Before and After part 3: Web album of the rest of the rooms

I'm using my blog as therapy at this point; it is a place where I can work through how I am feeling about all the changes that are happening in my world right now, and also as a place to record the process to some extent.

Like most women, my home is very much a part of my identity. While "things" are not as important as people, things carry poignant memories, and are not easily discarded. Even something as simple as moving a picture or a chair is felt like a restructuring of life.

Sometimes I like to move furniture and pictures around. A new perspective can be gained that way, or perhaps it is a way to close a chapter of life or to begin a new chapter. I've had seasons of my life when I moved furniture and accessories around pretty frequently, and other seasons, such as the years here in Texas where I have hardly moved a thing.

My guess is that being in such a very different place than where I spent my first 48 years of life made me feel like I wanted stability rather than new arrangements. Ten years in Texas and I still have a hard time saying "I live in Texas." I tend to say "we are living in Texas now..." instead.

I knew we never intended to live out our old age in this particular house. So everyday it seemed one of us would say "this is such a beautiful house. What an amazing blessing it is to have the chance to live here."

Sometimes I mentally note that I am grateful for the fact that I am not living in a war torn land, or in a place with disease or famine. That blessing strikes me as incredibly undeserved. I am so very thankful for my blessing upon my circumstances as well.

Today I read about a couple who "downsized" to a 6,000 sq. ft. house, before they ultimately downsized to two bedrooms in a retirement center. After they moved into the their quarters they found an abundance of time for friendship and activities, which they counted as a good trade for their cast off possessions.

It amuses me to remember that one of the reasons we bought this house in the first place was so we could easily entertain large groups, both for business and socially. We did have quite a few parties with twenty or thirty people milling about and enjoying themselves.

What amuses me about that is that in college I used to have groups of fifteen for parties and bible studies in my dorm room, a room that was roughly the size of my current guest room, or master bathroom! The surprising difference was that people dropped by my dorm room, and I had plenty of friends to hang out with throughout the week.

Few (if anyone!) ever dropped by my big old house just to say hi. Granted it is a haul to get out here, 11 miles off the freeway, but still, I do have neighbors and only one of them has every dropped by regularly.

I'm know I am rambling here. But if you are reading this, I'd like to think that you would, if you geographically could, be a neighbor that would drop by. Soon many people are going to be able to "drop by" my house electronically via the real estate website.

I will not be a hostess to them; they will never know me, nor know how my home really looked before it became a stage. The house will look wonderful; but it is now a bit of pretend.

So...for the sake of my own memories, so I can remember how my house looked before, and how it changed, I put together a web slide show of thirty two slides so I can hostess my blog readers personally through the rest of the house.

If you care to, you can see the pictures without the commentary, and then also with the commentary. My snarky comments take up a lot of room over the pictures and they are what you would hear if you had popped by to see how I was doing with the move.

I have a small favor to ask of you, dear reader, if I may.

If you are someone who usually reads my blog but never or rarely comments, could you please just add a comment to say hi? I know I come across really strong in all this moving, and I indeed am doing well, but I do have my moments when I feel a bit overwhelmed with the process of packing, showing and selling the house, looking for a new job in SLC or California, being there for Bernie as he deals with the stresses of finishing his current job and looks for new work as well.

Like the theme song on the TV series Scrubs says:

"I can't do this all by myself. No, I know, I'm no Superman."

I'm no Superwoman either, and having friends in blogland comment can really make me feel stronger for facing these upcoming days.