Living the New Normal

home sweet homeI'm living a new normal.  Not only am I a few hours away from my kids & friends….I'm in a new house with boxes of life piled up around me.  Not literally, hubby & I are classier than that (we've stuffed them in the garage where we're both dying to park our cars!).  The problem with that (besides parking our cars there) is that it is FREEZING in there.

Who builds a house and skips insulating the garage?

When this danged snow melts…..I have a list of "important" issues to tackle.

#1 – Rearrange the boxes and tools and tons of stuff bulging inside our garage.  It's kind of hard finding anything you're looking for when the boxes are in no type of order.  Everything is mixed to death and nothing makes sense.  AND IT'S TOO COOOOOOLD TO STAND OUT THERE SEARCHING!

#2 – Put up insulation in the cold garage!  It would be nice to just blow some up on the walls and be done with it.  However, that's a little costly and because I'm staying home now….saving as much money as possible is the new black!

#3 – Painting furniture.  It's so frigid cold and all the pieces of furniture that I want to paint really need to be taken outside to do that.  I have 2 book shelves (that I want to load up with stuff…but I am waiting), a big dresser/cabinet combo (again, that I want to fill up) and who knows what else I can find.  My house seems to be on hold for these few things.

#4 – Decorate my front porch & the door.  There is no way possible to go out there right now.  It's actually dangerous!  The tile floor is like glass and I can't go out to shop for a good indoor/outdoor rug because of the terrible weather.  If it's not one thing….it's another.  My car may never crank after it thaws back out.

#5 – Put the spare bedrooms together.  I have big dreams for each of them and a tiny budget.  I'd love to paint and build a bed for one room.  Then, I remember all the yucky carpet upstairs and I fall into the pit of despair.  I hate the carpeting!  It is weighing me down.

#6 – Build a new console table for our family room tv.  "One" of these days we hope to replace our tv with a little bit larger one and switch out our small one that we're squinting to see in our new big master bedroom.  Oh, the suffering….right?

#7 – Organize hubby's tool area.  He has so many awesome tools!  And between the two of us and our girls….too many projects on hold waiting for the space to get organized.  Curses to you Old Man Winter!

#8 – Thrift shop again.  I'm beginning to think I am stuck here ALONE forever.  Not only can I not go anywhere, but no one can come see me.  Everyone is busy and the roads are terribly dangerous.  I just want to go thrift store shopping.  It's a great way to get killer ideas for decorating, don't you think? And brush away the missing people blues.

#9 – Meet some neighbors.  I've had to push away some crazy thoughts thanks to this weather.  Little things like, "you've moved to the most unfriendly neighborhood in the Indy area" & "they saw you and decided you people looked too weird to be nice to".  Yea, I've thought both of those.  Lord, melt that snow soon!

#10 – Go to church.  We live just down the road from a very popular and loved church.  I've heard nice things about it and since I've lived here…..it's either been shutdown due to the weather or we were buried under construction & unpacking.  I want to be a part of this new community and by going to church I know I will feel a connection that will soothe my loneliness and open the door for God to work in me and through me.

I'm not afraid of a new normal.  I rather like the challenge, really.  An old friend wrote on my Facebook page this week about how she liked my new house and I thought about it BEING MY NEW HOUSE.  Then, I responded to her with — I can't wait until it feels like home.  Right now it feels like I'm staying somewhere!

FYI:  Today, I unpacked 4 big boxes and organized a ton of bathroom supplies.  I also did several loads of laundry and cleaned up everything that looked messy.  Little by little, I'm making it home.

 

 

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