#35 House Project // Heart Project
Safe at Home.
Home Sweet Home.
Last time I wrote, almost a year ago, I said that we are 98% finished and holding. It's still true. I also told the story about our redbud tree and our lilac bush. And for the record the redbud tree is winning this year. That's Matt's plant. Which on one hand makes my competitive side mad. On the other hand, I'm like, "Well. Yep. Makes sense. It barely bloomed this year because a cold snap came through and shrivled up all the buds and it's just not as vibrant as it could be. Maybe next year." That's pretty much how I'm feeling right now. Matt is living his best life - it's spring turkey season - and quarantine has thrown off the shackles of a family schedule. He only has to work around his work schedule. There are no regulations on who, what, where, when people can go into the woods, so he is a free bird and can go chase other birds at will for the most part. It's been really great for him and I'm glad for him.
I, on the other hand, (this is not a sob story) am weary in my bones. I went back to work this year which was a GOOD adjustment, but a huuuuge, taxing adjustment for a lot of reasons. I applied for a teacher aide position because I wanted to go to work and give 100% while at work, and then I wanted to come home and not think about work so I could give 100% at home. Teacher aide was an ideal position because someone else (the teacher, not the aide. SCORE!) thinks of everything you have to do, they tell you what to do and you just do it and then you go home and let them worry about lesson plans. It sounded like a dream.
However, by a course of events orchestrated by The Lord alone, I am a classroom teacher to Junior High and High School students. (And I LOVE it.) I was planning to never ever ever ever go back to classroom teaching again ever. A decade and a half of being a stay at home mom in a society that generally doesn't have much esteem for housewives and homemakers can really deplete a person's confidence in their ability to do anything except pour some Cheerios and then scrape said cheerios off of the wall a week later. We know that pouring and scraping Cheerios is important. And generally we do not care what others think about our household decisions; which we make carefully, thoughtfully and prayerfully. We also are surrounded by a tight-knit supportive network of family and friends, but that's not to say that there weren't times when negative outside voices crept into my thought processes and tried to take root and left me feeling very little confidence in my ability to do anything well.
Let me just say this, if you have a friend or relative who is a homemaker or stay-at-home-mom, you might just send them a text and tell them, "The hand who rocks the cradle rules the world, you are doing important things." Also never imply that someone who doesn't earn a paycheck "isn't contributing to society." There are a million more ways to contribute to the world that do not involve earning a paycheck. And definitely don't say, "What do you do all day anyway, your kids are at school now, aren't you bored?" Trust me, there's a whole bunch of stuff to do when the kids are gone for 6 hours. Homemakers do not get annual reviews, promotions and appreciation weeks. (I joke that I actually went back to work for the luncheons). They need TLC and encouragement just as much as a full-time employee at at company, especially the ones with little tiny kids, especially right now during this crazy time. So here I am championing for them. I'm still a homemaker in my soul, but I happen to have a part-time gig as a teacher. So since I'm a "working mom" it's less weird (I think) for me to sing the praises of a stay-at-home moms and tell other people what to do. Also saying something good about one group of people, doesn't mean I'm saying something bad about another group of people, please understand that. There was a really good commercial the other night for FB portal that made me silent cry. It was really sweet. We all have strengths and weaknesses, various roles to play in our individual lives, decisions that are personal and no one else's business or concern to analyze and no matter our walk of life; or what job we are doing (for pay, for free, volunteer work), we all need to be encouraged. So, today I am encouraging you to specifically focus your encouragement on the stay at home mamas and stay at home wives of the world. And go ahead and focus on everyone else too. ENCOURAGE THE WORLD.
Whoa. That all came from nowhere, but I'm leaving it. It might be important for someone to read. And I'm feeling bold and straightforward today. I hope you hear my heart and I don't sound like a meanie.
My point was, my confidence in being a classroom teacher, in the workforce again was non-existent. I left my interview literally thinking, "Jess, what are you even thinking. You bombed that interview, they would be crazy to hire you. You should have just stayed home and finished the laundry."
