I had several windows open in Microsoft Word when I got up this morning.  One was a letter I edited for my husband’s business.  (He’s a farrier, among other things.)  The others were grading sheets, my Spring syllabus, and a sign up sheet for grammar presentations that, God willing, my students will pull off Monday without a hitch.  I’ve decided that this is my last semester teaching English 101 at the local University, giving me the chance to focus full time on my job in aircraft sales; in a couple of months, I won’t need those documents anymore.

Other than the immediate area around my desk, which is only sort of organized, the office is complete chaos.  It’s been the catch-all room since we moved into our current house in 2011.  The printer is sitting on a stepladder.  My guitar amp is functioning as a pseudo-shelf for our router and a box of files.  If I try to pull my chair back too far, I hit a pile of airstone boxes, some weird metal conduit, and a bag of mortar mix.  This room serves as a constant reminder of the renovations that haven’t stopped since we bought this place.

We both thought we’d live here for a long time, and we renovated accordingly.  Quartz countertops, expensive tile, landscaping for days…we never meant to flip this house.  But now?  Now we’re preparing for the move of a lifetime, out of the city and onto a working ranch complete with twenty-five llamas.  Our three horses moved onto the property in October; our plan had been to join them in early March, moving into the guest house before our current property went onto the market and living there until the current owners move out of the big house themselves.  The best laid plans of mice and men, right?

Our current house when we moved in:

Our current house last summer:

The guest house surprised us, needing all new electrical and plumbing, a new bathroom, and a new kitchen.  I will admit that we budgeted neither time nor money for those repairs to begin with, but now we’re waist deep in a whole new set of renovations.  My husband, God bless him, has spent every spare moment over there since the last tenants moved out.

It’s insane, and overwhelming, and wonderful.  Sometimes all at once.