Renovating Our Home

I promise I didn't disappear entirely; I am buried in home renovations.  Who knew when the first blister in the den ceiling appeared in October, we would decide to renovate a bathroom and then add and change our wood floors.  I promise you that if you told me in the fall that I would do this, I would have laughed and said, absolutely not. I sort of feel like I backed into this, and now that it's complete and we move back in tomorrow, I am so thankful that it is almost behind us.  

As I walked around the house this morning, I teared up and cried.  This is our home, although it looks and feels quite different in many ways.  We have wanted to pull up the carpet in our den and bedroom for so long, but the budget didn't match our wishes.  Our carpet was old, stained in so many places, and caused my husband and me great stress.  We cleaned it often, but life and families are hard on the carpet, and ours needed to go.  I told my daughter Sunday that I feel like my life is beginning to fall back into place after years of hard.  On December 21, 2107, we entered a mental health crisis with our son, my husband was diagnosed with cancer the next April, and we have been deep in those issues ever since.  But things have changed this year, and most definitely the latter half of this year.  God promises that He will restore what was lost, and His promises have exceeded what I could ever have asked for on my own. We are standing, grounded, and walking through our lives post-cancer with a new and complete understanding of how important our mental health is and what it's like when it needs attention. 

As I took that walk this morning and cried as I looked at our empty and beautiful home, I realized it feels a little like starting over.  We get to put it back or change it up.  We get to purge what doesn't need to be here and just lean into what we love. I would have never chosen this for December, but now that it is here, maybe I don't hate it. Even more, perhaps it is a huge blessing to get the opportunity to dig into our home and pull out the extra that doesn't need to stay. Yes, I have some heavy thoughts, but that happens when you are displaced and sorting and organizing.  I recently boxed up a whole pile of cards and art, and mementos that had piled up in one of my bedside table drawers.  It was taking up two drawers, and although I don't want to read them now, I will later, so I bought a clear storage box, labeled it, and put it in the attic. I now have a spot for my needlepoint supplies which means they don't hide under a chair in our room.  That simple task needed to happen and would have never happened if we didn't do all of this. 

I will be back Monday on a regular schedule.  We are moving the furniture in tomorrow, and I hope to finish by the weekend's end. We need to put up and decorate our tree, and we have set that up for Saturday evening.  I am really excited about that part. 

I hope your week is going well, the sun is shining on you, and you are finding peace during the busy. 

Happy Thursday!