But, much to my astonishment, they called me. First, they started to tell me they no longer need a teacher aide. I thought they were letting me down easy and I was formulating my "thanks for your time" remarks. And that's when I was presented with the opportunity to be a part-time classroom teacher. And here I am, after a big year of adjustment, wrapping up my final weeks teaching online (IT'S SO WEIRD! TRIAL BY FIRE, but I have learned a lot of neat things about technology and only cried a couple of times. But they were quick cries.)
All this to say, I have a lot going on in my brain, but I don't really like to talk about my emotions much. What I do know 100% is that "The joy of the Lord is my strength." There is always joy to be found, there are always blessings to count. I'm not, like, on the brink of emotional disaster; but I have had a lot more glum, blue and sad days since this whole pandemic started than is typical for me. I'm taking things one day at a time, and recognizing that there is a lot of underlying stress, strange emotions, loss, pressure, new experiences, tension that are all contributing to feeling blue. And that's ok.
But this all explains why I find it humorous and fitting that my lilac bush bloomed for a second and then was crushed by the load of a cold day, and now has crusty brown withered petals barely hanging by the branches. Because, I feel like I too am mostly covered in crusty brown petals where there should be a little more spunk and color. But, to everything there is a season and everything is going to be ok! God's grace is sufficient for today and His strength is made perfect in my weakness.
THAT was the introduction to a house update!
We are not finished, but we are in a pretty good spot!
Our bedroom: just needs some curtains (but I am picky). We LOVE our closet systems! Our wool rug will NOT stop shedding. But I love it anyway.
Our master bathroom: fully functional, the linen closet will be built eventually, for now I just have a little shelf.
Our laundry room: 100% complete and fulfilling its job beautifully! I LOVE not having piles of laundry in my kitchen anymore!
Our family room: just needs some curtains (again, I'm picky and I'm not quite sure how to address the one window that has one side over a stair step. I already have shades so a Roman shade would be redundant, and I want panels but I'm not sure how to make a panel work right there.) I might try a new tv stand situation some day, but for now we are happy with how it is. I do daydream about The Frame TV by samsung. I want one of those really, really, really badly.
Our utility room: Matt's happy place
Our stairs: not finished, but getting close! Let me remind you that Matt cut down the walnut tree and made all of these components by hand!!
Our attic: just needs a weather strip so we can remove the towel from under the door. I have started ordering one from amazon 4,000 times over the past 1.5 years but I somehow always get distracted.
The guest room & bathroom: currently Matt's work from home office. This room brings me so much joy. I don't necessarily love how it looks yet. I still want to play around with the decor a lot more, but we have had so many friends and families stay in this space that it thrills me. That is one of the main reasons we added on to our home in the first place. We wanted a spot that could be a restful retreat for people. We counted at one point, and I think we have had a dozen or so individuals or family units stay up here already - some of them multiple times. It's so FUN!
Our old master bedroom and bathroom/AKA Eliana's new bedroom/new hallway/hall bathroom: we still need to put a "real" door on the bathroom, do some trim work and finish the drywall and paint the new hallway, old hallway and entryway the same color (they are all connected). Eliana's room is 100% complete and BEAUTIFUL. She did all of the decor herself.
The kitchen and entryway: these are by-products of the renovation. They are on pause until we can save up enough money to tackle those. I'm hoping it can be finished before 2023 when Eliana graduates (WHAT?), so I can enjoy a better functioning kitchen while still cooking for a family of 5 on the regular. I am not a complainer (very much). But my kitchen is LAME. For the size of the room itself which is a pretty good footprint, the counter space is laughable/stupid/terrible/maddening/frustrating/I'm not good at counting my blessings on this one (still working on that, but not very hard.)
Yeah...there are just the couple pictures of the family room up there. Maybe I shouldn't have started writing until I had real pictures available. I'll share a thorough picture post in the very near future! It has been one of my goals during this quarantine and I'm determined to check it off the list before summer arrives...
Buuuut....I gotta go make sure all the Cheerios are scraped off the walls first.
Much love.
Everyone, hang in there, chins up. Whatever role (or two or twelve) you are fulfilling, do it well, do it with all your might and know that what you are doing is important, the seen and the unseen.
