(Almost) Home

You might say I'm a sucker for signs. Especially those that are painted and a little bit primitive. I have them all around my house.

See:

And, at various points in my life, each sign - with its simple message - has served as a mantra of sorts.

So when it came time to finally cover up an enormous nail hole select the perfect piece to go above our fireplace, I just knew a sign was the way to go.

But, considering all that's happened, what's my mantra now?

Life was good. And then it wasn't.

Don't worry. It'll all be over soon.

I'm kidding. Sort of.

Obviously, I needed something a bit more, um, inspirational, something that wouldn't make guests do a double-take when they entered our home. And, I needed something that said this is our family.

And what worked for us before just doesn't cut it anymore.

Sigh.

So, I spent a weekend tossing around a few ideas (nothing really worth mentioning here) and one in particular just stuck. It was this idea of home and what home should be.

Before all of this, home wasn't half-bad. Sure it was loud and it was messy. You can read more about that here and here. But it was also beautiful because everybody that I loved was right here, within arm's reach.

Without Addie, I'm not sure it'll ever quite get back to the way that it was.

It's home, but it's not.

The noise has resumed. The messes too. In fact, I'm not sure either ever really went away. But, there is a voice missing. There's one less baby to tuck in and kiss goodnight, one less plate at the dinner table. We smile for the camera, but it'll never be quite right.

It'll never be home.

So, we settle for what we have in our almost home. And we realize this place where we live and work and love really isn't our home at all. Never has that been more apparent to me than it is right now.

I could try to put into words exactly what it is I'm talking about, but I'm not going to do that. What I've realized (and I'm really trying to avoid going all Mary Katherine Gallagher on you now) can best be summed up in the song Blessings by Laura Story.

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life is

the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?

I have a deep-seated need to have my family all good and whole again. And, there is no substitute for that. I do believe things will be good again (they are at times), but I know our lives will never be right until we're Home.

So, until then, we're almost Home.

Plus, that sounds so much better than that it'll all be over soon stuff.

So, about the actual sign.

I contacted Deb from Deb Hrabik Designs and gave her the scoop on what I wanted.. We tossed around a few ideas, traded a few emails. She painted. I waited. And within a couple weeks time it was here. 

What can I say? I. Love. It.

And here's why:

It's beautiful (obviously). It's big. And it's bold.

It says and does everything I wanted it to. It even hides the incredibly large nail hole, so that's a bonus.

But here's the best part: there's a piece of Addie in that sign. 

That, my friends, is Addie's handwriting (and all Deb's idea) taken from a story she had written in fourth grade.

We are well-aware of the huge, gaping hole that's been left in our hearts and our lives, but seeing that little piece of Addie on my wall every day makes me feel like she's saying, "It's OK, mom. You're doing alright. You're almost there."

Almost.

Hay Y'all

Sitting atop one of the bales.

Let's talk hay bales. Yeah, I know. Ex-cit-ing. OK, not really. But, now that I've hauled off to the country I have to admit they're a little fascinating. Still not convinced? Yeah, me neither. But now that I have first-hand knowledge as to how they're created, I'll never look at another hay bale the same. You see along with a house and all of that, we also acquired four acres of alfalfa. Which, at first, I thought was kind of useless (especially after we found out we couldn't sell off the extra land and make a big fat profit). But then we started brainstorming all of the wonderful ways we could develop the land. Unfortunately we don't have the patience for pumpkins or even close to what it takes to establish a winery, so those dreams died pretty quickly.

The dreams may have died, but alfalfa remained - and we knew it would take an eternity for my husband to get through it with his 22-inch Tecumseh push mower.

Lucky for us, a local farmer showed up one day with his tractor and cut it. Then, said farmer arrived a few days later with another piece of farm machinery (a baler perhaps?) that raked it all up, wound it into a huge gigantic ball, and shot it out the back end. That's the cleaned up, PG version of what happened. Apparently the farmer will send us a check at the end of the year for all that hay. Cool. We'll probably get just as rich off that as we would the winery.

And if not, the bales make perfect targets for a little game of pasture golf. We could totally charge admission for that.

Movin' on up?

My husband and I have been married 12 wonderful years. In that time we've accumulated three beautiful children, one dog, two frogs, and a whole lot of stuff. Stuff that could (and did) fill a 3,000-square foot home. Stuff like computer monitors that we're too cheap to pay the $30 for someone to come in and properly dispose of. Don't worry, we don't sneak them into the local landfill or anything. We just move them from house to house. Seriously, we do. I have two clunky computer monitors gathering dust in my basement right now.

Stuff like burp cloths and boppy pillows, Barbie dolls, and bouncy seats (and I'm just on the B's). Don't even get me started on the three-foot tall trophy we've moved not once, not twice, but FIVE times since we married that hot July day oh so many years ago. Five times. That trophy probably didn't even cost five bucks to construct, yet there it is (right next to the computer monitors) reminding my husband of the day he beat out a handful of other elementary school kids in the state super shooter contest. I digress. What I'm really here to talk about is stuff and how we epically failed to get rid of it.

I had great plans really. I was going to cut our belongings in half. After all, we were going from a 3,000-square-foot home to one that measures 1,614. Seemed like a fairly simple task. Post a few items on Craigslist, host a garage sale, haul a van-load or two off to charity. Yeah, not simple. Hard.

Imagine my excitement when I had nine replies from people interested in my baby gear. Now imagine my disappointment when my inbox was filled with spam for the next three days. Rookie mistake.

And the garage sale? Rain. We were still able to get rid of a few items - and host a pretty mean lemonade stand. But I'm pretty sure the kids ate up at least half the profits. Oh well.

So when it came time to load up the U-Haul, we still had too much stuff. Lucky for us, we had family members who were more than willing to pack up their cars and trucks and trailers to get us where we needed to be. After all, once all the boxes were unloaded, they could leave. We couldn't. And now, three weeks later, we're still sifting through boxes desperately searching for our iron, a couple pair of shoes, and our loose change cup. No doubt all of those items are in a box...somewhere.

The beginning

We finally did it. Threw caution to the wind, checked our maturity at the door, and purchased a little ranch on six acres. Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. By ranch, I mean ranch home, not a ranch where we'd have to wear Wranglers, wrestle steers, and rope I don't know what. Nope, this 1,600-square-foot ranch is about as rustic as we can get. But still, we did it. Said goodbye to city life (OK, suburban life) and headed south where the air is fresh (most of the time), the space is open, and life is simple. And while our decision to ditch the life we've always known for the one we've always dreamed of didn't make a whole lot of sense to some, it made sense to us.

This blog, which I have every intention of updating as often as one husband, three kids, two frogs, one dog, and a half-dozen home improvement projects will allow, is dedicated to that dream.

Check out the totally cheesy pics from the day we closed.