Goodbye, House

Moving stinks, y’all.

I’m nowhere near finished packing, and haven’t even started going through the garage. I’ve been selling all sorts of furniture online (one thing I do love about facebook: yard sale groups!), and I plan to have an everything-must-go moving sale here this weekend for all the small stuff. I’ve given up on homeschooling until we’re moved, but that will happen NEXT WEEK, so no fear: my kids won’t forget how to write their names or anything by the time we’re up and running again. 😉

All my previous moves have been local, sometimes literally less than a mile from the previous house because apparently I am descended from a band of gypsies who enjoy swapping houses just for fun. But that’s a story for another day. My point is, this experience is different because I can’t just make multiple trips to and fro with things like lamps and clothes in the back of my SUV.

Although I’m up to my eyeballs in boxes and quite overwhelmed with all that’s left to do, I’m taking this opportunity to acknowledge our house’s service to us for the past ten years.

Goodbye, House. And thank you.

This house is the only place Ken and I have lived together.

It’s the place I’ve lived the longest ever in my life. The place Lindsey, Kathryn, and even the little kids have lived longer than any other home.

We did a lot of work to the house over the years. Repainted everything, installed new floors, replaced appliances, replaced light fixtures, built a back porch, redid landscaping, built a new fence in the backyard, updated faucets and fixtures, painted the kitchen cabinets.

We’ve had silliness here — lots of silliness.

Plus hefty doses of laughter. (And plenty of tears, too.)

We’ve celebrated holidays here, and I’ve hosted dessert gatherings, ladies’ brunch, Thanksgiving dinner, birthday parties, and baby showers.

And thousands of ordinary days.

I’ll miss the trees my biggest girls planted for me (with a little help from Ken) one Mother’s Day. Oh, and our blueberry bushes; I’ll miss those but I’m already planning on planting some at the new house!

I’ve enjoyed many hours on the back porch, reading or talking to Ken or just watching hummingbirds come and go. I’ll never forget our family of robins on the porch several years in a row, or the house finches that built a nest on our front door wreath the first year we lived here.

One of our most fun days was sledding on a hill near here on Lindsey’s 15th birthday — the first time sledding for Lindsey or Kathryn, plus building a big ol’ snowman. Scout and Jem haven’t seen enough snow to sled in, but we had enough last winter for playing in and catching snowflakes on their tongue.

I have memories of time spent here with people already passed on. My dad, my grandmother, and even our little dog Ellie, who spent her last years here and is buried in the backyard under a flowering bush.

And so much learning. All our years of homeschooling have been in this house.

Part of me will be sad to say goodbye — but a house is just a shell where the memories happen, and I’m ready to start making memories in a new home.

Now if only I can finish packing…