Reflecting

I am sure that everyone who finds themselves living in a remodel and property clean up project gets to the point where the newness and excitement of the undertaking begins to wear off!  We started in Mid-March, spending every evening and weekend out at the new farm.  We demoed, we cleaned up, we dreamed, and then we went home to sleep in our own beds.  We said goodby to our Silverton home at the beginning of May and it was hard, very hard.  

This is our 4th weekend here on the farm.  We have yet to unpack and this is what it looks like in our main living space:

Dining area

Livingroom/bedroom space

Dining and kitchen

Garage - dressers and storage

Here, Phil pulled off some sort of packing miracle by fitting 27 bags of insulation in the car.  

The deadlines and late nights are difficult.  Phil pulled an all nighter on Wednesday, took a nap in the late afternoon, and then stayed up until 4 in the morning on Thursday.  He had to get wiring, insulation, and framing up before the sheetrock could be hung and the workers were scheduled to start Thursday morning.  He hasn't gone to bed before midnight in over a month.  He is tired, he is burning out and he ended up with a horrible migraine on Saturday.  Alec's back has been hurting and it got so bad that he couldn't work for a week and then he left for a scheduled trip with a friend.  He is planning to come back and stay with us for awhile and we can afford another week of his help.  We are several weeks behind where we thought we would be.  We have been living here for a month and nothings is upacked and the chaos is beginning to get to us.  I don't function very well in a chaos...I have trouble finding motivation and I can't get myself organized.  I know where nothing is, keeping a clean house is impossible in a construction zone where the living room is also the bedroom, and the dining room is also the office and storage space and pantry, the back of the couches are piled with laundry that has no place to go, and the bathroom is communal with the plumbers and drywallers (and they are all men...need I say more!).  Schooling the children and keeping up on piano lessons is not possible although I try and get read alouds (Bible, History and Science) done a few times a week and at least a couple of music practices in.  Even the animal care just seems like one more thing that I am trying to keep track of, especially on hot days when I have to water the potted plants that I have moved over from my parents and keep the animal water containers full.  

I have to say, while I do love it here, and I think the final product will be a beautiful farm, I miss the "simplicity" (though I wouldn't have used that word to describe our "old ways") and order of our life at Silverloop.  I miss stuff like sleeping in a bed, pictures on the wall, vegetable gardening, a big sink that I can get my pans in, closets, hanging out with Phil, doing art work, and spring flowers (though we do have wild roses blooming at the bottom of the pasture and seeing little dots of pink is lovely).  We have come a long way and gotten so much done but we are still in the overwhelmed stage of things.  My dream would be to have the property cleaned up and the house finished by the Fall.  Then, I can start school fresh (and we will be adding back in co-op and doing science club, in addition to music lessons, Awanas, 4-H, and LiPS tutoring up in Portland) and maybe, just maybe, plan out my garden space and get a few things planted.  

I think of Little House on the Prairie and how much they moved and homesteaded...things would be "easier" in some ways if we didn't have so much stuff in boxes and bags everywhere (of our own stuff) plus the ridiculous amount of junk that was left here all over the property and in the barn. We are on our 3rd giant dumpster, at 600 dollars a pop, and I am guessing that we will need 2-3 more.  

I do enjoy having creatures here on the farm.  


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