<3
Home Sweet Home.
Last time I wrote, almost a year ago, I said that we are 98% finished and holding. It's still true. I also told the story about our redbud tree and our lilac bush. And for the record the redbud tree is winning this year. That's Matt's plant. Which on one hand makes my competitive side mad. On the other hand, I'm like, "Well. Yep. Makes sense. It barely bloomed this year because a cold snap came through and shrivled up all the buds and it's just not as vibrant as it could be. Maybe next year." That's pretty much how I'm feeling right now. Matt is living his best life - it's spring turkey season - and quarantine has thrown off the shackles of a family schedule. He only has to work around his work schedule. There are no regulations on who, what, where, when people can go into the woods, so he is a free bird and can go chase other birds at will for the most part. It's been really great for him and I'm glad for him.
I, on the other hand, (this is not a sob story) am weary in my bones. I went back to work this year which was a GOOD adjustment, but a huuuuge, taxing adjustment for a lot of reasons. I applied for a teacher aide position because I wanted to go to work and give 100% while at work, and then I wanted to come home and not think about work so I could give 100% at home. Teacher aide was an ideal position because someone else (the teacher, not the aide. SCORE!) thinks of everything you have to do, they tell you what to do and you just do it and then you go home and let them worry about lesson plans. It sounded like a dream.
However, by a course of events orchestrated by The Lord alone, I am a classroom teacher to Junior High and High School students. (And I LOVE it.) I was planning to never ever ever ever go back to classroom teaching again ever. A decade and a half of being a stay at home mom in a society that generally doesn't have much esteem for housewives and homemakers can really deplete a person's confidence in their ability to do anything except pour some Cheerios and then scrape said cheerios off of the wall a week later. We know that pouring and scraping Cheerios is important. And generally we do not care what others think about our household decisions; which we make carefully, thoughtfully and prayerfully. We also are surrounded by a tight-knit supportive network of family and friends, but that's not to say that there weren't times when negative outside voices crept into my thought processes and tried to take root and left me feeling very little confidence in my ability to do anything well.
Let me just say this, if you have a friend or relative who is a homemaker or stay-at-home-mom, you might just send them a text and tell them, "The hand who rocks the cradle rules the world, you are doing important things." Also never imply that someone who doesn't earn a paycheck "isn't contributing to society." There are a million more ways to contribute to the world that do not involve earning a paycheck. And definitely don't say, "What do you do all day anyway, your kids are at school now, aren't you bored?" Trust me, there's a whole bunch of stuff to do when the kids are gone for 6 hours. Homemakers do not get annual reviews, promotions and appreciation weeks. (I joke that I actually went back to work for the luncheons). They need TLC and encouragement just as much as a full-time employee at at company, especially the ones with little tiny kids, especially right now during this crazy time. So here I am championing for them. I'm still a homemaker in my soul, but I happen to have a part-time gig as a teacher. So since I'm a "working mom" it's less weird (I think) for me to sing the praises of a stay-at-home moms and tell other people what to do. Also saying something good about one group of people, doesn't mean I'm saying something bad about another group of people, please understand that. There was a really good commercial the other night for FB portal that made me silent cry. It was really sweet. We all have strengths and weaknesses, various roles to play in our individual lives, decisions that are personal and no one else's business or concern to analyze and no matter our walk of life; or what job we are doing (for pay, for free, volunteer work), we all need to be encouraged. So, today I am encouraging you to specifically focus your encouragement on the stay at home mamas and stay at home wives of the world. And go ahead and focus on everyone else too. ENCOURAGE THE WORLD.
Whoa. That all came from nowhere, but I'm leaving it. It might be important for someone to read. And I'm feeling bold and straightforward today. I hope you hear my heart and I don't sound like a meanie.
My point was, my confidence in being a classroom teacher, in the workforce again was non-existent. I left my interview literally thinking, "Jess, what are you even thinking. You bombed that interview, they would be crazy to hire you. You should have just stayed home and finished the laundry."
