EKjourney Backup

  Part of the struggle that we have had in our new place is that there is no storage and no permanent place for things to go.  What this means is clutter everywhere, boxes piled up, temporary solutions, constantly moving things to get to something else, overcrowding, and what feels like the mess multiplying when we start stacking things up more and more.  Add in a lack of closet doors, no trim, 4 years of living in a remodel zone with the dust and dirt and grime...I felt like hit my breaking point.  We have had such a lack of structure, of order, and so much chaos, and change that my brain literally has not functioned well enough to manage.  Something had to change and had to change before the next school year because I just didn't think I could do another year like this.   We decided to just dig in and work on fixing the home environment.  The problem was, there was literally no place to empty out a space to work on and everything was dominoed....

  The state of the house was in no way conducive to me being able to wrap up the school year (grades and transcripts) and do some planning for the next school year.  Phil suggested that I take a homeschool retreat and found me an air b and b about an hour drive from our place. Unfortunately, I headed out on the record breaking temperature day (well, the second one anyay).  I left detailed instruction on how to keep my farm alive while I was gone.  I left several hours earlier then check in time to give Phil and the crew an all day start to the house project that they were going to work on while I was gone. Lunch at Burgerville and sitting in the parking area of Champoeg Park hoping the circling park rangers wouldn't ask me for my state park pass. I arrived in the late afternoon and despite the two air conditioners in the upstairs apartment, it was so hot that my computer wouldn't work and the refrigerator was warm.  There was really nothing I could do but unpack...