Home Sweet Home

We bought our first home in 2004. It was the summer before my senior year in college, and we knew we'd be around for at least another year, so it seemed like a solid move.

It was definitely a fixer-upper. We removed fake wood panelling from nearly every room in the house, took down rickety make-shift closets, and had a list a mile-long of other things we hoped to accomplish while we were there.

A year later, when I had finished school, and we had managed to make a small dent in our list, J was given the opportunity to work in Vancouver, B.C., and we took it. We left our little house for the big city, and when we returned six months later, our priorities had shifted. We were ready to move on to bigger and better things.

Luckily our little house was located in a college town, and there were no shortage of renters. So we finished as many of our to-do list items as we could, and our little house became a rental.

Fast forward 8 years to the fall of 2015. I was living in an apartment in a small town in southern Indiana while working as the local library director, and J was still living in our country house three hours north of there. It was hard and stressful and lonely for both of us.

Then our thoughts returned to our little rental house. It was half way between the two places, within driving distance to both of our jobs. So after much thought, we decided to move back home.

Being a rental for 8 years had taken a toll on our little house. It was in need of some serious TLC. We started renovations in August of 2015 with the intent of being done by the end of September. Oh, how optimistic we were!

Renovations never go exactly as planned, and now, a year and 5 months later, we are just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. That means that for the last 17 months we have been living in a construction zone. The word "chaos" doesn't do it justice. 

I wanted to share this to give you some context to my life as it is right now. So many of my decisions over the last several months and my goals for the next year have come from this place of chaos and the need to feel more grounded and settled. 

I couldn't be happier to be back in a town that feels as much like home to be as anyplace ever could, with old friends I've missed terribly, and in a house I know I will truly feel at home in. But it's been a long road getting here, and we still have a long road ahead to finish what we've started.