Hello friends! I’ve missed you. I’ve been traveling without my computer or internet for the last couple of weeks, and I greatly missed posting on this little corner of the internet. Our house has been under construction for some important and much needed work. So, I packed up the kiddos and have been going on “adventures” while my husband holds down the fort at home! We’re still looking at another week or so of projects, and the kids and I have been bouncing around visiting relatives and friends, going camping, and occasionally staying overnight in a hotel. My kids are really becoming suspicious whenever I announce that we’re going on another adventure!
Friends, old houses are a labor of love. Construction is disruptive, expensive, and necessary. Our house is what contractors like to call “challenging.” Projects take longer than expected, and we always know to leave extra room in the budget for surprises and complications.
As we were preparing for our most recent set of projects, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. Even when everything goes perfectly (and it rarely does), the amount of energy it takes to get the house ready for these kinds of projects and cleaning everything up afterwards is exhausting. We’ve done this so many times, so I had an idea of what we were in for. When you’ve lived through construction projects as many times as we have, you know how long the clean up process will take, how the dust covers absolutely everything, and how just when you get settled back into your life, another project tends to pop up.
Whenever I stand inside our house looking at all the work that still needs to be done, and I feel myself beginning to wonder, “Why did we choose to buy this house? Why do we disrupt our lives like this?” I go for a walk outside. The fresh air, the view of the river, and the beautiful materials that make up the exterior of our house help me to gain a better perspective, and I can appreciate our long term goals for restoring our beautiful historic home. It really is such a treasure!
The other night I walked around our house at sunset, snapping a few pictures of it glowing with the warmth of the light from my vintage chandeliers. Sunsets are so beautiful at our little castle. I needed that time to collect my thoughts and get myself in the right mindset for our construction project. That walk did wonders for my mood!
I just keep reminding myself that all this practice living out of a suitcase is preparing me for my trip to AFRICA, which is coming up soon!!!!! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it!!!! I’m going to take tons of pictures and I’ll be sure to write a post about my trip when I get back. If possible, I’m going to try and post pictures to Instagram and Facebook while in Africa, so be sure to follow me on there for updates on this amazing adventure! And if you sign up for our newsletter you’ll receive an email on Sunday mornings with the posts from the week.
Have a beautiful day!
Sandy
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