What a journey

I shed actual tears on the man lift this morning, as I pushed the joystick for down for the final time this season. It feels like praying, being up there in heat and cold, shine and sometimes rain. And I only know that because I have a friend who said, once, when we were weeding the garden we shared together, this feels like praying. I am not the type to pray, but my friend is, and so, I guess I know what it feels like. Or what it should feel like. And I have to say, I spend an awful lot of my time in things that feel prayerful. Canning, weeding, and painting this magnificent old house. 
It's humbling and empowering at the same time. It's a privilege, a curse, a cross to bear. The price of living. The most intimate connection to this place and its history. Up there, I get to think about how they raised the roof in 1888, making it two full stories instead of 1 1/2, and a story ran in the local press. "Mr. Brewer will have quite a nice residence, with a fresh coat of paint, when the work is finished," it said. Yes. Mr. Brewer had quite a nice residence, in 1888, and Mrs. Strain will have one, too, in 2014. One little piece at a time.
I might finish off that little corner by the door, but I'm really really really ready to put this project away for the season and check off the inside jobs, and then maybe I'll have a few weeks to do something sewy, too. That's all I want.
I got the kitchen tiling finished this week, too, which was a long time coming (we needed to address the wiring issue in the wall on the left of that window-- two outlets suddenly not working!-- before doing the tiling) and feels good to have done. So that means next week, I get to move forward with putting up those awesome open shelves I've been dreaming of for months. Almost a year. Goddamn. Crazy how so often the thing you want the most, when you begin a renovation, is the thing that takes the longest to put into place.
Those open shelves, and that wacky pot rack, and then it can snow. What a journey.

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