On renovation and remembering

The banging upstairs is music to my ears.

The noise in question is the sound of Gale, our contractor, and his crew as they demo a wall to make our new, ensuite master bathroom. Maddie has been sent up to the third floor to live with Alison while we take over her room in order to create our luxurious master retreat. Before this is all over, we will have a two-story addition, meaning she will have a nice, new, bigger bedroom. I see it as a win-win, with a few weeks of minor inconvenience.

We've still not managed to put everything in order. Now that the construction has commenced, I'm not highly motivated.

Our need for more bathroom space feels a little spoiled. I grew up in a house with two bathrooms and six people. One bath had a tub, the other a shower. We had two toilets and two sinks, and somehow, we managed just fine. One of my friends lived in a house with just one bathroom, no shower. Another friend, with even more kids than we had, had only one upstairs bath.

In our last house, we had four toilets, three showers, and six sinks. When we're done here, we will, again, have six sinks and four toilets. It feels a little like overkill - two bathrooms for three kids, and each girl will have her own sink. We have a downstairs powder room, but the new one will be much bigger.

I know - we are spoiled. But I know what makes our lives easiest. And this is it. Plus, it will make our house easier to sell someday. And that possibility always looms on the horizon.

We unpacked more over the weekend - I'm wondering when we will ever, ever be done. We just have way too much stuff. As we went through the game room stuff, we made a large pile of games, books, and toys that no one uses. How we missed this stuff when we were leaving Houston I'm not sure, but we did. So now it will head off to the well-timed church rummage sale. I weeded out a few more clothes, and I'm thinking a bit of limitation on storage space is a good thing, or I will just keep everything.

I spent part of the day unpacking boxes of old school work that we saved for the girls. I had it all sorted and organized in boxes; the packers felt the need to empty the containers into packing boxes. I guess I should have said something. Instead, I had re-sort everything. But it did provide a bit of enjoyment; the girls popped in to see what they had, recalling some of their artworks or projects. I uncovered the newspapers we had saved for them, from the days of their births, along with clippings that feature their pictures and various bits of memorabilia. It's all stored away again, ready to revisit next time we move.

Slowly, slowly, this place is coming together. I am ready for life to get back to normal. Whatever that is.