The House

The first thing I did for the second half of my life was to buy another house. A smaller, older, more beautiful ,and more complicated house. A much smaller house. The impetus for this is multifactorial.

The house that I live in now is going to be very hard to leave behind. It is close to work, in the woods, rural enough to not lock the front door and leave your keys in the car because that is where you are going to need them next. Over the 15 years that we have lived in it, it has managed to be flexible and meet all of our needs (including housing a homeschool for 17 children for 4 years). But already it feels a little big when everyone is not home, and when everyone is home it feels too small. Yes, I am Goldilocks, it is true. Just right seems to be eluding me. So I am not quite ready to leave this house but I can see a day when I will, and I want it to be something I look forward to not something to dread. So this house is for me in about 10 years. Which is how long I estimate it will take me to get rid of enough things so I can actually fit into this house comfortably.

What about now? Well, it is for the boys to live in as they pursue various educational opportunities in Iowa City. We have lived in our current house in parallel, and this house we will live in in series. I think it will be cool for all of us to have a relationship with a house that we don't live in together.

So, how has it gone so far? All of us, plus significant others have been working on fixing it up (with the help of a contractor for the things we really can't do, which are plentiful). Participants can comment (as if I could stop them) but I have really enjoyed it. The one thing that has been a little painful--both physically and mentally--is that I can no longer work on a home improvement project for a 10 hour day and then still be able to move the following day. At all. Not one muscle could be moved one inch without significant discomfort. What happened to me? The last time I did this kind of project I had no trouble? Well, 24 years happened. Turns out that is not an insignificant chunk of time. So I lost my ability to see myself as being able to do this, no problem. but the upside has been working side by side on things with my children, and for them to see that they can do this.