Things I find myself doing in the afternoon.....

Erik & I desperately long for a brokendown house full of things for us to change, rearrange, paint, destroy and make new again. One afternoon this week we finished the last project we could at our current house. When its not yours it makes it hard to justify the time & money you spend on improvements, but as we are hosting Erik's family at our house this Christmas we felt like we could take the time. We discovered that we kindof love demolition whilst breaking stone & grout with hammers. We discovered that one should always expect to find ugly things when revealing previously hidden places. We discovered that you should always spend the time sanding if you want your wood stain to actually stain your wood. We'll chalk it up to experience, and when we move into our very own little mess we'll know these things. We also discovered that though we are desperate for someplace new, our little someplace old carries so many memories that it will be harder to say goodbye than we thought. We've lived here, we've had holidays here, we've had parties here big & small, we've said things we regret here and things we will never forget, we've made friends here and lost a few, we're known for our little corner of the universe here. Walking through the house today is a completely different experience than it was four (five? six?) years ago when I first came in through the backdoor and peeked upstairs at a party. But even though the paint is different (my greens vs. Grace's browns) and the couch is newer and the rooms are repurposed (bedrooms turned to sewing rooms, bar rooms turned into shop rooms) the memory of every party (bachelorette, panty, birthday, karaoke, holiday) still sits just behind the newest coats of paint and around every corner. We will have to have a big big party when we say goodbye.