a lot more "comfort." There's a dishwasher, a heater, a small yard, etc. It's neat and modern and contains a lot of what one expects in a middle class neighborhood from a not-to-cheap/not-too expensive home. So, a lot of what we've spent our time doing on the acreage -the homesteading things- won't need done. For that I'm partially grateful cause frankly I've been feeling way over 40 lately. But the hours that we spent together working hard won't need to be done and there will be a lot more "leisure" time. I've already seen the effects of some of that and it's not really something I'm pleased with. Too much computer/"free" time and one has bored, uninterested, cranky kids on their hands. Living in a house, versus hotel, will, of course, change some of that, but I've been considering just how off the grid we've lived, in so many ways, for the past 14 years, both in New Mexico and in the Territories, and how that has shaped and molded each one of us.
It's a new season, that much is certain. And between on the edge of panic attacks I've been fighting off I'm curious to see what it holds. But for certain, right now at least, it won't contain our home. Our quirky, curious, beautiful friend of a place that was a big pain in the patooey, that was the perfect back-drop for Christmas, that held hopes and dreams and all of our mess and that is now empty and sitting alone in a valley.
It's o.k. really. But, True Confessions, I've cried and grieved over the house and the acreage and the place we knew as Home.