Home Improvements?

On Sunday it hit me that it was five years ago, when I first walked in my front door though I wasn't mine at the time. I'd come to an open house.  I walked in, looked around, checked out the upstairs, and basement and said to myself, " I think I could live here." By this point I'd looked at dozens of houses.  They always say when it's right you just know it.

A week or so later, my parents came down  to house hunt with me and in the end we all agreed that this was the best house that we seen up to that point.  Just as the house seemed to speak to me and say, "Come make me your home" I think the house  also spoke to my father.  However, I think it said to him "Come fix me up. I can be your project." Not that there was anything wrong with the house. It was just older and in need of some TLC.  I think I can safely say it has gotten that and then some.

Renovations started before I even moved in, and in reality they haven't stopped.  Practically every room the house has had something done to it.  New wiring, plumbing, kitchen face lift, upstairs remodel etc etc. Don't get me wrong the end result is well worth it, and it is a great learning experience, however, living through the mess drives me insane. I know it's a necessary evil,  but it's something I don't deal with well. Not that I'm a neat freak,...no no no. I'll be the first to debunk that myth. I just find living in your home while its under construction, extremely stressful. It's always messy, something always goes wrong and things take twice as long as you planned, and at my house usually, something of mine gets broken. 

To make matters worse, I feel like this process is never ending. My house seems to be a magnet for events like straight-line winds/mini-tornadoes, falling trees, frozen pipes, and flooded basements. This last year has been the pinnacle of my home renovation chaos, mainly because these events and various projects affect the entire house and no one room or area is spared from potential mess or destruction.   It's always something. I've been told that this all is part of being a home owner, which sometimes makes me question why on Earth is this considered the American Dream. 

Now many of the big projects are nearing completion and I'm desperately wanting to go through each room, organize everything, and  have it looked finished, something I've not done to this point because very few things were "finished."  Why pick out curtains when you have huge gaping holes in your walls? And, the lazy part of me keeps saying "why bother if it is just going to be in the way or need redone  in  two months during the next phase of construction."  

I've said for months, and even this week "I'm just ready to be done."  Well, it's not DONE. It will probably never be "done" but we're closer now than ever. But in the back of my mind there is a little voice saying, "done....until the next catastrophe hits."  I am hopeful that I've paid my dues as far as that's concerned.

Last night I cracked open this fortune cookie, and the fortune made me laugh out load.

Lord, I hope this true.