Packing up the memories.

The summer of the pirate ship...
and the biggest water fight ever!

While four years (+ 3 months) may not seem long to most, for me it is the longest stretch I've lived at a single address in my adult life. After moving 16 times I've learned not to get emotionally attached to a house.  However, there is no avoiding the fact that every address holds the memories that make up my life.  The times I played cards with the kids around the kitchen table, baked special birthday cakes, or waited anxiously for a teenager to make it home. The kids and I often start conversations "Do you remember the time when we lived [insert home here] and... ?"  For us our homes have become the filing system for our memories which help us remember the events that shaped us.

Christmas 2008 - Memory Blankets

So once again I prepare to make another address change.  As a single parent whose youngest of five is graduating from high school in a few months, it's time for me to embrace a new chapter... and home... in which to build a new and different life.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Before this new chapter can begin, I must close the one that is my present reality.  So I resign myself to the many tasks that must be accomplished - cleaning, organizing, throwing away, selling, donating, painting, fixing, and staging.  Ironically, the process is a reminder of even more memories stored in boxes, hidden in the back of closets, and covered in dust bunnies under the bed.

It is true that home is where the heart is... and the memories that are attached.

Ashley's Family Birthday Party - Who turned out the lights?