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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

I Love You Moore, even when our sense of normal isn't normal




So what do you do when you are young and don’t have a clue about renovating? You just dig right in and you don’t look back. This early in the game, you believe it will only take a year or so to finish (even with all of your big plans).



You rip out carpet with a vengeance. You paint walls like you always had mad skills to use a spray gun with oil-based KILZ. You wind up with your eyelashes fused together and scratch your head wondering what got you into this predicament. You tear out walls and tell yourself it will be back to normal soon.



A year later, you thank God that you finally have a working kitchen and wonder when you will have floors installed on every surface (verses exposed plywood sub floor).






Another year passes and you learn to ignore the unfinished things. You start trying to reclaim your life and stop sweating the small stuff. By now you have learned what to waste your time arguing about and what to let go. And your sense of normal has changed significantly.




Another year passes and you complete your master bathroom. Did it really take almost four years to get here? 



Your friends bug you continually about when you will finally throw a big party and let them see all of the progress. You say “soon” and then realize you have been saying “soon” for months (maybe years).



The employees at the local Lowes Home Improvement store think you are contractors. You don’t have the heart to tell them that you are just a husband and wife who are on a journey and that you just finished painting the walls and staining the concrete floors in your basement.



You come away with battle scars (including a scarred leg from a chainsaw, bruises from falling (1) off of a ladder that collapsed under you and (2) through an uncovered vent), but at the end, it is all worth it.

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