But, much to my astonishment, they called me. First, they started to tell me they no longer need a teacher aide. I thought they were letting me down easy and I was formulating my "thanks for your time" remarks. And that's when I was presented with the opportunity to be a part-time classroom teacher. And here I am, after a big year of adjustment, wrapping up my final weeks teaching online (IT'S SO WEIRD! TRIAL BY FIRE, but I have learned a lot of neat things about technology and only cried a couple of times. But they were quick cries.)
All this to say, I have a lot going on in my brain, but I don't really like to talk about my emotions much. What I do know 100% is that "The joy of the Lord is my strength." There is always joy to be found, there are always blessings to count. I'm not, like, on the brink of emotional disaster; but I have had a lot more glum, blue and sad days since this whole pandemic started than is typical for me. I'm taking things one day at a time, and recognizing that there is a lot of underlying stress, strange emotions, loss, pressure, new experiences, tension that are all contributing to feeling blue. And that's ok.
But this all explains why I find it humorous and fitting that my lilac bush bloomed for a second and then was crushed by the load of a cold day, and now has crusty brown withered petals barely hanging by the branches. Because, I feel like I too am mostly covered in crusty brown petals where there should be a little more spunk and color. But, to everything there is a season and everything is going to be ok! God's grace is sufficient for today and His strength is made perfect in my weakness.
THAT was the introduction to a house update!
We are not finished, but we are in a pretty good spot!
Our bedroom: just needs some curtains (but I am picky). We LOVE our closet systems! Our wool rug will NOT stop shedding. But I love it anyway.
Our master bathroom: fully functional, the linen closet will be built eventually, for now I just have a little shelf.
Our laundry room: 100% complete and fulfilling its job beautifully! I LOVE not having piles of laundry in my kitchen anymore!
Our family room: just needs some curtains (again, I'm picky and I'm not quite sure how to address the one window that has one side over a stair step. I already have shades so a Roman shade would be redundant, and I want panels but I'm not sure how to make a panel work right there.) I might try a new tv stand situation some day, but for now we are happy with how it is. I do daydream about The Frame TV by samsung. I want one of those really, really, really badly.
Our utility room: Matt's happy place
Our stairs: not finished, but getting close! Let me remind you that Matt cut down the walnut tree and made all of these components by hand!!
Our attic: just needs a weather strip so we can remove the towel from under the door. I have started ordering one from amazon 4,000 times over the past 1.5 years but I somehow always get distracted.
The guest room & bathroom: currently Matt's work from home office. This room brings me so much joy. I don't necessarily love how it looks yet. I still want to play around with the decor a lot more, but we have had so many friends and families stay in this space that it thrills me. That is one of the main reasons we added on to our home in the first place. We wanted a spot that could be a restful retreat for people. We counted at one point, and I think we have had a dozen or so individuals or family units stay up here already - some of them multiple times. It's so FUN!
Our old master bedroom and bathroom/AKA Eliana's new bedroom/new hallway/hall bathroom: we still need to put a "real" door on the bathroom, do some trim work and finish the drywall and paint the new hallway, old hallway and entryway the same color (they are all connected). Eliana's room is 100% complete and BEAUTIFUL. She did all of the decor herself.
The kitchen and entryway: these are by-products of the renovation. They are on pause until we can save up enough money to tackle those. I'm hoping it can be finished before 2023 when Eliana graduates (WHAT?), so I can enjoy a better functioning kitchen while still cooking for a family of 5 on the regular. I am not a complainer (very much). But my kitchen is LAME. For the size of the room itself which is a pretty good footprint, the counter space is laughable/stupid/terrible/maddening/frustrating/I'm not good at counting my blessings on this one (still working on that, but not very hard.)
Yeah...there are just the couple pictures of the family room up there. Maybe I shouldn't have started writing until I had real pictures available. I'll share a thorough picture post in the very near future! It has been one of my goals during this quarantine and I'm determined to check it off the list before summer arrives...
Buuuut....I gotta go make sure all the Cheerios are scraped off the walls first.
Much love.
Everyone, hang in there, chins up. Whatever role (or two or twelve) you are fulfilling, do it well, do it with all your might and know that what you are doing is important, the seen and the unseen.
<3
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